in his own hut Menoitios’ gallant son
tended Eurýpylos, the wounded man,
while Argives fought the Trojan mass attack
their moat no longer could contain—nor could
the rampart they had built to save the ships,
carrying the moat around it. To the gods
they gave no hekatombs that might have won them
to guard the wall as shield for the deepsea craft
and plunder that it ringed. The immortal gods
had never willed it, and its time was brief. |
10 |
While Hektor lived and while Akhilleus raged,
and while Lord Priam’s town lived on, unsacked,
so long the Akhaians’ rampart stood. But after
the flower of Troy went down, with many Argives
fallen or bereft, when Priam’s Troy
was plundered in the tenth year, and the Argives
shipped again for their dear homeland—then
Poseidon and Apollo joined to work
erosion of the wall by fury of rivers |
20 |
borne in flood against it, all that flow
seaward from Ida: Rhêsos, Heptáporos,
Karêsos, Rhodíos, Grênikos, Aisêpos,
Skamánder’s ancient stream, and Simóeis
round which so many shields and crested helms
had crashed in dust with men who were half gods.
These rivers were diverted at their mouths
and blent into one river by Apollo,
who sent that flood nine days against the rampart.
Zeus let his rain fall without pause, to bring |
30 |
the wall more quickly under inshore water;
as for the god who shakes the islands, he
in person with his trident in his hands
led on the assault. Foundation logs and stones
the Akhaians toiled to lay he shunted seaward,
leveling all by the blue running sea.
In sand again he hid the long seashore
when he had washed the wall down, and he turned
the rivers to their old, fair watercourses.
Thus before long Poseidon and Apollo |
40 |
settled this earthwork. Now, though, on both sides
tumult and combat raged around the wall
whose tower-beams rang from battering. The Argives
under Zeus’ lash were beaten back
upon the long ships, all in fear of Hektor,
master of rout that day. Aye, as before,
furious as a high wind when it strikes,
he wheeled and fought—boarlike, or like a lion
that rounds in mighty joy on dogs and men:
the hunters close ranks in a wall and face him |
50 |
to make a broadside volley of javelins,
but his high heart will neither quail nor flee;
his own courage kills him; everywhere
he turns to test the ranks, and when he charges
all give way.
Hektor charged and turned and called his men
to cross the moat. But his own chariot team
dared not, but on the very brink arrested,
whinnied and reared away in panic, seeing
the ditch could not be taken in a leap |
60 |
or passed through easily. On either side
banks overhung it with stakes pointing inward,
sharp and long and close together, set
by the Akhaians as a ground defense
against their dire attackers. No beast drawing
a nimble car could easily descend there,
and men on foot thought hard if they could pass.
At this, Poulýdamas at Hektor’s elbow said:
“Hektor, and the rest of you, our captains,
captains of auxiliaries: we are fools
to drive our teams into the moat, so rough |
70 |
it is to get across—the stakes inside
like fangs against us—and then comes the wall.
There is no chance at all with chariots
to get down in the place and fight—no room;
impaled there, I can see us now.
If Zeus
in thunder will make havoc of Akhaians,
if he is hot in the Trojans’ cause,
by heaven, I wish this fight were over soon—
the Akhaians wiped out, distant far from Argos,
winning no glory! |
80 |
If they once reform,
braced on the ships, and counterattack, while we
are trapped here in the ditch, then I foresee
not even a messenger will reach the town;
no one escapes the Akhaians, once they rally.
Well, then, everyone do as I propose:
charioteers pull up at the moat’s edge
while we ourselves in harness and on foot
follow Hektor in closed ranks. The Akhaians
cannot hold, if now their ultimate
destruction is at hand.” |
90 |
Poulýdamas’ counsel to avoid the risk
won Hektor over, and he vaulted down
with weapons from his chariot. Other Trojans
stayed no longer huddled behind their teams
but, seeing that Hektor had dismounted, each
commanded his charioteer to keep in line
outside the ditch, with a tight rein on his horses,
while fighting men moved out ahead. They formed
five companies under leaders, each in column.
Those who deployed with Hektor and Poulýdamas |
100 |
were bravest and most numerous, grimly bent
on carrying battle to the long ships
when they had breached the wall. Kebríonês
joined them, third in command, and in his place
as driver Hektor left a weaker man.
Paris headed a second company
whose officers were Alkáthoös and Agênor.
A third was under Hélenos and Dêíphobos,
two of Priam’s sons, and Ásïos
Hyrtákidês, whose great roan horses brought him |
110 |
from Arísbê and the Sellêeis river.
Over the fourth Aineías held command,
Ankhísês’ powerful son, whom Lord Antênor’s
two sons joined: Arkhélokhos and Akámas,
trained in every fighting skill. Sarpêdôn
held command of the allies; he chose
for officers Glaukos and Asteropaíos,
far and away the best men, he thought,
of the auxiliaries, after himself, who stood
high in the whole army. |
120 |
Bull’s-hide shields
being dressed in line, they rushed at the Danáäns,
certain that these could not resist the charge
that swept now on the black ships. And all Trojans,
all allies, obeyed the battle plan
of cool Poulýdamas: all except Ásïos
Hyrtákidês. He did not care to leave
his team and driver but, still mounted, rode
to attack the Akhaian ships—the idiot,
he would not give his own hard fate the slip
or ride in glory from the beachhead back |
130 |
to windy Ilion in his war-car.
Miserable death would shroud him, by the spear
of Idómeneus, Deukáliôn’s noble son.
Ásïos drove to the left around the ships
to a place where the Akhaians were withdrawing
chariots and horses from the plain.
Here he swerved for the wall, and found the gates
of planking with great bolts as yet unshut;
men held them open to admit and save
stray fugitives from battle. Straight ahead |
140 |
he drove his team, while after him his men
ran yelling—for, they thought the Akhaians could not
hold, but had to fall back on the ships.
All a delusion: at the entranceway
they met two Lapith spearmen, champions,
Polypoitês, the son of Peiríthoös,
and Leonteus, tough as the wargod. These
outside the tall gates held their ground like oaks
that tower on high hills, enduring wind
and rain through all their days, with roots deep down, |
150 |
tenacious of the earth. Like oaks indeed
the two stood fast and trusted their right arms,
their fighting power, against great Ásïos.
On came the Trojans toward the wall with shields
uplifted, with a long-drawn battlecry
around Lord Ásïos, Iámenos, Orestês
Adámas Asíadês, Thoôn, and Oinómaos.
Until just now the Lapiths, the defenders,
had been inside the wall issuing orders
to Akhaian troops to form around the ships, |
160 |
but when they saw the Trojans charge, and when
a cry came from the Danáäns in retreat,
they bounded through the gateway to give battle.
Think of two savage boars in a mountain place
awaiting a loud rabble of dogs and men:
they swing their heads from side to side and rip
through underbrush, snapping the twigs off short,
with a sharp noise of gnashing tusks
until some hunter makes the kill.
Just so,
the bright bronze breastplates clanged |
170 |
as these two took their blows. Prodigiously
they fought, putting their trust in their own power
and in the marksmen on the wall above.
In fact, now from high places, in defense
of camp and ships and their own lives, the men
were pitching stones: and the stones showered to earth
like snow driven by a stormwind thick and fast
in a murky veil swept over pastureland.
So missiles came in torrents, from Akhaian
hands as well as Trojan. Helmets rang |
180 |
and bossed shields rang with hits.
But Ásïos
Hyrtákidês pummeled his thighs and groaned
and bit his lip and said:
“O Father Zeus,
you, even you, turn out to be a liar.
I thought destiny was against the Akhaians
holding before our drive and our spear-arms
unleashed. Now see, like agile-waisted hornets
or bees who build their hives on a stony road—
hornets that will not leave their homes but wait
for hunters, and in fury defend their young— |
190 |
those two men, two men only, at the gate
will not give way. For them, kill or be killed!”
But Ásïos’ complaint left Zeus unmoved:
it pleased him to award the day to Hektor.
Now there was fighting at the various gates—
a difficult thing for me to tell it all
as though I were a god! Around the rampart
at every point, blaze upon blaze of war
leapt upward. Out of savage need the Argives
fought on bitterly to save the ships, |
200 |
and all the gods who took their part were grieved;
still the two Lapiths dealt terrific blows.
Polypoitês, Peiríthoös’ son,
hit Damásos’ helm hard on a cheekplate,
bronze too frail to take the blow. Straight through
into the skull the spearhead crunched its way,
demolishing the brain. Down went the man.
Then Polypoitês killed Pylon and Ormenas.
War-bred Leonteus killed Hippónakhos
with a spear-thrust at the loin-guard, drew his sword, |
210 |
and at close quarters, leaping through the press,
ran through Antíphatês, who went down backward;
next at Menôn and Iámenos he lunged
and at Orestês, taking their lives away.
Now while the Lapiths made these kills and took
the dead men’s flashing armor, those who followed
Poulýdamas and Hektor—their young troops
in number and valor greatest, sworn to breach
the Akhaian wall and set the ships afire—
halted hesitant at the moat. Just then |
220 |
as they desired to cross, a bird flew by them,
heading to the left across the army,
an eagle beating upward, in its claws
a huge snake, red as blood, live and jerking,
full of fight: it doubled on itself
and struck the captor’s chest and throat. At this
the eagle in its agony let go
and veered away screaming downwind. The snake
fell in the mass of troops, and Trojans shuddered
to see the rippling thing lie in their midst, |
230 |
a portent from Lord Zeus who bears the stormcloud.
Poulýdamas at Hektor’s elbow said:
“Hektor, you always manage to rebuke me
when I talk well to assemblies: it won’t do
at all to cross you, peace or war, in council;
only to confirm you. Well, once more,
I intend to speak as I think best.
Let us not carry the fighting to the ships!
The end, I think, is what the bird portended—
if a true portent—when we wished to cross, |
240 |
the eagle bearing left across the army,
beating upward, grappling this great snake,
alive. She dropped it here, she never gained
her own nest with it, never had her will
to give it to her nestlings. Ah, we too
are grappling danger! Granted we break the gates
and force a breach in the Akhaian wall,
granted they fall back, we shall never make it
intact to the ships by these same paths,
but many a Trojan must we leave behind |
250 |
lacerated with bronze by the defenders.
That is what you’d hear from a diviner
learnèd in signs and heeded by the troops!”
Hektor in the bright helm frowned and said:
“This time I have no liking for your counsel.
You must have other and braver things to say.
If this comes from the heart, why, then the gods
themselves have wrecked your wits! You try to tell me
I should forget what Zeus of the long thunder
planned and promised with his nod to me! |
260 |
You—you would have me put my faith in birds
whose spreading wings I neither track nor care for,
whether to the right hand sunward they fly
or to the left hand, westward into darkness.
No, no, I say, rely on the will of Zeus
who rules all mortals and immortals. One
and only one portent is best: defend
our fatherland! And why should you turn pale
at war and combat? Even if the rest of us
are killed to a man beside the Argive ships, |
270 |
no fear that you will be: you lack ability
for warfare, and you lack the nerve to face it!
I tell you, though, that if you hold off now
or make one soldier falter in this battle,
you are a dead man on the spot
with my own spearblade in you!”
So he finished,
turning to go forward, as the others
followed him with a bloodcurdling cry,
and from the slopes of Ida Zeus who plays
in thunder roused a gale against the ships, |
280 |
blowing a dustcloud to bewilder spent
Akhaians, while to Trojans and to Hektor
he made his gift of glory. Trustful now
of Zeus’ omens and their own right arms,
they made trial of the wall to break it down.
Layers of earth and stone they undermined,
and the revetments of the fighting wall
they tore away by prying loose the posts
the Akhaians drove to hold the earthwork in.
They pulled these up, thinking when they were gone |
290 |
to breach the wall. But even now the Danáäns
would not yield free passage: jamming oxhide
bags of earth into the gaping dyke,
they cast stones from above on the attackers.
Everywhere along the parapet
one Aías and the other, acting marshals,
roamed and cheered the Akhaians on: at times
with pleading and at other times with iron
words of rebuke, if they caught sight of anyone
hanging back from the fight. |
300 |
“Friends,” one would say,
“whether you are among the best, or fair,
or a poor fighter—all men cannot be
equal in war—this challenge is for everyone;
you see it for yourselves. Now not one man
may let himself be turned back on the ships
by any baying enemy he hears.
Keep your shots going forward, cheer each other,
so Zeus who is Olympian lord of lightning
may let us throw them back upon the town.”
With words like these, and urgent battlecries, |
310 |
both men cheered the Akhaians on.
Imagine
flakes of snow that come down thick and fast
on a winter day when Zeus who views the wide world
brings on a fall of snow, showing mankind
his means of making war. He lulls the winds
and sifts white flakes in stillness hour by hour
until hilltop and foreland are all hid
as are the farmers’ meadowlands and fields,
while snow comes down over the hoary sea,
320 |
repel it, all things else are muffled white,
weighed down by snow from heaven, a storm of Zeus.
So thick and fast the stones flew. Here they fell
on Trojans, there from Trojans on Akhaians,
by all hands thrown and thudding along the wall.
But even so, and even now, the Trojans
led by great Hektor could not yet have breached
the wall and gate with massive bar, had not
Lord Zeus impelled Sarpêdôn, his own son,
against the Argives like a lion on cattle. |
330 |
Circular was the shield he held before him,
hammered out of pure bronze: aye, the smith
had hammered it, and riveted the plates
to thick bull’s hide on golden rods rigged out
to the full circumference. Now gripping this,
hefting a pair of spears, he joined the battle,
formidable as some hill-bred lion, ravenous
for meat after long abstinence. His valor
summons him to attempt homesteads and flocks—
and though he find herdsmen on hand with dogs |
340 |
and spears to guard the sheep, he will not turn
without a fling at the stockade. One thing
or the other: a mighty leap and a fresh kill,
or he will fall at the spearmen’s feet, brought down
by a javelin thrown hard.
So valor drove
Sarpêdôn to the wall to make a breakthrough.
Turning to Glaukos, Hippólokhos’ son, he said:
“What is the point of being honored so
with precedence at table, choice of meat,
and brimming cups, at home in Lykia, |
350 |
like gods at ease in everyone’s regard?
And why have lands been granted you and me
on Xánthos bank: to each his own demesne,
with vines and fields of grain?
So that we two
at times like this in the Lykian front line
may face the blaze of battle and fight well,
that Lykian men-at-arms may say:
‘They are no common men, our lords who rule
In Lykia. They eat fat lamb at feasts
and drink rare vintages, but the main thing is |
360 |
their fighting power, when they lead in combat!’
Ah, cousin, could we but survive this war
to live forever deathless, without age,
I would not ever go again to battle,
nor would I send you there for honor’s sake!
But now a thousand shapes of death surround us,
and no man can escape them, or be safe.
Let us attack—whether to give some fellow
glory or to win it from him.”
Glaukos
listened and moved only to obey, |
370 |
and leading the great Lykian tribe the two men
charged. Now Menéstheus shivered, seeing them come
with menace for him against the wall. He glanced
around him at the battlements of Akhaians,
looking for some chief who might repel
destruction from his men. Aías the Tall
and Aías the Short he saw, avid for war,
both standing there, and Teukros, from his hut
this moment come to join them: all were near,
and yet he could not reach them with a shout, |
380 |
so loud the clangor that went up to heaven,
clash of shields and helms that rang with blows
and blows upon the gates, now all were shut,
besieged by Trojans trying to break them down.
In haste he sent Thoötês off to Aías,
telling him:
“Run to Aías; call him here;
or call both, rather: that is best by far,
since sure destruction is upon me here.
The Lykian captains bring such weight to bear
in battle, as in the past; they are formidable. |
390 |
If our two on the wall there are hard pressed,
get Aías Telamônios alone
and with him Teukros, who knows bowmanship.”
When he had heard him out, the messenger
darted along the wall manned by Akhaians
to halt by those named Aías. He said at once:
“Aías and Aías, marshals of the Argives,
the son of Péteôs, reared under heaven, begs
your presence for a time at least, to share
the danger—both of you, if possible; |
400 |
that would be best by far, as sure destruction
comes upon him there. But you can see
the Lykian captains bring such weight to bear
in battle, as in the past; they are formidable.
But if the fight is hot here, too, then Aías
Telamônios alone can go,
and the good bowman, Teukros, with him.”
Tall
Aías, son of Télamôn, complied,
first saying swiftly to the son of Oïleus:
“Aías, you and Lykomêdês hold
your ground here, and keep shouting at Danáäns |
410 |
to put their hearts into the fight. Meanwhile
I will go lend a hand there in the battle.
But I should soon be back, when I have given
our men support.”
So off he went,
and Teukros, too, his brother, went along.
Passing inside the wall, they found Menéstheus’
tower and those who manned it hard beset,
as now the Lykian chiefs like a thundersquall
loomed at the rampart. These two hurled themselves |
420 |
into the fight against the attacking line,
and a great shout went up.
Telamônian Aías
made the first kill—Sarpêdôn’s brave companion,
Epiklês—by heaving a jagged block,
the topmost of a pile that lay inside
against one of the battlements. Not easily
could any mortal now alive
hold it in both hands, even in his prime;
but Aías raised it high and hurled it down,
shattering helmet, skull, and brains
at one blow. Down the Lykian dropped |
430 |
headlong from the wall’s height like a diver,
as warm life ebbed from his bones.
Then Teukros shot
Glaukos, powerful son of Hippólokhos,
with an arrow as he rushed the wall—a bowshot
just where he saw his arm bared. Joy in battle
left the young fighter; off the wall he leapt,
not to be seen and taunted by Akhaians.
Glaukos’ withdrawal made Sarpêdôn grieve
the instant he perceived it; still the battle |
440 |
gave him joy. He pierced Alkmáôn, son
of Thestôr, and drew the spearblade out, as doubling
forward after the spear the man fell hard,
his brazen gear clanging. Then Sarpêdôn,
grasping a battlement with massive hands,
wrenched—and the parapet came toppling down,
so men could mount by it to the stripped wall.
Aías and Teukros met him now together.
Teukros put a shaft in the bright belt
on which his shield hung, but Zeus brushed away |
450 |
death’s shadow from his child: his fate was not
to die abaft the ships. Though Aías lunged
and hit the shield, his point would not pass through;
it only stopped Sarpêdôn. He fell back
a little from the crumbled battlement—
not in retreat, though, but still craving honor—
and whirled and called his godlike countrymen:
“Lykians, why are you lagging, slackening off
your driving power? It is hard for me
alone, strong as I am, to make a breakthrough, |
460 |
clear a way to the ships. Come up alongside!
More hands here will do a better job!”
Inwardly shrinking from their lord’s rebuke,
they bunched around him and attacked in force.
The Argives, for their part, inside the wall,
reinforced their companies. Both found it
heavy work, for neither could the Lykians
breach the wall and clear a way to the ships,
nor could Danáän spears dislodge
the Lykians from the wall once they had reached it. |
470 |
Think of two men contending over boundary stones,
each with his measuring rod, in the common field,
in a narrow place, disputing what is fair:
so here the parapet divided these,
and for the parapet they tore each other’s
chest-protecting, oxhide-aproned shields.
Many were gashed by the coldhearted bronze—
every man who left his back uncovered,
turning, and some men through the shield itself,
and everywhere, towers and battlements |
480 |
were blood-bespattered from both sides. But still
the attacking Trojans could not rout the Akhaians.
They held. Think of an honest cottage spinner
balancing weight in one pan of the scales
and wool yarn on the other, trying to earn
a pittance for her children: evenly poised
as that were these great powers making war,
until at last Lord Zeus conferred on Hektor,
Priam’s son, the glory of bursting through
the Akhaian wall. In a piercing voice he called: |
490 |
“On, on, Trojans, horse-breakers, breach
the Argive wall and pitch a hell of fire
into the ships!”
The listening troops obeyed
and surged in a great throng against the wall
to clamber between towers, carrying spears.
Now Hektor picked a boulder that had stood,
broad-bottomed, sharp on top, before the gate.
The strongest pair of men in the whole realm,
as men are now, could not with ease heave up
this boulder from the ground into a wagon. |
500 |
Lightly Hektor handled it alone,
for Zeus, the son of crooked-minded Krónos,
made it a trifling weight for him. A shepherd
will carry easily, in either hand,
a new-shorn ram’s fleece—no great weight for him;
so Hektor, lifting up the stone, went forward
to the high double doors of heavy timber
closing the gateway. Two crossbars inside
were rammed in place and one pin fastened them.
He took a stance before the doors and braced, |
510 |
with feet apart, for full force in the blow,
then smashed down at the center. Hinges cracked
on both sides as the great mass tumbled through,
the doors groaned inward, bars gave way, the planks
were splintered by the impact right and left,
and through the breach in glory Hektor leapt,
his visage dark as nightfall, though he shone
terribly from the bronze that he was dressed in,
carrying a brace of spears.
No one could stop him,
none but the gods, as he leapt through the gate, |
520 |
his eyes burning. Then he wheeled and called
the mass of Trojans to come charging on
across the wall. And they obeyed him, some
by swarming over, others pouring through
the very gateway.
And the Danáäns broke
for their long ships in an uproar always rising.