The Iliad of Homer

by Richmond Lattimore

  but he stood his ground like a mountain wild boar who in the confidence

  of his strength stands up to a great rabble of men advancing

  upon him in some deserted place, and bristles his back up,

  and both his eyes are shining with fire; he grinds his teeth

  475 in his fury to fight off the dogs and the men. So

  spear-famed Idomeneus held his ground, and would not give way

  to Aineias coming against him, but bellowed to his companions,

  looking to Askalaphos, and Aphareus, and Deïpyros,

  at Meriones and Antilochos, both urgent for battle,

  480 and stirring all these forward called out to them in winged words:

  “This way, friends, stand by me, I am alone, and terribly

  I fear the attack of swift-footed Aineias advancing upon me,

  powerful as he is for the slaying of men in battle.

  Likewise the flower of youth is his, where man’s strength is highest,

  485 since were we two of the same age, and in this same spirit,

  soon he would win me in a great battle, or I would win him.”

  So he spoke, and all these, a single spirit within them,

  came and stood in their numbers and sloped their shields over his shoulders,

  and Aineias on the other side called to his own companions,

  490 looking to Deïphobos, and Paris, and brilliant Agenor

  who were lords of the Trojans along with him, and the people after them

  followed on, as when the sheep follow the lead-ram

  as they leave the pasture to drink, and make proud the heart of the shepherd,

  and thus also the heart of Aineias was gladdened within him

  495 as he saw the swarm of the host following his own leadership.

  These then drove on in close combat about Alkaïthoös

  with long spears, and the bronze girding the chests of the fighters

  clashed horribly to the spears they threw in the press at each other,

  and two men, for warcraft pre-eminent beyond the others,

  500 Aineias and Idomeneus, both men like the war god,

  were straining with the pitiless bronze to tear at each other.

  Aineias was first with a spear cast at Idomeneus,

  but he, keeping his eyes straight on him, avoided the bronze spear,

  so that the vibrant shaft of Aineias was driven groundward

  505 since it had been thrown in a vain cast from his big hand.

  But Idomeneus hit Oinomaos in the middle belly

  and broke the hollow of the corselet, so that the entrails spurted

  from the bronze, and he fell clawing the dust in his fingers.

  Idomeneus wrenched out the far-shadowing spear from his body

  510 but had no power to strip the rest of his splendid armor

  away from his shoulders, since he was beaten back by their missiles,

  and no longer in an outrush could his limbs stay steady beneath him

  either to dash in after his spear, or to get clear again.

  So in close-standing fight he beat off the pitiless death-day

  515 as his feet no longer quick to run took him out of the fighting.

  As he backed slowly Deïphobos made a cast with the shining

  spear, since he held a fixed hatred forever against him,

  but missed him yet once again and struck down with the spear the war god’s

  son Askalaphos, so that the powerful spear was driven

  520 through his shoulder, and he dropping in the dust clawed the ground in his fingers.

  But Ares the huge and bellowing had yet heard nothing

  of how his son had fallen there in the strong encounter

  but he, sheltered under the golden clouds on utmost Olympos,

  was sitting, held fast by command of Zeus, where the rest also

  525 of the immortal gods were sitting still, in restraint from the battle.

  But the men drove on in close combat about Askalaphos.

  Deïphobos tore from Askalaphos the shining helmet;

  but now Meriones, a match for the running war god,

  plunging upon him stabbed his arm with the spear, and the hollow-eyed

  530 helmet dropped from his hand and fell to the ground clashing.

  Meriones in yet another swoop like a vulture

  plucked out the heavy spear from the arm’s base at the shoulder,

  then shrank into the host of his own companions. Polites,

  Deïphobos’ brother, caught him about the waist with both arms

  535 and got him out of the sorrowful fighting, and reached his fast-footed

  horses, where they stood to the rear of the fighting and the battle

  holding their charioteer and the elaborate chariot,

  and these carried him, groaning heavily, back to the city

  in pain, since the blood was running from his arm’s fresh wound.

  540 But the rest fought on with clamor incessant rising about them.

  There Aineias lunging at Aphareus, the son of Kaletor,

  struck him with the sharp spear in the throat where it was turned toward him.

  His head bent over to one side, and his shield tumbled,

  and the helm, and death breaking the spirit drifted about him.

  545 Antilochos, watching Thoön as he turned about, dashed in on him

  and slashed at him, and shore away the entire vein

  which runs all the way up the back till it reaches the neck. This

  he shore away entire, so he sprawled in the dust backward,

  reaching out both hands to his beloved companions.

  550 Antilochos rushed on him, trying to strip the armor

  from his shoulders, but watchful, as the Trojans gathered about him

  from all sides, and beat at the shining broad shield, but could not

  get within it and tear with the pitiless bronze Antilochos’

  tender flesh, for about him the earth-shaker Poseidon

  555 guarded the son of Nestor even in the swarm of missiles.

  Since he was not making his way back clear of the enemy,

  but would turn to face them nor held motionless his spear, always

  it was shaken or driven forward, the desire in his heart forever

  to strike someone with a spearcast or drive at him in close combat.

  560 Adamas, Asios’ son, was not blind to how he kept aiming

  with his spear in the battle, and charging close stabbed with the sharp bronze

  at the shield’s middle, but Poseidon the dark-haired made void

  his spear’s stroke, nor would let him win the life of Antilochos,

  and half of the spear was stuck fast like a stake fire-hardened

  565 in Antilochos’ shield, and the other half lay on the ground.

  To avoid death he shrank into the host of his own companions;

  but as he went back Meriones dogging him threw with the spear

  and struck between navel and genitals where beyond all places

  death in battle comes painfully to pitiful mortals.

  570 There the spear stuck fast driven and he, writhing about it,

  gasped as an ox does when among the mountains the herdsmen

  have bound him strongly in twisted ropes and drag him unwilling.

  So he, stricken, gasped for a little while, but not long,

  until fighting Meriones came close and wrenched the spear out

  575 from his body, and a mist of darkness closed over both eyes.

  But Helenos closing struck Deïpyros on the temple

  with a huge Thracian sword, and broke the helmet to pieces

  so that it was knocked off and fell to the ground. An Achaian

  picked it up where it rolled among the feet of the fighters;

  580 but the darkness of night misted over the eyes of Deïpyros.

  Then sorrow caught Atreus’ son Menelaos of the g
reat war cry,

  and he came on menacing and shaking his sharp spear at Helenos

  the lord and fighter, who pulled against him the bow at the handgrip,

  and both let fly at each other together, one with a sharp spear

  585 in a javelin cast, and one with the arrow from the bowstring.

  The son of Priam hit him then on the chest with an arrow

  in the hollow of the corselet, but the bitter arrow sprang far back.

  As along a great threshing floor from the broad blade

  of a shovel the black-skinned beans and the chickpeas bounce high

  590 under the whistling blast and the sweep of the winnowing fan, so

  back from the corselet of glorious Menelaos the bitter

  arrow rebounded far away, being driven hard back.

  But Atreus’ son Menelaos of the great war cry struck him

  in the hand where he held the polished bow, and the bronze spear

  595 was driven clean on through the bow and the hand beyond it.

  To avoid death he shrank into the host of his own companions,

  dangling his wounded hand and dragging the ash spear with it.

  But great-hearted Agenor drew from his hand the spear

  and bound up his hand with a careful twist of wool fleece

  600 in a sling the henchman held for the shepherd of the people.

  Peisandros now came on straight against Menelaos

  the glorious, but an evil destiny led him toward death’s end,

  to be beaten down by you, Menelaos, in the stark encounter.

  Now when these in their advance were close to each other

  605 the son of Atreus missed with his throw, and the spear was turned past him,

  but Peisandros stabbed with the spear at the shield of glorious

  Menelaos, but could not drive the bronze all the way through it

  for the wide shield held against it and the spearshaft was broken

  behind the head, yet he was light-hearted and hopeful of victory.

  610 Drawing his sword with the silver nails, the son of Atreus

  sprang at Peisandros, who underneath his shield’s cover gripped

  his beautiful axe with strong bronze blade upon a long polished

  axe-handle of olive wood. They made their strokes at the same time

  and Peisandros chopped at the horn of the helmet crested with horse-hair

  615 at the very peak. Menelaos struck him as he came onward

  in the forehead over the base of the nose, and smashed the bones, so that

  both eyes dropped, bloody, and lay in the dust at his feet before him.

  He fell, curling, and Menelaos, setting his heel on

  his chest, stripped off his armor and spoke exulting over him:

  620 “So, I think, shall you leave the ships of the fast-mounted Danaäns,

  you haughty Trojans, never to be glutted with the grim war noises,

  nor go short of all that other shame and defilement

  wherewith you defiled me, wretched dogs, and your hearts knew no fear

  at all of the hard anger of Zeus loud-thundering,

  625 the guest’s god, who some day will utterly sack your steep city.

  You who in vanity went away taking with you my wedded

  wife, and many possessions, when she had received you in kindness.

  And now once more you rage among our seafaring vessels

  to throw deadly fire on them and kill the fighting Achaians.

  630 But you will be held somewhere, though you be so headlong for battle.

  Father Zeus, they say your wisdom passes all others’,

  of men and gods, and yet from you all this is accomplished

  the way you give these outrageous people your grace, these Trojans

  whose fighting strength is a thing of blind fury, nor can they ever

  635 be glutted full of the close encounters of deadly warfare.

  Since there is satiety in all things, in sleep, and lovemaking,

  in the loveliness of singing and the innocent dance. In all these

  things a man will strive sooner to win satisfaction

  than in war; but in this the Trojans cannot be glutted.”

  640 So Menelaos the blameless spoke, and stripping the bloody

  armor away from his body gave it to his companions,

  and turned back himself to merge in the ranks of the champions.

  Now there sprang forth against him the son of King Pylaimenes,

  Harpalion, who had followed his father into the fighting

  645 at Troy, and did not come home again to the land of his fathers.

  He from close up stabbed with his spear at the shield of Atreides

  in the middle, but could not drive the bronze all the way through it.

  To avoid death he shrank into the host of his own companions,

  looking all about him, for fear somebody might wound him with the bronze;

  650 but as he went back Meriones let fly at him with a bronze-shod

  arrow, and hit him beside the right buttock, so that the arrow

  was driven on through under the bone to fix in the bladder.

  There, sitting among the arms of his beloved companions,

  he gasped out his life, then lay like a worm extended

  655 along the ground, and his dark blood drenched the ground in its running.

  And the great-hearted Paphlagonians busied about him,

  lifted him into a chariot and brought him to sacred Ilion

  in sorrow, and his father, weeping tears, walked beside them,

  and no man-price came his way for his son’s slaying.

  660 But Paris was deeply angered at heart for this man’s slaying,

  since he was his guest friend among many Paphlagonians,

  and in anger for him he also let fly a bronze-shod arrow.

  There was a man, Euchenor, son of the seer Polyidos,

  a rich man and good, who lived in his house at Korinth,

  665 who knew well that it was his death when he went on shipboard,

  since many times the good old man Polyidos had told him

  that he must die in his own house of a painful sickness

  or go with the ships of the Achaians and be killed by the Trojans.

  He therefore chose to avoid the troublesome price the Achaians

  670 would ask, and the hateful sickness so his heart might not be afflicted.

  Paris struck him by jaw and ear, and at once the life spirit

  fled from his limbs, and the hateful darkness closed in about him.

  So they fought on in the likeness of blazing fire. But meanwhile

  Hektor beloved of Zeus had not heard of this, and knew nothing

  675 of how to the left of the ships his people were being slaughtered

  by the Argives, and glory for the Achaians might even have been

  accomplished, such was Poseidon who circles the earth and shakes it

  as he stirred on the Argives and fought for them and his own strength.

  But Hektor held where first he had broken a way through the rampart

  680 and the gates, and shattered the close ranks of the armored Danaäns,

  where lay the ships of Aias and the ships of Protesilaos

  hauled up along the beach of the gray sea; and above these

  the wall they had built lay lowest, and there beyond other places

  dangerous was the onslaught of the Trojans and of their horses.

  685 There the Boiotians, and Ionians with their trailing tunics,

  the Lokrians and the Phthians, with the shining Epeians

  tried to hold him as he swept hard for the ships, but they could not

  avail to beat brilliant flame-like Hektor back from them.

  There also were the chosen Athenian men, and among them

  690 Peteos’ son Menestheus was lord, and there followed with him

  Pheidas and Stichios and strong Bias; b
ut the Epeians

  were led by Meges, Phyleus’ son, Amphion and Drakios,

  and before the Phthians were Medon and battle-stubborn Podarkes.

  Now of these one, Medon, was bastard son of Oïleus

  695 the godlike, and brother of Aias, yet he was living away from

  the land of his fathers, in Phylakē, since he had killed a man,

  the brother of Eriopis, his stepmother and wife of Oïleus;

  but the other was son of Iphiklos, the son of Phylakos.

  And these in arms at the forefront of the great-hearted Phthians

  700 fought beside the Boiotians in defense of their vessels.

  But swift Aias the son of Oïleus would not at all now

  take his stand apart from Telamonian Aias,

  not even a little; but as two wine-colored oxen straining

  with even force drag the compacted plough through the fallow land,

  705 and for both of them at the base of the horns the dense sweat gushes;

  only the width of the polished yoke keeps a space between them

  as they toil down the furrow till the share cuts the edge of the ploughland;

  so these took their stand in battle, close to each other.

  Now with the son of Telamon many people and brave ones

  710 followed as companions, and took over the great shield from him

  whenever the sweat and the weariness came over his body.

  But no Lokrians went with the great-hearted son of Oïleus.

  The heart was not in them to endure close-standing combat,

  for they did not have the brazen helmets crested with horse-hair,

  715 they did not have the strong-circled shields and the ash spears,

  but rather these had followed to Ilion with all their confidence

  in their bows and slings strong-twisted of wool; and with these

  they shot their close volleys and broke the Trojan battalions.

  So now these others fought in front in elaborate war gear

  720 against the Trojans and Hektor the brazen-helmed, and the Lokrians

  unseen volleyed from behind, so the Trojans remembered

  nothing of the joy of battle, since the shafts struck them to confusion.

  Now pitifully the Trojans might have gone back from the shelters

  and the ships, to windy Ilion, had not Poulydamas

  725 come and stood beside bold Hektor and spoken a word to him:

  “Hektor, you are too intractable to listen to reason.

  Because the god has granted you the actions of warfare

  therefore you wish in counsel also to be wise beyond others.

  But you cannot choose to have all gifts given to you together.