Achilles (Mythological character); Epic poetry, Greek -- Translations into English; Trojan War
And Idomeneus relaxed not his mighty force, but ever was striving,
either to cover some one of the Trojans with black night, or himself to
fall in warding off death from the Achaians. There the dear son of
Aisyetes, fosterling of Zeus, even the hero Alkathoos, was slain, who
was son-in-law of Anchises, and had married the eldest of his
daughters, Hippodameia, whom her father and her lady mother dearly
loved in the halls, for she excelled all the maidens of her age in
beauty, and skill, and in wisdom, wherefore the best man in wide Troy
took her to wife. This Alkathoos did Poseidon subdue to Idomeneus,
throwing a spell over his shining eyes, and snaring his glorious limbs;
so that he might neither flee backwards, nor avoid the stroke, but
stood steady as a pillar, or a tree with lofty crown of leaves, when
the hero Idomeneus smote him in the midst of the breast with the spear,
and rent the coat of bronze about him, that aforetime warded death from
his body, but now rang harsh as it was rent by the spear. And he fell
with a crash, and the lance fixed in his heart, that, still beating,
shook the butt-end of the spear. Then at length mighty Ares spent its
fury there; but Idomeneus boasted terribly, and cried aloud:
“Deiphobos, are we to deem it fair acquittal that we have slain three
men for one, since thou boastest thus? Nay, sir, but stand thou up also
thyself against me, that thou mayst know what manner of son of Zeus am
I that have come hither! For Zeus first begat Minos, the warden of
Crete, and Minos got him a son, the noble Deukalion, and Deukalion
begat me, a prince over many men in wide Crete, and now have the ships
brought me hither, a bane to thee and thy father, and all the Trojans.”
Thus he spake, but the thoughts of Deiphobos were divided, whether he
should retreat, and call to his aid some one of the great-hearted
Trojans, or should try the adventure alone. And on this wise to his
mind it seemed the better, to go after Aineias, whom he found standing
the last in the press, for Aineias was ever wroth against goodly Priam,
for that Priam gave him no honour, despite his valour among men. So
Deiphobos stood by him, and spake winged words to him: “Aineias, thou
counsellor of the Trojans, now verily there is great need that thou
shouldst succour thy sister’s husband, if any care for kin doth touch
thee. Nay follow, let us succour Alkathoos, thy sister’s husband, who
of old did cherish thee in his hall, while thou wert but a little one,
and now, lo, spear-famed Idomeneus hath stripped him of his arms!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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