Book 6

The dread battle of Trojans and Achaeans was left alone,and the fight surged this way and that across the plainas they aimed their bronze-headed spears at one anotherbetween the streams of Simoeis and Xanthos.Ajax son of Telamon, bulwark of the Achaeans, firstbroke the Trojan phalanx and gave light to his companions,striking a man who was the best among the Thracians,the son of Eussorus, Acamas, tall and noble.Him he struck first on the crest of his horse-haired helmet,and drove the point through his forehead, and the bone passed inwardwith the bronze spear - and darkness covered his eyes.And Axylus Diomedes of the good war-cry slew,son of Teuthras, who lived in well-built Arisbe,rich in livelihood, and dear to men;for he loved them all, dwelling in his house by the roadside.But not one of them then warded off woeful destruction,standing before him - but he took the life from both,from him and his servant Calesius, who thenwas driver of his horses; and both went down under the earth.And Dresus and Opheltius Euryalus stripped of their arms;then he went after Aesepus and Pedasus, whom once a nymph,Abarbarea of the waters, bore to blameless Bucolion.Bucolion was the son of lordly Laomedon,eldest in birth, and his mother bore him in secret;and while shepherding among his flocks he mingled with her in love and bed,and she conceived and bore twin sons.And the strength and shining limbs of these Mekisteus' sonloosed, and stripped the armor from their shoulders.And Astyalus Polypoites, staunch in war, slew;and Pidytes of Perkote Odysseus stripped of his armswith the bronze spear, and Teucer struck down noble Aretaon.Antilochus son of Nestor killed Ableruswith his shining spear, and lord of men Agamemnon slew Elatus;he lived by the banks of fair-flowing Satnioeis,in steep Pedasus. And the hero Leitus took Phylacusas he fled; and Eurypylus stripped Melanthius.And then Adrestus Menelaus of the good war-crytook alive; for his two horses, panicked across the plain,caught in a tamarisk branch and broke the curved chariotat the front pole, and the two of them went offtoward the city, where the others fled in terror;but he himself rolled out of the chariot beside the wheel,headlong in the dust, face down; and beside him stoodMenelaus, son of Atreus, holding his long-shadowing spear.And then Adrestus, taking his knees, begged him:Take me alive, son of Atreus, and accept a worthy ransom:many treasures lie in my rich father's house,bronze and gold and hard-wrought iron;my father would gladly give you countless ransom for meif he heard I was alive by the Achaean ships.So he spoke, and persuaded the heart in his breast;and already Menelaus was about to give himto his servant to lead to the swift ships; but Agamemnoncame running to meet him, and rebuking him spoke a word:Dear brother, Menelaus, why do you care for these men so?Have the Trojans done you good service in your house?Let not one of them escape sheer destructionand our hands - not even the boy a mother carriesin her womb; let not even he escape, but let them allperish from Ilium together, unmourned and unmarked.So speaking, the hero turned his brother's mind,advising what was right; and he pushed the hero Adrestusaway from him with his hand; and lord Agamemnonstabbed him in the flank; and he was thrown backward, and the son of Atreusset his heel on his chest and pulled out the ash-wooded spear.And Nestor shouted aloud to the Argives:Friends, heroes, Danaans, servants of Ares,let no one now linger behind, eager for spoils,to reach the ships carrying the most he can -but let us kill the men; afterward, at your leisure,you shall strip the dead bodies across the plain.So speaking, he stirred the strength and spirit of each man.Then the Trojans would have gone up into Ilium again,beaten down by their own cowardice at the hands of the war-loving Achaeans,if Helenus, son of Priam, best of bird-readers,had not stood beside Aeneas and Hector and said:Aeneas and Hector, since on you two most of allthe burden lies, of Trojans and Lycians, because you are the bestat fighting and at counseling in every way,stand where you are and hold the people back before the gates,going everywhere, before they fall fleeing into the arms of the womenand become a joy to their enemies.But when you have urged on all the phalanxes,we shall stand here and fight the Danaans,hard pressed as we are - for necessity drives us.Hector, but you go into the city, and then speakto your mother and mine; and let her, gathering the old women,open with a key the doors of the holy house of Athena of the flashing eyeson the city's height,and set the robe she thinks the loveliest and the largestin her hall, and by far the dearest to her own heart,on the knees of fair-haired Athena,and promise to sacrifice twelve heifers in her temple,yearlings unyoked, if she will have pityon the city and the wives of the Trojans and their infant children,and keep the son of Tydeus away from holy Ilium,that savage spearman, the strong deviser of terror,whom I say has become the mightiest of the Achaeans.We never feared Achilles so much, the leader of men,though men say he is the son of a goddess; but this manrages too much, and no one can match his strength.So he spoke, and Hector did not disobey his brother.At once he sprang from his chariot to the ground in his armor,and brandishing sharp spears he went everywhere through the armyurging them to fight, and he roused the dread battle-cry.And they turned themselves and stood facing the Achaeans;and the Argives gave ground and ceased from killing,and they thought some one of the deathless gods from the starry skyhad come down to help the Trojans, so did they turn about.And Hector shouted aloud to the Trojans:High-hearted Trojans and far-famed allies,be men, my friends, and remember your rushing valor,while I go to Ilium, and tell the councilors,the elders, and our wives, to make prayers to the gods,and to promise hecatombs.So speaking, Hector of the shining helmet departed;and around him the black rim of his bossed shieldstruck against his ankles and his neck as it swung at his back.And Glaucus, son of Hippolochus, and the son of Tydeuscame together into the middle between both armies, eager to fight.And when they had come near, advancing on one another,Diomedes of the good war-cry spoke to him first:Who are you, most noble of mortal men?For never yet have I seen you in the battle where men win glorybefore now; but now you have gone far beyond all othersin your daring, since you have awaited my long-shadowing spear.The sons of the wretched are those who face my strength.But if you have come down from heaven, one of the immortals,then I would not fight with the gods of the sky.For not even the son of Dryas, strong Lycurgus,lived long, who quarreled with the gods of the sky;who once chased the nurses of mad Dionysusdown over holy Nysa; and they all togetherthrew their sacred wands to the ground under man-slaying Lycurgus,struck with his ox-goad; and Dionysus in terrorplunged into the wave of the sea, and Thetis received him in her bosom,terrified; for a strong trembling held him at the man's rebuke.And then the gods who live at ease were angry with Lycurgus,and the son of Cronus made him blind; and he did not live long,since he was hated by all the deathless gods.So I would not wish to fight with the blessed gods.But if you are one of the mortals who eat the fruit of the earth,come closer, so that you may reach the limit of destruction sooner.And the shining son of Hippolochus answered him:Great-hearted son of Tydeus, why do you ask my lineage?As the generation of leaves, so is that of men.The wind scatters the leaves to the ground, but the forest,flourishing, puts out others, and the season of spring comes on;so the generation of men grows and another passes away.But if you wish to learn this too, so that you may know wellmy lineage - many men know it -there is a city, Ephyre, in a corner of horse-pasturing Argos,and there lived Sisyphus, the craftiest of men,Sisyphus son of Aeolus; he fathered a son, Glaucus,and Glaucus fathered blameless Bellerophon;to him the gods gave beauty and lovely manhood.But Proetus plotted evil in his heart against him,who drove him from the land, since he was far strongerthan the Argives; for Zeus subdued him under his scepter.And the wife of Proetus, noble Anteia, burned with love for him,to mingle in secret love; but she did not at allpersuade him, since blameless Bellerophon was well-minded.And she lied and spoke to King Proetus:May you die, Proetus, or kill Bellerophon,who wished to mingle in love with me against my will.So she spoke, and anger seized the king when he heard it;he avoided killing him, for he shrank from that in his heart,but he sent him to Lycia, and gave him baneful signs,writing many life-destroying things on a folded tablet,and told him to show them to his father-in-law, so that he might perish.And he went to Lycia under the blameless escort of the gods.But when he came to Lycia and the flowing Xanthos,the king of wide Lycia honored him with favor;nine days he entertained him and sacrificed nine oxen.But when the tenth rosy-fingered Dawn appeared,then he questioned him and asked to see the signthat he had brought from his son-in-law Proetus.And after he had received the evil sign from his son-in-law,first he ordered him to kill the unconquerable Chimera,which was of divine race, not of men,in front a lion, behind a serpent, in the middle a goat,breathing out the terrible strength of blazing fire.And he killed it, trusting the gods' portents.Second, he fought with the glorious Solymi,and he said that was the mightiest battle he had entered with men.Third, he killed the Amazons who fight like men.And as he came back, the king wove another close-laid snare:choosing the best men out of wide Lyciahe set an ambush; and none of them ever returned home,for blameless Bellerophon killed them all.But when he knew that he was noble offspring of a god,he kept him there and gave him his daughter,and gave him half of all his royal honor;and the Lycians marked off for him a precinct beyond all others,fine with orchard and plowland, for him to hold.And she bore three children to thoughtful Bellerophon:Isander and Hippolochus and Laodameia.And with Laodameia lay Zeus the counselor,and she bore godlike Sarpedon of the bronze helm.But when that one too was hated by all the gods,he wandered alone across the Aleian plain,eating out his own heart, avoiding the paths of men.And Ares, insatiate of war, killed his son Isanderas he fought with the glorious Solymi;and gold-reined Artemis, in her anger, killed Laodameia.Hippolochus fathered me, and from him I say I am born;and he sent me to Troy, and charged me many things:always to be best and to stand above others,and not to shame the race of my fathers, who were by far the bestboth in Ephyre and in wide Lycia.From this lineage and blood I claim to be.So he spoke, and Diomedes of the good war-cry rejoiced;and he fixed his spear in the life-giving earth,and spoke to the shepherd of the people with gentle words:Truly then you are my friend from my father's time, long ago;for noble Oeneus once entertained blameless Bellerophonin his halls, keeping him twenty days;and they gave each other fine gifts of friendship;Oeneus gave a belt shining with crimson,and Bellerophon a golden two-handled cup,and I left it behind in my house when I came here.And of Tydeus I have no memory, for he left mestill a little child, when the Achaean host perished at Thebes.So now I am your friend in the middle of Argos,and you will be mine in Lycia when I come to that land.And let us avoid each other's spears even in the throng;for many Trojans and famous allies are mineto kill, whichever god gives me and my feet overtake;and many Achaeans are yours to slay, whoever you can.And let us exchange our armor with one another, so that even thesemay know that we claim to be friends from our fathers.So speaking, the two leapt down from their horses,and took each other's hands and pledged their faith.Then Zeus son of Cronus took away Glaucus' wits,who exchanged armor with Diomedes son of Tydeus,golden for bronze, a hundred oxen's worth for nine.And Hector, when he came to the Scaean gates and the oak,the wives and daughters of the Trojans ran around him,asking about their sons, their brothers, their kin,and their husbands; and he told them all in turnto pray to the gods; and sorrow hung over many of them.But when he came to Priam's splendid house,built with polished porticoes - and inside itwere fifty chambers of polished stone,built close to one another, where the sons of Priamslept beside their wedded wives;and on the other side, facing them within the courtyard,were twelve roofed chambers of polished stone,built close to one another, where the sons-in-lawof Priam slept beside their honored wives;there his mother, kind with gifts, met him,bringing Laodice, the loveliest in form of her daughters;and she clung to his hand, and spoke a word and called him by name:My child, why have you left the fierce battle and come here?Surely the hated sons of the Achaeans are wearing us downfighting around the city; and your heart has urged youto come up from the city's height and lift your hands to Zeus.But wait, while I bring you honey-sweet wine,so you may pour a libation to father Zeus and the other immortalsfirst, and then you yourself will benefit if you drink.For wine greatly increases a weary man's strength,as you are weary, defending your own people.And great Hector of the shining helmet answered her:Do not bring me honey-hearted wine, honored mother,lest you unman me and I forget my strength and valor;for I would shrink from pouring bright wine to Zeus with unwashed hands;nor is it possible in any way to pray to the son of Cronus who gathers the black cloudswhen one is bespattered with blood and gore.But you go to the temple of Athena who drives the spoil,with incense, and gather the old women;and the robe that is the loveliest and largest in your halland by far the dearest to your own heart,set it on the knees of fair-haired Athena,and promise to sacrifice twelve heifers in the temple,yearlings unyoked, if she will have pityon the city and the wives of the Trojans and their infant children,and keep the son of Tydeus away from holy Ilium,the savage spearman, the strong deviser of terror.But you go to the temple of Athena who drives the spoil,and I will go after Paris, to call him,if he will listen to my words; and then may the earthopen for him on the spot; for the Olympian raised him as a great griefto the Trojans and to great-hearted Priam and to his sons.If I saw that man go down into the house of Hades,I would say my heart had forgotten its joyless sorrow.So he spoke, and she went to the hall and calledto her handmaids; and they gathered the old women through the city.She herself went down into the fragrant chamber,where her robes lay, the richly embroidered work of womenof Sidon, which godlike Alexander himselfhad brought from Sidon, sailing the wide sea,on the voyage that brought back Helen of the noble father.Taking one of these, Hecuba brought it as a gift to Athena,the one that was fairest in its embroidery and the largest,and it shone like a star; and it lay at the bottom of the rest.She went on her way, and many old women hurried with her.And when they came to the temple of Athena on the city's height,fair-cheeked Theano opened the doors for them,Cisseus' daughter, wife of Antenor the horse-tamer;for the Trojans had made her priestess of Athena.And with a cry of prayer they all lifted their hands to Athena;and fair-cheeked Theano, taking up the robe,laid it on the knees of fair-haired Athena,and praying she prayed to the daughter of great Zeus:Lady Athena, guardian of the city, shining among goddesses,break the spear of Diomedes, and give that man himselfto fall headlong before the Scaean gates,so that right now we may sacrifice to you twelve heifersin your temple, yearlings unyoked, if you have pityon the city and the wives of the Trojans and their infant children.So she spoke in prayer, but Pallas Athena shook her head no.So they prayed to the daughter of great Zeus,and Hector had gone to the house of Alexander,the fine one, which he himself had built with the men who thenwere the best craftsmen in fertile Troy,who made him a chamber and a hall and a courtyardnear Priam's house, on the city's height.There Hector, dear to Zeus, went in, and in his handhe held an eleven-cubit spear; and in front of him the spear'sbronze point shone, and a golden ring ran round the shaft.And he found him in his chamber busy with his splendid armor,his shield and corselet, and fitting the curved bow;and Argive Helen sat with her slave women,and she was directing the famous work of her handmaids.And Hector, seeing him, rebuked him with shameful words:Strange man, you do not do well to nurse this anger in your heart.The people are dying around the city and the steep wall,fighting; and because of you, the war cry and the warburn around this city; and you yourself would fight another manwhom you saw somewhere hanging back from hateful war.But up, before the city is burned by hostile fire.And godlike Alexander answered him:Hector, since you have rebuked me rightly and not beyond what is right,I will speak to you; and do you listen and hear me.Not so much in anger or resentment at the Trojanshave I sat in my chamber, but I wished to turn aside to grief.But now my wife has spoken softly to me and stirred meto go to war; and it seems to me myself that thiswill be better; victory shifts from man to man.So come, wait now, while I put on my armor of Ares;or go, and I will follow; and I think I will overtake you.So he spoke, and Hector of the shining helmet said nothing to him;and Helen spoke to him with gentle words:Brother-in-law of me, a dog, a cruel plotter of evil,if only, on the day my mother first bore me,a wicked storm of wind had carried me awayto a mountain or into the wave of the loud-roaring sea,where the wave would have swept me away before these deeds were done.But since the gods have marked out these evils so,I should have been the wife of a better man,one who knew men's resentment and their many shames.But this man's mind is not now steady, nor everwill be; so I think he will reap the fruit of it.But come now, go in and sit on this chair,brother-in-law, since trouble above all has wrapped your heartbecause of me, a dog, and because of Alexander's ruin,on whom Zeus has placed an evil fate, so that even hereafterwe may be a song for men who are yet to be.And great Hector of the shining helmet answered her:Do not ask me to sit, Helen, dear as you are; you will not persuade me;for my heart already rushes on to defendthe Trojans, who have great longing for me while I am away.But you, stir this man, and let him hurry himself,so that he may catch me inside the city.For I will go home, to seemy household, my dear wife, and my little son.For I do not know whether I will come back to them again,or whether the gods will subdue me already under the Achaeans' hands.So speaking, Hector of the shining helmet departed;and at once he came to his well-built house,and he did not find white-armed Andromache in the hall,but she with her child and a well-dressed handmaidstood on the tower, weeping and wailing.And when Hector did not find the blameless wife indoors,he stood on the threshold and spoke among the handmaids:Come now, handmaids, tell me the truth:where has white-armed Andromache gone from the hall?Is she gone somewhere to my sisters-in-law or the wives of my brothers,or to the temple of Athena, where the otherfair-haired Trojan women propitiate the dread goddess?And the bustling housekeeper answered him with a word:Hector, since you bid me tell the truth,she has not gone to my sisters-in-law or the wives of my brothers,nor to the temple of Athena, where the otherfair-haired Trojan women propitiate the dread goddess,but she went up on the great tower of Ilium, because she heardthat the Trojans were hard pressed and the Achaeans had great power.She has indeed reached the wall in her haste,like a woman gone mad; and the nurse carries the child with her.So spoke the woman housekeeper, and Hector rushed from the houseback along the same road through the well-built streets.When he came to the gates as he passed through the great city,the Scaean gates, through which he was about to go out to the plain,there his richly dowered wife came running to meet him,Andromache, daughter of great-hearted Eetion,Eetion, who lived beneath wooded Plakos,in Thebe under Plakos, ruling the Cilician men;and his daughter was wife to bronze-helmed Hector.She met him then, and with her came her handmaidholding on her bosom the tender, innocent child,Hector's beloved son, like a beautiful star,whom Hector called Scamandrius, but othersAstyanax; for Hector alone guarded Ilium.He smiled in silence, looking at his child;and Andromache stood near him, shedding tears,and she clung to his hand, and spoke a word and called him by name:Strange man, your own strength will destroy you, and you do not pityyour infant child and me, unhappy, who will soon be a widowof you; for soon the Achaeans will kill you,all rushing on together; and it would be better for meto sink into the earth, bereft of you; for there will beno other comfort for me after you meet your doom,but only griefs; and I have no father and no honored mother.For shining Achilles killed my father,and sacked the well-built city of the Cilicians,high-gated Thebe, and killed Eetion,and did not strip him, for he shrank from that in his heart,but burned him with his cunning armor,and heaped a mound over him; and around it the mountain nymphs,daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, planted elms.And my seven brothers were in the hall,and they all went down into the house of Hades on one day;for swift-footed shining Achilles killed them allamong their rolling cattle and their white sheep.And my mother, who was queen beneath wooded Plakos,her he brought here with the rest of the spoil,but then he set her free, taking countless ransom,and Artemis the arrow-pourer struck her in my father's house.Hector, you are my father and my honored mother,and my brother, and my flourishing husband.But come now, have pity, and stay here on the tower,and do not make your child an orphan and your wife a widow.And station the people by the fig tree, where the cityis most open to attack and the wall most easy to scale.For three times the best men came there and tried it,around the two Ajaxes and famous Idomeneus,and around the sons of Atreus and the brave son of Tydeus;surely someone told them, one who knew prophecies well,or their own hearts urge and command them.And great Hector of the shining helmet answered her:All this is my care too, wife; but I would be terriblyashamed before the Trojans and the long-robed Trojan womenif I drew back from the war like a coward;nor does my heart bid me, since I learned to be bravealways, and to fight among the foremost Trojans,winning great glory for my father and for myself.For I know this well in my mind and heart:the day will come when holy Ilium will perish,and Priam and the people of Priam of the good ash spear.But the grief of the Trojans in time to come does not weigh on me so much,nor of Hecuba herself, nor of King Priam,nor of my brothers, who, many and brave,will fall in the dust at the hands of hostile men -as much as your grief, when some bronze-clad Achaeanleads you away weeping, robbing you of the day of freedom;and in Argos, in another woman's house, you will work at the loom,and you will carry water from Messes or Hypereia,much against your will, and hard necessity will lie upon you;and some day someone will say, seeing you shed tears:This is the wife of Hector, who was the best in battleof the horse-taming Trojans when they fought around Ilium.So someone will say; and for you there will be fresh griefin your need of such a man to ward off the day of slavery.But may the heaped earth cover me in deathbefore I hear of your cry and your dragging away.So speaking, shining Hector reached out for his child;but the child turned back to the bosom of his well-girded nurse,crying, frightened at the sight of his dear father,terrified of the bronze and the horse-haired crest,seeing it nod terribly from the top of the helmet.And his dear father laughed, and his honored mother too;at once shining Hector took the helmet from his head,and set it on the ground, all shining;and he kissed his dear son and tossed him in his hands,and spoke, praying to Zeus and the other gods:Zeus and you other gods, grant that this child of minemay be, as I am, outstanding among the Trojans,so strong and brave, and may he rule Ilium with might;and some day may someone say, He is far better than his father,as he comes back from war; and may he carry bloody spoils,having killed a hostile man, and may his mother rejoice in her heart.So speaking, he put the child in the hands of his dear wife;and she received him on her fragrant bosom,laughing through her tears; and her husband pitied her as he saw it,and he stroked her with his hand, and spoke a word and called her by name:Strange wife, do not be too much grieved in your heart;for no man will send me to Hades beyond my fate.And I say that no man has escaped his fate,neither the coward nor the brave, once he is born.But go into the house and attend to your own work,the loom and the distaff, and tell your handmaidsto go about their work; war will be the care of men,all of them, and most of all of me, who are born in Ilium.So speaking, shining Hector took up his helmet,horse-haired; and his dear wife went home,turning back again and again, shedding a thick tear.And at once she came to the well-built houseof man-slaying Hector, and she found many handmaidsinside, and she stirred up lamentation in them all.And they wailed for Hector still alive in his own house;for they did not think he would come back again from the waralive, having escaped the strength and hands of the Achaeans.Nor did Paris linger in his high house,but he, when he had put on his famous armor, richly worked with bronze,hurried through the city, trusting in his swift feet.And as when a stalled horse, fed at the manger,breaks its halter and gallops exulting across the plain,accustomed to bathe in a fair-flowing river,glorying; and he holds his head high, and his manetosses about his shoulders; and trusting in his beauty,his knees carry him swiftly to the haunts and pasture of horses;so the son of Priam, Paris, from the height of Pergamus,shining in his armor, came on like the blazing sun,exulting, and his swift feet carried him; and at oncehe found shining Hector his brother, when he was aboutto turn back from the place where he had talked with his wife.Godlike Alexander spoke to him first:Dear brother, surely I am holding you back as you hurry,lingering, and I did not come as I should, as you told me?And Hector of the shining helmet answered him:Strange man, no man who is fair-mindedcould slight your work in battle, since you are brave;but you hold back willingly and do not wish to fight; and my heartgrieves in my breast, when I hear shameful talk about youfrom the Trojans, who have great trouble because of you.But let us go; we will settle this later, if ever Zeusgrants that we may set up a free mixing bowlfor the heavenly, ever-living gods in our halls,having driven the well-greaved Achaeans out of Troy.

The dreadful fight between Trojans and Greeks was left to itself,and the battle surged this way and that across the plainas each side aimed their bronze-tipped spears at the other,between the rivers Simoeis and Xanthos.Ajax son of Telamon, the wall of the Greeks, was firstto break the Trojan ranks and bring light to his friends,striking down a man who was the best of the Thracians,the son of Eussorus, Acamas, tall and handsome.His spear hit the horsehair crest of the helmet first,drove through his forehead and passed inside the bone -the bronze point - and darkness covered his eyes.Diomedes of the good war cry killed Axylus,the son of Teuthras, who lived in well-built Arisbe,rich in everything, and loved by people.He welcomed everyone, because his house stood by the road.But none of those people saved him from miserable deathby standing in front of him; instead Diomedes took the life of both,of him and his servant Calesius, who at that timewas the driver of his chariot; and both went down into the earth.Euryalus stripped the armor from Dresus and Opheltius;then he went after Aesepus and Pedasus, whom once a nymph,Abarbarea of the water, bore to blameless Bucolion.Bucolion was the son of famous Laomedon,the eldest by birth, and his mother bore him in secret;while he was shepherding he lay with her in love,and she got pregnant and bore twin sons.Their strength and shining limbs Mekisteus' sonloosened, and he tore the armor from their shoulders.Polypoites, who stood fast in battle, killed Astyalus;Odysseus killed Pidytes of Perkote with hisbronze spear, and Teucer struck down noble Aretaon.Antilochus, son of Nestor, killed Ableruswith his shining spear, and Agamemnon killed Elatus;he lived by the banks of the fair-flowing Satnioeis,in steep Pedasus. The hero Leitus caught Phylacusas he ran; and Eurypylus killed Melanthius.Then Menelaus of the good war cry took Adrestusalive; for his two horses bolted across the plainand caught themselves on a tamarisk branch, snapping the curved chariotat the front pole, and the two horses ran offtoward the city, where the rest were fleeing in a panic;but Adrestus himself rolled out of the chariot by the wheel,headfirst in the dust, face down; and beside him stoodMenelaus, son of Atreus, holding his long-shadowed spear.Then Adrestus grabbed his knees and begged him:Take me alive, son of Atreus, and take a fitting ransom;there are many treasures in my rich father's house,bronze and gold and iron worked with great labor;my father would gladly give you endless ransom for meif he heard that I was alive by the Greek ships.So he spoke, and won over the heart in Menelaus' chest;and Menelaus was just about to hand him overto his servant to lead to the fast ships; but Agamemnoncame running up, and scolding him, said a word:Dear brother Menelaus, why do you care about these men?Did the Trojans do you the greatest favor at home?Let none of them escape sheer destructionand our hands - not even the child a mother carriesin her womb; let him not escape either, but let them alldie out of Troy together, unmourned and vanished.So he spoke, and turned his brother's mind,though Menelaus had advised what was fair; and Menelaus pushedthe hero Adrestus away from him with his hand; and lord Agamemnonstabbed him in the flank; and he fell backwards, and Agamemnonput his heel on his chest and pulled out the ash wood spear.Nestor shouted loud to the Greeks:Friends, heroes, Greeks, servants of Ares,do not let anyone hang back now grabbing for loot,trying to get the most and carry it to the ships -let us kill the men; later, at your ease,you can strip the dead bodies all across the plain.So he spoke, and stirred the strength and spirit of every man.Then the Trojans would have been driven back up into Troyby the war-loving Greeks, beaten by their own cowardice,if Helenus, son of Priam, the best of the bird-readers,had not stood beside Aeneas and Hector and said:Aeneas and Hector, since the hardest work falls on you two,of all the Trojans and Lycians, because you are the bestat fighting and at planning in every way,stand here and hold the army back in front of the gates,going everywhere, before they fall back into the arms of the womenas they run, and give our enemies a reason to cheer.Once you two have pushed all the ranks forward,we will stay here and fight the Greeks,tired as we are - because we have no choice.Hector, you go into the city, and then tellyour mother and mine: let her gather the old women,open with a key the doors of the holy temple of Athena of the bright eyesup on the city's height,and take the robe she thinks is the loveliest and biggestin her hall, and by far the dearest to her own heart,and lay it on the knees of fair-haired Athena,and promise to sacrifice twelve cows in the temple,yearlings never yoked, if the goddess will take pityon the city and the Trojan wives and their little children,and keep the son of Tydeus away from holy Troy,that savage spearman, that strong maker of panic,who I say has become the strongest of the Greeks.We never feared Achilles like this, the leader of men,though they say he is the son of a goddess; but this oneis simply insane, and nobody can match his strength.So he spoke, and Hector did not disobey his brother at all.At once he jumped from the chariot to the ground in his armor,and shaking his sharp spears he went all through the armyurging them to fight, and he woke up the dreadful battle cry.And they turned around and stood facing the Greeks;and the Greeks fell back and stopped killing,and they thought some one of the immortal gods had come downfrom the starry sky to help the Trojans, so quickly did they turn.And Hector shouted loud to the Trojans:Proud-hearted Trojans and far-famed allies,be men, my friends, and remember your charging courage,while I go to Troy and tell the elders in council,and our wives, to say prayers to the gods,and promise them sacrifices.So he spoke, and Hector of the shining helmet left;and around him the black rim of his bossed shieldbeat against his ankles and his neck as it swung at his back.And Glaucus, son of Hippolochus, and the son of Tydeuscame together into the middle between the two armies, eager to fight.When they had come close, moving at each other,Diomedes of the good war cry spoke to him first:Who are you, best of mortal men?I have never seen you in the battle where men win glorybefore now; but now you have stepped far out ahead of everyonein your courage, since you waited for my long-shadowed spear.The sons of the miserable are the ones who face my strength.But if you have come down from heaven, one of the immortals,then I would not fight with the gods in the sky.Not even Dryas' son, strong Lycurgus,lived long, and he fought with the gods in the sky;he once chased the nurses of mad Dionysusdown over holy Nysa; and they all togetherthrew their sacred wands on the ground, beatenby man-killing Lycurgus and his ox goad; and Dionysus, terrified,dove into the sea waves, and Thetis caught him in her lap,shaking with fear; a strong trembling gripped him at the man's threats.Then the gods who live at ease were angry with Lycurgus,and the son of Cronus made him blind; and he did not live long after,since he was hated by all the immortal gods.So I would not want to fight the blessed gods.But if you are one of the mortals who eat the fruit of the earth,come closer, so you reach the end of destruction faster.And the shining son of Hippolochus answered him:Great-hearted son of Tydeus, why do you ask about my family?Like the generations of leaves, so are the generations of men.The wind scatters some leaves on the ground, and the forest,blooming, grows others, and the season of spring comes;so one generation of men grows while another dies out.But if you want to know this too, so you learnmy family - many men know it -there is a city, Ephyre, in a corner of horse-pasturing Argos,and there lived Sisyphus, the craftiest of men,Sisyphus the son of Aeolus; he fathered a son, Glaucus,and Glaucus fathered blameless Bellerophon;the gods gave him beauty and lovely manhood.But Proetus planned evil in his heart against him,and drove him out of the land, because he was far strongerthan the Argives; for Zeus put him under Proetus' scepter.And Proetus' wife, noble Anteia, burned with desire for him,to sleep with him in secret; but she could notpersuade him, since blameless Bellerophon had good sense.So she lied and said to King Proetus:Proetus, either die, or kill Bellerophon,who wanted to sleep with me when I did not want it.So she spoke, and anger seized the king when he heard it;he avoided killing him, since he shrank from that in his heart,but he sent him to Lycia, and gave him deadly signs,writing many life-destroying things on a folded tablet,and told him to show them to his father-in-law, so he would die.So he went to Lycia under the blameless guidance of the gods.But when he reached Lycia and the flowing Xanthos,the king of wide Lycia honored him gladly;nine days he hosted him and sacrificed nine oxen.But when the tenth rosy-fingered Dawn appeared,then he questioned him and asked to see the signthat he had brought from his son-in-law Proetus.So when he had received the evil sign from his son-in-law,first he ordered him to kill the unconquerable Chimera,which was of divine race, not of men:a lion in front, a snake behind, a goat in the middle,breathing out the terrible force of blazing fire.And he killed it, trusting in the gods' signs.Second, he fought the glorious Solymi;he said that was the hardest battle he ever entered with men.Third, he killed the Amazons who fight like men.And as he came back, the king wove another close-laid trap:choosing the best men out of wide Lyciahe set an ambush; and none of them ever came home again,because blameless Bellerophon killed them all.But when the king knew he was noble offspring of a god,he kept him there and gave him his daughter,and gave him half of all his royal honor;and the Lycians cut out for him a plot of land beyond all others,fine with orchard and farmland, to hold as his own.And she bore three children to thoughtful Bellerophon:Isander and Hippolochus and Laodameia.And Zeus the counselor slept with Laodameia,and she bore godlike Sarpedon of the bronze helmet.But when that one too was hated by all the gods,he wandered alone across the Aleian plain,eating out his own heart, avoiding the paths of men.And Ares, who never gets enough of war, killed his son Isanderas he fought the glorious Solymi;and Artemis of the golden reins, angry, killed Laodameia.Hippolochus fathered me, and I say I am his son;and he sent me to Troy, and gave me many instructions:always to be the best and to stand above others,and never to shame the family of my fathers, who were by far the bestboth in Ephyre and in wide Lycia.From that family and blood I claim to come.So he spoke, and Diomedes of the good war cry was glad;he stuck his spear into the life-giving earth,and spoke to the shepherd of the people with gentle words:Then truly you are my old family friend from my father's time;for noble Oeneus once hosted blameless Bellerophonin his halls, and kept him twenty days;and they gave each other fine friendship gifts:Oeneus gave a belt that shone with crimson,and Bellerophon a golden two-handled cup,and I left it behind in my house when I came here.I do not remember Tydeus, since he left mewhen I was still a tiny child, when the Greek army died at Thebes.So now I am your friend in the middle of Argos,and you will be mine in Lycia when I come to that land.And let us avoid each other's spears, even in the crowd;because there are many Trojans and famous allies for meto kill, whichever god gives me and my feet catch;and there are many Greeks for you to kill, whoever you can.And let us swap our armor with each other, so that these men toomay know that we claim to be family friends.So they spoke, and leapt down from their chariots,and took each other's hands and pledged their word.Then Zeus, son of Cronus, took away Glaucus' wits,who swapped armor with Diomedes son of Tydeus,gold for bronze, worth a hundred oxen for nine.And when Hector reached the Scaean gates and the oak tree,the Trojan wives and daughters ran around him,asking about their sons, their brothers, their relatives,and their husbands; and he told them all in turnto pray to the gods; and sorrow waited for many of them.But when he reached Priam's beautiful house,built with polished colonnades - and inside itwere fifty rooms of polished stone,built close together, where Priam's sonsslept beside their wedded wives;and on the other side, facing them inside the courtyard,were twelve roofed rooms of polished stone,built close together, where Priam'ssons-in-law slept beside their honored wives;there his gentle mother met him,bringing Laodice, the most beautiful of her daughters;and she clung to his hand, and spoke and called him by name:My child, why have you left the fierce battle and come here?Surely the hated sons of the Greeks are wearing us downfighting around the city; and your heart pushed youto come up from the city's height and lift your hands to Zeus.But wait, while I bring you honey-sweet wine,so you can pour a libation to father Zeus and the other godsfirst, and then you yourself will gain, if you drink.Wine greatly builds up a tired man's strength,and you are tired, defending your own people.And great Hector of the shining helmet answered her:Do not bring me honey-hearted wine, honored mother,in case you weaken me and I forget my strength and courage;for I would be ashamed to pour bright wine to Zeus with unwashed hands;and there is no way to pray to the son of Cronus who gathers the black cloudswhen a man is spattered with blood and gore.But you go to the temple of Athena who leads the plunder,with incense, and gather the old women;and the robe that is the loveliest and biggest in your hall,and by far the dearest to your own heart,lay it on the knees of fair-haired Athena,and promise to sacrifice twelve cows in the temple,yearlings never yoked, if she takes pityon the city and the Trojan wives and the little children,and keeps the son of Tydeus away from holy Troy,that savage spearman, that strong maker of panic.But you go to the temple of Athena who leads the plunder,and I will go find Paris, to call him,if he will listen to what I say; and then may the groundopen up under him; the Olympian raised him as a great disasterfor the Trojans, and for great-hearted Priam and his sons.If I saw that man go down into the house of Hades,I would say my heart had forgotten its joyless grief.So he spoke, and she went to the hall and calledher maids; and they gathered the old women through the city.She herself went down into the fragrant storeroom,where her robes lay, the richly embroidered work of womenof Sidon, which godlike Alexander himselfhad brought from Sidon, sailing across the wide sea,on the same voyage that brought back Helen of the noble father.Hecuba took one of them and brought it as a gift to Athena,the one that was loveliest in its embroidery and the biggest,and it shone like a star; and it lay at the bottom of the others.She set off, and many old women hurried with her.When they reached the temple of Athena on the city's height,fair-cheeked Theano opened the doors for them,the daughter of Cisseus, wife of Antenor the horse-tamer;the Trojans had made her the priestess of Athena.They all lifted their hands to Athena with a cry.And fair-cheeked Theano took the robeand laid it on the knees of fair-haired Athena,and praying, she prayed to the daughter of great Zeus:Lady Athena, protector of the city, shining among goddesses,break the spear of Diomedes, and make that man himselffall face down in front of the Scaean gates,so that right now we may sacrifice twelve cows to youin your temple, yearlings never yoked, if you take pityon the city and the Trojan wives and the little children.So she spoke in prayer, but Pallas Athena shook her head no.So they prayed to the daughter of great Zeus,and Hector had gone to the house of Alexander,the beautiful one, which he himself had built with the men who thenwere the best craftsmen in fertile Troy,who made him a bedroom and a hall and a courtyardclose to Priam's house, on the city's height.Hector, dear to Zeus, went in there, and in his handhe held an eleven-cubit spear; the spear's bronze pointshone in front of him, and a golden band ran around the shaft.He found Paris in his room, busy with his beautiful armor,his shield and breastplate, and fitting his curved bow;and Argive Helen sat with her slave women,and she was telling her maids to do their famous work.Hector saw him and scolded him with shameful words:Strange man, this anger you keep in your heart is not good.The people are dying around the city and the steep wall,fighting; and because of you the war cry and the warburn around this city; and you would fight anyone elseyou saw somewhere hanging back from hateful war.Get up, before the city is burned by enemy fire.And godlike Alexander answered him:Hector, since you scolded me fairly, and not unfairly,I will answer you; and you listen and hear me.It is not so much anger or resentment at the Trojansthat kept me sitting in my room; I wanted to give in to grief.But now my wife has coaxed me with soft wordsand pushed me toward war; and it seems to me too that thiswill be better; victory passes from man to man.So come on, wait now while I put on my armor of Ares;or go, and I will follow; I think I will catch up with you.So he spoke, and Hector of the shining helmet said nothing to him;and Helen spoke to him with gentle words:Brother-in-law of mine, a dog, a horrible schemer of evil,I wish that on the day my mother first bore mea wicked blast of wind had carried me awayto a mountain or into the waves of the loud-roaring sea,where the wave would have washed me away before these things happened.But since the gods planned these evils this way,I should have been the wife of a better man,one who understood people's anger and their many shames.But this man's mind is not steady now, and it neverwill be; so I think he will pay for it.But come now, go in and sit on this chair,brother-in-law, since trouble most of all has wrapped around your heartbecause of me, a dog, and because of Alexander's ruin,on whom Zeus has laid an evil fate, so that even laterwe may be a song for men still to come.And great Hector of the shining helmet answered her:Do not ask me to sit, Helen, dear as you are; you will not persuade me;my heart already rushes ahead to defendthe Trojans, who badly miss me while I am away.But you push this man, and let him hurry himself,so he catches me still inside the city.For I will go home to seemy household, my dear wife, and my little son.For I do not know if I will come back to them again,or if the gods will strike me down under the hands of the Greeks.So he spoke, and Hector of the shining helmet left;and at once he reached his well-built house,and he did not find white-armed Andromache in the hall,but she, with her child and a well-dressed maid,stood on the tower, crying and wailing.When Hector did not find his blameless wife indoors,he stood in the doorway and spoke among the maids:Come now, maids, tell me the truth:where has white-armed Andromache gone from the hall?Has she gone to my sisters-in-law or my brothers' wives,or to the temple of Athena, where the otherfair-haired Trojan women try to please the terrible goddess?And the busy housekeeper answered him:Hector, since you ask me to tell you the truth,she has not gone to your sisters-in-law or your brothers' wives,nor to the temple of Athena, where the otherfair-haired Trojan women try to please the terrible goddess,but she went up on the great tower of Troy, because she heardthat the Trojans were hard pressed and the Greeks were much stronger.She has reached the wall, hurrying,like a woman out of her mind; and the nurse is carrying the child with her.So the housekeeper woman spoke, and Hector rushed out of the houseback along the same road through the well-built streets.When he reached the gates, passing through the great city,the Scaean gates, where he was about to go out onto the plain,there his richly dowered wife came running to meet him,Andromache, daughter of great-hearted Eetion,Eetion, who lived under wooded Plakos,in Thebe under Plakos, ruling the Cilician people;and his daughter was married to bronze-helmed Hector.She met him then, and her maid came with hercarrying the tender, innocent child on her chest,Hector's beloved son, like a beautiful star,whom Hector called Scamandrius, but everyone elseAstyanax; for Hector alone protected Troy.He smiled silently, looking at his son;and Andromache stood close to him, shedding tears,and she clung to his hand, and spoke and called him by name:Strange man, your own courage will kill you, and you do not pityyour baby son and me, unlucky, who will soon be a widowwithout you; for soon the Greeks will kill you,all rushing at you together; and it would be better for meto go down into the earth, losing you; for there will beno other comfort once you meet your death,only grief; for I have no father and no honored mother.For shining Achilles killed my father,and sacked the well-built city of the Cilicians,high-gated Thebe, and killed Eetion,and did not strip his armor, because he shrank from it in his heart,but burned him with his cunning armor,and piled a mound over him; and around it the mountain nymphs,daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, planted elm trees.And my seven brothers were in the hall,and they all went down into the house of Hades in one day;for swift-footed shining Achilles killed them allamong their rolling cattle and their white sheep.And my mother, who was queen under wooded Plakos,he brought her here with the rest of the loot,but then he set her free, taking endless ransom,and Artemis the arrow-shooter struck her down in my father's house.Hector, you are my father and my honored mother,and my brother, and my strong husband.But come now, take pity, and stay here on the tower,and do not make your child an orphan and your wife a widow.Station the army by the fig tree, where the cityis easiest to attack and the wall can be climbed.Three times the best men came there and tried it,the two Ajaxes and famous Idomeneus,and the sons of Atreus and the brave son of Tydeus;maybe someone told them, someone who knew the prophecies well,or their own hearts push and tell them.And great Hector of the shining helmet answered her:Wife, all this is my concern too; but I would be terriblyashamed in front of the Trojans and the long-robed Trojan womenif I hung back from the war like a coward;my heart does not tell me to either, since I learned to be bravealways, and to fight among the front-line Trojans,winning great glory for my father and for myself.For I know this well in my mind and heart:the day will come when holy Troy will be destroyed,and Priam and the people of Priam of the good ash spear.But I do not grieve so much for the Trojans in the future,nor for Hecuba herself, nor for King Priam,nor for my brothers, who are many and braveand will fall in the dust at the hands of enemy men -as much as for you, when some bronze-clad Greekleads you away weeping, robbing you of your free day;and in Argos, in another woman's house, you will work the loom,and you will carry water from Messes or Hypereia,much against your will, and hard necessity will press on you;and some day someone will say, seeing you weep:This is the wife of Hector, who was the best in battleof the horse-taming Trojans when they fought around Troy.So someone will say; and for you there will be new griefin needing such a man to hold off the day of slavery.But may the piled earth cover me in deathbefore I hear your scream and your being dragged away.So he spoke, and shining Hector reached out for his son;but the boy turned back to the chest of his well-girded nurse,crying, scared by the sight of his dear father,terrified of the bronze and the horsehair crest,seeing something terrible nodding from the top of the helmet.His dear father laughed, and his honored mother too;at once shining Hector took the helmet off his head,and set it on the ground, all shining;and he kissed his dear son and bounced him in his hands,and spoke, praying to Zeus and the other gods:Zeus and you other gods, grant that this son of minemay be, just as I am, outstanding among the Trojans,and strong and brave, and may he rule Troy with power;and some day let someone say, He is far better than his father,as he comes back from war; and may he carry bloody spoils,after killing an enemy man, and may his mother be glad at heart.So he spoke, and put his son in the arms of his dear wife;and she took him to her fragrant chest,laughing through her tears; and her husband felt pity when he saw it,and he stroked her with his hand, and spoke and called her by name:Strange wife, do not grieve too much in your heart;no man will send me down to Hades beyond my fate.And I say no man has ever escaped his fate,neither coward nor brave man, once he is born.But go into the house and see to your own work,the loom and the distaff, and tell your maidsto get on with their work; war will be the concern of men,all of them, and most of all of me, who were born in Troy.So he spoke, and shining Hector picked up his helmet,with its horsehair crest; and his dear wife went home,turning back again and again, shedding a thick tear.And at once she reached the well-built houseof man-killing Hector, and she found many maidsinside, and she stirred up wailing in them all.And they wailed for Hector while he was still alive in his own house;for they did not think he would come back again from the waralive, having escaped the strength and hands of the Greeks.Paris did not linger in his high house either,but once he had put on his famous armor, richly worked with bronze,he rushed through the city, trusting in his quick feet.And as when a stalled horse, fed at the manger,breaks its halter and gallops across the plain, exulting,used to bathing in a fair-flowing river,glorying; and he holds his head high, and his manetosses around his shoulders; and trusting in his own beauty,his legs carry him swiftly to the haunts and pasture of horses;so the son of Priam, Paris, from the height of Pergamus,shining in his armor, came on like the blazing sun,exulting, and his quick feet carried him; and at oncehe found shining Hector his brother, when he was just aboutto turn back from the place where he had talked with his wife.Godlike Alexander spoke to him first:Dear brother, surely I am holding you back while you hurry,by lingering, and I did not come in time the way you told me?And Hector of the shining helmet answered him:Strange man, no fair-minded mancould criticize your work in battle, since you are brave;but you hold back on purpose and do not want to fight; and my heartgrieves inside me when I hear shameful things about youfrom the Trojans, who have so much trouble because of you.But let us go; we will settle all that later, if ever Zeusgrants that we may set up a free mixing bowlfor the heavenly, ever-living gods in our halls,after driving the well-greaved Greeks out of Troy.