and Diocles bred Orsilochus twinned with Crethon
drilled for any fight. And reaching their prime
they joined the Argives sailing the black ships
outward bound for the stallion-land of Troy,
all for the sons of Atreus,
to fight to the end and win their honor back—
so death put an end to both, wrapped them both in night.
Fresh as two young lions off on the mountain ridges,
twins reared by a lioness deep in the dark glades,
that ravage shepherds’ steadings, mauling the cattle
and fat sheep till it’s their turn to die—hacked down
by the cleaving bronze blades in the shepherds’ hands.
So here the twins were laid low at Aeneas’ hands,
down they crashed like lofty pine trees axed.
Both down
but Menelaus pitied them both, yes, and out for blood
he burst through the front, helmed in fiery bronze,
shaking his spear, and Ares’ fury drove him, Ares
hoping to see him crushed at Aeneas’ hands.
Antilochus marked him now, great Nestor’s son
went racing across the front himself, terrified
for the lord of armies—what if he were killed?
Their hard campaigning just might come to grief.
As Aeneas and Menelaus came within arm’s reach,
waving whetted spears in each other’s faces,
nerved to fight it out, Antilochus rushed in,
tensing shoulder-to-shoulder by his captain now—
and Aeneas shrank from battle, fast as he was in arms,
when he saw that pair of fighters side-by-side,
standing their ground against him ...
Once they’d dragged the bodies back to their lines
they dropped the luckless twins in companions’ open arms
and round they swung again to fight in the first ranks.
And next they killed Pylaemenes tough as Ares,
a captain heading the Paphlagonian shieldsmen,
hot-blooded men. Menelaus the famous spearman
stabbed him right where he stood, the spearpoint
pounding his collarbone to splinters. Antilochus
killed his charioteer and steady henchman Mydon,
Atymnius’ strapping son, just wheeling his racers round
as Antilochus winged a rock and smashed his elbow—
out of his grip the reins white with ivory flew
and slipped to the ground and tangled in the dust.
Antilochus sprang, he plunged a sword in his temple
and Mydon, gasping, hurled from his bolted car facefirst,
head and shoulders stuck in a dune a good long time
for the sand was soft and deep—his lucky day—
till his own horses trampled him down, down flat
as Antilochus lashed them hard and drove them back
to Achaea’s waiting ranks.
But Hector marked them
across the lines and rushed them now with a cry
and Trojan shock troops backed him full strength.
And Ares led them in with the deadly Queen Enyo
bringing Uproar on, the savage chaos of battle—
the god of combat wielding his giant shaft in hand,
now ranging ahead of Hector, now behind him.
Ares there—
and for all his war cries Diomedes shrank at the sight,
as a man at a loss, helpless, crossing a vast plain
halts short at a river rapids surging out to sea,
takes one look at the water roaring up in foam
and springs back with a leap. So he recoiled,
shouting out to comrades, “Oh my friends,
what fools we were to marvel at wondrous Hector,
what a spearman, we said, and what a daring fighter!
But a god goes with him always, beating off disaster—
look, that’s Ares beside him now, just like a mortal!
Give ground, but faces fronting the Trojans always—
no use trying to fight the gods in force.”
So he warned
as the Trojans charged them, harder—and Hector, lunging,
leveled a pair of men who knew the joy of battle,
riding a single chariot, Menesthes and Anchialus.
Down they went and the Great Ajax pitied both,
he strode to their side and loomed there,
loosed a gleaming spear and struck down Amphius,
Selagus’ son who had lived at ease in Paesus,
rich in possessions, rich in rolling wheatland ...
But destiny guided Amphius on, a comrade sworn
to the cause of Priam and all of Priam’s sons.
Now giant Ajax speared him through the belt,
deep in the guts the long, shadowy shaft stuck
and down he fell with a crash as glorious Ajax rushed
to strip his armor—Trojans showering spears against him,
points glittering round him, his shield taking repeated hits.
He dug his heel in the corpse, yanked his own bronze out
but as for the dead man’s burnished gear—no hope.
The giant was helpless to rip it off his back.
Enemy weapons beating against him, worse,
he dreaded the Trojans too, swarming round him,
a tough ring of them, brave and bristling spears,
massing, rearing over their comrade’s body now
and rugged, strong and proud as the Great Ajax was,
they shoved him back—he gave ground, staggering, reeling.
So fighters worked away in the grim shocks of war.
And Heracles’ own son, Tlepolemus tall and staunch ...
his strong fate was driving him now against Sarpedon,
a man like a god. Closing quickly, coming head-to-head
the son and the son’s son of Zeus who marshals storms,
Tlepolemus opened up to taunt his enemy first:
“Sarpedon, master strategist of the Lycians,
what compels you to cringe and cower here?
You raw recruit, green at the skills of battle!
They lie when they say you’re born of storming Zeus.
Look at yourself. How short you fall of the fighters
sired by Zeus in the generations long before us!
Why, think what they say of mighty Heracles—
there was a man, my father,
that dauntless, furious spirit, that lionheart.
He once sailed here for Laomedon’s blooded horses,
with just six ships and smaller crews than yours, true,
but he razed the walls of Troy, he widowed all her streets.
You with your coward’s heart, your men dying round youl
You’re no bulwark come out of Lycia, I can tell you—
no help to Trojans here. For all your power, soldier,
crushed at my hands you’ll breach the gates of Death!”
But Sarpedon the Lycian captain faced him down:
“Right you are, Tlepolemus! Your great father
destroyed the sacred heights of Troy, thanks,
of course, to a man’s stupidity, proud Laomedon.
That fool—he rewarded all his kindness with abuse,