never gave him the mares he’d come so far to win.
But the only thing you’ll win at my hands here,
I promise you, is slaughter and black doom.
Gouged by my spear you’ll give me glory now,
you’ll give your life to the famous horseman Death!”
In fast reply Tlepolemus raised his ashen spear
and the same moment shafts flew from their hands
and Sarpedon hit him square across the neck,
the spear went ramming through—pure agony—
black night came swirling down across his eyes.
But Tlepolemus’ shaft had struck Sarpedon too,
the honed tip of the weapon hitting his left thigh,
ferocious, razoring into flesh and scraping bone
but his Father beat off death a little longer.
Heroic Sarpedon—
his loyal comrades bore him out of the fighting quickly,
weighed down by the heavy spearshaft dragging on.
But hurrying so, no one noticed or even thought
to wrench the ashen javelin from his thigh
so the man could hobble upright. On they rushed,
bent on the work of tending to his body.
Tlepolemus—
far across the lines the armed Achaeans hauled him
out of the fight, and seasoned Odysseus saw it,
his brave spirit steady, ablaze for action now.
What should he do?—he racked his heart and soul—
lunge at Prince Sarpedon, son of storming Zeus,
or go at the Lycians’ mass and kill them all?
But no, it was not the gallant Odysseus’ fate
to finish Zeus’s rugged son with his sharp bronze,
so Pallas swung his fury against the Lycian front.
Whirling, killing Coeranus, Chromius and Alastor,
killing Alcander and Halius, Prytanis and Noemon—
and stalwart Odysseus would have killed still more
but tall Hector, his helmet flashing, marked him quickly,
plowed through the front, helmed in fiery bronze,
filling the Argives’ hearts with sudden terror.
And Zeus’s son Sarpedon rejoiced to see him
striding past and begged him in his pain,
“Son of Priam, don’t leave me lying here,
such easy prey for the Danaans—protect me!
Later I’ll bleed to death inside your walls.
Clearly it’s not my fate
to journey home again to the fatherland I love,
to bring some joy to my dear wife, my baby son.”
But Hector,
his helmet flashing, answered nothing—he swept past him,
Hector burning to thrust the Argives back at once
and tear the life and soul out of whole battalions.
But Sarpedon’s loyal comrades laid him down,
a man like a god beneath a fine spreading oak
sacred to Zeus whose shield is banked with clouds.
The veteran Pelagon, one of his closest aides,
pushed the shaft of ashwood out through his wound—
his spirit left him—a mist poured down his eyes . . .
but he caught his breath again. A gust of the North Wind
blowing round him carried back the life breath
he had gasped away in pain.
But the Argive fighters?
Facing Ares’ power and Hector helmed in bronze,
they neither turned and ran for their black ships
nor traded blows with enemies man-to-man.
Backing over and over, the Argives gave ground,
seeing the lord of battles lead the Trojan onset.
Who was the first they slaughtered, who the last,
the brazen god of war and Hector son of Priam?
Teuthras first, Orestes lasher of stallions next,
an Aetolian spearman Trechus, Oenomaus and Helenus,
Oenops’ son, and Oresbius cinched with shining belt
who had lived in Hyle hoarding his great wealth,
his estate aslope the shores of Lake Cephisus,
and round him Boeotians held the fertile plain.
But soon as the white-armed goddess Hera saw them
mauling Argive units caught in the bloody press,
she winged her words at Pallas: “What disaster!
Daughter of storming Zeus, tireless one, Athena—
how hollow our vow to Menelaus that he would sack
the mighty walls of Troy before he sailed for home—
if we let murderous Ares rampage on this way. Up now,
set our minds on our own fighting-fury!”
Hera’s challenge—
and goddess Athena, her eyes afire, could not resist.
Hera queen of the gods, daughter of giant Cronus,
launched the work, harnessed the golden-bridled team
and Hebe quickly rolled the wheels to the chariot,
paired wheels with their eight spokes all bronze,
and bolted them on at both ends of the iron axle.
Fine wheels with fellies of solid, deathless gold
and round them running rims of bronze clamped fast—
a marvel to behold! The silver hubs spin round
on either side of the chariot’s woven body,
gold and silver lashings strapping it tight,
double rails sweeping along its deep full curves
and the yoke-pole jutting forward, gleaming silver.
There at the tip she bound the gorgeous golden yoke,
she fastened the gorgeous golden breast straps next
and under the yoke Queen Hera led the horses, racers
blazing for war and the piercing shrieks of battle.
Then Athena, child of Zeus whose shield is thunder,
letting fall her supple robe at the Father’s threshold—
rich brocade, stitched with her own hands’ labor—
donned the battle-shirt of the lord of lightning,
buckled her breastplate geared for wrenching war
and over her shoulders slung her shield, all tassels
flaring terror—Panic mounted high in a crown around it,
Hate and Defense across it, Assault to freeze the blood
and right in their midst the Gorgon’s monstrous head,
that rippling dragon horror, sign of storming Zeus.
Then over her brows Athena placed her golden helmet
fronted with four knobs and forked with twin horns,
engraved with the fighting men of a hundred towns.
Then onto the flaming chariot Pallas set her feet
and seized her spear—weighted, heavy, the massive shaft
she wields to break the battle lines of heroes
the mighty Father’s daughter storms against.
A crack of the whip—
the goddess Hera lashed the team, and all on their own force
the gates of heaven thundered open, kept by the Seasons,
guards of the vaulting sky and Olympus heights empowered
to spread the massing clouds or close them round once more.
Now straight through the great gates she drove the team,
whipping them on full tilt until they came to Zeus
the son of Cronus sitting far from the other gods,
throned on the topmost crag of rugged ridged Olympus.