Homer · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
Now the grim battle between Trojans and Achaeans was left to itself, and the fighting surged this way and that across the plain as the two sides drove their bronze spears at one another between the Simoeis and the streams of the Xanthus. Ajax son of Telamon, bulwark of the Achaeans, was first to break through a Trojan line and bring light to his comrades, striking down a man who was the best of the Thracians, tall and strong, Acamas son of Eussorus. Ajax hit him first on the ridge of his horsehair helmet, and the point drove into his forehead and on through the bone.
The bronze spearhead went in, and darkness closed over his eyes. Diomedes, loud in the war cry, killed Axylus son of Teuthras, who had lived in well-built Arisbe, a man rich in substance and loved by everyone, for he made a friend of every traveler who passed his house on the road. But not one of them stood before him now to keep off grim destruction; Diomedes took the life of both the man and his attendant Calesius, who was then his chariot driver, and the two of them went down together into the earth. Euryalus cut down Dresus and Opheltius,
and pressed on after Aesepus and Pedasus, sons the river nymph Abarbarea had once borne to blameless Bucolion. Bucolion was the eldest son of proud Laomedon, born to him in secret, for his mother had conceived him unlawfully. While he was tending his flocks he had lain with the nymph in love, and she had conceived and borne him twin sons. And now Euryalus, son of Mecisteus, loosed the strength and shining limbs of both and stripped the armor from their shoulders. Menace-in-battle Polypoetes killed Astyalus, Odysseus cut down Pidytes of Percote
with his bronze spear, and Teucer killed godlike Aretaon. Antilochus son of Nestor brought down Ableros with his gleaming spear, and Agamemnon, lord of men, killed Elatus, who had lived by the fair-flowing banks of the Satnioeis, in steep Pedasus. Leitus the hero caught Phylacus as he fled, and Eurypylus cut down Melanthius. Then Menelaus, loud in the war cry, took Adrestus alive, for the man's two horses, bolting in panic across the plain, caught their chariot pole on a tamarisk branch and snapped it,
and bolted on toward the city, the way all the other frightened horses were running, while Adrestus himself was thrown from the car beside the wheel and fell face down in the dust on his mouth. Menelaus, son of Atreus, came and stood over him, holding his long-shadowed spear. Adrestus caught him by the knees and begged him: "Take me alive, son of Atreus, and accept a fitting ransom. In my father's rich house many treasures lie stored up, bronze and gold and well-worked iron, and my father would gladly give you a boundless ransom for them if he learned I was alive among the Achaean ships."
So he spoke, and he was winning the heart in Menelaus's chest, and Menelaus was on the point of handing him over to an attendant to lead down to the swift Achaean ships. But just then Agamemnon came running up to face him and cried out in rebuke: "Softness, Menelaus? Why show such concern for these men? Has it really gone so well for you at home from the Trojans? No — let not one of them escape sheer destruction at our hands, not even the boy a mother carries still in her womb, not even that one — let all of them together perish out of Troy, unmourned and unremembered."
So the hero spoke, turning his brother's mind, urging what was right, and Menelaus with his own hand shoved the warrior Adrestus away from him, and lord Agamemnon struck him in the flank; he fell backward, and the son of Atreus planted his heel on his chest and wrenched out the ashen spear. Then Nestor called out to the Argives in a great voice: "Friends, warrior Danaans, servants of Ares, let no man now hang back to strip the dead and load himself with plunder, so as to reach the ships bearing the most; let us kill the men first — afterward at your leisure
you can strip the dead bodies all across the plain." So he spoke, and roused the fighting spirit in every man. And now the Trojans, beaten down by their own faintness of heart, would have gone climbing back up into Ilion before the war-loving Achaeans, had not Helenus, son of Priam, far the best of augurs, come and stood by Aeneas and Hector and said to them: "Aeneas and Hector, since the burden of the fighting for Trojans and Lycians falls heaviest on you two, because you are the best at everything, whether it calls for fighting or for thinking — stand your ground here, and range everywhere among the men, holding them back before the gates,
before they go tumbling in flight into the arms of their women, and become a joy to our enemies. Once you have roused all our companies of fighters, we will stand our ground here and fight the Danaans, however hard-pressed we are — necessity drives us to it. But you, Hector, go into the city, and tell our mother, yours and mine, to gather the older women together, and at the temple of grey-eyed Athena high in the city, to open the doors of the sacred house with her key, and take the robe that seems to her the loveliest
and the largest in the great hall, and the one she herself loves best, and lay it on the knees of Athena of the lovely hair, and vow to her that she will sacrifice twelve heifers in her temple, yearlings that have never felt the goad, if only she will take pity on the city, and on the wives of Troy, and on their little children, and hold back from sacred Ilion the son of Tydeus, that savage spearman, that mighty master of the rout, whom I say is the strongest of all the Achaeans. We never feared Achilles so, leader of men though he is,
and they say he was born of a goddess — but this man rages beyond all bounds, and no one can match his fury." So he spoke, and Hector did not disobey his brother. At once he leapt down from his chariot in full armor, and went everywhere through the army brandishing his sharp spears, rousing them to fight, and stirred up the grim battle. And the Trojans wheeled about and stood to face the Achaeans, and the Argives fell back and gave up the slaughter, thinking some immortal had come down from the starry sky
to fight for the Trojans, so suddenly had they turned. And Hector called out to the Trojans in a great voice: "Proud Trojans, and you far-famed allies, be men, my friends, and remember your furious courage, while I go to Ilion and tell the elders of the council and our wives to pray to the gods and vow them offerings." So spoke Hector of the flashing helm, and went off; the black leather rim of his great bossed shield beat against his ankles and his neck as he walked. Meanwhile Glaucus, son of Hippolochus, and the son of Tydeus
came together in the space between the two armies, both eager to fight. And when they had come close, advancing on one another, Diomedes, loud in the war cry, spoke first: "Who are you, brave friend, among mortal men? I have never seen you before in the fighting where men win their glory, yet now you have come forward far ahead of all the rest, daring to face my long-shadowed spear. Unlucky are the fathers whose sons stand up against my fury. But if you are one of the immortals come down from heaven,
I have no wish to fight with the gods of the sky. Not even the strong son of Dryas, Lycurgus, lived long,
once he tried to quarrel with the gods of heaven. He once chased the nurses of raving Dionysus down over the holy mountain of Nysa, and all of them together flung their sacred wands to the ground under the man-killing goad of Lycurgus as he struck them. Dionysus, terrified, plunged beneath the swell of the sea, and Thetis took him into her lap, trembling, for a fierce fear had seized him at the man's onslaught. But then the gods who live at ease grew angry with Lycurgus, and the son of Cronus struck him blind, and he did not live much longer after that,
since he had become hateful to all the immortal gods. So I have no wish to fight with the blessed gods. But if you are one of the mortals who eat the fruit of the earth, come closer, and you will all the sooner reach the limit of death." Then the shining son of Hippolochus answered him: "Great-hearted son of Tydeus, why do you ask about my lineage? Like the generations of leaves, so are those of men. The wind scatters one year's leaves on the ground, but the growing wood puts out others when the season of spring comes again — so it is with the generations of men, one grows while another passes away. But if you wish to learn this too, so that you may know
my lineage well — many men know it — there is a city, Ephyre, in a corner of Argos where horses graze, and there lived Sisyphus, who was the most cunning of men, Sisyphus son of Aeolus. He fathered a son, Glaucus, and Glaucus in turn fathered blameless Bellerophon. To him the gods gave beauty and a winning manliness, but Proitus in his heart devised evil against him and drove him out from his people, since he was far the stronger of the two among the Argives, for Zeus had put them under his scepter. Now Proitus's wife, noble Anteia, fell madly in love with him,
wanting to lie with him in secret passion, but she could not persuade the noble-hearted Bellerophon, a man of sound judgment. So she went to King Proitus with a lie: "Die, Proitus, or kill Bellerophon, who wanted to lie with me against my will." So she spoke, and anger seized the king when he heard it. He shrank from killing the man outright, for his heart recoiled from that, but he sent him off to Lycia, and gave him fatal tokens, scratching many deadly signs on a folded tablet, and told him to show it to his own father-in-law, so that he might be destroyed.
So Bellerophon went to Lycia under the safe escort of the gods, and when he reached Lycia and the flowing Xanthus, the king of wide Lycia received him gladly, and entertained him nine days, sacrificing nine oxen. But when the tenth day came, rosy-fingered, he questioned him then and asked to see the token he was carrying from his son-in-law Proitus. And when he had received the evil token from his son-in-law, first he ordered him to kill the monstrous Chimera, a creature not born of men but of the gods,
lion in front, serpent behind, and goat in the middle, breathing out the terrible force of blazing fire. Bellerophon killed her, trusting in signs from the gods. Next he fought the glorious Solymi, and he said that was the fiercest battle of men he ever entered. Third, he killed the Amazons, women who fight like men. And as he came back from that, the king wove yet another cunning plot against him: he picked out the best men from wide Lycia and set an ambush, but not one of them ever went home again,
for blameless Bellerophon killed them all. When at last the king recognized that he was the true offspring of a god, he kept him there, and gave him his own daughter, and gave him half of all his royal honor besides. And the Lycians cut out for him a fine plot of land, the choicest of all, orchard and plowland, that he might work it. And she bore three children to wise Bellerophon: Isander and Hippolochus and Laodameia. With Laodameia the counselor Zeus himself lay,
and she bore godlike Sarpedon, armored in bronze. But when at last Bellerophon too became hateful to all the gods,
he took to wandering alone over the plain of Aleius, eating his own heart out, shunning the paths of men. And Ares, insatiable in war, killed his son Isander in battle with the glorious Solymi, and Artemis of the golden reins, angry with his daughter, killed her. Hippolochus fathered me, and I claim to be his son. He sent me to Troy and gave me strict orders always to be the best, to hold myself above all others, and never to shame the line of my fathers, who were the greatest men in Ephyre and in wide Lycia.
That is the blood and lineage I claim as mine." So he spoke, and Diomedes, loud in the war cry, was glad. He planted his spear in the bountiful earth and spoke gently to the shepherd of his people: "Then you are truly an old friend of my father's house! For godlike Oeneus once entertained blameless Bellerophon in his halls, and kept him there twenty days, and the two of them gave each other fine gifts of friendship: Oeneus gave a belt bright with crimson dye, and Bellerophon gave a golden two-handled cup,
which I left behind in my house when I set out. But Tydeus I do not remember, since I was still small when he left me, in the time the army of the Achaeans perished at Thebes. So now I am your friend and host in the heart of Argos, and you are mine in Lycia, whenever I come to that land. Let us avoid each other's spears, even in the thick of battle. There are plenty of Trojans and famous allies for me to kill, whomever a god grants me and my feet can overtake, and plenty of Achaeans for you to bring down, whomever you are able. But let us exchange armor with each other, so that these men too
may know we claim to be friends of our fathers' houses." So the two spoke, and leaping down from their chariots, they clasped each other's hands and pledged their faith. But at that moment Zeus, son of Cronus, took the wits from Glaucus, who exchanged his armor with Diomedes son of Tydeus, giving gold for bronze, the worth of a hundred oxen for the worth of nine. And when Hector reached the Scaean gates and the oak tree, the wives and daughters of the Trojans came running around him, asking after their sons, their brothers, their kinsmen,
and their husbands, one after another; and he told each of them in turn to pray to the gods, for many households had sorrow fastened upon them. But when he came to the beautiful house of Priam, built with polished colonnades, and within it were fifty chambers of polished stone, built close beside one another, where Priam's sons slept beside their wedded wives, and across the courtyard, facing them, were twelve roofed chambers of polished stone for his daughters, built close beside one another, where Priam's sons-in-law slept beside their honored wives —
there his mother, gentle in her gifts, came to meet him, bringing with her Laodice, loveliest of her daughters. She took his hand and spoke to him, calling him by name: "My child, why have you left the fierce fighting and come here? Surely the accursed sons of the Achaeans are pressing hard around the city in the battle, and your heart has driven you to come from the citadel to lift up your hands to Zeus. But wait, while I bring you honey-sweet wine, so that you may pour a libation to father Zeus and the other immortals
first, and then refresh yourself as well, if you will drink. Wine builds up great strength in a man worn out with weariness, as you are worn out now defending your people." Then great Hector of the flashing helm answered her: "Do not offer me honeyed wine, my lady mother, or you will unstring my limbs and make me forget my fighting strength. I dare not pour a libation of bright wine to Zeus with unwashed hands; there is no way a man spattered with blood and gore can pray to the dark-clouded son of Cronus. But you — go to the temple of Athena, driver of spoil,
with offerings, gathering the older women together,
and take the robe that seems to you the loveliest and the largest in the great hall, and the one you yourself love best, and lay it on the knees of Athena of the lovely hair, and vow to her that you will sacrifice twelve heifers in her temple, yearlings that have never felt the goad, if only she will take pity on the city, and on the wives of Troy, and on their little children, if she will hold back from sacred Ilion the son of Tydeus, that savage spearman, that mighty master of the rout. Go, then, to the temple of Athena, driver of spoil, while I go find Paris, and summon him,
if he will listen to what I have to say — how I wish the earth would open and swallow him where he stands! The Olympian raised him up as a great affliction to the Trojans, to proud Priam, and to all his sons. If I could see him going down into the house of Hades, I would say my heart had forgotten its bitter grief." So he spoke, and she went into the hall and called to her attendants, and they gathered the older women together throughout the city. She herself went down into her fragrant chamber,
where the robes were kept, richly embroidered work of Sidonian women, which godlike Alexander himself had brought back from Sidon, sailing the wide sea, on the same voyage in which he had carried home high-born Helen. Hecabe took one of these to offer as a gift to Athena, the one that was finest in its embroidery and largest of all, shining like a star, and it lay at the very bottom of the chest. She set out to go, and many of the older women hurried along with her. And when they reached the temple of Athena high in the city, fair-cheeked Theano opened the doors for them,
daughter of Cisseus, wife of Antenor, breaker of horses; for the Trojans had made her priestess of Athena.
The women all raised their hands to Athena with a shout of prayer. Fair-cheeked Theano took up the robe and laid it on the knees of lovely-haired Athena, and prayed, calling on the great daughter of Zeus:
"Lady Athena, guardian of our city, shining among goddesses, break now the spear of Diomedes, and grant that he himself fall face down before the Scaean Gates, so that we may sacrifice to you at once, here in your temple, twelve heifers, yearlings never touched by the goad, if only you will pity our city, and the wives and small children of the Trojans."
So she prayed, but Pallas Athena shook her head, refusing. While the women prayed on to the great daughter of Zeus, Hector made his way to the fine house of Paris, which he himself had built with the help of the best carpenters then in the rich land of Troy, men who had raised him a bedroom, a hall, and a courtyard, close by the houses of Priam and Hector on the citadel height. There Hector, dear to Zeus, went in, carrying in his hand a spear eleven cubits long, its bronze point gleaming ahead of him, ringed round with a golden collar.
He found Paris in his room, busy with his beautiful armor, his shield and breastplate, turning his curved bow in his hands, while Helen of Argos sat among her serving-women directing their fine work. Seeing him, Hector attacked him with shameful words: "You strange man, this sulking is not right. The army is dying around the city and the steep wall, fighting hard, and it is for your sake that this war and its uproar have caught fire around the town. You yourself would pick a fight with any other man you saw shrinking from this hateful war.
Get up, before the city burns down in the enemy's fire!" Godlike Alexander answered him: "Hector, since you rebuke me fairly and not unfairly, I will tell you, and you listen and take it in. It was not so much anger at the Trojans, or resentment, that kept me sitting in this room — I wanted to give myself over to grief. But just now my wife came to me with gentle words and turned me toward the fighting again, and I myself think this way is better too — victory shifts from one man to another. So come, wait a moment while I put on my war-gear —
or go, and I will follow; I think I can catch up to you." So he spoke, but Hector of the flashing helmet said nothing back to him. Then Helen spoke to him with soft words: "Brother — brother of a shameless, scheming bitch that I am — how I wish that on the day my mother first bore me some evil storm-wind had swept me away to a mountain, or into the waves of the crashing sea, so that a wave might have carried me off before all this could happen. But since the gods had already ordained these evils this way, I wish at least I had been wife to a better man,
one who felt the anger and the many insults of other people. But this man's mind has never been steady, not now, and it never will be, and I think he will pay for it yet. But come now, come in and sit on this chair, brother, since it is you above all whom this trouble has wrapped around your heart — because of me, dog that I am, and because of Paris's madness. Zeus has laid a bad fate on the two of us, so that in time to come we may be sung about by men not yet born." Great Hector of the flashing helmet answered her: "Do not ask me to sit, Helen, however kindly you mean it — you will not persuade me.
My heart is already straining to go help the Trojans, who feel my absence badly when I am away. But you — rouse this man, and let him hurry too, to catch me while I am still inside the city. For I myself am going home now, to see my household, my dear wife, and my little son. I do not know whether I will come back to them again, or whether the gods will now bring me down at the hands of the Achaeans."
So Hector spoke and went out, and quickly he reached his own well-built house, but did not find white-armed Andromache inside. She, with the child and a servant in a fine robe, was standing on the tower, weeping and crying aloud. Hector, finding his good wife not at home, stood on the threshold and spoke to the servants: "Come, tell me truly — where has white-armed Andromache gone from the house? To one of my sisters, or to one of my brothers' well-robed wives, or to Athena's temple, where the other Trojan women with their lovely hair are trying to win over the dread goddess?"
The busy housekeeper answered him: "Hector, since you order me to tell the truth, she has not gone to any sister or well-robed sister-in-law, nor to Athena's temple, where the other Trojan women with lovely hair are trying to win over the dread goddess. She has gone up onto the great tower of Troy, because she heard that the Trojans were hard-pressed and the strength of the Achaeans was great. She reached the wall in haste, like a woman gone half-mad, and the nurse carries the child with her." So the housekeeper spoke, and Hector rushed from the house
back the way he had come, down the well-built streets. When he had crossed the great city and reached the Scaean Gates, where he meant to pass out onto the plain, there his wife, rich in dowry, came running to meet him — Andromache, daughter of great-hearted Eëtion, Eëtion who lived below wooded Mount Placus, ruling the Cilicians in Thebe-under-Placus. His daughter was married to bronze-armored Hector. She met him now, and with her came a servant carrying the boy at her breast, still a baby, too young to understand anything,
Hector's beloved son, beautiful as a bright star, whom Hector called Scamandrius, but the rest of the people called Astyanax, "Lord of the City," since Hector alone stood as Troy's defense. Hector looked at his son and smiled, saying nothing. But Andromache came close beside him, weeping, and took his hand in hers and spoke to him, calling him by name:
"You are a strange man — your own courage will destroy you. You have no pity for your infant son or for me, doomed as I am, who will soon be your widow. For soon the Achaeans will kill you, all of them rushing at you together. It would be better for me, if I lose you, to sink into the earth, for there will be no other comfort left once you meet your fate — only grief. I have no father, no honored mother.
My father — godlike Achilles killed him, and sacked the well-built city of the Cilicians, high-gated Thebe. He killed Eëtion, but did not strip his armor from him — he respected him too much in his heart for that — instead he burned him in his own elaborate war-gear and heaped up a grave-mound over him, and around it the mountain nymphs, daughters of Zeus who bears the aegis, planted elm trees.
And the seven brothers I had in our house, all of them went down to the house of Hades on a single day, for swift-footed godlike Achilles killed every one of them, among their shambling cattle and white sheep. And my mother, who was queen below wooded Placus — he brought her here along with the rest of his plunder, then released her again for a boundless ransom, and Artemis who showers arrows struck her down in her father's house. Hector, you are my father and my honored mother now, you are my brother too, and you are my strong husband.
So please, take pity on me now, and stay here on the tower — do not make your child an orphan and your wife a widow. Station the army by the fig tree, where the city is easiest to climb and the wall is most open to assault. Three times now the best of them have come and tried it there — the two Ajaxes, and famous Idomeneus, and the sons of Atreus, and Diomedes' brave son — someone must have told them a prophecy, someone who knows the will of the gods, or else their own hearts drive them and urge them on." Great Hector of the flashing helmet answered her:
"All this concerns me too, wife, but I would feel terrible shame before the Trojans and the Trojan women with their trailing robes if I skulked away from the fighting like a coward. And my own heart will not let me — I have learned to be brave always, and to fight among the front ranks of the Trojans, winning great glory for my father and for myself. For I know this well, in my mind and in my heart: a day will come when sacred Troy will be destroyed, and Priam, and the people of Priam who fights with the strong ash spear. But it is not the suffering of the Trojans still to come that troubles me so much —
not even that of Hecuba herself, or lord Priam, or my brothers, many and brave as they are, who will fall in the dust at the hands of their enemies — as much as the thought of you, when some bronze-armored Achaean leads you away in tears, stripping you of your day of freedom. Then in Argos you will have to weave cloth at another woman's loom, and carry water from Messeis or Hypereia, against your will, under harsh compulsion. And someone, seeing you crying, will say: 'That is the wife of Hector, the best fighter
among the horse-taming Trojans, back when they fought around Troy.' That is what someone will say, and it will be fresh grief for you, to lack such a man to keep you from the day of slavery. But let the piled earth cover me in death before I hear you crying out, before I know you are being dragged away." So speaking, glorious Hector reached out for his son, but the boy shrank back crying against the breast of his well-belted nurse, frightened at the sight of his own father — terrified by the bronze and the horsehair crest
he saw nodding fearfully from the top of the helmet. His father laughed, and his mother laughed too, and glorious Hector at once took the helmet from his head and set it down on the ground, all gleaming. Then he kissed his dear son and tossed him gently in his arms, and prayed aloud to Zeus and the other gods: "Zeus, and all you other gods, grant that this child of mine may become, like me, outstanding among the Trojans, just as strong and brave, and may he rule over Troy with might. And may someone say of him one day, 'This man is far better than his father,' as he comes home from battle, carrying the bloody armor
of an enemy he has killed, and his mother's heart will rejoice." So speaking, he placed his son in his dear wife's arms, and she took him to her fragrant breast, laughing through her tears. Her husband saw it and pitied her, and stroked her with his hand, and spoke to her, calling her by name: "My strange, dear wife, do not grieve for me too much in your heart. No man will send me down to Hades before my time — but fate, I tell you, no man born has ever escaped, whether he is a coward or brave, once he has come into the world. Go home now, and take up your own work,
the loom and the distaff, and tell your servants to get on with their tasks. War will be men's business, all men's business, but mine most of all, of all who live in Troy." So speaking, glorious Hector took up his helmet with its horsehair crest, and his dear wife went back toward home, turning to look back again and again, shedding warm tears. She soon reached the well-built house of Hector, killer of men, and found inside it many of her serving-women, and stirred them all to mourning. So they mourned for Hector while he still lived, in his own house,
for they did not think he would come back again from the fighting, escaping the fury and the hands of the Achaeans. Nor did Paris linger long in his high house. As soon as he had put on his famous armor, bright with bronze, he rushed off through the city, trusting to his swift feet. Just as a stalled horse, well-fed at the manger, breaks its rope and gallops thundering across the plain, used to bathing in some fair-flowing river, exulting, holding his head high, his mane streaming
about his shoulders as he runs, glorying in his own splendor, and his legs carry him lightly to the pastures and haunts of horses — so Priam's son Paris came striding down from the height of Pergamus, his armor shining like the sun, laughing aloud, his swift feet carrying him fast. And soon he came upon his brother, godlike Hector, just as Hector was turning away from the place where he had been talking with his wife. Godlike Alexander spoke to him first: "Brother, I am truly holding you back when you are in a hurry, taking too long, and not arriving in time as you told me to."
Hector of the flashing helmet answered him: "You strange man, no fair-minded man could ever belittle your work in battle, for you are a strong fighter. But you hold back willingly and do not want to fight, and that grieves my heart, when I hear shameful things said about you by the Trojans, who bear such heavy toil because of you. But let us go — we will settle these things between us later, if ever Zeus grants that we set up a bowl of freedom in our halls for the eternal gods of heaven, once we have driven the well-greaved Achaeans out of Troy."