the shepherd off and gone—so the defenseless Argives
panicked, routed. Apollo hurled fear in their hearts
and handed Hector and all his Trojans instant glory.
There man killed man in the mad scatter of battle.
Hector finished Stichius, finished Arcesilaus off,
the one a chief of Boeotians armed in bronze,
the other, brave Menelaus’ trusty comrade.
Aeneas slaughtered Medon and Iasus outright,
Medon the bastard son of royal King Oileus,
Little Ajax’ brother, but Medon lived in Phylace,
banished from native land—he’d killed a kinsman
dear to Oileus’ wife, his stepmother Eriopis.
But Iasus became a captain of Athens’ troops,
Sphelus’ son he was called and Bucolus’ grandson.
Polydamas killed Mecisteus—
Polites cut down Echius,
first in the onset—
dashing Agenor cut down Clonius—and Paris lanced Deiochus deep below the shoulder,
ran him through from behind as he fled the front
and the bronze spear came jutting out his chest.
While the Trojans tore the war-gear off the bodies
Argives clambered back in a tangled mass, scrambling back
through the sharp stakes and deep pit of the trench,
fleeing left and right, forced inside the rampart.
So Hector commanded his Trojans, sounding out,
“Now storm the ships! Drop those bloody spoils!
Any straggler I catch, hanging back from the fleet,
right here on the spot I’ll put that man to death.
No kin, no women commit his corpse to the flames-
the dogs will tear his flesh before our walls!”
With a full-shoulder stroke he flogged his horses on,
loosing a splitting war cry down the Trojan ranks
and all cried back in answer—a savage roar rising—
driving teams and chariots close in line with his.
And Apollo far in the lead, the god’s feet kicking
the banks of the deep trench down with a god’s ease,
tumbled earth in the pit between, bridging it with a dike
immense and wide and long as a hurtling spear will fly
when a man makes practice casts to test his strength.
Holding formation now the Trojans rolled across it,
Apollo heading them, gripping the awesome storm-shield
and he tore that Argive rampart down with the same ease
some boy at the seashore knocks sand castles down—
he no sooner builds his playthings up, child’s play,
than he wrecks them all with hands and kicking feet,
just for the sport of it. God of the wild cry, Apollo—
so you wrecked the Achaeans’ work and drove the men
who had built it up with all that grief and labor
into headlong panic rout.
Achaeans stampeding back
till they reined in hard, huddling tight by the stems
and shouting out to each other, flung their arms
to all the immortals, each man crying out a prayer.
But none as rapt as Nestor, Achaea’s watch and ward,
who stretched his hands to the starry skies and prayed,
“Father Zeus! If ever in Argos’ golden wheatlands
one of us burned the fat thighs of sheep or bulls
and begged a safe return and you promised with a nod—
remember it now, Olympian. Save us from this ruthless day!
Don’t let these Trojans mow us down in droves!”
So he pleaded
and hearing the old man’s prayers, Zeus who rules the world
let loose a great crack of thunder, rending the skies.
But Trojans, thrilled at the sound of Zeus’s thunder,
pitched themselves at the Argives still more fiercely,
summoning up their fiery lust for battle.
Like a giant breaker rearing up on the rangy seas,
crashing over a ship’s sides, driven in by the winds
and the blast builds the comber’s crushing impact—
a hoarse roar!—Trojans stormed over the rampart,
lashing their teams to fight against the ships,
hurling their two-edged spears at close range there,
Trojans from lurching cars but Achaeans from high decks,
scrambling aloft black hulls, lunged down with the long pikes—
jointed and clinched and tipped with ripping bronze—
they’d kept on board for bloody fights at sea.
Now,
as long as the armies fought to take the rampart,
far from the fast ships, Patroclus sat it out
in his friend Eurypylus’ shelter ... 460
trying to lift the soldier’s heart with stories,
applying soothing drugs to his dreadful wound
as he sought to calm the black waves of pain.
But soon as he heard the Trojans storm the wall
and shouts rise from Achaeans lost in panic rout,
Patroclus gave a groan and slapping his thighs hard
with the flats of both hands, burst forth in anguish:
“I can’t stay here with you any longer, Eurypylus,
much as you need me—there, a great battle breaks!
No, let an aide attend you here while I rush back
to Achilles, spur him into combat. Who knows?
With a god’s help I just might rouse him now,
bring his fighting spirit round at last.
The persuasion of a comrade has its powers.”
With the last words his feet sped him on.
Meanwhile the Argives blocked the Trojan assault
but they still could not repel them from the fleet,
outnumbering them as they did. Nor could the Trojans
once break through the Argives’ bulking forward mass
and force their passage through to ships and shelters.
Tense as a chalk-line marks the cut of a ship timber,
drawn taut and true in a skilled shipwright’s hands—
some master craftsman trained in Athena’s school—
so tense the battle line was drawn, dead even ...
Some forces at some ships, some clashing at others,
but Hector charged head-on at Ajax braced for battle
and both warriors fought it out for a single vessel,
nor could Hector burst through and ignite the hull
nor Ajax drive him back—a god drove Hector on.
And here came Caletor son of Trojan Clytius
sweeping fire against the prow but famous Ajax
stopped him short with a spear that stabbed his chest.
Down he crashed, the torch dropped from his fist,
right before Hector’s eyes—he watched his cousin
sprawl in the dust before the huge black ship
and gave a stirring cry to all his units:
“Trojans! Lycians! Dardan fighters hand-to-hand,
don’t yield an inch, not in these bloody straits!
Rescue Caletor before the Argives strip his gear—
he’s down, he’s dead by the ships that crowd the beach!”
As he raised that cry he flung his spear at Ajax—