on a teeming city, houses caving in to the big blaze
as gale-winds whip it into a roaring conflagration.
So rose the relentless din of horse and fighting men
breaking against them now as they struggled back to shore.
Dead set as mules who put their backs in the labor ...
dragging down from the cliffs along a stony trail
some roof-beam or a heavy ship timber, slogging on
till they nearly burst their hearts with sweat and labor—
so they strained to carry off the corpse. Right behind them
the two Aeantes held the Trojans off as a wooded rocky ridge
stretched out across an entire plain holds back a flood,
fighting off the killer-tides of the mounting rivers,
beating them all back to swamp the lowland flats—
none of their pounding waves can make a breakthrough.
So the two Aeantes kept on beating the Trojans off
but on they came, assaulting the rear, two in the lead,
Aeneas the son of Anchises flanking glorious Hector.
Flying before them now like clouds of crows or starlings
screaming murder, seeing a falcon dive in for the kill,
the hawk that wings grim death at smaller birds—
so pursued by Aeneas and Hector Argive fighters
raced, screaming death-cries, lust for battle lost
and masses of fine armor littered both sides of the trench
as the Argives fled in fear, no halt in the fighting, not now—
BOOK EIGHTEEN
The Shield of Achilles
So the men fought on like a mass of whirling fire
as swift Antilochus raced the message toward Achilles.
Sheltered under his curving, beaked ships he found him,
foreboding, deep down, all that had come to pass.
Agonizing now he probed his own great heart:
“Why, why? Our long-haired Achaeans routed again,
driven in terror off the plain to crowd the ships, but why?
Dear gods, don’t bring to pass the grief that haunts my heart—
the prophecy that mother revealed to me one time ...
she said the best of the Myrmidons—while I lived—
would fall at Trojan hands and leave the light of day.
And now he’s dead, I know it. Menoetius’ gallant son,
my headstrong friend! And I told Patroclus clearly,
‘Once you have beaten off the lethal fire, quick,
come back to the ships—you must not battle Hector!’ ”
As such fears went churning through his mind
the warlord Nestor’s son drew near him now,
streaming warm tears, to give the dreaded message:
“Ah son of royal Peleus, what you must hear from me!
What painful news—would to god it had never happened!
Patroclus has fallen. They’re fighting over his corpse.
He’s stripped, naked—Hector with that flashing helmet,
Hector has your arms!”
So the captain reported.
A black cloud of grief came shrouding over Achilles.
Both hands clawing the ground for soot and filth,
he poured it over his head, fouled his handsome face
and black ashes settled onto his fresh clean war-shirt.
Overpowered in all his power, sprawled in the dust,
Achilles lay there, fallen ...
tearing his hair, defiling it with his own hands.
And the women he and Patroclus carried off as captives
caught the grief in their hearts and keened and wailed,
out of the tents they ran to ring the great Achilles,
all of them beat their breasts with clenched fists,
sank to the ground, each woman’s knees gave way.
Antilochus kneeling near, weeping uncontrollably,
clutched Achilles’ hands as he wept his proud heart out—
for fear he would slash his throat with an iron blade.
Achilles suddenly loosed a terrible, wrenching cry
and his noble mother heard him, seated near her father,
the Old Man of the Sea in the salt green depths,
and she cried out in turn. And immortal sea-nymphs
gathered round their sister, all the Nereids dwelling
down the sounding depths, they all came rushing now—
Glitter, blossoming Spray and the swells’ Embrace,
Fair-Isle and shadowy Cavern, Mist and Spindrift,
ocean nymphs of the glances pooling deep and dark,
Race-with-the-Waves and Headlands’ Hope and Safe Haven,
Glimmer of Honey, Suave-and-Soothing, Whirlpool, Brilliance,
Bounty and First Light and Speeder of Ships and buoyant Power,
Welcome Home and Bather of Meadows and Master’s Lovely
Consort,
Gift of the Sea, Eyes of the World and the famous milk-white Calm
and Truth and Never-Wrong and the queen who rules the tides
in beauty
and in rushed Glory and Healer of Men and the one who rescues
kings
and Sparkler, Down-from-the-Cliffs, sleek-haired Strands of Sand
and all the rest of the Nereids dwelling down the depths.
The silver cave was shimmering full of sea-nymphs,
all in one mounting chorus beating their breasts
as Thetis launched the dirge: “Hear me, sisters,
daughters of Nereus, so you all will know it well—
listen to all the sorrows welling in my heart!
I am agony—
mother of grief and greatness—O my child!
Yes, I gave birth to a flawless, mighty son ...
the splendor of heroes, and he shot up like a young branch,
like a fine tree I reared him—the orchard’s crowning glory—
but only to send him off in the beaked ships to Troy
to battle Trojans! Never again will I embrace him
striding home through the doors of Peleus’ house.
And long as I have him with me, still alive,
looking into the sunlight, he is racked with anguish.
And I, I go to his side—nothing I do can help him.
Nothing. But go I shall, to see my darling boy,
to hear what grief has come to break his heart
while he holds back from battle.”
So Thetis cried
as she left the cave and her sisters swam up with her,
all in a tide of tears, and billowing round them now
the ground swell heaved open. And once they reached
the fertile land of Troy they all streamed ashore,
row on row in a long cortege, the sea-nymphs
filing up where the Myrmidon ships lay hauled,
clustered closely round the great runner Achilles ...
As he groaned from the depths his mother rose before him
and sobbing a sharp cry, cradled her son’s head in her hands
and her words were all compassion, winging pity: “My child—
why in tears? What sorrow has touched your heart?
Tell me, please. Don’t harbor it deep inside you.