Achilles (Mythological character); Epic poetry, Greek -- Translations into English; Trojan War
So spake the god, and went back again into the moil of men. But
renowned Hector bade wise-hearted Kebriones to lash his horses into the
war. Then Apollo went and passed into the press, and sent a dread panic
among the Argives, but to the Trojans and Hector gave he renown. And
Hector let the other Argives be, and slew none of them, but against
Patroklos he turned his strong-hooved horses, and Patroklos on the
other side leaped from his chariot to the ground, with a spear in his
left hand, and in his other hand grasped a shining jagged stone, that
his hand covered. Firmly he planted himself and hurled it, nor long did
he shrink from his foe, nor was his cast in vain, but he struck
Kebriones the charioteer of Hector, the bastard son of renowned Priam,
on the brow with the sharp stone, as he held the reins of the horses.
Both his brows the stone drave together, and his bone held not, but his
eyes fell to the ground in the dust, there, in front of his feet. Then
he, like a diver, fell from the well-wrought car, and his spirit left
his bones. Then taunting him didst thou address him, knightly
Patroklos: “Out on it, how nimble a man, how lightly he diveth! Yea, if
perchance he were on the teeming deep, this man would satisfy many by
seeking for oysters, leaping from the ship, even if it were stormy
weather, so lightly now he diveth from the chariot into the plain.
Verily among the Trojans too there be diving men.”
So speaking he set on the hero Kebriones with the rush of a lion, that
while wasting the cattle-pens is smitten in the breast, and his own
valour is his bane, even so against Kebriones, Patroklos, didst thou
leap furiously. But Hector, on the other side, leaped from his chariot
to the ground. And these twain strove for Kebriones like lions, that on
the mountain peaks fight, both hungering, both high of heart, for a
slain hind. Even so for Kebriones’ sake these two masters of the
war-cry, Patroklos son of Menoitios, and renowned Hector, were eager
each to hew the other’s flesh with the ruthless bronze.
Hector then seized him by the head, and slackened not hold, while
Patroklos on the other side grasped him by the foot, and thereon the
others, Trojans and Danaans, joined strong battle. And as the East wind
and the South contend with one another in shaking a deep wood in the
dells of a mountain, shaking beech, and ash, and smooth-barked cornel
tree, that clash against each other their long boughs with marvellous
din, and a noise of branches broken, so the Trojans and Achaians were
leaping on each other and slaying, nor had either side any thought of
ruinous flight. And many sharp darts were fixed around Kebriones, and
winged arrows leaping from the bow-string, and many mighty stones smote
the shields of them that fought around him. But he in the whirl of dust
lay mighty and mightily fallen, forgetful of his chivalry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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