at least let the rugged giant Ajax come alone
with Teucer the master archer at his side.”
A brisk command, and the runner snapped to it—
he dashed along the wall of the Argive men-at-arms
till he reached the two Aeantes, stopped and shouted,
“Ajax—Ajax! Chiefs of the Argives armed in bronze,
the favorite son of Peteos dear to immortals
needs you at his strongpoint—hurry, come,
just for a moment, meet the crisis there.
Both of you, better yet, that’s best of all.
Headlong ruin’s massing against us quickly.
Lycia’s captains are bearing down too hard,
fierce as they always were in past attacks.
But if fighting’s flaring up in your own sector,
at least let the rugged giant Ajax come alone
with Teucer the master archer at his side!”
And Telamon’s giant son agreed at once.
He called out to his smaller, faster brother
with orders flying, “Ajax, you stay here,
you and the burly Lycomedes stand your ground,
keep our Danaans fighting here with all they’ve got.
I’m on my way over there to meet this new assault—
I’ll soon be back, once I’ve helped our friends.”
And with that Telamonian Ajax strode off
with his brother Teucer, his own father’s son,
and Pandion cradling Teucer’s long curved bow.
Holding close to the wall, they picked their way
until they reached the brave Menestheus’ bastion.
There they found the defenders packed, hard-pressed
as the Lycians’ stalwart lords and captains stormed
like a black tornado up against the breastworks—
both men flung themselves in attack, the war cries broke.
And Telamon’s son was the first to kill his man,
Sarpedon’s comrade, Epicles great with heart.
He brought him down with a glinting jagged rock,
massive, top of the heap behind the rampart’s edge,
no easy lift for a fighter even in prime strength,
working with both hands, weak as men are now.
Giant Ajax hoisted it high and hurled it down,
crushed the rim of the fighter’s four-homed helmet
and cracked his skull to splinters, bloody pulp—
and breakneck down like a diver went the Trojan
plunging off and away from the steep beetling tower
as life breath left his bones.
And Glaucus next ...
Hippolochus’ brawny son was scrambling up the wall
when Teucer’s arrow winged him from high aloft,
just where he saw his shoulder blade laid bare,
and stopped his lust for battle. Down he jumped
from the wall in secret, fast, so no Achaean
could see him hit and bellow out in triumph.
Soon as he noticed Glaucus slipping clear,
the pain overcame Sarpedon
but even so he never forgot his lust for battle.
He lunged in with a spear at Thestor’s son Alcmaon,
stabbed him, dragged out the shaft as the victim,
caving into the spear’s pull, pitched headfirst
and his fine bronze armor clashed against his corpse.
And Sarpedon clawing the rampart now with powerful hands,
wrenched hard and the whole wall came away, planks and all
and the rampart stood exposed, top defenses stripped—
Sarpedon had made a gaping breach for hundreds.
But Teucer and Ajax, aiming at him together,
shot!—Teucer’s arrow hitting the gleaming belt
that cinched his body-shield around his chest—
but Zeus brushed from his son the deadly spirits:
not by the ships’ high stems would his Sarpedon die.
Ajax lunged at the man, he struck his shield but the point
would not pierce through, so he beat him back in rage
and he edged away from the breastwork just a yard.
Not that Sarpedon yielded all the way, never,
his heart still raced with hopes of winning glory,
whirling, shouting back to his splendid Lycians,
“Lycians—why do you slack your fighting-fury now?
It’s hard for me, strong as I am, single-handed
to breach the wall and cut a path to the ships—
come, shoulder-to-shoulder!
The more we’ve got, the better the work will go!”
So he called, and dreading their captain’s scorn
they bore down fiercer, massing round Sarpedon now
but against their bulk the Argives closed ranks,
packed tight behind the wall,
and a desperate battle flared between both armies.
Lycian stalwarts could not force the Achaeans back,
breach their wall and burst through to the ships,
nor could Achaean spearmen hurl the Lycians back,
clear of the rampart, once they’d made their stand.
As two farmers wrangle hard over boundary-stones,
measuring rods in hand, locked in a common field,
and fight it out on the cramped contested strip
for equal shares of turf—so now the rocky bastion
split the troops apart and across the top they fought,
hacked at each other, chopped the oxhides round their chests,
the bucklers full and round, skin-shields, tassels flying.
Many were wounded, flesh ripped by the ruthless bronze
whenever some fighter wheeled and bared his back
but many right through the buckler’s hide itself.
Everywhere—rocks, ramparts, breastworks swam
with the blood of Trojans, Argives, both sides,
but still the Trojans could not rout the Argives.
They held tight as a working widow holds the scales,
painstakingly grips the beam and lifts the weight
and the wool together, balancing both sides even,
struggling to win a grim subsistence for her children.
So powerful armies drew their battle line dead even
till, at last, Zeus gave Hector the son of Priam
the greater glory—the first to storm the wall.
Hector loosed a piercing cry at his men:
“Drive, drive, my stallion-breaking Trojans!
Breach the Achaean rampart! Hurl your fire now—
a blazing inferno of fire against their ships!”
So he cried,
driving them on, and all ears rang with his cries
and a tight phalanx launched straight at the wall,
brandishing sharp spears, swarming the bastions
as Hector grappled a boulder, bore it up and on.
It stood at the gates, huge, blunt at the base
but spiked to a jagged point
and no two men, the best in the whole realm,
could easily prize it up from earth and onto a wagon,
weak as men are now—but he quickly raised and shook it
as Zeus the son of Cronus with Cronus’ twisting ways