The Iliad Read online

  Victory shifts, you know, now one man, now another.

  So come, wait while I get this war-gear on,

  or you go on ahead and I will follow—

  I think I can overtake you.”

  Hector, helmet flashing,

  answered nothing. And Helen spoke to him now,

  her soft voice welling up: “My dear brother,

  dear to me, bitch that I am, vicious, scheming—

  horror to freeze the heart! Oh how I wish

  that first day my mother brought me into the light

  some black whirlwind had rushed me out to the mountains

  or into the surf where the roaring breakers crash and drag

  and the waves had swept me off before all this had happened!

  But since the gods ordained it all, these desperate years,

  I wish I had been the wife of a better man, someone

  alive to outrage, the withering scorn of men.

  This one has no steadiness in his spirit,

  not now, he never will ...

  and he’s going to reap the fruits of it, I swear.

  But come in, rest on this seat with me, dear brother.

  You are the one hit hardest by the fighting, Hector,

  you more than all—and all for me, whore that I am,

  and this blind mad Paris. Oh the two of us!

  Zeus planted a killing doom within us both,

  so even for generations still unborn

  we will live in song.”

  Turning to go,

  his helmet flashing, tall Hector answered,

  “Don’t ask me to sit beside you here, Helen.

  Love me as you do, you can’t persuade me now.

  No time for rest. My heart races to help our Trojans—

  they long for me, sorely, whenever I am gone.

  But rouse this fellow, won’t you?

  And let him hurry himself along as well,

  so he can overtake me before I leave the city.

  For I must go home to see my people first,

  to visit my own dear wife and my baby son.

  Who knows if I will ever come back to them again?—

  or the deathless gods will strike me down at last

  at the hands of Argive fighters.”

  A flash of his helmet

  and off he strode and quickly reached his sturdy,

  well-built house. But white-armed Andromache—

  Hector could not find her in the halls.

  She and the boy and a servant finely gowned

  were standing watch on the tower, sobbing, grieving.

  When Hector saw no sign of his loyal wife inside

  he went to the doorway, stopped and asked the servants,

  “Come, please, tell me the truth now, women.

  Where’s Andromache gone? To my sisters’ house?

  To my brothers’ wives with their long flowing robes?

  Or Athena’s shrine where the noble Trojan women

  gather to win the great grim goddess over?”

  A busy, willing servant answered quickly,

  “Hector, seeing you want to know the truth,

  she hasn’t gone to your sisters, brothers’ wives

  or Athena’s shrine where the noble Trojan women

  gather to win the great grim goddess over.

  Up to the huge gate-tower of Troy she’s gone

  because she heard our men are so hard-pressed,

  the Achaean fighters coming on in so much force.

  She sped to the wall in panic, like a madwoman—

  the nurse went with her, carrying your child.”

  At that, Hector spun and rushed from his house,

  back by the same way down the wide, well-paved streets

  throughout the city until he reached the Scaean Gates,

  the last point he would pass to gain the field of battle.

  There his warm, generous wife came running up to meet him,

  Andromache the daughter of gallant-hearted Eetion

  who had lived below Mount Placos rich with timber,

  in Thebe below the peaks, and ruled Cilicia’s people.

  His daughter had married Hector helmed in bronze.

  She joined him now, and following in her steps

  a servant holding the boy against her breast,

  in the first flush of life, only a baby,

  Hector’s son, the darling of his eyes

  and radiant as a star . . .

  Hector would always call the boy Scamandrius,

  townsmen called him Astyanax, Lord of the City,

  since Hector was the lone defense of Troy.

  The great man of war breaking into a broad smile,

  his gaze fixed on his son, in silence. Andromache,

  pressing close beside him and weeping freely now,

  clung to his hand, urged him, called him: “Reckless one,

  my Hector—your own fiery courage will destroy you!

  Have you no pity for him, our helpless son? Or me,

  and the destiny that weighs me down, your widow,

  now so soon? Yes, soon they will kill you off,

  all the Achaean forces massed for assault, and then,

  bereft of you, better for me to sink beneath the earth.

  What other warmth, what comfort’s left for me,

  once you have met your doom? Nothing but torment!

  I have lost my father. Mother’s gone as well.

  Father . . . the brilliant Achilles laid him low

  when he stormed Cilicia’s city filled with people,

  Thebe with her towering gates. He killed Eetion,

  not that he stripped his gear—he’d some respect at least—

  for he burned his corpse in all his blazoned bronze,

  then heaped a grave-mound high above the ashes

  and nymphs of the mountain planted elms around it,

  daughters of Zeus whose shield is storm and thunder.

  And the seven brothers I had within our halls . . .

  all in the same day went down to the House of Death,

  the great godlike runner Achilles butchered them all,

  tending their shambling oxen, shining flocks.

  And mother,

  who ruled under the timberline of woody Placos once—

  he no sooner haled her here with his other plunder

  than he took a priceless ransom, set her free

  and home she went to her father’s royal halls

  where Artemis, showering arrows, shot her down.

  You, Hector—you are my father now, my noble mother,

  a brother too, and you are my husband, young and warm

  and strong!

  Pity me, please! Take your stand on the rampart here,

  before you orphan your son and make your wife a widow.

  Draw your armies up where the wild fig tree stands,

  there, where the city lies most open to assault,

  the walls lower, easily overrun. Three times

  they have tried that point, hoping to storm Troy,

  their best fighters led by the Great and Little Ajax,

  famous Idomeneus, Atreus’ sons, valiant Diomedes.

  Perhaps a skilled prophet revealed the spot—.

  or their own fury whips them on to attack.“

  And tall Hector nodded, his helmet flashing:

  “All this weighs on my mind too, dear woman.

  But I would die of shame to face the men of Troy

  and the Trojan women trailing their long robes

  if I would shrink from battle now, a coward.

  Nor does the spirit urge me on that way.

  I’ve learned it all too well. To stand up bravely,

  always to fight in the front ranks of Trojan soldiers,

  winning my father great glory, glory for myself.

  For in my heart and soul I also know this well:

  the day will come when sacred Troy must die,

  Priam must
die and all his people with him,

  Priam who hurls the strong ash spear . . .

  Even so,

  it is less the pain of the Trojans still to come

  that weighs me down, not even of Hecuba herself

  or King Priam, or the thought that my own brothers

  in all their numbers, all their gallant courage,

  may tumble in the dust, crushed by enemies—

  That is nothing, nothing beside your agony

  when some brazen Argive hales you off in tears,

  wrenching away your day of light and freedom!

  Then far off in the land of Argos you must live,

  laboring at a loom, at another woman’s beck and call,

  fetching water at some spring, Messeis or Hyperia,

  resisting it all the way—

  the rough yoke of necessity at your neck.

  And a man may say, who sees you streaming tears,

  ‘There is the wife of Hector, the bravest fighter

  they could field, those stallion-breaking Trojans,

  long ago when the men fought for Troy.’ So he will say

  and the fresh grief will swell your heart once more,

  widowed, robbed of the one man strong enough

  to fight off your day of slavery.

  No, no,

  let the earth come piling over my dead body

  before I hear your cries, I hear you dragged away!”

  In the same breath, shining Hector reached down

  for his son—but the boy recoiled,

  cringing against his nurse’s full breast,

  screaming out at the sight of his own father,

  terrified by the flashing bronze, the horsehair crest,

  the great ridge of the helmet nodding, bristling terror—

  so it struck his eyes. And his loving father laughed,

  his mother laughed as well, and glorious Hector,

  quickly lifting the helmet from his head,

  set it down on the ground, fiery in the sunlight,

  and raising his son he kissed him, tossed him in his arms,

  lifting a prayer to Zeus and the other deathless gods:

  “Zeus, all you immortals! Grant this boy, my son,

  may be like me, first in glory among the Trojans,

  strong and brave like me, and rule all Troy in power

  and one day let them say, ‘He is a better man than his father!’—

  when he comes home from battle bearing the bloody gear

  of the mortal enemy he has killed in war—

  a joy to his mother’s heart.”

  So Hector prayed

  and placed his son in the arms of his loving wife.

  Andromache pressed the child to her scented breast,

  smiling through her tears. Her husband noticed,

  and filled with pity now, Hector stroked her gently,

  trying to reassure her, repeating her name: “Andromache,

  dear one, why so desperate? Why so much grief for me?

  No man will hurl me down to Death, against my fate.

  And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it,

  neither brave man nor coward, I tell you—

  it’s born with us the day that we are born.

  So please go home and tend to your own tasks,

  the distaff and the loom, and keep the women

  working hard as well. As for the fighting,

  men will see to that, all who were born in Troy

  but I most of all.”

  Hector aflash in arms

  took up his horsehair-crested helmet once again.

  And his loving wife went home, turning, glancing

  back again and again and weeping live warm tears.

  She quickly reached the sturdy house of Hector,

  man-killing Hector,

  and found her women gathered there inside

  and stirred them all to a high pitch of mourning.

  So in his house they raised the dirges for the dead,

  for Hector still alive, his people were so convinced

  that never again would he come home from battle,

  never escape the Argives’ rage and bloody hands.

  Nor did Paris linger long in his vaulted halls.

  Soon as he buckled on his elegant gleaming bronze

  he rushed through Troy, sure in his racing stride.

  As a stallion full-fed at the manger, stalled too long,

  breaking free of his tether gallops down the plain,

  out for his favorite plunge in a river’s cool currents,

  thundering in his pride—his head flung back, his mane

  streaming over his shoulders, sure and sleek in his glory,

  knees racing him on to the fields and stallion-haunts he loves—

  so down from Pergamus heights came Paris, son of Priam,

  glittering in his armor like the sun astride the skies,

  exultant, laughing aloud, his fast feet sped him on.

  Quickly he overtook his brother, noble Hector

  still lingering, slow to turn from the spot

  where he had just confided in his wife . . .

  Magnificent Paris spoke first: “Dear brother,

  look at me, holding you back in all your speed—

  dragging my feet, coming to you so late,

  and you told me to be quick!”

  A flash of his helmet as Hector shot back,

  “Impossible man! How could anyone fair and just

  underrate your work in battle? You’re a good soldier.

  But you hang back of your own accord, refuse to fight.

  And that, that’s why the heart inside me aches

  when I hear our Trojans heap contempt on you,

  the men who bear such struggles all for you.

  Come,

  now for attack! We’ll set all this to rights,

  someday, if Zeus will ever let us raise

  the winebowl of freedom high in our halls,

  high to the gods of cloud and sky who live forever—

  once we drive these Argives geared for battle out of Troy!“

  BOOK SEVEN

  Ajax Duels with Hector

  Vaunting, aflash in arms, Hector swept through the gates

  with his brother Paris keeping pace beside him.

  Both men bent on combat, on they fought like wind

  when a god sends down some welcome blast to sailors

  desperate for it, worked to death at the polished oars,

  beating the heavy seas, their arms slack with the labor—

  so welcome that brace of men appeared to the Trojans

  desperate for their captains.

  Each one killed his man.

  Paris took Menesthius, one who had lived in Ame,

  a son of King Areithous lord of the war-club

  and his lady Phylomedusa with large lovely eyes.

  Hector slashed Eioneus’ throat with a sharp spear,

  ripped him under the helmet’s hammered bronze rim—

  his legs collapsed in death.

  Quick in the jolting onset

  Lycia’s captain Glaucus son of Hippolochus skewered