The Iliad (Penguin Classics) Page 21

  Hector meets Andromache

  (390) So spoke the serving-woman, and Hector raced out of the house and retraced his steps down the well-built streets. He had crossed the great town and reached the Scaean gate – his route out on to the plain – when Andromache herself, who married him with a rich dowry, came running up to meet him. Andromache was the daughter of great-hearted Eêtion, the Cilician ruler who lived below the woods of Mount Placus in Thebe-under-Placus. It was his daughter that the warrior Hector had married.

  Andromache came to meet him, and her waiting-woman (400) carried the little boy in her arms, their baby son and Hector’s darling, lovely as a star, whom Hector called Scamandrius, but everyone else Astyanax, ‘Town-lord’, because his father was the one defence of Ilium.

  Hector looked at his son and smiled, but said nothing. Andromache, bursting into tears, went up to him, put her hand in his and said:

  ‘Hector, you are possessed! This determination of yours will be the death of you. You have no pity on your little boy or your luckless wife, who will soon be your widow, when the Greeks (410) kill you in a massed attack. And when I lose you, I might as well be dead. There will be no comfort left when you have met your end – nothing but grief.

  ‘And I have no father or lady mother either. My father Eêtion fell to godlike Achilles when he sacked our welcoming town, Cilician Thebe with its high gates. But though Achilles killed Eêtion, he did not think it right to strip the body. He cremated him in his ornate arms and built a grave-mound above him; (420) and the mountain Nymphs, daughters of Zeus who drives the storm-cloud, planted elms around it.

  ‘I had seven brothers too at home. In one day, all of them went down into Hades. Godlike swift-footed Achilles killed them all while they were looking after their shambling cattle and white sheep. As for my mother, who ruled in Thebe under the woods of Mount Placus, Achilles brought her here with the rest of his spoils, but freed her for an immense ransom, and later she died peacefully in her father’s house at the hands of Artemis who delights in arrows.

  (430) ’So Hector, you are father and mother and brother to me, as well as my strong husband. Have pity on me now. Stay here on the tower and don’t make your boy an orphan and your wife a widow. Rally the Trojans by the fig-tree there, where the wall is easiest to scale and the town most open to attack. Three times already, their best men led by the two Ajaxes, celebrated Idomeneus, Agamemnon, Menelaus and brave Diomedes have assaulted that point and tried to break through. Someone who knows the oracles must have told them about it or else they have their own reasons for attacking there.’

  (440) Great Hector of the flashing helmet replied:

  ‘Andromache, I too have all this constantly on my mind. But if I hid myself like a coward and slunk from the fighting, I would feel nothing but shame before the Trojans and the Trojan women in their trailing gowns. My heart would not be in it either, since I have trained myself always to be a good warrior, to take my place in the front line and try to win glory for my father and myself.

  ‘But deep in my heart I know well the day is coming when sacred Ilium will be destroyed, together with the people of Priam (450) and Priam himself of the good ash spear. Yet what distresses me is not only the thought of what the Trojans will suffer, or Hecabe herself, or lord Priam, or my brothers who, for all their numbers and bravery, will be brought down in the dust at enemy hands, but much more the thought of you, when you are dragged off in tears by some bronze-armoured Greek, your freedom gone.

  ‘I see you there in Greece, labouring away for some other woman at the loom or carrying water from some foreign spring, Messeis or Hypereia, much against your will, unable (460) to do anything about it. ‘‘There goes the wife of Hector’’ they will say when they see your tears. ‘‘He was the greatest of the horse-taming Trojans who fought it out round Ilium.’’ That is what they will say, and you will feel fresh grief at the loss of the one man who might have kept you free. But may the earth be piled high over my dead body before I hear your cries as they drag you off.’

  Hector’s child

  With these words glorious Hector reached out for his boy. But the child shrank back with a cry to the bosom of his girdled nurse, alarmed by his father’s appearance, (470) terrified by his bronze helmet with its horsehair plume that he saw nodding frighteningly from the top. His father and lady mother burst out laughing. Glorious Hector quickly took his helmet off and put it, all shining, on the ground. Then he kissed his dear son, dandled him in his arms and prayed to Zeus and the other gods:

  ‘Zeus and you other gods, grant that this boy of mine becomes, like me, pre-eminent among the Trojans; as strong and brave as I; a mighty ruler of Ilium. May people say, when (480) he comes back from battle, ‘‘Here is a man much better than his father.’’ Let him bring home the bloodstained armour of the enemy he has killed and delight his mother’s heart.’

  With these words Hector handed the boy into the arms of his wife, who took him to her fragrant bosom, laughing through her tears. When her husband saw this, pity overcame him. He stroked her with his hand and said:

  ‘Dear heart, I beg you, don’t distress yourself too much. No one is going to send me down to Hades before my time, though death itself, I think, is something no man, coward or hero, can (490) escape, once he has come into this world. You go home now and attend to your work, the loom and the spindle, and tell the waiting-women to get on with theirs. War is men’s business; and this war will be the business of every man in Ilium, myself above all.’

  With these words glorious Hector picked up his helmet with its horsehair plume. His wife set out for home, weeping profusely and with many a backward look. She soon reached the welcoming palace of man-slaying Hector, found many of her waiting-women inside and stirred them all to lamentation. They (500) mourned for Hector in his own house, though he was still alive, thinking he would never survive the fury of the Greeks’ assault and come home from the battle.

  Hector and Paris return to battle

  Paris too had not lingered in his high house. Directly he had put on his impressive ornate armour, he hurried out through the town, making the most of his speed. As a stabled horse breaks his halter at the manger where he feeds and, hooves thudding, gallops off across the fields to his usual bathing-place in the sweet-flowing river, exultant; he tosses his head; his mane streams in the wind (510) along his shoulders; he knows how beautiful he is, and his feet carry him skimming over the ground to the horses’ haunts and pastures – so Paris, Priam’s son, resplendent as the shining sun in his armour, came down from the citadel of Pergamus in Ilium, laughing as he ran.

  He soon caught up with his brother godlike Hector, just as he was leaving the spot where he had been exchanging intimacies with his wife. Godlike Paris spoke first:

  ‘My dear brother, have I been too leisurely and kept you waiting when you wanted to be off, and not come at the time you told me to?’

  (520) Hector of the flashing helmet replied and said:

  ‘What a strange man you are. No reasonable man could make light of your performance in battle: you have plenty of courage. But you are too ready to give up and refuse to fight. And it distresses me to hear such shameful things said about you by the Trojans, who are suffering so much on your account.

  ‘But let’s be off. Later we will make up for anything we may have said, if Zeus ever lets us drive the Greeks from our soil and celebrate our freedom with drink-offerings in the palace to the everlasting Olympian gods.’

  7

  AJAX FIGHTS HECTOR

  1–91: After some skirmishes APOLLO and ATHENE plan a duel between Hector and a Greek. Hector issues the challenge and offers an agreement about the treatment of the loser’s body.

  92–205: Menelaus is prevented from putting himself forward, and Nestor attacks the Greeks for cowardice. Ajax wins the lottery to face Hector.

  206–312: Ajax and Hector fight, with no clear result.

  313–432: Nestor proposes the Greeks bury their dead and then build a de
fensive wall and ditch. [23 rd day] The Trojans have a peace-plan rejected, but agree to a truce to collect and cremate the dead, which both sides do.

  433–82: Next morning [24th day], their dead buried, the Greeks construct the defensive wall and ditch. POSEIDON’s worries about the wall are soothed by ZEUS. Greek ships bring in supplies; ZEUS thunders all night.

  With these words glorious Hector rushed out through the gate with his brother Paris, both eager to do battle and fight. As a god answers exhausted sailors’ prayers and sends them a breeze when their limbs are weak from the effort of driving their polished pine oars through the sea, so the two of them reappeared like an answer to the Trojans’ prayers.

  Trojans kill Greeks

  Then Paris killed Menesthius, who lived at Arne and was the son of lord Areithous the Maceman and ox-eyed lady Phylomedusa. Hector with his sharp (10) spear stabbed Eioneus in the neck under the bronze rim of his helmet and brought him down. Meanwhile the Lycian leader Glaucus, throwing a spear across the lines of battle, struck Iphinous on the shoulder just as he was leaping up behind his fast mares. He fell from his chariot to the ground and crumpled up.

  When the goddess grey-eyed Athene saw Greeks being slaughtered in the heat of battle, she came swooping down from the (20) heights of Olympus to sacred Ilium. But Apollo, who desired a Trojan victory, saw her from the citadel Pergamus in Ilium and started out to intercept her. The two met by the oak-tree and lord Apollo son of Zeus spoke first:

  ATHENE and APOLLO plan Hector’s duel

  ‘Daughter of great Zeus, why have you so eagerly come down from Olympus? With what high purpose in mind? Since the destruction of the Trojans does not move you at all, do you want to switch victory to the Greeks? But if you care to listen to me, I have a better (30) plan. Let us end the fighting and the bloodshed for the moment. They can fight again another day, and go on till they reach their goal in Ilium, since you goddesses have set your hearts on razing this town to the ground.’

  The goddess grey-eyed Athene replied:

  ‘So be it, Archer-god. That is what I too had in mind when I came from Olympus to visit the battlefield. But how do you propose to stop the men from fighting?’

  Lord Apollo son of Zeus replied:

  ‘We could rouse the fighting spirit in horse-taming Hector and (40) make him challenge one of the Greeks to take him on face-to-face in mortal combat. The Greeks would be put on the spot and would send out someone to fight a duel with godlike Hector.’

  So he spoke, and the goddess grey-eyed Athene complied. Priam’s son Helenus was able to divine what these gods had agreed and went straight up to his brother Hector and addressed him:

  ‘Hector son of Priam, equal in wisdom to Zeus, you should allow yourself to be guided by your brother. Make the Trojans (50) and Greeks sit down and then challenge the best of the Greeks to take you on face-to-face in mortal combat. Your time has not yet come to die and meet your destiny. I have this from the immortal gods themselves.’

  So he spoke, and Hector was delighted at what he heard. He stepped out into no-man’s-land and, grasping his spear by the middle, pushed the Trojan ranks back. They all sat down, and Agamemnon made the Greeks do the same. Athene and Apollo lord of the silver bow also sat down, in the form of vultures, on (60) a tall oak sacred to Zeus who drives the storm-cloud. They enjoyed the sight of all these warriors sitting there, rank upon rank, rippling with shields, helmets and spears. Like ripples spreading over the sea when the west wind first springs up, and the surface darkens under it, so the ranks of Greeks and Trojans sat down on the plain.

  Hector addressed the two armies:

  Hector issues the challenge (22.256)

  ‘Trojans and Greek men-at-arms, hear a proposal I am moved to make. High-throned Zeus has not brought our oaths to fulfillment. It’s clear he has trouble in store for both sides till the day when you (70) bring down the Trojans’ city with its fine towers, or succumb to us yourselves beside your seafaring ships.

  ‘Now you have in your army the finest men in all Greece. Let the man who is willing to take me on step forward, in front of everyone, as your champion against godlike Hector. And here are the conditions I lay down, with Zeus for witness. If your man kills me with his long-pointed spear, he can strip me of my arms and take them back to your hollow ships; but he must let (80) them bring my body home, so that the Trojans and their wives can cremate it in the proper manner. If I kill your man and Apollo gives me the glory, I shall strip off his armour and bring it to sacred Ilium, where I shall hang it in Apollo’s shrine; but I shall send his body back to your well-benched ships, so the long-haired Greeks can bury him properly and build a grave-mound over him by the broad Hellespont. Then one day some future traveller, sailing by in his many-oared ship across the wine-dark sea, will say: ‘‘This is the monument of some great (90) warrior of an earlier day who was killed in action by glorious Hector.’’ That is what he will say, and my fame will never die.’

  So he spoke and was received in complete silence by them all. They were ashamed to refuse his challenge, but afraid to accept it. Eventually Menelaus rose to his feet and, saddened at heart, reproached them bitterly:

  ‘What does this mean, you big mouths, you women? I cannot call you men. Not a single Greek willing to meet Hector? This is the last straw, our final humiliation. Very well then, sit there (100) and rot, the whole lot of you, gutless no-hopers to a man. I will arm and fight him myself. The gods above will decide who wins.’

  With these words he put on his splendid armour. And that, Menelaus, would have been the end of you, since Hector was by far the better man, if the Greek leaders had not leapt up and held you back, and if the son of Atreus himself, wide-ruling Agamemnon, had not seized you by the right hand and spoken:

  Hector’s challenge stopped

  ‘You are mad, Olympian-bred Menelaus. There is no call for such foolishness. Withdraw, however distressing it may be for you. Don’t fight a better (110) man just to make a contest of it. Others quail before Hector. Even Achilles feared to meet him in battle where men win glory, and Achilles is a far better man than you. So go back now and sit down among your men, and the Greeks will find someone else to fight for them against this man. Hector may be fearless and never able to get enough fighting, but I still think even he will be glad to rest his weary limbs, if he escapes with his life from the heat of this deadly encounter.’

  (120) With this sound advice Agamemnon changed his brother’s mind, and he was persuaded to step down; and joyfully his attendants took the armour from his shoulders. Then Nestor rose to his feet and addressed the Greeks:

  ‘This is a disgrace, enough to make Greece weep! How Peleus the old horseman would grieve, Peleus, that brave adviser and orator of the Myrmidons, who took such delight, when I stayed with him once, in finding out from me the parentage and pedigree of every Greek. If it came to his ears that those same men (130) were now all cowering before Hector, he would lift up his hands to the gods and beg them to let his spirit leave his body and descend to Hades’ halls.

  Nestor’s story of Ereuthalion

  ‘Ah, Father Zeus, Athene and Apollo, if only I could be as young as I was when the men of Pylos gathered to fight the spearmen from Arcadia at the swift River Celadon, below the walls of Pheia, by the streams of Iardanus! We were challenged by their best man, Ereuthalion. He was like a god and carried on his shoulders the armour of lord Areithous – the great Areithous who was surnamed the Maceman by his compatriots and their girdled wives, because (140) he never fought with a bow or spear but used an iron mace to smash his way through the enemy ranks. Lycurgus killed Areithous, not by superior strength, but by cunning. He caught him in a narrow pass where his iron mace could not save him. Before the Maceman could bring it into play, Lycurgus pierced him through the middle with his spear and brought him crashing to the ground on his back. Then he stripped Areithous of the armour bronze-clad Ares had given him, and afterwards wore it himself when he went into battle. Later, when Lycurgus had grown old i
n his palace, he let his attendant Ereuthalion wear (150) it; and so it came about that Ereuthalion challenged our champions in Areithous’ armour.

  ‘And no one dared take up the challenge; they were all throughly terrified. But I was bold enough to take him on, and rash enough – but then I was the youngest of them all. So I fought him, and Athene gave me the glory. He was the tallest and strongest man I have ever killed. He lay there, a giant of a man, sprawling this way and that.

  ‘Ah, if only I were still as young, and with all my powers intact! Then Hector of the flashing helmet would soon have his fight. As it is, I see before me the best men in all Greece – and (160) not one that has the will to stand up to Hector!’

  So the old man reproached them, and nine men in all then sprang up. Agamemnon lord of men was the first to rise. He was followed by mighty Diomedes son of Tydeus; and these by the two Ajaxes, clothed in martial valour; and these, again, by Idomeneus and Idomeneus’ attendant Meriones, equal of the murderous War-god Ares; and these by Eurypylus, Euaemon’s noble son. Thoas son of Andraemon got up too, and so did godlike Odysseus. When all these had volunteered to fight (170) godlike Hector, Nestor the Gerenian charioteer addressed them:

  Ajax wins lottery to fight Hector

  ‘Draw lots to decide who is to be chosen. The winner will not only benefit the Greeks but also reap a rich reward himself, if he escapes with his life from the heat of this deadly encounter.’

  So he spoke, and each of them marked his own lot and put it into the helmet of Agamemnon son of Atreus, while the troops raised their hands to the gods and prayed. They looked up to the broad skies and said as one man: