While these Trojans paused to harvest their spoils, the Greeks dashed into the fosse and scurried hither and thither, searching for a breach in the palisade which would give them access to the rampart. Hector’s voice rang out: ‘Leave those bloody spoils until later! Attack the ships! Any man who skulks or dawdles shall die; nor shall his corpse be honoured with a funeral pyre. Dogs will devour it in full view of the Citadel!’
He whipped at his team, and sounded the charge. The chariot-fighters, now lined up on either flank, echoed his shout and galloped forward; for Apollo had made them a bridge from the broken parapet of the fosse. Over this bridge, wide as the champion cast in a spear-throwing contest, rolled the chariots, and Apollo, Zeus’ Aegis proudly flaunted, made their course smooth.
A little boy, laughing for glee,
Builds castles by the summer sea,
Then exercises foot and hand
To scatter them in clouds of sand…
With equal ease and merriment, Apollo kicked down an ample length of the rampart and drove the Greeks, who had taken such trouble to construct it, panic-stricken back. They halted at the ships, jabbering to one another, or addressing Heaven in vehement prayer. Old Nestor, Guardian of the Greeks, prayed memorably, as follows:
‘Great ZEUS, have mercy on us,
Who never fail to heap
Your altar with the thighbones
Of oxen and fat sheep!
‘Remember your firm promise,
When once these Greeks and I
Prepared the voyage Troywards
And bade our homes goodbye,
‘That to our lovely cornlands
We should return in joy—
Keep faith with us, Shield-Bearer,
And bring defeat on Troy!’
A loud roll of thunder acknowledged the old man’s supplication; but the Trojans read this as a sign favourable to themselves, and pressed on more recklessly yet. Their chariots neared the ruined rampart, and swept across it towards the fleet:
Storm-driven waves wap on a galley’s side,
Swamping both deck and bulwarks in their pride.
They engaged the uppermost row of ships, now manned by Greeks brandishing the huge, jointed pikes which were kept aboard for use in sea-battles.
Meanwhile, Patroclus had been laying a poultice of herbs on Eurypylus’ wound, and talking cheerfully to him; but when he heard the Trojans hurtle past, he groaned, pummelled his thighs in exasperation, and cried: ‘Eurypylus, despite your urgent need of me I cannot stay; savage fighting has broken out again. Your charioteer must take my place while I hurry off and try to make Achilles change his mind. Perhaps with Heaven’s help I shall succeed; there is no persuasion so strong as a friend’s!’ Patroclus was already through the doorway before he had finished speaking.
The Greeks put up a stout resistance, yet could not drive off the smaller Trojan force; neither could the Trojans dislodge the Greeks:
ATHENE’S cunning hands have made
New tools for the ship-builder’s trade:
Such as the line, stretched by a weight,
Which helps them cut their planking straight.
Level as the sides of a plank, taut as a carpenter’s line—that was how the battle went. Hector, still inspired by Apollo, sought out Great Ajax, but failed to fire the ship which he held. Thus the contest remained indecisive, though Ajax thrust a spear into the breast of Caletor, son of Clytius, and sent him crashing down, torch in hand. Grieved at his cousin’s death, Hector shouted: ‘Trojans, Lycians, tough Dardanians, fight on fiercely and prevent the Greeks from seizing Caletor’s armour!’
The spear he cast missed Ajax and caught Lycophron, son of Mastor, just above the ear, tumbling him over the stem of his vessel. Ajax shuddered at the sight, for this was the Lycophron who had fled from Cythera, Aphrodite’s sacred island, after murdering a neighbour, and found service with him as his squire. ‘Teucrus,’ cried Ajax, ‘Hector has killed our comrade Lycophron, whom at home in Salamis we honoured like a father! Where is the bow that Phoebus Apollo gave you? And where are your death-dealing arrows?’
Ajax’s half-brother Teucrus ran forward, displaying his bow, and engaged the Trojans. Cleitus, the noble son of Prince Polydamas’ friend Peisenor, had driven up to assist Hector; but none of his loyal henchmen could save him from destruction. As he busied himself with the team, one of Teucrus’ arrows pierced the nape of his neck and he fell lifeless to the dust. His horses backed, rattling the empty chariot, which Prince Polydamas at once asked Astynous, son of Protiaon, to mount and hold in readiness for him; then he resumed the fight. Teucrus took careful aim at Hector, and if he had shot, the battle would have ended suddenly. But Zeus, who was guarding Hector, denied Teucrus any such glory by snapping his bow-string. The bronze-headed arrow fled wide, and the bow dropped on deck. ‘Alas!’ he cried, trembling for disappointment. ‘Heaven is against us! Some god tore the bow from my grasp and broke the fresh, well-twisted bow-string with which I fitted it, only this morning, in expectation of a hard day’s work.’
Ajax answered: ‘Yes, brother! Since the god has put your bow and arrows out of commission, throw them away and show an example to our men by using a spear and shield! The Trojans won the last bout, but it will give me great pleasure to make them pay dearly for these hulls.’
Teucrus hastened to his hut, where he abandoned the bow in favour of a bull’s hide shield four layers thick, and a handsome helmet surmounted by a terrifying horsehair plume. Then he chose a huge, well-sharpened spear, hurried aboard Ajax’s vessel again, and stood at his side.
Hector, who had seen the bow-string snap, shouted: ‘Trojans, Lycians, and tough Dardanians! Fight on, fight on savagely! Zeus has disarmed the finest Greek archer alive. When the Thunderer glorifies his favourites, or confounds their foes, he does so plainly enough. Close your ranks, capture those ships, and if anyone gets wounded, why, that will be his fate… And if he falls in defence of Troy, and in defence of his wife, children, house and lands—oh, to rid this shore of Greeks!—that will be a heroic end.’ Hector’s words made the Trojans redouble their efforts.
‘Shame on you, comrades!’ yelled Ajax. ‘It is all or nothing now—either victory, or utter ruin! Do not think that, if Hector the Bright-Helmed destroys our fleet, we shall simply walk home by dry land! You heard him haranguing his army. He was inviting them not to a dance but to an act of arson. Hold fast, and repel boarders! What other choice have you? It is far better to risk instant death than be slowly and miserably driven into the sea by an inferior force.’ Ajax’s words made the Greeks redouble their efforts likewise.
Hector killed the Phocian Prince Schedius, son of Perimedes; and Ajax, Antenor’s son Laodamas, commander of the Trojan infantry; while Polydamas cut down Otus of Cyllene, a resolute Epeian, brother-in-arms to Meges, son of Phyleus. Meges rushed to take vengeance on Polydamas, whom Apollo was protecting, but he ducked and let the spear hurtle past. It entered Croesmus’ breast, and Meges immediately began stripping his corpse. Then along came Dolops, son of Lampus and grandson of Laomedon, the bravest member of a brave family, and breached Meges’ shield with a spear-thrust, though not his armour: for Meges wore a weapon-proof mail corslet, which his father Phyleus had once been given by King Euphetes of Elis, during a visit to Ephyra on the River Selleëis. In return, Meges lunged at Dolops’ face; but did no more than shear off the new, scarlet-dyed horsehair plume that topped his helmet. As Dolops was about to deal a decisive blow, King Menelaus speared him through the shoulder from behind, thus saving Meges’ life.
When Meges and Menelaus coveted the spoils, Hector called on all members of the Trojan royal house—Hicetaon’s son Melanippus in particular—to drive them off. This Melanippus had been breeding cattle at tranquil Percote before the war, but news of the Greek invasion brought him straight back to Troy, where he won high praise for his soldierly conduct. He lived next door to King Priam, who honoured him as if he were one of his own sons.
‘Melanippus!’ Hector cr
ied. ‘Two princes are despoiling our cousin Dolops! Does the sight not enrage you? This is no longer a war fought at a distance—the Greeks investing Troy, we shooting casually from the walls—it has become a death struggle, man against man. Follow me!’
Hector ran forward, and burly Melanippus followed at his heels.
Great Ajax cried: ‘Hold fast, Greeks! By shaming one another into heroism, you will stand a good chance of survival, and none of disgrace.’
His cheering companions formed a ring of bronze around the ship (which Zeus, nevertheless, encouraged the Trojans to break), and Menelaus begged Antilochus for a display of his gallantry. ‘Son of Nestor,’ he shouted, ‘as the youngest, most agile, and strongest of us champions, make a sortie, and strike down a Trojan if you can!’
Menelaus withdrew as Antilochus sprang out of the Greek ranks, glanced shrewdly in every direction, and cast his glittering spear. The Trojans scattered, but he had taken careful aim: struck near the right nipple, Melanippus fell dying, and Antilochus rushed on, like a hound retrieving a wounded fawn, to capture his armour. Then up strode Hector, and:
The lion, conscious of his crime—
Killing a herdsman or a hound—
Deserts his victim, just in time,
Before the neighbours gather round.
This was how Antilochus slunk away, escaping a shower of missiles; yet turned and faced about when safely among his comrades again.
Ferociously now the Trojans advanced. Zeus, because of the promise he had given the presumptuous Thetis, wished Hector to bum the fleet. Impatient for the sight of a blazing ship, he goaded on the Trojans and dispirited the Greeks. Hector needed little enough goading: he raged like Ares in a battle-fury, or like a forest fire that sweeps the hills; foam flecked his lips, his eyes glowed beneath menacing brows, and the helmet he wore rattled to the throbbing of his temples.
Indeed, Zeus awarded Hector immortal fame: one hero challenging so many, and not fated to live long, either—since Athene was already trying to hasten his death at the hand of Achilles. He charged the Greek line wherever he found the strongest concentration of troops and the most resplendent armour, but always without success:
The embattled headland, steep and wide,
Howled at by storms from every side
And roared against by swelling seas,
Cares not for threats as vain as these!
Then a divine light enveloped Hector, and he leaped upon the Greeks—
The sky grows black.
A sudden gale
Bellies the sail.
Taken aback,
The sailors shout:
‘Put her about!
Look out, beware!
Here comes a wave
To dig our grave!’
It strikes them square.
In foam they flounder,
And all but founder.
No less dismayed by Hector’s leap, the Greeks panicked:
Our herdsman has not learned the art
Of foiling a fierce beast
That ventures forth with shameless heart
Upon fat cows to feast.
Thick on the meads beside a lake
They browse and have no fear,
Whether his post they see him take
In front or in the rear.
But careful watch he does not keep:
Observe their terror now
When the dread lion leaps his leap
And slaughters a fat cow!
Hector’s victim, Periphetes the Mycenaean—a son of the notorious herald Copreus, whom King Eurystheus once employed to take Heracles new orders after each of his twelve tasks—did not favour his father; he was a fine athlete, a sturdy fighter, and the most gifted nobleman in Mycenae. Turning to avoid Hector, Periphetes tripped over the rim of the enormous shield he carried and fell, his helmet striking the ground with a clang. As he struggled to rise, Hector speared him in the breast, nor did his men ran to rescue him, despite their grief. Though restrained by shame from scattering wildly, Ajax’s troops ceased to defend the uppermost row of ships, and darted through them. Forming up in front of the huts built between this row and the next, they shouted at one another: ‘Stand fast! Stand fast!’
Nestor appealed to them all by name. ‘Quit you like men,’ he cried, ‘and fear nothing but the contempt of your fellows! Let every soldier remember his wife, his children, his house, his lands, his parents whether living or dead—oh, my lads, prove yourselves heroes, I beseech you, for the sake of your dear ones far away!’
Nestor’s words steadied them, the strange mist that had hitherto clouded their eyes rose at Athene’s command, and the sun shone again. Now they could see how the battle went—Hector and his savage comrades opposing them, a mass of Trojan infantry ranked in the rear, loth to enter the mělée; and Great Ajax, alone, defending the abandoned row of ships. He brandished a thirty-foot sea-pike, ringed securely at the joints. But:
The tawny eagle on his rock
Observes below him a bird flock—
It may be swan or goose or crane—
By a broad river in the plain…
That eagle’s swoop was no swifter than Hector’s! He attacked the nearest ship, which happened to be formerly commanded by Protesilaus, the first Greek to die in the war.
Who would then have thought that both sides had been engaged since morning? They fought like fresh troops: the Greeks desperately, the Trojans exultantly, urged forward by Zeus. No arrows or javelins were used: nothing but axes, hatchets, broadswords, and two-bladed spears. Many was the handsomely-hilted sword that fell from the fingers of a dying man or, still in its dark scabbard, from his shoulder; much blood also stained the earth. Hector seized the ship’s stern-ornament and clung to it, shouting: ‘Trojans, fetch torches, raise your war-cry! Welcome our crowning hour! The Greeks are here in despite of Heaven, and have plagued us year after year, ever since that cowardly Royal Council would not let me lead you out against them. Yet, if Zeus the Far-Sighted then dimmed our wits, he has made amends at last by directing our attack.’
The Trojans fought so fiercely that Ajax’s position on the deck of his vessel became untenable. He retired amidships, pike in hand, to a seven-foot-long oarsman’s bench. There he stood, beating off all attempts to fire the ship, and yelling: ‘Brothers, heroes, favourites of Ares, keep courage! Why pretend that we have a walled city behind us, or allies to march up in support and turn the tide of battle? We are caught on the Trojan plain, far from Greece, the sea at our backs, a savage enemy at our throats. We can do no more than fight, and fight again!’
He scowled defiance, and would dart his spear down whenever he saw a Trojan with a torch trying to obey Hector’s orders. He thus killed or wounded a dozen men in succession.
Book Sixteen:
Hector Kills Patroclus
While this struggle beside the ships was in progress, noble Patroclus visited the hut of Achilles the Swift-Footed, and:
His tears ran down as mournfully as if
They were some dark stream oozing from a cliff.
Achilles rallied him: ‘Why come weeping to me, Patroclus, like a heart-broken little girl to her mother?
“‘Mother,” sobs the pretty creature,
Clutching at her gown,
“Take me with you, pick me up,
Carry me to town!”
‘And the mother, though molested,
Has no other choice:
She obeys that tearful, shrill,
Too insistent voice.
‘Have you bad news for the Myrmidons, or for me—some private message from Phthia? Your father Menoetius and my father Peleus are both still alive, I trust—if either were reported dead, all we Myrmidons would go into immediate mourning. Or can it be that this slaughter of Agamemnon’s army—the just punishment for his unpardonable conduct towards me—provokes your tears? Out with the truth!’
Patroclus replied, groaning: ‘Best and bravest of Greeks, do not be angry because I take their ruin to heart. Mo
st of our leading champions have come back wounded: Diomedes, son of Tydeus, Odysseus, and the High King himself. Eurypylus has an arrow in his thigh. The surgeons are overwhelmed with work. Oh, how can I persuade you to relent? May I never be the victim of so disastrous a grudge! What thanks will future generations give you when your fame rests mainly on a refusal to intervene while their fathers were being massacred? Must we still believe that you are a child of noble Peleus and the gentle Thetis? You seem hard-hearted enough to have been sired by the stony cliffs on the tempestuous sea. Possibly your refusal to fight can be explained by some oracle, or by some promise that Zeus made your mother. If so, why should I not lead the Myrmidons as a forlorn hope against the enemy? Please put them under my orders and, while you are about it, lend me your arms. When the Trojans recognize them they may well withdraw, mistaking me for you, and thus allow our comrades time to catch their breath. Hector’s men are equally exhausted, and a charge by fresh troops should drive them out of the camp and home again.’
Patroclus little knew what gift he was begging to have bestowed on him: his own violent death. Achilles sighed heavily. ‘Patroclus,’ he said at length, ‘what a speech! No oracle that I am aware of prevents my fighting, nor has Thetis acquainted me with any promise from Zeus; this black mood is due solely to resentment at being robbed by Agamemnon. After all my labours and perils, how could I forgive him for presuming on his power as Commander-in-Chief, though of no higher rank than myself? In carrying off Briseis, my prize of honour, whom I captured at Thebe, he has treated me like a mere camp-follower! Yet no man can stay angry for ever. So, if it is true that the whole male population of Troy has swarmed over the rampart and confined us to this narrow strip of beach, I shall let bygones be bygones, albeit sworn not to fight until the Trojans threaten my flotilla. Very well: borrow my famous armour and lead out the Myrmidons. It is some days, of course, since the Trojans saw the glitter of my helmet, and had Agamemnon offered me decent respect, they would never have ventured so far, but fled in panic at sight of me and filled the river beds with their corpses. Yes, you are right: Diomedes has evidently been put out of action, nor is Agamemnon raising his hateful war-cry. I hear only Hector’s yells of encouragement to his Trojans, and their answering cheers as they force the Greeks back. In fact, Patroclus, you had better lose no time. What if they burn the fleet and cut off our retreat?’