The Iliad

grappling for the ships, you’d run no risk of death:

you lack the heart to last it out in combat—coward!

But if you hold back from the bloody foray here

or turn some other soldier back from battle,

winning him over—you with your soft appeals—

at one quick stroke my spear will beat you down,

you’ll breathe your last!“

Shouting he led the charge

and his armies swarmed behind with blood-chilling cries.

And above their onset Zeus who loves the lightning

launched from Ida’s summits a sudden howling gale

that whipped a dust storm hard against the ships,

spellbinding Achaean units in their tracks,

handing glory to Hector and Hector’s Trojans.

Inspired by the signs and their own raw power

all pitched in to smash the Achaeans’ massive wall.

They tore at the towers’ outworks, pulled at battlements,

heaving, trying to pry loose with levers the buttress stakes

Achaeans first drove in the earth to shore the rampart up—

they struggled to root these out, hoping to break down

the Achaean wall itself. But not yet did the Argives

give way to assault—no, they stopped the breaches up

with oxhide shields and down from the breastwork heights

they hurled rocks at the enemy coming on beneath the wall.

And the two Aeantes ranged all points of the rampart,

calling out commands to spur their comrades’ fury.

Now cheering a soldier on, tongue-lashing the next

if they marked a straggler hanging back from battle:

“Friends—you in the highest ranks of Argives,

you in the midst and you in rank and file,

we cannot all be equal in battle, ever,

but now the battle lies before us all—

come, see for yourselves, look straight down.

Now let no fighter be turned back to the ships,

not with his captain’s orders ringing in his ears—

keep pressing forward, shouting each other on!

If only Olympian Zeus the lord of lightning

grants us strength to repel this Trojan charge

then carve a passage through to Troy’s high walls!”

So their cries urged on the Achaeans’ war-lust.

Thick-and-fast as the snows that fall on a winter dawn

when Zeus who rules the world brings on a blizzard,

displaying to all mankind his weaponry of war ...

and he puts the winds to sleep, drifting on and on

until he has shrouded over the mountains’ looming peaks

and the headlands jutting sharp, the lowlands deep in grass

and the rich plowed work of farming men, and the drifts fall

on the gray salt surf and the harbors and down along the beaches

and only breakers beating against the drifts can hold them off

but all else on the earth they cover over, snows from the sky

when Zeus comes storming down—now so thick-and-fast

they volleyed rocks from both sides, some at the Trojans,

some from Trojans against the Argives, salvos landing,

the whole long rampart thundering under blows.

But not even now would Trojans and Prince Hector

have burst apart the rampart’s gates and huge bar

if Zeus the Master Strategist had not driven

his own son Sarpedon straight at the Argives,

strong as a lion raiding crook-homed cattle.

Quickly Sarpedon swung his shield before him—

balanced and handsome beaten bronze a bronzesmith

hammered out with layer on layer of hide inside

and stitched with golden rivets round the rim.

That splendid shield he gripped before his chest

and shaking a pair of spears went stalking out

like a mountain lion starved for meat too long

and the lordly heart inside him fires him up

to raid some stormproof fold, to go at the sheep,

and even if he should light on herdsmen at the spot,

guarding their flocks with dogs and bristling spears,

the marauder has no mind to be driven off that steading,

not without an attack. All or nothing—he charges flocks

and hauls off bloody prey or he’s run through himself

at the first assault with a fast spear driven home.

So how the heart of Sarpedon stalwart as a god

impelled him to charge the wall and break it down.

He quickly called Hippolochus’ son: “Glaucus,

why do they hold us both in honor, first by far

with pride of place, choice meats and brimming cups,

in Lycia where all our people look on us like gods?

Why make us lords of estates along the Xanthus’ banks,

rich in vineyards and plowland rolling wheat?

So that now the duty’s ours—

we are the ones to head our Lycian front,

brace and fling ourselves in the blaze of war,

so a comrade strapped in combat gear may say,

‘Not without fame, the men who rule in Lycia,

these kings of ours who eat fat cuts of lamb

and drink sweet wine, the finest stock we have.

But they owe it all to their own fighting strength—

our great men of war, they lead our way in battle!’

Ah my friend, if you and I could escape this fray

and live forever, never a trace of age, immortal,

I would never fight on the front lines again

or command you to the field where men win fame.

But now, as it is, the fates of death await us,

thousands poised to strike, and not a man alive

can flee them or escape—so in we go for attack!

Give our enemy glory or win it for ourselves!”

Glaucus did not turn back or shun that call—

on they charged, leading the Lycians’ main mass.

And Peteos’ son Menestheus cringed to see them

heading straight for his bastion, hurling ruin on ...

He scanned the Achaean rampart: where could he find

some chief, some captain to fight disaster off his men?

He spotted the Great and Little Ajax, gluttons for battle,

flanking Teucer fresh from his shelter, side-by-side.

But Menestheus could not reach them with a shout—

the din was deafening, war cries hitting the skies,

spears battering shields and helmets’ horsehair crests

and the huge gates all bolted shut, but against them there

the Trojans tensed and heaved, trying to smash them down

and force a passage through. At once Menestheus

sped a herald to Ajax: “Run for it, quick one,

call Great Ajax here—

both of them, better yet, that’s best of all.

Headlong ruin’s massing against us quickly.

Lycia’s captains are bearing down too hard,

fierce as they always were in past attacks.

But if fighting’s flaring up in their own sector,