The Iliad and the Odyssey (Classics of World Literature) (63 page)

One after other, king and queen and all our friends did sue

(Ev’n on their knees) to stay me there, such tremblings shake them all

With this man’s terror; but my mind so griev’d to see our wall

Girt with thy chases, that to death I long’d to urge thy stay.

Come, fight we, thirsty of his blood; no more let’s fear to lay

Cost on our lances, but approve if, bloodied with our spoils,

He can bear glory to their fleet, or shut up all their toils

In his one suf
f
’
rance on thy lance.’ With this deceit she led,

And (both come near) thus Hector spake: ‘Thrice I have compassed

This great town, Peleus’ son, in flight, with aversation,

That out of fate put off my steps, but now all flight is flown,

The short course set up, death or life. Our resolutions yet

Must shun all rudeness, and the gods before our valour set

For use of victory. And they being worthiest witnesses

Of all vows, since they keep vows best before their deities,

Let vows of fit respect pass both, when conquest hath bestow’d

Her wreath on either. Here I vow no fury shall be show’d,

That is not manly, on thy corse; but, having spoil’d thy arms,

Resign thy person; which swear thou.’ These fair and temperate terms

Far fled Achilles, his brows bent, and out flew this reply:

‘Hector, thou only pestilence in all mortality

To my sere spirits, never set the point ’twixt thee and me

Any conditions, but as far as men and lions fly

All terms of covenant, lambs and wolves, in so far opposite state

(Impossible t’ atone) stand we, till our souls satiate

The god of soldiers; do not dream that our disjunction can

Endure condition. Therefore now, all worth that fits a man

Call to thee, all particular parts that fit a soldier,

And they all this include (besides the skill and spirit of war):

Hunger for slaughter, and a hate that eats thy heart to eat

Thy foe’s heart. This stirs, this supplies in death the killing heat,

And all this need’st thou. No more flight; Pallas Athenia

Will quickly cast thee to my lance; now, now together draw

All griefs for vengeance, both in me and all my friends late dead

That bled thee, raging with thy lance.’ This said, he brandished

His long lance, and away it sung; which, Hector giving view,

Stoop’d low, stood firm (foreseeing it best), and quite it overflew,

Fast’ning on earth. Athenia drew it, and gave her friend,

Unseen of Hector. Hector then thus spake: ‘Thou want’st thy end,

God-like Achilles. Now I see thou hast not learn’d my fate

Of Jove at all, as thy high words would bravely intimate;

Much tongue affects thee, cunning words well serve thee to prepare

Thy blows with threats, that mine might faint with want of spirit to dare;

But my back never turns with breath, it was not born to bear

Burthens of wounds; strike home before, drive at my breast thy spear,

As mine at thine shall; and try then if heav’ns will favour thee

With ’scape of my lance. O would Jove would take it after me,

And make thy bosom take it all; an easy end would crown

Our difficult wars were thy soul fled, thou most bane of our town.’

Thus flew his dart, touch’d at the midst of his vast shield, and flew

A huge way from it; but his heart wrath ent’red with the view

Of that hard ’scape, and heavy thoughts struck through him when he spied

His brother vanish’d, and no lance beside left; out he cried:

‘Deiphobus! Another lance.’ Lance, nor Deiphobus,

Stood near his call. And then his mind saw all things ominous,

And thus suggested: ‘Woe is me, the gods have called, and I

Must meet death here; Deiphobus I well hop’d had been by

With his white shield, but our strong walls shield him, and this deceit

Flows from Minerva. Now, O now, ill death comes, no more flight,

No more recovery: O Jove, this hath been otherwise;

Thy bright son and thyself have set the Greeks a greater prize

Of Hector’s blood than now, of which (ev’n jealous) you had care;

But fate now conquers; I am hers; and yet not she shall share

In my renown; that life is left to every noble spirit,

And that some great deed shall beget, that all lives shall inherit.’

Thus, forth his sword flew, sharp and broad, and bore a deadly weight,

With which he rush’d in: and look how an eagle from her height

Stoops to the rapture of a lamb, or cuffs a timorous hare:

So fell in Hector, and at him Achilles; his mind’s fare

Was fierce and mighty, his shield cast a sun-like radiance,

Helm nodded, and his four plumes shook; and when he rais’d his lance,

Up Hesperus rose ’mongst th’ evening stars. His bright and sparkling eyes

Look’d through the body of his foe, and sought through all that prise

The next way to his thirsted life. Of all ways, only one

Appear’d to him, and that was where th’ unequal winding bone,

That joins the shoulders and the neck, had place, and where there lay

The speeding way to death, and there his quick eye could display

The place it sought, ev’n through those arms his friend Patroclus wore

When Hector slew him. There he aim’d, and there his javelin tore

Stern passage quite through Hector’s neck; yet miss’d it so his throat,

It gave him pow’r to change some words, but down to earth it got

His fainting body. Then triumph’d divine Aeacides:

‘Hector,’ said he, ‘thy heart suppos’d that in my friend’s decease

Thy life was safe, my absent arm not cared for. Fool! He left

One at the fleet that better’d him, and he it is that reft

Thy strong knees thus: and now the dogs and fowls in foulest use

Shall tear thee up, thy corse expos’d to all the Greeks’ abuse.’

He, fainting, said: ‘Let me implore, ev’n by thy knees and soul,

And thy great parents, do not see a cruelty so foul

Inflicted on me: brass and gold receive at any rate,

And quit my person, that the peers and ladies of our state

May tomb it, and to sacred fire turn thy profane decrees.’

‘Dog,’ he replied, ‘urge not my ruth, by parents, soul, nor knees:

I would to god that any rage would let me eat thee raw,

Sliced into pieces, so beyond the right of any law

I taste thy merits, and believe it flies the force of man

To rescue thy head from the dogs. Give all the gold they can,

If ten or twenty times so much as friends would rate thy price

Were tender’d here, with vows of more, to buy the cruelties

I here have vow’d, and after that thy father with his gold

Would free thyself, all that should fail to let thy mother hold

Solemnities of death with thee, and do thee such a grace

To mourn thy whole corse on a bed; which piecemeal I’ll deface

With fowls and dogs.’ He (dying) said: ‘I (knowing thee well) foresaw

Thy now tried tyranny, nor hop’d for any other law

Of nature, or of nations: and that fear forc’d much more

Than death my flight, which never touch’d at Hector’s foot before:

A soul of iron informs thee; mark what vengeance th’ equal fates

Will give me of thee for this rage, when in the Scaean gates

Phoebus and Paris meet with thee.’ Thus death’s hand clos’d his eyes,

His soul flying his fair limbs to hell, mourning his destinies

To part so with his youth and strength. Thus dead, thus Thetis’ son

His prophecy answer’d: ‘Die thou now; when my short thread is spun,

I’ll bear it as the will of Jove.’ This said, his brazen spear

He drew, and stuck by; then his arms (that all imbrued were)

He spoil’d his shoulders of. Then all the Greeks ran in to him

To see his person, and admir’d his terror-stirring limb;

Yet none stood by that gave no wound to his so goodly form,

When each to other said: ‘O Jove, he is not in the storm

He came to fleet in with his fire, he handles now more soft.’

‘O friends,’ said stern Aeacides, ‘now that the gods have brought

This man thus down, I’ll freely say he brought more bane to Greece

Than all his aiders. Try we then (thus arm’d at every piece,

And girding all Troy with our host) if now their hearts will leave

Their city clear, her clear stay slain, and all their lives receive,

Or hold yet, Hector being no more. But why use I a word

Of any act but what concerns my friend? Dead, undeplor’d,

Unsepulchred, he lies at fleet, unthought on: never hour

Shall make his dead state, while the quick enjoys me, and this pow’r

To move these movers. Though in hell men say that such as die

Oblivion seizeth, yet in hell in me shall Memory

Hold all her forms still of my friend. Now, youths of Greece, to fleet

Bear we this body, paeans sing, and all our navy greet

With endless honour; we have slain Hector, the period

Of all Troy’s glory, to whose worth all vow’d as to a god.’

This said, a work not worthy him he set to: of both feet

He bor’d the nerves through from the heel to th’ ankle, and then knit

Both to his chariot with a thong of whitleather, his head

Trailing the centre. Up he got to chariot, where he laid

The arms repurchas’d, and scourg’d on his horse, that freely flew.

A whirlwind, made of startled dust, drave with them as they drew,

With which were all his black-brown curls knotted in heaps and fil’d.

And there lay Troy’s late gracious, by Jupiter exil’d

To all disgrace in his own land, and by his parents seen.

When (like her son’s head) all with dust Troy’s miserable queen

Distain’d her temples, plucking off her honour’d hair, and tore

Her royal garments, shrieking out. In like kind Priam bore

His sacred person, like a wretch that never saw good day,

Broken with outcries. About both the people prostrate lay,

Held down with clamour, all the town veil’d with a cloud of tears:

Ilion, with all his tops on fire, and all the massacres

Left for the Greeks, could put on looks of no more overthrow

Than now ’fray’d life. And yet the king did all their looks outshow.

The wretched people could not bear his sovereign wretchedness,

Plaguing himself so – thrusting out, and praying all the press

To open him the Dardan ports, that he alone might fetch

His dearest son in; and (all fill’d with rumbling) did beseech

Each man by name, thus: ‘Loved friends, be you content, let me

(Though much ye grieve) be that poor mean to our sad remedy

Now in our wishes; I will go and pray this impious man

(Author of horrors), making proof if age’s reverence can

Excite his pity. His own sire is old like me, and he

That got him to our griefs, perhaps may (for my likeness) be

Mean for our ruth to him. Alas, you have no cause of cares,

Compar’d with me; I many sons, grac’d with their freshest years,

Have lost by him, and all their deaths in slaughter of this one

(Afflicted man) are doubled: this will bitterly set gone

My soul to hell. O would to heav’n I could but hold him dead

In these pin’d arms; then tears on tears might fall, till all were shed

In common fortune. Now amaze their natural course doth stop,

And pricks a mad vein.’ Thus he mourn’d, and with him all brake ope

Their store of sorrows. The poor queen amongst the women wept,

Turn’d into anguish: ‘O my son,’ she cried out, ‘why still kept

Patient of horrors is my life when thine is vanished?

My days thou glorifiedst; my nights rung of some honour’d deed

Done by thy virtues – joy to me, profit to all our care.

All made a god of thee, and thou mad’st them all that they are:

Now under fate, now dead. These two thus vented as they could

Their sorrow’s furnace, Hector’s wife not having yet been told

So much as of his stay without: she in her chamber close

Sat at her loom; a piece of work, grac’d with a both sides gloss,

Strew’d curiously with varied flowers, her pleasure was; her care,

To heat a cauldron for her lord, to bathe him turn’d from war,

Of which she chief charge gave her maids. Poor dame, she little knew

How much her cares lack’d of his case. But now the clamour flew

Up to her turret: then she shook, her work fell from her hand,

And up she started, call’d her maids; she needs must understand

That ominous outcry. ‘Come,’ said she, ‘I hear through all this cry

My mother’s voice shriek: to my throat my heart bounds; ecstasy

Utterly alters me: some fate is near the hapless sons

Of fading Priam. Would to god my words’ suspicions

No ear had heard yet. O I fear, and that most heartily,

That with some stratagem the son of Peleus hath put by

The wall of Ilion, my lord, and (trusty of his feet)

Obtain’d the chase of him alone; and now the curious heat

Of his still desperate spirit is cool’d. It let him never keep

In guard of others; before all his violent foot must step,

Or his place forfeited he held.’ Thus fury-like she went,

Two women (as she will’d) at hand, and made her quick ascent

Up to the tow’r and press of men, her spirit in uproar. Round

She cast her greedy eye, and saw her Hector slain, and bound

T’ Achilles chariot, manlessly dragg’d to the Grecian fleet.

Black night struck through her; under her, trance took away her feet,

And back she shrunk, with such a sway, then off her head-tire flew,

Her coronet, caul, ribands, veil, that golden Venus threw