but Athena blew it back from Achilles bent on glory—
a quick light breath and the shaft flew back again
to tall Prince Hector and fell before his feet.
Achilles blazed, charging, raging to cut him down,
loosing savage cries—but Phoebus whisked him away,
easy work for a god, and wrapped him round in mist.
Three times the brilliant runner Achilles charged him,
lunged with his bronze spear, three times he slashed at cloud—
then at Achilles’ fourth assault like something superhuman
his terrifying voice burst out in winging words:
“Now, again, you’ve escaped your death, you dog,
but a good close brush with death it was, I’d say!
Now, again, your Phoebus Apollo pulls you through,
the one you pray to, wading into our storm of spears.
We’ll fight again—I’ll finish you off next time
if one of the gods will only urge me on as well.
But now I’ll go for the others, anyone I can catch.”
Whirling
he stabbed Dryops, speared him right through the neck—
he dropped at his feet and Achilles left him dead
and smashed Demuchus’ knee, Philetor’s strapping son,
stopped him right in his tracks with a well-flung spear
then sprang with his great sword and ripped his life away.
Then on he rushed at the sons of Bias—Laogonus, Dardanus—
hurled them off their chariot, slammed them both to ground,
one with a spear-thrust, one chopped down with a blade.
Then Tros, Alastor’s son, crawled to Achilles’ knees
and clutched them, hoping he’d spare him,
let Tros off alive, no cutting him down in blood,
he’d pity Tros, a man of his own age—the young fool,
he’d no idea, thinking Achilles could be swayed!
Here was a man not sweet at heart, not kind, no,
he was raging, wild—as Tros grasped his knees,
desperate, begging, Achilles slit open his liver,
the liver spurted loose, gushing with dark blood,
drenched his lap and the night swirled down his eyes
as his life breath slipped away.
And Mulius next—
he reared and jammed his lance through the man’s ear
so the lance came jutting out through the other ear,
bronze point glinting.
Echeclus son of Agenor next—
Achilles split his head at the brow with hilted sword
so the whole blade ran hot with blood, and red death
came plunging down his eyes, and the strong force of fate.
Deucalion next—he lanced his arm with a bronze-shod spear,
he spitted the Trojan through where the elbow-tendons grip
and there he stood, waiting Achilles, arm dangling heavy,
staring death in the face—and Achilles chopped his neck
and his sword sent head and helmet flying off together
and marrow bubbling up from the clean-cut neckbone.
Down he went, his corpse full length on the ground—
just as Achilles charged at Piras’ handsome son,
Rhigmus who’d sailed from the fertile soil of Thrace—
Achilles pierced his belly, the bronze impaled his guts
and out of his car he pitched as his driver Areithous
swung the horses round but Achilles speared his back
and the spearshaft heaved him off the chariot too
and the panicked stallions bolted.
Achilles now
like inhuman fire raging on through the mountain gorges
splinter-dry, setting ablaze big stands of timber,
the wind swirling the huge fireball left and right—
chaos of fire—Achilles storming on with brandished spear
like a frenzied god of battle trampling all he killed
and the earth ran black with blood. Thundering on,
on like oxen broad in the brow some field hand yokes
to crush white barley heaped on a well-laid threshing floor
and the grain is husked out fast by the bellowing oxen’s hoofs—
so as the great Achilles rampaged on, his sharp-hoofed stallions
trampled shields and corpses, axle under his chariot splashed
with blood, blood on the handrails sweeping round the car,
sprays of blood shooting up from the stallions’ hoofs
and churning, whirling rims—and the son of Peleus
charioteering on to seize his glory, bloody filth
splattering both strong arms, Achilles’ invincible arms—
BOOK TWENTY-ONE
Achilles Fights the River
But once they reached the ford where the river runs clear,
the strong, whirling Xanthus sprung of immortal Zeus,
Achilles split the Trojan rout, driving one half
back toward the city, scattering up the plain
where Achaeans themselves stampeded off in terror
just the day before when Hector raged unchecked.
Now back in their tracks the Trojans fled pell-mell
while Hera spread dense cloud ahead to block their way.
But the other half were packed in the silver-whirling river,
into its foaming depths they tumbled, splashing, flailing—
the plunging river roaring, banks echoing, roaring back
and the men screamed, swimming wildly, left and right,
spinning round in the whirlpools. Spun like locusts
swarming up in the air, whipped by rushing fire,
flitting toward a river—the tireless fire blazes,
scorching them all with hard explosive blasts of flame
and beaten down in the depths the floating locusts huddle—
so at Achilles’ charge the Xanthus’ swirling currents
choked with a spate of horse and men—the river roared.
And the god-sprung hero left his spear on the bank,
propped on tamarisks—in he leapt like a frenzied god,
his heart racing with slaughter, only his sword in hand,
whirling in circles, stashing—hideous groans breaking,
fighters stabbed by the blade, water flushed with blood.
Like shoals of fish darting before some big-bellied dolphin,
escaping, cramming the coves of a good deepwater harbor,
terrified for their hves—he devours all he catches—
so the Trojans down that terrible river’s onrush
cowered under its bluffs. But soon as Achilles
grew arm-weary from killing, twelve young Trojans
he rounded up from the river, took them all alive
as the blood-price for Patroclus’ death, Menoetius’ son.
He dragged them up on the banks, dazed like fawns,
lashed their hands behind them with well-cut straps—
their own belts that cinched their billowing war-shirts—
gave them to friends to lead away to the beaked ships
and back he whirled, insane to hack more flesh.
And first he met a son of Dardan Priam