just escaping the rapids—Lycaon, the very man
Achilles seized himself, once on a midnight raid,
and hauled from his father’s orchard, resisting all the way.
He was pruning a young fig with his sharp bronze hook,
cutting green branches to bend for chariot-rails
when a sudden blow came down on him in the dark—
the grim marauder Achilles. That was the time
he shipped him to Lemnos fortress, sold him off
and the son of Jason paid the price for the slave,
but a stranger there released him from his chains,
Eetion out of Imbros paid a princely ransom
and sent him off to Arisbe’s shining walls.
From there he slipped away to his father’s house,
struggling home from Lemnos, but only eleven days
he cheered his heart with friends. Then on the twelfth
some god cast him into Achilles’ hands again
and now he would send him off on a new journey,
resisting all the way to the House of Death.
The swift runner recognized him at once—
disarmed, no shield, no helmet, no spear left,
he’d scattered all his gear on the bank, sweating,
clambering out of the ford exhausted, knees buckling ...
Achilles, filled with rage, addressed his own great heart:
“By heaven, an awesome miracle right before my eyes!
These gallant, die-hard Trojans, even those I’ve killed,
they’ll all come rising back from the western gloom!
Look at this fellow here, back he comes again,
fleeing his fatal day—
and I’d sold him off as a slave in holy Lemnos
but the heaving gray salt sea can’t hold him back,
though it stops whole fleets of men who buck its tides.
Let’s try again—this time he’ll taste my spearpoint.
Now we’ll see, once and for all we’ll know
if he returns as fast from his newest destination—
or the firm life-giving earth can hold him down,
the grave that hugs the strongest man alive.”
Waiting,
plotting, the other stumbling toward him, stunned,
wild to grasp his knees, wild with all his heart
to escape his death and grueling black fate
as the great Achilles raised his massive spear,
wild to run him through—
He ducked, ran under the hurl
and seized Achilles’ knees as the spear shot past his back
and stuck in the earth, still starved for human flesh.
And begging now, one hand clutching Achilles’ knees,
the other gripping the spear, holding for dear life,
Lycaon burst out with a winging prayer: “Achilles!
I hug your knees—mercy!—spare my life!
I am your suppliant, Prince, you must respect me!
Yours was the first bread I broke, Demeter’s gift,
that day you seized me in Priam’s well-fenced orchard,
hauled me away from father, loved ones, sold me off
in holy Lemnos and I, I fetched you a hundred bulls—
and once released I brought three times that price.
And it’s just twelve days that I’ve been home in Troy—
all I’ve suffered! But now, again, some murderous fate
has placed me in your hands, your prisoner twice over—
Father Zeus must hate me, giving me back to you!
Ah, to a short life you bore me, mother—mother,
she was Laothoë, aged Altes’ daughter ...
Altes who rules the Leleges always keen for war,
who holds the Pedasus heights along the Satniois—
and Priam wed his daughter, with many other wives,
and she produced two sons, and you, you’ll butcher both!
One you killed in the ranks of frontline fighters,
noble Polydorus, ran him down with your lance
and a gruesome death awaits me here and now—
no hope of escape for me, from your clutches,
not when destiny drives me up against you.
Listen, this too—take it to heart, I beg you—
don’t kill me! I’m not from the same womb as Hector,
Hector who killed your friend, your strong, gentle friend!”
So the illustrious son of Priam begged for life
but only heard a merciless voice in answer: “Fool,
don’t talk to me of ransom. No more speeches.
Before Patroclus met his day of destiny, true,
it warmed my heart a bit to spare some Trojans:
droves I took alive and auctioned off as slaves.
But now not a single Trojan flees his death,
not one the gods hand over to me before your gates,
none of all the Trojans, sons of Priam least of all!
Come, friend, you too must die. Why moan about it so?
Even Patroclus died, a far, far better man than you.
And look, you see how handsome and powerful I am?
The son of a great man, the mother who gave me life
a deathless goddess. But even for me, I tell you,
death and the strong force of fate are waiting.
There will come a dawn or sunset or high noon
when a man will take my life in battle too—
flinging a spear perhaps
or whipping a deadly arrow off his bow.”
At that
Lycaon’s knees gave way on the spot, his heart too.
He let go of the spear, he sank back down ...
spreading both arms wide. Drawing his sharp sword
Achilles struck his collarbone just beside the neck
and the two-edged blade drove home, plunging to the hilt—
and down on the ground he sprawled, stretched facefirst
and dark blood pouring out of him drenched the earth.
Achilles grabbed a foot, slung him into the river,
washed away downstream as he cried above him
savage words to wing him on his way: “There—
lie there! Make your bed with the fishes now,
they’ll dress your wound and lick it clean of blood—
so much for your last rites! Nor will your mother
lay your corpse on a bier and mourn her darling son—
whirling Scamander will roll you down the sea’s broad bosom!
And many a fish, leaping up through the waves, breaking
the cold ripples shivering dark will dart and bolt
Lycaon’s glistening fat! Die, Trojans, die—
till I butcher all the way to sacred Troy—
run headlong on, I’ll hack you from behind!
Nothing can save you now—
not even your silver-whirling, mighty-tiding river—
not for all the bulls you’ve slaughtered to it for years,
the rearing stallions drowned alive in its eddies ... die!—
even so—writhing in death till all you Trojans pay
for Patroclus’ blood and the carnage of Achaeans
killed by the racing ships when I was out of action!”
The more he vaunted the more the river’s anger rose,