You think we have reserves in the rear to back us up?
Some stronger wall to shield our men from disaster?
No, there’s no great citadel standing near with towers
where we could defend ourselves and troops could turn the tide.
No—we’re here on the plain of Troy—all Troy’s in arms!
Dug in, backs to the sea, land of our fathers far away!
Fight—the light of safety lies in our fighting hands,
not spines gone soft in battle!”
And with each cry
he thrust his slashing pike with a fresh new fury.
And any Trojan crashing against the beaked ships,
torch ablaze in hand, straining to please Hector
who urged him on ... Ajax ready and waiting there
would stab each man with his long, rugged pike—
twelve he impaled point-blank, struggling up the hulls.
BOOK SIXTEEN
Patroclus Fights and Dies
So they fought to the death around that benched beaked ship
as Patroclus reached Achilles, his great commander,
and wept warm tears like a dark spring running down
some desolate rock face, its shaded currents flowing.
And the brilliant runner Achilles saw him coming,
filled with pity and spoke out winging words:
“Why in tears, Patroclus?
Like a girl, a baby running after her mother,
begging to be picked up, and she tugs her skirts,
holding her back as she tries to hurry off—all tears,
fawning up at her, till she takes her in her arms ...
That’s how you look, Patroclus, streaming live tears.
But why? Some news for the Myrmidons, news for me?
Some message from Phthia that you alone have heard?
They tell me Menoetius, Actor’s son, is still alive,
and Peleus, Aeacus’ son, lives on among his Myrmidons—
if both our fathers had died, we’d have some cause for grief.
Or weeping over the Argives, are you? Seeing them die
against the hollow ships, repaid for their offenses?
Out with it now! Don’t harbor it deep inside you.
We must share it all.”
With a wrenching groan
you answered your friend, Patroclus O my rider:
“Achilles, son of Peleus, greatest of the Achaeans,
spare me your anger, please—
such heavy blows have overwhelmed the troops.
Our former champions, all laid up in the ships,
all are hit by arrows or run through by spears.
There’s powerful Diomedes brought down by an archer,
Odysseus wounded, and Agamemnon too, the famous spearman,
and Eurypylus took an arrow-shot in the thigh ...
Healers are working over them, using all their drugs,
trying to bind the wounds—
But you are intractable, Achilles!
Pray god such anger never seizes me, such rage you nurse.
Cursed in your own courage! What good will a man,
even one in the next generation, get from you
unless you defend the Argives from disaster?
You heart of iron! He was not your father,
the horseman Peleus—Thetis was not your mother.
Never. The salt gray sunless ocean gave you birth
and the towering blank rocks—your temper’s so relentless.
But still, if down deep some prophecy makes you balk,
some doom your noble mother revealed to you from Zeus,
well and good: at least send me into battle, quickly.
Let the whole Myrmidon army follow my command—
I might bring some light of victory to our Argives!
And give me your own fine armor to buckle on my back,
so the Trojans might take me for you, Achilles, yes,
hold off from attack, and Achaea’s fighting sons
get second wind, exhausted as they are ...
Breathing room in war is all too brief.
We’re fresh, unbroken. The enemy’s battte-weary—
we could roll those broken Trojans back to Troy,
clear of the ships and shelters!“
So he pleaded,
lost in his own great innocence ...
condemned to beg for his own death and brutal doom.
And moved now to his depths, the famous runner cried,
“No, no, my prince, Patroclus, what are you saying?
Prophecies? None that touch me. None I know of.
No doom my noble mother revealed to me from Zeus,
just this terrible pain that wounds me to the quick—
when one man attempts to plunder a man his equal,
to commandeer a prize, exulting so in his own power.
That’s the pain that wounds me, suffering such humiliation.
That girt—the sons of Achaea picked her as my prize,
and I’d sacked a walled city, won her with my spear
but right from my grasp he tears her, mighty Agamemnon,
that son of Atreus! Treating me like some vagabond,
some outcast stripped of all my rights ...
Enough.
Let bygones be bygones now. Done is done.
How on earth can a man rage on forever?
Still, by god, I said I would not relax my anger,
not till the cries and carnage reached my own ships.
So you, you strap my splendid armor on your back,
you lead our battle-hungry Myrmidons into action!—
if now, in fact, the black cloud of the Trojans
blasts down on the ships with full gale force,
our backs to the breaking surf but clinging still
to a cramped strip of land—the Argives, lost.
The whole city of Troy comes trampling down on us,
daring, wild—why? They cannof see the brow of my helmet
flash before their eyes—Oh they’d soon run for their lives
and choke the torrent-beds of the field with all their corpses
if only the mighty Agamemnon met me with respect:
now, as it is, they’re fighting round our camp!
No spear rages now in the hand of Diomedes,
keen to save the Argives from disaster ...
I can’t even hear the battle cry of Agamemnon
break from his hated skull. But it’s man-killing Hector
calling his Trojans on, his war cries crashing round me,
savage cries of his Trojans sweeping the whole plain,
victors bringing the Argive armies to their knees.
Even so, Patroclus, fight disaster off the ships,
fling yourself at the Trojans full force—
before they gut our hulls with leaping fire
and tear away the beloved day of our return.
But take this command to heart—obey it to the end.
So you can win great honor, great glory for me
in the eyes of all the Argive ranks, and they,
they’ll send her back, my lithe and lovely girl,