The shores of the Sigeus had grown red;
for Cycnus, Neptune’s son, sent down to death
a thousand men. And now Achilles pressed
ahead—he rode his chariot, he stretched
battalions on the ground with his stout lance
made of the wood of Pelion. He searched
among the Phrygian ranks for Cycnus or
for Hector; it was Cycnus whom he met
(he had to wait till nine years passed before
he clashed with Hector). Then, as he urged on
his white-necked stallions straining at the yoke,
straight at the enemy Achilles drove.
His stout arm lifted high his lance; he cried:
“Whoever you may be, young man, you die;
but take this solace: you are slaughtered by
Achilles of Haemonia.” His words
were followed by his heavy spear: his throw
was accurate, straight to the mark, and yet,
his pointed spearhead struck without effect—
it bruised the chest, as would a blunted shaft.
“O goddess’ son”—such were the words of Cycnus—
“yes, I have heard that you were born of Thetis;
why be amazed to see me stand unscathed?
You see this casque with plumes of tawny horsehair,
you see the hollow shield my left arm bears—
well, I need none of this in my defense:
I only wear these arms as ornaments—
even as Mars when he wears battle dress.
Were you to strip me of this armor, I
should still escape unscathed. I can defy
Latin [68–93]
your claims: my mother was no Nereid;
my father rules both Nereus and his daughters;
he’s Neptune—and indeed the whole expanse
of sea is subject to his firm command.”
So Cycnus spoke, and then he hurled his lance
against Achilles; and its tip held fast
the hero’s curving shield; and then, through brass
and through nine layers of oxhide, it passed;
but when it reached the tenth, the spearhead stopped.
Achilles shook that weapon off, then cast
another quivering shaft with his stout hand.
But Cycnus’ body still was left intact,
unharmed: and even with another shaft—
the third—the Trojan was not wounded yet,
although he took no steps to shield his flesh.
At that, Achilles raged just like a bull
that rushes through the wide arena when,
with deadly horns, he charges hard against
the crimson cloak that has provoked his wrath
and finds that cloak eluding his attack.
Achilles checked his weapon—lest by chance
the tip had been dislodged, slipped off the shaft—
but no, the wooden lance still held it fast.
“Is then my hand so weak?” the Grecian asked.
“Has it lost—all at once—the force it had?
For surely I’ve been strong before—when I
led the attack that razed Lymesus’ walls,
or when, because of me, both Tenedos
and Thebes,the city of Eetion,
ran crimson with the blood of their own men,
and the Caicus’ flow ran red with those
I killed along its shores; and Telephus—
twice over—felt my spearhead’s fatal force.
But here, too, on this beach, there are these heaps
of corpses I have made and I can see.
My right hand had—and still has—potency.”
That said—almost as if in disbelief
of what had happened earlier—Achilles
Latin [93–115]
hurled hard his lance against a lowly Lycian,
a soldier called Menoetes; and he pierced
his breastplate and his chest beneath. Menoetes
now clattered headlong on the solid ground,
a dying man. Achilles plucked his shaft
out from the warm wound as he cried: “This hand,
this spear have brought me victory: I hope
that he whom I had failed to fell before,
may feel their force—and with the same result.”
That said, he cast his ash-wood shaft at Cycnus:
it headed straight; the Trojan did not dodge;
the spear struck—a resounding thud—against
the shoulder of the Trojan, on the left:
but then it bounded back as if a wall
of solid rock had checked its course. And yet
Achilles sees that where his lance had struck
there is a spot of blood; and he exults—
in vain. There is no wound. The blood he sees
is nothing but the blood that was Menoetes’.
Achilles trembles now with rage; he leaps
down from his chariot, for what he seeks
is combat hand to hand. His gleaming blade
smites Cycnus, piercing both his shield and casque—
but turning blunt when it meets his hard flesh.
The Greek has reached his limit: he holds close
his shield and, with his sword-hilt, showers blows
upon the Trojan’s face and hollow temples
and, hounding Cycnus, stunning him, allows
no respite. Cycnus panics; shadows swim
before his eyes; and as he staggers backward,
he stumbles on a rock that blocks his course
across the field. With unrelenting force,
Achilles presses down against him, pins
the Trojan to the ground: he is supine.
Then, thrusting with his shield and his tough knees
against the chest of Cycnus, he unties
the thongs that bind the Trojan’s casque beneath
Latin [115–41]
his chin; and now Achilles, drawing these
tighter and tighter, chokes his enemy:
he blocks his breath, the life-path soul must seek.
He starts to strip his foe, and then he sees
that underneath the armor there’s no body;
for Cycnus had acquired a new form:
the sea-god changed him into the white swan
whose name the Phrygian had already borne.
This work of war, this battle, in its wake
was followed by a truce of many days:
both sides laid down their arms—no clash, no fray,
a time for rest. And while keen sentinels
stood guard around the trenches of the Greeks,
the festive day drew close: a solemn feast.
Achilles, victor over Cycnus, seeks
to placate Pallas with the heifer he
is offering to her. He sets the meat
in slabs on the warm altar; once the fragrance
in which the gods take such delight has risen
to heaven—for the rite, the gods receive
the innards—men can banquet on the rest.