twin brothers Sleep and Death, who with all good speed
set him down in Lycia’s broad green land.
But Patroclus,
giving a cry to Automedon whipping on his team,
Patroclus went for Troy’s and Lycia’s lines,
blind in his fatal frenzy—luckless soldier.
If only he had obeyed Achilles’ strict command
he might have escaped his doom, the stark night of death.
But the will of Zeus will always overpower the will of men,
Zeus who strikes fear in even the bravest man of war
and tears away his triumph, all in a lightning flash,
and at other times he will spur a man to battle,
just as he urged Patroclus’ fury now.
Patroclus—
who was the first you slaughtered, who the last
when the great gods called you down to death?
First Adrestus, then Autonous, then Echeclus,
then Perimus, Megas’ son, Epistor and Melanippus,
then in a flurry Elasus, Mulius and Pylartes—
he killed them all but the rest were bent on flight.
And then and there the Achaeans might have taken Troy,
her towering gates toppling under Patroclus’ power
heading the vanguard, storming on with his spear.
But Apollo took his stand on the massive rampart,
his mind blazing with death for him but help for Troy.
Three times Patroclus charged the jut of the high wall,
three times Apollo battered the man and hurled him back,
the god’s immortal hands beating down on the gleaming shield.
Then at Patroclus’ fourth assault like something superhuman,
the god shrieked down his winging words of terror: “Back—
Patroclus, Prince, go back! It is not the will of fate
that the proud Trojans’ citadel fall before your spear,
not even before Achilles—far greater man than you!”
And Patroclus gave ground, backing a good way off,
clear of the deadly Archer’s wrath.
But now Hector,
reining his high-strung team at the Scaean Gates,
debated a moment, waiting ...
should he drive back to the rout and soldier on?
Or call his armies now to rally within the ramparts?
As he turned things over, Apollo stood beside him,
taking the shape of that lusty rugged fighter
Asius, an uncle of stallion-breaking Hector,
a blood brother of Hecuba, son of Dymas
who lived in Phrygia near Sangarius’ rapids.
Like him, Apollo the son of Zeus incited Hector:
“Hector, why stop fighting? Neglecting your duty!
If only I outfought you as you can outfight me,
I’d soon teach you to shirk your work in war—
you’d pay the price, I swear. Up with you—fast!
Lash those pounding stallions straight at Patroclus—
you might kill him still-Apollo might give you glory!”
And back Apollo strode, a god in the wars of men
while glorious Hector ordered skilled Cebriones,
“Flog the team to battle!” Apollo pressed on,
wading into the ruck, hurling Argives back in chaos
and handing glory to Hector and all the Trojan forces.
But Hector ignored the Argive masses, killing none,
he lashed his pounding stallions straight at Patroclus.
Patroclus, over against him, leapt down from his car
and hit the ground, his left hand shaking a spear
and seized with his right a jagged, glittering stone
his hand could just cover—Patroclus flung it hard,
leaning into the heave, not backing away from Hector,
no, and no wasted shot. But he hit his driver—
a bastard son of famed King Priam, Cebriones
yanking the reins back taut—right between the eyes.
The sharp stone crushed both brows, the skull caved in
and both eyes burst from their sockets, dropping down
in the dust before his feet as the reinsman vaulted,
plunging off his well-wrought car like a diver—
Cebriones’ life breath left his bones behind
and you taunted his corpse, Patroclus O my rider:
“Look what a springy man, a nimble, flashy tumbler!
Just think what he’d do at sea where the fish swarm—
why, the man could glut a fleet, diving for oysters!
Plunging overboard, even in choppy, heaving seas,
just as he dives to ground from his war-car now.
Even these Trojans have their tumblers—what a leap!”
And he leapt himself at the fighting driver’s corpse
with the rushing lunge of a lion struck in the chest
as he lays waste pens of cattle—
his own lordly courage about to be his death.
So you sprang at Cebriones, full fury, Patroclus,
as Hector sprang down from his chariot just across
and the two went tussling over the corpse as lions
up on the mountain ridges over a fresh-killed stag—
both ravenous, proud and savage—fight it out to the death.
So over the driver here and both claw-mad for battle,
Patroclus son of Menoetius, Hector ablaze for glory
strained to slash each other with ruthless bronze.
Hector seized the corpse’s head, would not let go—
Patroclus clung to a foot and other fighters clashed,
Trojans, Argives, all in a grueling, maiming onset.
As the East and South Winds fight in killer-squalls
deep in a mountain valley thrashing stands of timber,
oak and ash and cornel with bark stretched taut and hard
and they whip their long sharp branches against each other,
a deafening roar goes up, the splintered timber crashing—
so Achaeans and Trojans crashed,
hacking into each other, and neither side now
had a thought of flight that would have meant disaster.
Showers of whetted spears stuck fast around Cebriones,
bristling winged arrows whipped from the bowstrings,
huge rocks by the salvo battering shields on shields
as they struggled round the corpse. And there he lay
in the whirling dust, overpowered in all his power
and wiped from memory all his horseman’s skills.
So till the sun bestrode the sky at high noon
the weapons hurtled side-to-side and men kept falling.
But once the sun wheeled past the hour for unyoking oxen,
then the Argives mounted a fiercer new attack,
fighting beyond their fates ...
They dragged the hero Cebriones out from under
the pelting shafts and Trojans’ piercing cries
and they tore the handsome war-gear off his back
and Patroclus charged the enemy, fired for the kill.
Three times he charged with the headlong speed of Ares,
screaming his savage cry, three times he killed nine men.