Achilles (Mythological character); Classical literature; Epic poetry, Greek -- Translations into English; Trojan War
Which of the Trojans did brave Teucer first kill? Orsilochus, and
then Ormenus and Ophelestes, Daetor, Chromius, and godlike
Lycophontes, Amopaon son of Polyaemon, and Melanippus. All these
in turn did he lay low upon the earth, and King Agamemnon was
glad when he saw him making havoc of the Trojans with his mighty
bow. He went up to him and said, “Teucer, man after my own heart,
son of Telamon, captain among the host, shoot on, and be at once
the saving of the Danaans and the glory of your father Telamon,
who brought you up and took care of you in his own house when you
were a child, bastard though you were. Cover him with glory
though he is far off; I will promise and I will assuredly
perform; if aegis-bearing Jove and Minerva grant me to sack the
city of Ilius, you shall have the next best meed of honour after
my own—a tripod, or two horses with their chariot, or a woman who
shall go up into your bed.”
And Teucer answered, “Most noble son of Atreus, you need not urge
me; from the moment we began to drive them back to Ilius, I have
never ceased so far as in me lies to look out for men whom I can
shoot and kill; I have shot eight barbed shafts, and all of them
have been buried in the flesh of warlike youths, but this mad dog
I cannot hit.”
As he spoke he aimed another arrow straight at Hector, for he was
bent on hitting him; nevertheless he missed him, and the arrow
hit Priam’s brave son Gorgythion in the breast. His mother, fair
Castianeira, lovely as a goddess, had been married from Aesyme,
and now he bowed his head as a garden poppy in full bloom when it
is weighed down by showers in spring—even thus heavy bowed his
head beneath the weight of his helmet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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