Achilles (Mythological character); Classical literature; Epic poetry, Greek -- Translations into English; Trojan War
Again he aimed at Hector, for he was longing to hit him, and
again his arrow missed, for Apollo turned it aside; but he hit
Hector’s brave charioteer Archeptolemus in the breast, by the
nipple, as he was driving furiously into the fight. The horses
swerved aside as he fell headlong from the chariot, and there was
no life left in him. Hector was greatly grieved at the loss of
his charioteer, but for all his sorrow he let him lie where he
fell, and bade his brother Cebriones, who was hard by, take the
reins. Cebriones did as he had said. Hector thereon with a loud
cry sprang from his chariot to the ground, and seizing a great
stone made straight for Teucer with intent to kill him. Teucer
had just taken an arrow from his quiver and had laid it upon the
bowstring, but Hector struck him with the jagged stone as he was
taking aim and drawing the string to his shoulder; he hit him
just where the collar-bone divides the neck from the chest, a
very deadly place, and broke the sinew of his arm so that his
wrist was less, and the bow dropped from his hand as he fell
forward on his knees. Ajax saw that his brother had fallen, and
running towards him bestrode him and sheltered him with his
shield. Meanwhile his two trusty squires, Mecisteus son of
Echius, and Alastor, came up and bore him to the ships groaning
in his great pain.
Jove now again put heart into the Trojans, and they drove the
Achaeans to their deep trench with Hector in all his glory at
their head. As a hound grips a wild boar or lion in flank or
buttock when he gives him chase, and watches warily for his
wheeling, even so did Hector follow close upon the Achaeans, ever
killing the hindmost as they rushed panic-stricken onwards. When
they had fled through the set stakes and trench and many Achaeans
had been laid low at the hands of the Trojans, they halted at
their ships, calling upon one another and praying every man
instantly as they lifted up their hands to the gods; but Hector
wheeled his horses this way and that, his eyes glaring like those
of Gorgo or murderous Mars.
Juno when she saw them had pity upon them, and at once said to
Minerva, “Alas, child of aegis-bearing Jove, shall you and I take
no more thought for the dying Danaans, though it be the last time
we ever do so? See how they perish and come to a bad end before
the onset of but a single man. Hector the son of Priam rages with
intolerable fury, and has already done great mischief.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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