“Now, there in Thessaly, the Lapith king,
Pirithous, the son of bold Ixion,
had wed Hippodame. And for the feast,
a row of tables, ordered properly,
had been set out beneath green woodland trees
Latin [190–212]
that graced his grotto. He, most cordially,
had called on the ferocious centaurs born
of Cloud—Ixion’s wife—to join the rest
of his fine guests, the chiefs of Thessaly.
I, too, was there, and in the royal cave
the crowd was loud upon that wedding day.
They chant the nuptial hymn; the spacious hall
is filled with smoke from fires; now the bride—
escorted by the matrons and young wives—
approaches. One sees beauty when she strides.
We said: ‘Indeed, how happy you must be,
Pirithous, to win a wife so lovely.’
That greeting turned into sad irony.
You, Eurytus, the wildest of wild centaurs—
inflamed by wine—are now inflamed still more
on seeing the fair bride. Your drunkenness
compounds your lust and breeds a brouhaha.
They overturn the tables, and the feast
is in uproar: the bride is carried off,
dragged by the hair; she’s snatched by Eurytus.
As for the other centaurs, each one grabs
the one that strikes his fancy or, instead,
whatever woman he can snatch—a scene
that suits a plundered city. Women shriek
throughout the house. We all leap up at once,
and Theseus is the first to cry: ‘Enough!
What madness, Eurytus, drives you to this?
How dare you—while I’m still alive—defy
Pirithous! You know not what you do:
with one foul act, it’s two men you attack!’
And then, to show that he had meant his threat,
greathearted Theseus pressed through that mad crowd
of centaurs, and set free the newlywed.
But Eurytus was silent: no reply
that he might make could ever justify
his savage act; instead, with arrogance,
he charged courageous Theseus; with his fists
he pounded at his face and noble chest.
Latin [212–34]
By chance, an ancient massive vat, adorned
with forms in high relief, stood close at hand;
and Theseus, rising to full height, seized this
and hurled it at the face of Eurytus.
Then from his mouth and wounds the centaur spouts
both blood and brains alike; he vomits wine
and, stumbling, falls on the damp ground—supine.
His biform brothers, when they see him die,
go wild; and all, as in a chorus, cry:
‘To arms! To arms!’ They are urged on by wine;
the onslaught starts with flying cups and frail
oil flasks and curving basins—these served well
for feasts but now are war and slaughter’s tools.
“The first who dared defile the inmost shrine
was Amycus, Ophion’s son: he stripped
the sanctuary of its votive gifts.
He rushed to snatch a candelabrum thick
with glittering lamps: he lifted it on high,
as if it were the ax with which one strikes
the white neck of a bull in sacrifice.
With that, he smashed the face of Celadon,
the Lapith: one could hardly recognize
the face that Amycus had crushed. The eyes
slid from their sockets, and the facial bones
were shattered, and the nose was so thrust back
it ended in the middle of the palate.
But Pelates of Pella wrenched away
a table leg of maple and, with that,
felled Amycus—straight through the centaur’s chest
his chin was driven; even as he spat
his teeth and his dark blood, the Lapith smashed
again—he sent the centaur to the Shades
of Tartarus. Gryneus stood nearby;
he watched the smoking altar with mad eyes,
and then, ‘Why can’t we use this, too!’ he cried.
At that, he lifted up the giant mass,
its fires still burning; and that centaur cast
Latin [235–61]
the altar straight against the Lapith ranks:
it crushed Orion and crushed Broteas.
(Orion was the son of Mycale;
they say that with her magic chanting she
had often drawn the moon’s horns down to earth,
although those horns moved most reluctantly.)
Exadius avenged those deaths: ‘Just wait
until I find a weapon—then you’ll pay,’
he cried—and snatched the antlers of a stag
that hung, a votive gift, on a tall pine.
The forked-tip antlers gouged Gryneus’ eyes:
one eyeball stuck upon the pointed horns;
the other slid down to his beard and hung
within the clotted blood below his chin.
“Then, from the altar, Rhoetus snatched a brand
of white-hot plum-wood; from the right he smashed
Charaxus’ temples—and the tawny hair
that crowned the Lapith blazed—a blinding flash,
like dry grain set afire; within the wound,
the blood was scorched—one heard a horrid hiss,
the kind that iron, glowing red, emits
when, from the forge, it’s lifted by the smith
with curving tongs and plunged into a vat:
it sizzles as the water turns lukewarm.
As eager fire devours his shaggy hair,
the wounded Lapith tries to beat it back;
then from the ground, he rips the threshold’s slab
and lifts it shoulder-high, a stone that could
strain even an oxteam. Its very mass
won’t let him hurl it far enough to catch
his enemy: instead, it crushes his
own friend, Cometes, who stood close to him—
too close. And Rhoetus—he’s beside himself
with joy—explodes: ‘Yes, I can only hope
the rest of you can show the strength he showed.’
With that same brand, half-burned, again he strikes
Charaxus’ wound; then, with insulting thrusts,
Latin [261–87]
three and four times he beats the Lapith’s skull
until the bones, disjoined, sink deep into
Charaxus’ brains, reduced to watery gruel.
“Triumphant, Rhoetus rushes to attack
three more: Evagrus, Corythus, and Dryas.
When Corythus, whose cheeks are veiled by his
light beard—his first—is felled, Evagrus taunts:
‘What glory can you gain from slaying one
who’s but a boy?’ But Rhoetus won’t permit
another word to issue from those lips:
into that mouth he thrusts—ferociously—
the flaming brand that puts an end to speech;
and through that open mouth, the flames now reach
into Evagrus’ chest. And Dryas, you—
so fierce—are what the centaur next pursues.
He whirls his firebrand above his head,
but this attack does not end like the rest.
Even as he exults in all the deaths
that he has caused, you, Dryas, taking up
a charred stake, strike him hard, just at the point
where neck and shoulder join. And Rhoetus groans
and, struggling, tugs the stake out from hard bone;
and now it is his turn to flee; he’s soaked
in his own blood.
“These others also fled:
Orneus, Lycabas, and Medon—wounded
in his right shoulder. They were joined by other
retreating centaurs: Thaumas and Pisenor
and Mermeros (one who so recently
had beaten all who raced against him, now,
encumbered by a wound, is forced to slow);
and Pholus, Melaneus, and the boar-hunter,
stout Abas; and the augur, Astylus,
who’d warned his fellow centaurs to refrain
from battle with the Lapiths—but in vain:
his comrades did not heed his augury.
Latin [288–307]
To Nessus, who—afraid of wounds—had fled
together with him, Astylus had said:
‘You need not flee: the bow of Hercules—
that is the fate that you are meant to meet.’
But, Lycidas, Eurynomus, Imbreus,
Areos—none of these evaded death:
all four were felled by Dryas—his right hand
struck them in front. You, too, Crenaeus, met
death by a frontal blow; though you had turned
in flight, you did look back; and Dryas sank
a massive lance between your eyes, just where
the nose and forehead join.
“Amid that fracas
Aphidas, unperturbed, immersed in sleep
so deep that nothing could awaken him,
reclined full-length upon the shaggy skin
of an Ossaean bear: his languid hand
still held a cup of watered wine—no lance:
he was no threat, did not attack—but that
did not prevent his death. For Phorbas saw
that young man sleeping there, far off; and through
the thong along his javelin, he drew
his finger; and as soon as he had cried,
‘Go now to drink your wine that’s mingled with
the waters of the Styx,’ his hand let fly
his shaft of ashwood; and its iron tip
pierced through Aphidas’ neck as he, by chance,
lay with his head thrown back. He died with no
alert and no awareness; black blood flowed
in spurts—out of Aphidas’ throat, it gushed
over the couch and into his wine-cup.
“With my own eyes, I saw Petraeus strive
to wrench an oak tree from the ground: from side
to side he shook the acorn-laden trunk,
his arms encircling it; and now it’s loose—
just one tug more. But then Pirithous,
Latin [308–30]
right through Petraeus’ rib cage, cast a shaft;
its steel tip pinned the centaur fast against
the tough oak tree he’d tried so hard to wrest.
“They say that Lycus was undone because
Pirithous was stronger than he was—
and stronger, too, than Chromis, whom he crushed.
But from these victories, the Lapith king
gained less fame than he won by conquering
two other centaurs, Helops and Dictys.
The shaft he cast caught Helops on the right
and pierced his temples, through to his left ear;
while Dictys, even as he fled in fear,
chased by Ixion’s son, fell headlong from
a hilltop, down its farther, sheer cliffside;
with all his body’s weight, he crashed upon
an ash tree’s boughs—his centaur guts adorned
the branches.
“To avenge him, Aphareus
rushed up; he wrenched a rock from that hilltop
and tried to throw it; but the oaken club
of Theseus, son of Aegeus, caught him just
in time—and shattered his huge elbow-bone.
Then, having neither time nor patience for
finishing off the centaur’s battered form,
the son of Aegeus leaped upon the back
of tall Bienor—one who till then had
not carried anything but his own self:
he dug his knees into Bienor’s sides;
with his left hand, he hugged the centaur’s hair;
and with his knotty club, he smashed his face
and cursing mouth as well as his tough temples.
And Theseus, with that oaken club, did in
Lycopes, skilled at tossing javelins;
Nedymnus; Hippasos, whose flowing beard
shielded his chest; and Ripheus, taller than
the treetops; and he overcame the force
Latin [330–52]
of Thereus, who along the mountain slopes
of Thessaly caught bears and brought them home
alive and snarling still.
“Demoleon
found Theseus’ victories too much to bear.
For some time now, with all his might, the centaur
had tried to wrench a great pine from the ground
with trunk intact; unable to do that,
he broke the trunk in half and hurled it at
the son of Aegeus. But quick to draw back,
Theseus escaped that throw, because he had
received Minerva’s warning—so he said
and would have had us others understand.
And yet the crashing trunk had some effect:
for it sheared off, from giant Crantor’s neck,
his chest and his left shoulder. O Achilles,
young Crantor was your father’s armor-bearer:
Amyntor, king of the Dolopians,
defeated in his war with Peleus, gave
that youth to him as pledge of peace and faith.
When Peleus, from far off, saw that fierce wound,
he cried: ‘Crantor, so dear a boy, accept
at least this gift—to honor you in death!’
At that, with sturdy mind and steady strength,
he leveled at Demoleon his lance:
it cracked his rib cage, lodged within his chest,
and quivered there. The centaur tried to wrench
the weapon loose, yet only freed the shaft
but not the lance head—this he could not catch:
within his lungs, the pointed tip held fast.
His pain just makes his courage more intense:
Demoleon rears up, then charges at
the son of Aegeus; but the hero’s casque
and shield protect his shoulders—so he checks
the centaur’s trampling, clattering horse-hooves.
Now Peleus holds his lance high, then he strikes
Latin [353–76]
Demoleon with a single thrust that finds
the centaur’s human and his equine chest.
“Before that, Peleus had already struck
both Hyles and Phlegraeos from far off,
and Clanis and Iphinous close up.
To these he now adds Dorylas, who wears
no spear; instead he sports a savage pair
of spreading bull’s horns, fully stained with blood.
I sighted Dorylas, and I cried out
(for fury urged me on to greater force):
‘Now you will see how poor a thing your horns
must be when set against my shaft of iron!’
I cast my lance. He could not dodge the shaft
but tried to fend it, lifting his right hand
to shield his forehead, where my blow would land.
The lance head pinned that hand against his brow.
The shouts were loud. But while the centaur froze,
impaled and helpless with that bitter wound,
Peleus, who stood nearby, struck from below;
he pierced the centaur’s belly. Dorylas
sprang forward; his guts dragged along the ground;
and as they dragged, he trampled them; they burst;
and he, his legs entangled with his guts,
collapsed—his belly empty—to the earth.