An Iliad

by Alessandro Baricco

  I shouted to my soldiers to leave the bodies and the weapons and everything and jump in their chariots and launch into pursuit. The way was open; we could get to the ships without even fighting. Then I mounted my chariot and urged the horses to a gallop. We reached the trench, we crossed it, we headed for the wall, and everywhere overran it, and it crumbled like a sand castle under our assault. I was at the very front and finally I saw, there, before me, the ships. The first black hulls, propped up on the land, and then, as far as the eye could see, ships, ships, ships down to the beach and the sea, thousands of masts and keels, prows pointing toward the sky as far as you could see. The ships. No one can understand what that war was for us Trojans without imagining the day we saw them arrive. There were more than a thousand, on that stretch of the sea that had been in our view since we were children, but we had never seen it touched by something that was not friendly, and small, and rare. Now it was obscured to the horizon by monsters come from far away to annihilate us. I understand what kind of war it was when I think back to that day, and see myself, my brothers—all the young men of Troy—outfitted in our glorious armor, as we came out of the city, marched across the plain, and, reaching the sea, tried to stop that terrifying fleet, by throwing stones. The stones on the beach. We threw them, do you understand? A thousand ships, and us with our stones.

  Nine years later, I again have those ships before me. But they are imprisoned on land, and surrounded by terrified men who with arms raised pray to heaven not to die. Is it surprising if I forgot my wound, the blow from Ajax, weariness, and fear? I unleashed my army, and it became for those ships a stormy sea, a swelling wave, and sparkling surf.

  We scaled the keels, torches in hand, to set fire to the ships. But the Achaeans made a strong defense. There was Ajax again, urging them on, directing them. He was on a ship, at the stern, and he was killing anyone who could get up or even get near. I headed straight for him and, when I was close enough, aimed and hurled my spear. The bronze tip flew high but missed the target and struck Lycophron, one of his men. I saw Ajax shudder, then glance at Teucer, without a pause in the fighting. Teucer was the best archer among the Achaeans. As if Ajax had given him an order, he took an arrow from the quiver, stretched the bowstring, and aimed straight at me. Instinctively I raised my shield, but what I saw was the bowstring break, and the arrow fall to earth, and Teucer, terrified, freeze. Truly it seemed a sign from the gods. Auspicious for me and unlucky for the Achaeans. I looked around. They had made a shield for the ships, fighting close beside one another: they were a wall of bronze that kept us back. I searched for a weak point, where I could break through, but couldn’t find one. And so I went where I saw the finest armor and attacked there, like a lion who attacks a flock that no shepherd can save. They looked at me with terror. I was foaming with rage, my temples were pounding under the shining helmet: they looked at me and fled, the wall of bronze opened. I saw them run toward the tents for a last stand, and I looked up and saw the ships, just above me, closer than I had ever seen them. Only Ajax remained, with a few men, jumping from one ship to the next, waving a pike, and his voice rose to the sky as with a terrible cry he called to the Achaeans to fight. I chose a ship with a blue prow. I attacked from the stern, climbing up to the deck. The Achaeans pressed around me. It was no longer the moment for spears or arrows. We fought hand to hand, a battle of swords, daggers, sharpened axes. I saw the blood run in rivers down from the ship, down to the black earth. That was the battle I had always wished for: not in the open plain, not at the walls of Troy, but on the ships, the hated ships.

  “Achaeans, soldiers, where did you leave your courage?” It was the voice of Ajax. There on the deck he fought and shouted. “Why are you fleeing? Do you think there is someplace behind you where you can take refuge? The sea is behind you; this is where we’ll be saved!” I saw him just above me. He was covered with sweat, panting. He could hardly breathe, and weariness weighed down his arms. I raised my sword and with a sharp blow broke his spear, just below the tip; he stood there with the shaft, of ash, truncated, in his hand. In all that din I could hear the sound of the bronze tip as it fell to the wood of the deck. And Ajax understood—that it was my day, and that the gods were with me. He retreated, finally, he did it, he retreated. And I went up onto that ship. And I set fire to it.

  It’s amid those flames that you should remember me. Hector, the defeated, you should remember him standing on the stern of that ship, surrounded by fire. Hector, the dead man dragged by Achilles three times around the walls of his city, you should remember him alive, and victorious, and shining in his bronze and silver armor. I learned from a queen the words that are left to me now and that I would like to repeat to you: Remember me, remember me, and forget my fate.

  Phoenix

  They were so young that to them I was an old man. A teacher, maybe a father. To see them die without being able to do anything, this was my war. As for the rest, who remembers it anymore?

  What I remember is Patroclus rushing into Achilles’ tent, weeping. It was that day of fierce battle, and defeat. He made an impression, Patroclus, in tears like that. He wept the way a little girl weeps as she clutches her mother’s robe and asks to be picked up in her arms; and even when the mother’s arms pick her up, she can’t stop looking at her, looking at her and crying. He was a hero, and he seemed a little child, a baby. “What’s the matter?” Achilles asked him. “Have you heard news of someone dying in our homeland? Maybe your father has died, or mine? Or do you weep for the Achaeans, who because of their arrogance are dying beside the black ships?” He would not give up his anger, do you understand? But that day Patroclus, amid his tears, asked him to listen, without rage, without anger, without malice. Only to listen.

  “Today, Achilles, great suffering has come upon the Achaeans. Those who were the bravest and the strongest lie wounded on the ships. Diomedes, Odysseus, Agamemnon: the healers are struggling, trying to soothe their wounds with every sort of drug. And you, mighty warrior, sit here, closed up in your anger. So I want you to listen to mine, Achilles, my anger: my rage. You don’t want to fight. I do. Send me into battle with your Myrmidon warriors. Give me your armor. Let me put it on. The Trojans will take me for you, and they will flee. Give me your armor and we’ll drive them back, back to the walls of Troy.” He spoke in the voice of a suppliant: he couldn’t know that he was asking to die.

  Achilles listened to him. It was clear that the words disturbed him. Finally he spoke, and what he said changed the war. “A tremendous sorrow strikes the heart when a powerful king, thanks to his power, steals from a man what is due him. And this is the sorrow I feel, that Agamemnon has inflicted on me. But it’s true, what’s been done can’t be changed. And maybe no heart can cultivate an unyielding anger forever. I said I wouldn’t move until I heard the din of battle resounding near my black ship. That moment has arrived. Take my armor, Patroclus, take my men. Go into battle and keep disaster from the ships. Drive the Trojans back before they take from us the hope of a sweet return. But listen carefully and do what I tell you, if you really want to restore my honor and glory to me: once you’ve driven the enemy back from the ships, stop— don’t pursue the Trojans onto the plain. Stop fighting and come back. Don’t deprive me of my share of honor and glory. Don’t get excited by the tumult of battle and the cries that will urge you on to fight and kill all the way to the walls of Troy.

  Leave that to the others and return, Patroclus. Come back here.”

  Then he rose, banishing all his sadness, and in a strong voice said, “Now hurry, put on the armor. Already I see the flames of deathly fire burning near my ship. Hurry up, I will assemble the men.”

  Who was I to stop them? Can a teacher, a father, stop destiny? Patroclus clothed himself in gleaming bronze. He put on the beautiful greaves with silver fastenings at the ankles. On his chest he placed Achilles’ breastplate: it sparkled like a star. He slung over his shoulders the sword adorned with silver and then the big, heavy shield. On his proud head h
e placed the well-made helmet: the horsehair crest fluttered fearfully. Finally he chose two spears. But he didn’t take the one belonging to Achilles. Only Achilles could lift it, the ash spear Chei-ron had given his father that he might bring death to heroes.

  When he came out of the tent, the Myrmidons gathered close around him, ready for battle. They were like ravenous wolves whose spirits are bold. Fifty ships had brought Achilles to Troy. Five battalions of warriors, commanded by five heroes. Menesthius, Eudorus, Pisander, Alcimedon. The fifth was me. Phoenix, the old man. Achilles spoke to all of us, sternly. “Myrmidons, you have accused me of having a heart of stone and of keeping you on the ships, far from the battle, only to nurse my anger. Well, now you have the war you longed for. Fight with all the courage you possess.” At the echo of his voice, the ranks of fighters closed in, and, like stones in a wall, the men pressed together. Shield to shield, helmet to helmet, man to man, they were so tightly arrayed that at every movement the plumes in the crests of the shining helmets touched. At the head of them all Patroclus: in the chariot to which Automedon had yoked Xanthus and Balius, the two immortal stallions, swift as the wind, and Pedasus, a mortal horse and handsome.

  Achilles went into his tent and lifted the cover of a splendid chest, all inlaid, that his mother had had brought onto the ship so that he could take it with him: it was full of tunics, mantles, and heavy coverings. There was also a precious cup that only Achilles could use, and used to drink only in homage to Zeus, and to no other god. He took it, purified it with sulfur, then washed it in clear water, washed his hands, and finally poured into it sparkling wine. Then he came out, and before us all drank the wine and, gazing up to heaven, prayed to almighty Zeus that Patroclus would fight, and win, and return. And all of us together with him.

  We fell on the Trojans suddenly, like a furious swarm of wasps. The black hulls of the ships resounded with our cries. Patroclus, in the forefront, magnificent in the armor of Achilles, gave a shout. And the Trojans saw him, dazzling, in the chariot, beside Automedon. Achilles, they thought. And suddenly confusion reigned in their army, and despair consumed their souls. The abyss of death opened under their feet as they tried to escape. The first spear to fly was that of Patroclus, hurled straight into the heart of the tumult: it struck Pyraechmes, the leader of the Paeonians, hit him in the right shoulder, and he fell with a cry; gripped by fear, the Paeonians vanished, abandoning the ship they had boarded and had already half burned.

  Patroclus put out the fire and rushed toward the other ships. The Trojans didn’t give up. They retreated, but they were unwilling to leave the ships. The contest was brutal, and hard. One after another all our heroes had to fight, to overcome the enemy; one after another the Trojans fell, until it was too much, even for them, and they began to scatter and flee, like sheep pursued by a pack of savage wolves. The hooves of the galloping horses raised a cloud of dust into the sky. They fled in a tumultuous uproar, covering every path to the horizon. And where their flight was thickest, Patroclus attacked, shouting and killing, and many men fell under his hands, many chariots overturned with a crash.

  But the truth is that he wanted Hector: in his heart, secretly, he was looking for Hector, for his own honor and his own glory. And at a certain point he saw him among the Trojans, who, fleeing, were trying to get back across the trench, he saw him and pursued him. Around him everywhere were warriors in flight: the trench hindered their course, making everything difficult. The poles of the Trojans’ chariots broke and the horses galloped away, like rivers in flood, but Hector—he had the ability of great warriors, and he made his way through the battle with an ear for the whiz of spears and the whistle of arrows, he knew where to go, how to move, he knew when to stay with his companions and when to abandon them, he knew how to hide and how to be seen. His horses, swift as the wind, bore him away, and Patroclus turned then and began to drive the Trojans back toward the ships, cutting off their flight and pushing them again toward the ships. It was there that he wanted to close in and annihilate them.

  He struck Pronous in the breast where the shield had left it unprotected. He saw Thestor huddled in his chariot, as if dazed, and gored him in the jaw, sending the spear’s bronze tip through his skull. Patroclus raised the spear as if he had caught a fish, lifting the body of Thestor up over the edge of the chariot, openmouthed—and then with a rock he struck Ery-laus between the eyes. Inside the helmet his head split in two. The hero fell to the ground, and upon him life-destroying death descended, and descended also upon Erymas, Amphoterus, Epaltes, Tlepolemus, Echius, Pyris, Ipheus, Euippus, Poly-melus, all by the hand of Patroclus.

  “Shame on you!” It was the voice of Sarpedon, the son of Zeus and leader of the Lycians. “Shame to flee before this man! I will challenge him. I want to know who he is.” He got out of his chariot and Patroclus saw him, and he, too, got out. They stood facing each other like two vultures who fight on a high cliff, with curved beaks and sharp claws. Slowly they walked toward each other. Sarpedon’s spear flew high over Patroclus’s left shoulder, but Patroclus struck Sarpedon in the chest, just where the heart is. He fell like a tall oak brought down by men’s axes to become the keel of a ship. He lay beside his chariot, groaning, his hands scratching at the bloody dirt. He was dying like an animal. With the life that remained he called on his friend Glaucus, entreating him, “Glaucus, don’t let them strip me of my armor. Rally the Lycian fighters, come and defend me. You will be dishonored forever if you allow Patroclus to carry off my armor, Glaucus!”

  Patroclus approached, placed his foot on his chest, and pulled out the spear, taking with it the guts and the heart. Thus, in a single gesture, he carried off from that body the bronze point and life itself. Meanwhile, Glaucus, mad with grief, rushed from place to place, calling together all the Lycian chiefs and Trojan heroes. “Sarpedon is dead, Patroclus has killed him. Come and defend his armor!” And they ran to him, stricken by the death of that man who was one of the bravest and most beloved defenders of Troy. They ran and closed their ranks around the body, Hector in the lead, to defend it. Patroclus saw them coming and he assembled us, then, and arrayed us opposite, saying that if we were truly the bravest of all, this was the moment to show it. There was the body of Sarpedon in the middle, Trojans and Lycians on one side, we Myrmidons on the other. And it was a battle, for that body and that armor.

  At first the Trojans overwhelmed us. But when Patroclus saw his friends around him giving way under the assault, he rushed into the front line and, like a hawk that puts crows and starlings to flight, fell on the enemy, driving them back. From the earth rose a din of bronze, of leather, of the thick hides of oxen, under the blows of swords and double-pointed spears. No man, however acute, would by now have been able to recognize the body of Sarpedon, because from head to foot it was covered with arrows and dust and blood. We continued to fight over that corpse without respite, like flies in a barn buzzing ceaselessly around the pails of white milk. And it went on like that until Hector did something surprising. Maybe fear had overwhelmed him; I don’t know. We saw him jump in his chariot, and, turning his back, he fled, shouting to his men to follow. And, indeed, they followed, abandoning Sarpedon’s body and the battlefield.

  There was something I didn’t understand. They ran toward their city. A few hours earlier they had been on our ships setting fire to our hopes, and now they were fleeing toward their city. We should have let them go. That was what Achilles had said. Drive them from the ships but then stop, come back. We should have let them go. But Patroclus couldn’t stop. The courage in his heart was great, and the fate of death that awaited him clear.

  He threw himself into pursuit and drew us all along with him. He never stopped killing as he rushed toward the walls of Troy. Adrastus, Autonous, Echeclus, Perimus all fell under his assault, and then Epistor, Melanippus, Elasus, Mulius,

  Pylartes, and when he reached the Scaean gates he charged the tower—once, and then a second time, and yet again, always repulsed by the Trojans’ shining shields,
and a fourth time— before giving up. I looked around then to find Hector. He seemed undecided whether to draw the army back inside the walls or stay and fight. Now I know there was no doubt in his mind, but only the instinct of the great warrior. I saw him gesture to Cebriones, his driver. Then his chariot hurtled into the heart of the battle. I saw Hector upright in the chariot. Passing among the soldiers without even taking the trouble to kill, he simply cut through the throng and headed straight for Patro-clus. That was where he wanted to go.

  Patroclus understood and jumped down from his chariot. He bent down and picked up a sharp white rock off the ground. And when Hector’s chariot was in range he hurled it with all his strength. The rock struck Cebriones, the driver, who was holding the reins in his hands. It struck him in the forehead, the bone split, his eyes fell out on the ground, in the dust, and he, too, fell. “What agility,” Patroclus began to mock him. “You know what an expert fisherman you would be, Cebriones, if only you could dive into water as skillfully as you spring from a chariot. Who ever said there are no good swimmers among the Trojans?” He laughed—and found himself facing Hector.