Book IV

BUT the Gods were gathered the while with Zeus on the golden floor,
And they sat at the feast; in their midst did the Lady Hébé pour
The rose-flushed nectar-wine, and out of the goblets of gold
To each other they drank, looking down on the Trojans’ battle-hold.
Straightway Kronion began with word-shafts glancing aslant
To provoke Queen Heré to wrath, making mock with a heart-stinging taunt:
“Of the Goddesses champions twain for the lord Menelaus there be,
Héré of Argos, Athéné withal of Alalkomené.
But lo, from his trouble afar are they sitting: their eyes have seen,
Yet they revel at ease, the while Aphrodité the Laughter-queen
Ever goeth beside her friend, that the doom-stroke come not nigh;
Yea, now hath she snatched him away from the death that he looked to die.
Howbeit in fight Menelaus hath conquered, the War-god’s friend:
Then take we counsel together how all these things shall end.
Once more to the bane of the battle, the horror of onset-yell,
Shall we rouse them, or rain lovingkindness adown, that in peace they may dwell?
Now if this were well-pleasing to all, and good in the eyes of these,
Then might the waste desolations of Priam’s city cease,
And again Menelaus should lead home Helen of Argos in peace.”
So spake he; Athéné and Héré in curbed wrath murmured low.
Anigh to each other they sat, and they plotted the Trojans’ woe.
Now Athéné held her peace, and she answered him not a word,
Yet against Allfather within her the tameless anger stirred.
But the fury of Héré would nowise be pent in her breast, and she said:
“What hast thou to do saying this, O Kronos’ son most dread?
And wilt thou make mock of my labour, and bring mine endeavour to naught
And the sweat of my grievous toil, when I wearied my steeds as I wrought
To gather the war-folk for ruin of Priam and Priam’s line?
Ay, work thy will—but the hearts of the Gods are not as thine!”
Then wroth was the Cloudrack-sweeper, and answered indignantly:
“Beshrew thee, what manifold evil have all these done unto thee,
Even Priam and Priam’s seed, that thine eye will nowise spare
Till the dwellings of Troy shall be wasted, the city builded fair?
Now I ween couldst thou burst through her gates, couldst thou scale her ramparts wide,
Couldst thou gorge thee with flesh of King Priam and all that her strong walls hide,
His sons and his people, thy vengeance-hunger were satisfied!
Do after thy pleasure—I would not that this our contention should be
The seed of a bitter feud hereafter for thee and for me.
Howbeit this thing will I tell thee, and deep in thine heart let it stay:—
In the hour when I also shall steadfastly purpose in ruins to lay
Some city the children whereof be exceeding dear to thine heart,
My fury shall have free course, thou shalt nowise withstand me nor thwart.
For the thing that mine heart sore grudged unto thee have I freely given.
For of cities beneath the sun and the star-bestudded heaven,
Even all that the earth-abiders have builded far and near,
Above all to my soul is Ilium the holy exceeding dear,
And her king, and the people of Priam the lord of the mighty spear;
For that ever mine altar therein with the stintless feast hath been dight,
Drink-offering and sacrifice-steam, for our honour is this and our right.”
Answered and spake unto him Queen Héré the lovely-eyed:
“Three cities there are, more precious to me than all beside,
Argos, and Sparta, Mycenae withal, the broad-wayed town:
Whensoe’er they shall win thine hatred, in ruin cast them down.
I murmur not, not for their sake in the path of thy wrath do I stand;
Yea, though I begrudged thee thy vengeance, and bade thee stay thine hand,
Naught should my murmurs avail, seeing thou art mightier far.
Yet ill were it done in thee if my toil thou shouldst utterly mar,
Seeing I am a God as thou art, of the selfsame lineage I came,
Chief daughter of Kronos, the Lord of unsearchable counsels, I am;
Chief by my birthright, and chief, in that mine is the pride of place
To be called thy Queen, who art King over all the deathless race.
Now therefore as touching this let us each unto other yield,
I unto thee, and thou unto me, and the thing shall be sealed
Of the rest of the Deathless, and thou to Athéné give thy command
Thither to speed where the hosts of Troy and Achaia stand,
And to stir up the warriors of Troy, that they be the first to smite
The battle-triumphant Achaians, transgressing the covenant-plight.”
Then the Father of Gods and men denied not Hére’s request.
Straightway to Athené he spake the swift-winged word of his hest:
“Forthright to the hosts of Troy and Achaia speed thy flight,
And stir up the warriors of Troy that they be the first to smite
The battle-triumphant Achaians, transgressing the covenant-plight.”
Enkindled the more by his word was Athéné the eager-hearted:
She hath flashed from the peaks of Olympus, and down to the earth hath she darted.
And as when from the hands of the Kronos-begotten falleth a star,
A sign unto seafaring folk, or to some wide host of war,
And forth from the splendour thereof is a fountain of fire-spray leaping,
Even such was the likeness of Pallas Athéné earthward sweeping.
And into their midst she sprang, and astonied were all at the sight,
Horse-quelling Trojans and sons of Achaia harness-dight.
And thus spake this one and that to his fellow that stood thereby:
“Once more shall the bane of the battle, the horror of onset-cry,
Arise; or at last lovingkindness ’twixt nation and nation shall be
From Zeus, for the steward of war and of peace unto menfolk is he.”
So murmured the voices the host of Achaians and Trojans among.
But she in a man’s shape entered the Trojans’ battle-throng.
For the form of spear-mighty Laodokus, son of Antenor, she bare,
And for godlike Pandarus sought, if so be she might find him there.
And she found where the son of Lykaon, the princely and stalwart, stood,
Begirt by the ranks of his spearmen, a mighty battle-wood,
Even they that from streams of Aisépus had come to the war for his sake.
So she came to the hero’s side, and the light-winged word she spake:
“Wilt thou hearken, O war-wise son of Lykaon, to this my rede?—
Wilt thou dare against king Menelaus thy swift-winged arrow to speed?
Of all the Trojans then shouldst thou win thee thanks and renown,
And chief above all Alexander the Prince thy deed should crown;
Of his hand first before all should glorious gifts be thine,
If so be he shall see Menelaus, the hero of Atreus’ line,
Slain by thy shaft, on the height of the death-pyre compassed with flame.
Then draw thou against Menelaus, the captain of battle-tame,
And vow to the Light-begotten, the Bow-renowned, to slay
A glorious hecatomb, all of the firstling lambs, in the day
When home to the city of holy Zeleia thou winnest thy way.”
Then by Athéné’s words was his witless soul overborne.
Straightway he drew forth his bow of the rock-goat’s polished horn.
For once, when the wild crag-leaper rose against the sky
On the crest of a scaur, from his ambush beneath the prince let fly,
And there on its back on the rock with the shaft in its heart did it lie.
In sixteen palms was the length of the horns of the quarry told;
And the craftsman knit them together, and shaped to the perfect mould
Of a bow, and he burnished the same, and he tipped the ends with gold.
So Pandarus strung that bow, and he heedfully laid it along
On the ground, and in front of him closed the shields of his henchman-throng,
Lest the warrior sons of Achaia should leap to their feet, and set on,
Or ever the arrow should smite Menelaus, Atreus’ son.
He hath lifted the lid of his quiver, a shaft never shot hath he ta’en;
Black Agony writhed on the barbs, on the feathers was shuddering Pain:
Forthright on the bowstring he laid it, the arrow’s bitter bane;
And he vowed to the Light-begotten, the Bow-renowned, to slay
A glorious hecatomb, all of the firstling lambs, in the day
When home to the city of holy Zeleia he won his way.
The notch of the shaft hath he gripped with the strong bull-sinew, and now
The bowstring toucheth his breast, and the steel head kisseth the bow:
And now by his uttermost might is the great bow strained to a ring—
Clangeth the horn and singeth the sinew as forth from the string
Leapt on the foemen the arrow keen-whetted with eager wing.
Yet the bliss-throned deathless Gods, Menelaus, forgat thee not;
And chiefly the Prey-giver, daughter of Zeus, for thy need took thought.
For she came and she turned aside the keen shaft’s murderous leap,
Just swept it away from his flesh, as a watching mother might sweep
A fly from the face of her child as it lieth in sweet-hushed sleep.
And her hand sped it on to the place where the buckles golden-hasped
Of the baldric met, and the mail overlapped, by the sword-belt clasped.
Into the baldric it plunged, that bitter arrow-head,
On through the curious work of the baldric unswerving it sped:
On through the breastplate cunningly-graven lo it hath passed,
And the taslet that shielded the flesh of the warrior from javelin-cast,—
And herein was his chiefest defence,—howbeit through this did it win;
And the point of the arrow pierced but the face of the warrior’s skin,
And straightway forth of the wound came dark blood trickling thin.
As a battle-steed’s cheekpiece is stained with the crimson of Morningland,
Ivory dyed by Maeonian or Carian woman’s hand;—
In a chamber it lieth, while many a hero coveteth sore
To win it, but long shall it lie mid a great king’s treasure-store
For the pride of his charioteer and his war-steed’s gallant show;—
So seemed, Menelaus, thy limbs, overstreamed with the blood’s red flow
Thy shapely thighs to the knees, and thine ankles fair therebelow.
Shuddered thereat Agamemnon the war-folk’s battle-lord,
When he saw how the darkening crimson fast from the wound outpoured:
Shuddered the prince Menelaus, beloved of the God of the Sword.
Yet he looked and he spied how the cord and the barbs stood forth of the flesh,
And his spirit revived in his breast and his courage was kindled afresh.
But heavily sighing amidst of them Lord Agamemnon spake,
Grasping his brother’s hand, and a sigh from his war-fellows brake:
“Dear brother, for death unto thee did I seal that covenant-plight, I
Sending thee forth for Achaians alone against Trojans to fight.
Lo how the Trojans have smitten thee!—oaths underfoot have they thrust.
Yet no vain thing is an oath, nor the lambs’ blood spilt in the dust,
Nor the wine, nor the hand’s troth-clasp, wherein they had caused us to trust.
For though the Olympian refrain him, that traitors have respite a day,
At the last shall he smite them for all, and the debt manifold shall they pay:
On their heads shall it be, on their wives and their babes the destruction shall come;
For I know this thing in mine heart, and my soul is a seer of their doom—
The day wherein Ilium the holy shall perish will come: it is near
Unto Priam withal, and the folk of the king of the ashen spear,
And Zeus that abideth in heaven, Kronion enthroned over all,
Shall brandish above them his aegis, a blackness of thundercloud-pall,
In his wrath for a nation’s treason: without fail this shall befall.
But, O Menelaus, on me sore anguish for thee shall come
If thou die, if thou fill up the measure to-day of thy life-days’ doom.
Shamed above all men to Argos the thirst-land again should I turn;
For the sons of Achaia forthright for their fatherland-home will yearn.
We shall leave unto Troy and her king the boast and the triumph-scorn
Over Helen the Argive, and here shall thy bones lie rotting forlorn
In the earth, without fruit of thy toil and the burden of war thou hast borne,
And a pride-uplifted Trojan shall cry in the day of our shame,
As he leaps on the tomb of Atreides the lord of battle-fame:
‘Would God Agamemnon’s revenges so bravely might speed evermore
As when now he hath led the host of Achaia in vain to our shore,
And back to the land of his fathers is fled with them over the wave
With empty ships, and hath left Menelaus the stalwart and brave!’
So shall they mock—that day let the earth gape wide for my grave.”
Then Menelaus the bright-haired heartened his brother and spoke:
“Nay, be of good cheer, and dismay not yet the Achaian folk.
The bitter-keen point of the arrow hath pierced no mortal part,
For the glancing baldric hath checked it; below, my defence from the dart
Was the kilt and the taslet of proof, strong-wrought by the coppersmith’s art.”
Answered and spake Agamemnon, the nations’ battle-lord:
“Would God it might be, Menelaus, according to this thy word!
But the leech shall lay hands on thy wound, and shall measure the arrow-bane,
And thereover his balms shall he spread to assuage thy bitter pain.”
Then he cried to Talthybius the godlike, the herald, and thus spake he:
“Haste thee, Talthybius, haste thee, bid hither Machaon to me,
The hero-son of the Healer, Asklépius the leech of might,
To look upon Atreus’ son Menelaus the warrior wight,
Whom some one hath shot with an arrow, a cunning man with the bow,
Some Trojan or Lycian, for glory to him, for our mourning and woe.”
So spake he, and hearkened the herald, nor stayed from obeying his hest,
But in haste through the brazen-harnessed array of Achaia he pressed,
Glancing this way and that for Machaon the hero; and now hath he spied
Where he stood with the shielded ranks of his men upon either side,
Strong war-folk that followed him far from Trikké’s horse-fed lea;
And Talthybius came to his side, and the light-winged word spake he:
“Up, son of Asklépius, Lord Agamemnon calleth thee hence
To see Menelaus the hero, Achaia’s battle-fence,
Whom some one hath shot with an arrow, a cunning man with the bow,
Some Trojan or Lycian, for glory to him, for our mourning and woe.”
So spake he, and leapt in his bosom his heart as it thrilled with pain;
And away through the wide war-host of Achaia they went, they twain.
And they came unto where Menelaus the bright-haired stood in his blood,
And around him on every hand Achaia’s mightiest stood:
And there in their midst was the godlike healer or ever they knew.
Forthwith from the harness-clasping baldric the arrow he drew;
And even as he plucked it aback. the keen barbs snapped asunder.
He unbuckled the glancing baldric, he loosened the kilt thereunder,
And the taslet, the mail which the coppersmith’s hands had forged so well.
But so soon as he looked on the wound, where the bitter arrow fell,
He sucked forth the blood, and balms thereover with leechcraft skill
Did he spread, the which Cheiron had given to his sire of his heart’s good will.
While round Menelaus the battle-helper gathered they,
Near came the Trojans and nearer, the ranks of their shield-array;
So the heroes did on them their war-gear, their hearts leapt up to the fray.
Then hadst thou seen Agamemnon the godlike not slumbering in sleep,
Neither cowering as cowereth the craven, nor loth for the onset-sweep,
But exceeding fain of the battle, athirst for the glory of war;
For he lighted adown from his chariot of horses, his brass-flashing car,
While his henchman reined them snorting a little aloof for a space,
Eurymedon,—him Ptolemaius begat, of Peiraieus’ race;—
For he charged him exceeding straitly to have them at hand, whensoe’er
His limbs should be weary with marshalling all those thousands there.
But himself on his feet through rank after rank of the heroes is gone;
And whomso he marked of the fleet-horsed Danaans fain to set on,
Before them he stood and he heartened them, blithe were his words and bold:
“Argives, forget not your prowess, the gallant spirit of old!
For the liars shall have no help of Zeus Allfather now,
Seeing they were the first that transgressed the oath and the covenant-vow;
Therefore the vultures shall rend their tender flesh for a prey,
And their dear-loved wives and their nursling babes will we bear away
In our ships, when we smite yon ramparts of pride in the triumphing day.”
But whomso he marked hanging back from the terrible battle and stern,
Hotly he chode them, and fierce did the flame of his anger burn:
“Will ye ne’er be ashamed, tongue-fighters of Argos, reproach of your land!
Wherefore in palsy of terror-amazement, like fawns, do ye stand,
Like fawns that the hunters have wearied, o’er leagues of the plain as they fled,
Till fainting they stand, and their spirit within them is utterly dead?
So stand ye in palsy of terror-amazement,—ye fight not, ye!
Will ye wait till the Trojans draw nigh where the tall ships fringe the sea
With their stately sterns looking down on the sands with the foam overdriven,
To see if Kronion o’er cowards will stretch forth his arm out of heaven?”
So ranged he through ranks of the heroes, so marshalled them on to the fray.
And he came as he fared through the press to the Cretan war-array.
Round war-wise Idomeneus, girded with harness of battle, they stood;
‘In the forefront Idomeneus, grim as a wild boar out of the wood,
And Meriones with the rearward was kindling the battle-mood.
“And King Agamemnon beheld, and his spirit with gladness was stirred,
And cheerly he cried to Idomeneus, hailed him with kindly word:
Idomeneus, most of the fleet-horsed Danaans honour I thee,
Be it in battle, or labour, what toil soever it be,
Yea, or the feast, where the mightiest Argives gladden their soul
With the flame-flushed wine of the princes that flasheth within the bowl.
For what though the rest of the long-haired men of Achaia-land
“Drink but by measure, by thee doth the brimming wine-cup stand
To quaff whensoever thy soul is fain, as by me, evermore.
Up then to the battle, and prove thee the hero unblenching of yore!”
Answered Idomeneus lord of the Cretans, and thus spake he:
“Atreides, thy warfellow trusty and true will I verily be,
Even as aforetime I pledged me, and sealed it by covenant-sign.
But go thou and kindle Achaia’s long-haired battle-line,
That we linger no more from the fight, for as water is spilt on the ground
The Trojans have spilled the oaths, and for this shall their sorrows abound,
And their deaths, who have broken the covenant-bond wherewithal we were bound.”
So spake he, and on passed Atreides, and glad was his heart and proud;
And he found the Aiantes twain, as he fared through the warrior-crowd:
They were donning their war-gear, and footmen were with them, a battle-storm-cloud.
And as when from the height of a headland outlooking a goatherd hath seen
A cloud coming over the sea with the blast of the West-wind therein,
And blacker it showeth and blacker, as pitch, as he gazeth from far,
Overglooming the sea, and within it the wings of the hurricane are;
And he shuddereth to see, and he driveth his flock to a cave in his dread;
So seemed they, the men god-strengthened, around the Aiantes that sped
Onward in serried battalions dark-heaving to murderous war,
A darkness where shield-flashes lightened and flicker of spears shivered o’er.
And Lord Agamemnon beheld, and his spirit with gladness was stirred,
And he lifted his voice unto these, and he uttered the swift-winged word:
“Aiantes, ye chiefs of the brazen-harnessed Argive band,
How should I bid you bestir you 2—to you have I no command,
Who be instant in bidding your people to quit them valiantly.
Ah Zeus Allfather, Athéné, Apollo, that this might be,
That the selfsame spirit were found in the breasts of each and all!
Soon under our hands should the city of Priam bow and fall,
And her pride should be led away captive, and ruined her god-built wall.”
So spake he, and left them there, and to others he hasted him then:
And he came upon Nestor the ringing-voiced with the Pylian men,
Setting his folk in array and uprousing the battle-storm.
Round Alastor and Chromius they stood, and by Pelagon’s giant form,
And with Haimon the chieftain, and Bias the shepherd of folk, stood they.
The horsemen and chariots he set in the front of his war-array,
And the footmen to rearward he marshalled, full many and valiant and strong,
For a bulwark of war; but the cowards he herded amidst of the throng,
That each man perforce might fight, were he never so little fain.
To his horsemen the old king first gave charge, for he bade them rein
Their horses aback, and in nowise to plunge mid the tangle of fight—
“Let no man in pride of his chariot-prowess or bodily might
Dash forward afront of his fellows to clash with the Trojan foe,
Neither let any give back, for your strength shall be minished so.
But whoso in riding his chariot shall meet any foe’s war-car,
Let him reach forth and thrust with his spear, for this shall be better by far.
In such wise were cities and walls overthrown by the valiant of old,
With such wisdom as this and such courage their hearts were cunning and bold.”
So shouted the ancient king, with lore of the old wars wise:
And Lord Agamemnon beheld him with gladness-lightening eyes;
And he lifted his voice, and to Nestor the light-winged word he addressed:
“Would God, old sire, that the heart strong-beating within thy breast
Were matched by the strength of thy knees, and thy might were unwasted of eld!
But grey hairs come upon all men, and thy strength too have they quelled.
Ah that thou wert of the youths, and another were thus in thy stead!”
Answered him Nestor, Gerenia’s chariot-champion, and said:
“Atreides, good sooth I were fain if I might but again be so
As I was in the day when I laid Ereuthalion the godlike low.
Yet not all gifts unto all men the Gods give at once, I trow:
I have looked on the days of my youth, grey hairs be mine heritage now.
Yet still shalt thou find me with horsemen, and still will I give command;
For the staff of the lordship of counsel is yet in the old man’s hand.
Nay, spears for the younger-born, whose prowess is not yet fled
As mine, and their hearts are strong in the pride of their lustihead.”
So spake he, and onward in gladness of heart went Atreus’ seed
Unto Peteos’ scion Menestheus, the smiter of the steed.
There stood he with warfolk of Athens, the kindlers of onset-cry;
And Odysseus the mighty in manifold counsel stood hard by.
By his side Kephallenia’s ranks—no feeble folk were they—
Stood still, for not yet on their ears had fallen the shout of the fray.
But the war-waves of horse-quelling Trojans and mailéd Achaians but then
‘Gan surge in the battle-blast: therefore abode those valiant men;
And they tarried a space till another Achaian squadron first
Should charge on the armies of Troy, and the tempest of battle should burst.
But Lord Agamemnon beholding them loiter was stirred to upbraid,
And the winged words sprang from his passionate-panting lips, and he said:
O child of a king god-fostered, Peteos’ princely son,
And thou, O perfect in guile-craft, wiliest-hearted one,
Why cowering hang ye aback till the fight of the rest be begun?
Is it not seemly that ye in the forefront of battle should stand
Bearing the brunt of the strife when the flame of it fiercest is fanned?
For first before all men the banquet-bidding do ye twain hear
Whensoe’er the Achaians prepare mé the princes’ feastful cheer.
There is it still your delight to eat of the roast, and still
To quaff of the beakers of honey-sweet wine, so oft as ye will.
But now were ye well content though squadrons ten should pass
From the host of Achaia before you to deal with the pitiless brass.”
Dark-frowning made answer Odysseus the manifold-counselled, and said:
“Atreides, what saying is this through the fence of thy teeth that hath fled!
We slack in the war!—whensoe’er the Achaians shall waken from sleep
The War-god, and hurl on the Trojans in fury of onset-sweep,
Thou shalt see, if thou wilt,—if thy spirit by deeds of the heroes is stirred,—
Telemachus’ father where loudest the thunder of meeting is heard
With the horse-quelling foe—tush, even as wind is thine idle word!”
Then Lord Agamemnon smiled, and he spake to the man toil-proved,
Unsaying the word of reproach, for he marked how his anger was moved:
“O begotten of Zeus and Laertes, O master of subtlety,
Think not I would chide such as thee above measure, nor lord it o’er thee.
For I know what spirit is found in that true breast of thine:
I know of the leal lovingkindness, and thy heart even as mine.
Go to, we will yet make atonement for this unto thee, and if aught
Hath been said that was ill in thy sight, may the Gods bring such unto naught.”
So spake he, and left them there, and to others he hasted on:
And he found Diomedes the mighty-hearted Tydeus’ son.
Still in the midst of his fair-fashioned chariots and horses he stood;
And beside him was Sthenelus standing, begotten of Kapaneus’ blood.
And Lord Agamemnon beholding him loiter was moved to upbraid,
And the winged words sprang from his passionate-panting lips, and he said:
“Ha! child of the horse-quelling hero, of Tydeus the king war-wise,
Why dost thou glance up the lanes of the battle with shrinking eyes?
Not thus was it Tydeus’ wont from the cry of the onset to cower;
Far afront of his fellows he charged on the foe in the perilous hour,
As they that beheld him in battle-toil told, for it did not befall
That ever I met him or saw, but men praised him for chiefest of all.
For he came on a day to Mycenae, yet not as for war to our land,
But to help Polyneikés the godlike to gather a warrior-band
For the host that should march unto Thébé with god-built walls girt round;
And they strongly besought we would give of our war-aid battle-renowned.
And our people were minded to give, and they pledged them to do as they prayed:
But Zeus turned back our intent, sending tokens that made us afraid.
So when they were gone from our halls, and afar on their way were sped,
And were come to Aisépus, the reed-hidden river of grassy bed,
Then Tydeus was sent of the sons of Achaia before their face.
So on ambassage went he, and came to the children of Kadmus’ race
In the palace of strong Eteokles, and thronged was the feastful place.
And Tydeus the war-steed-driver a stranger stood alone;
Yet he quailed not, for all that so many they were, and he but one.
But he challenged them there to the athlete-strife, and the victor’s meed
Lightly he won, such a helper Athéné became in his need.
Then the Kadmeians, the goaders of horses, were kindled to wrath,
And they spread the net of ambush amidst of his homeward path.
Fifty, with captains twain, did they choose for the deed to be done,
Even Maion the son of Haimon, a godlike-goodly one,
Polyphontes the battle-bider withal, Autophonus’ son.
Yet these against Tydeus availed not, but came on a shameful doom,
For he slew them; one only of all did he suffer to win safe home,
Even Maion, for signs from the high Gods came, and he gave good heed.
Ay, such was Aetolia’s Tydeus: howbeit the hero’s seed
Is worser in fight, how better soever in folkmote-rede.”
So spake he, and strong Diomedes nothing in answer said,
Having respect to the high rebuke of the King most dread.
But Kapaneus’ glorious son with hot words made reply:
“Atreides, thou knowest the truth, what hast thou to do to lie?
Good sooth, we account us mightier men than our sires by far:
Even we took Thébé the great seven-gated burg of war.
More strong was their wall than aforetime, and fewer were they of our band,
But the high Gods’ signs we obeyed, and the guiding of Zeus’s hand.
But our fathers’ infatuate folly it was that cast them down:
Therefore thou shalt not exalt against ours our sires’ renown.”
Dark-frowning made answer and spake unto him Diomedes the strong:
“Lad, give thou heed unto me, and bridle thy malapert tongue!
I have none indignation that King Agamemnon the shepherd of folk
Should uprouse the Achaians, the armour-sheathed, to the onset-shock;
For on him shall the glory come down if so be the Achaians shall smite
The Trojans before them, and win proud Ilium’s sacred height;
And his shall be anguish of soul if Achaia be smitten in fight.
Now, ho for the prowess of old, for the storm of our battle-might!”
He spake, and adown from his car in his harness of battle he sprang;
Terribly clashed the brass on the breast of the hero, and rang,—
Yea, even the valiant of heart might have quailed at the sharp fierce clang.
And as when on a sea-voice-ringing beach the surges are cast,
Wave after wave driven up by the West’s overmastering blast;—
In the outsea afar at the first it upheaveth,—anon down-crashing
Bursts on the strand with its thunders, with arches of brine high-lashing
The headlands, and spirts of the foam from the swinging wave-crests flashing;
So rank after rank they rolled onward, the Danaan men, to the war
Without cease: through the trampling the cry of the captains rang out evermore;
But in silence the rest of them followed,—thou never hadst deemed, I trow,
That so mighty a host with a voice in their breasts could be marching so,—
Hushed with the fear of their chiefs, and about them glanced and played
The wavering sheen of the armour wherein were their squadrons arrayed.
But the Trojans,—as sheep in the garth of a lord of pastured land
In throngs upon countless throngs at the hour of milking stand,
And they bleat evermore to the young lambs’ quavering cry from the fold;
So over the wide war-host their mingled clamour rolled:
For not one was the language of these, nor the speech of their lips the same,
But confusion of tongues, forasmuch as from diverse lands they came.
It was Arés that sped these onward, Athéné the grey-eyed those,
And Terror and Rout, and Strife mad-famishing ever for foes:
Sister she is and companion of Arés the murder-red;
Little of stature she showeth at first, but her towering head
Soon smiteth the sky, while her feet on the earth amid menfolk tread.
Now in the midst of the armies the Spirit of Hate hath she thrown,
Through the war-throng sweeping, and doubling the anguish of men, and the moan.
Ever the mid-space narrowed, till closing they mingled, and then
Clashed targets together, and spears, and the fury of brass-mailed men:
Dashed each against other the boss-studded bucklers that strong arms bore,
And the din shrieked up to the heaven, and roar was swallowed of roar;
And the agony-scream and the triumphing shout maddened up evermore
From the slayers and them that they slew, and the earth ran streams of gore.
And even as wintertide torrents down-rushing from steep hill-sides
Hurl their wild waters in one where a cleft of the mountain divides,
Till the floods of the mighty fountains pent in the deep gorge boil,
And the shepherd afar on the mountains heareth the mad turmoil;
So from the bickering tangle came shouting and battle-toil.
First of the Trojans an armed man did Antilochus smite,
Echepólus the son of Thalysius, who stood in the forefront of fight;
For he smote on the ridge of his helmet with horse-mane-crest overshed,
And the lance pierced into his forehead, and crashed the brazen head
Clean through the bone, and the veil of the death-mist darkened his sight:
Down fell he as falleth a tower, in the giant-grapple of fight.
On the foot of the fallen the lord Elephénor laid fast hold,
Son of Chalkédon, a chief of Abantians mighty-souled.
From under the javelins he haled him, full eager to strip the mail
With such haste as he might from the corse,—short space did his striving avail:
For even as he dragged the body Agénor the great-heart spied
How his buckler gave, as he stooped him, a glimpse of a fenceless side.
There he stabbed with his brass-headed lance: limb fainted from nerveless limb,
As the life fluttered forth, and above him the toil and the strain waxed grim
Of Achaian and Trojan: as wolves men leapt at the throats of their foes,
While hero on reeling hero hailed down pitiless blows.
There Telamonian Aias smote Anthemion’s son,
A strong man lusty with life, Simoeisius: years agone
From Ida his mother came down, and by Simois’ banks she bore
That babe, when she fared with her parents to tell the sheep-flocks o’er.
Simoeisius for this was he named; but to them that had given him birth
Never he rendered the nursing-debt back, for that short on the earth
Was his life on whom lighted the spear of Aias the mighty of heart;
For even as he strode into fight to his right breast flashed that dart.
Clear through his shoulder the brass-heavy javelin leapt without stay;
And he fell on the earth in the dust: as a poplar there he lay,
Like the tree that hath shot up high where a wide-spreading fen lieth low,
Smooth-stemmed, but its crest like a cloud-wreath afar up waves to and fro:
And this hath a wainwright felled with his axe of flame-bright steel
To bend him a felloe thereof for a fair-wrought chariot’s wheel;
And it lieth through many a day on the bank of the river to dry;
Even so did Anthemion’s son Simoeisius stricken lie
Before Aias the god-born: but Antiphus glancing in corslet-sheen,
A Priamid, hurled through the press at the slayer his javelin keen;
But it missed him, and found out Odysseus’ comrade true and tried,
Leukus, smiting his groin as he haled the body aside:
And he fell on the corse, and his hand unclenched the dead man’s limb.
Then Odysseus’ wrath for his war-fellow waxed exceeding grim,
And he rushed through the forefighters harnessed in flame-bright brazen gear.
Close up to the foemen he came, and he hurled with his glittering spear,
Warily glancing about him, and shrank the Trojans in dread
From the cast of the hero, nor vainly the lance of Odysseus was sped;
But it dashed a bastard son of Priam, Demokoon, down,
Who had come to his help from the herds of his mares by Abydos-town.
Him did Odysseus, in wrath for his friend, with the javelin-cast
Smite on the temple, and on through its fellow-temple passed
The brazen point, and his eyes were veiled with the death-mist-shroud.
Heavily fell he, his war-gear above him clanged aloud.
Then back drew the foremost, yea Hector the glorious faltered back.
Loud shouted the Argives, and plucked forth their slain from the battle-wrack.
On charged they afar: and Apollo was indignation-aflame
From Pergamus gazing, and unto the Trojans his great voice came:
“On, horse-quelling Trojans! blench not from the fight with the Argives, nor quail
As though fashioned of stone were their flesh, or welded of steel, to avail
To withstand the devouring sword and the storm of the javelin-hail.
On!—for Achilles the child of Thetis the lovely-tressed
Fights not, but broods by the ships on the wrath that is gall in his breast!”
Zeus’ daughter the glorious Trito-born cheered on to the fray,
So cried from the city the terrible God; but Achaia’s array
Ever ranging the press, where hearts or hands grew slack that day.
Then Amarynkid Dióres in Fate’s gin lay overthrown.
On his right leg hard by the ankle crashed a jagged stone.
And the hurler thereof was Peirous, lord of the Thracian host,
Imbrasus’ son, who from Ainos had fared to the Troyland coast.
And the merciless rock-shard utterly crushed the sinews twain
And the bones, that backward down in the dust was he hurled amain
In his agony stretching his hands to his well-loved friends in vain,
Gasping his spirit forth: on he that had smitten him rushed,
And stabbed with his spear by the navel, and forth of the grim rent gushed
His bowels to the ground, and over his eyes death-darkness poured.
But as leapt the slayer aback, the spear of Aetolia’s lord:
Smote him above the pap, and stood in his lung blood-drenched.
Then sprang on him Thoas, and forth that massy spear he wrenched slay,
From his breast, and he drew from the scabbard his sword keen-whetted to slay,
And amidst of the belly he smote him, and reft his life away.
Yet he spoiled not his armour, for round him closed his henchman-band,
And tall though he was and stalwart and haughty-loth to yield,
The crested Thracians, each with his long lance gripped in his hand;
Yet backward they bore him, and weight-overmastered the giant reeled.
So there in the dust outstretched they lay, those chiefs of pride,
And around them maddened the battle, and hero on hero died.
Thracian and brazen-armoured Epeian side by side;
There none might make light of the toil, who should chance through its fury to pass,
Though unsmitten of arrow or dart, though unwounded of keen-whetted brass,
He might wander at will through the midst, with his hand in Athéné’s own
Kind-clasped, though her arm were his shield from the onrush of javelin or stone:
For many a man of Achaia and Troy on that wild day,
Outstretched on his face in the dust, by his foe in the death-peace lay.