was no more life left in him. Meriones gave chase to Acamas on
foot and caught him up just as he was about to mount his chariot;
he drove a spear through his right shoulder so that he fell
headlong from the car, and his eyes were closed in darkness.
Idomeneus speared Erymas in the mouth; the bronze point of the
spear went clean through it beneath the brain, crashing in among
the white bones and smashing them up. His teeth were all of them
knocked out and the blood came gushing in a stream from both his
eyes; it also came gurgling up from his mouth and nostrils, and
the darkness of death enfolded him round about.

Thus did these chieftains of the Danaans each of them kill his
man. As ravening wolves seize on kids or lambs, fastening on them
when they are alone on the hillsides and have strayed from the
main flock through the carelessness of the shepherd--and when the
wolves see this they pounce upon them at once because they cannot
defend themselves--even so did the Danaans now fall on the
Trojans, who fled with ill-omened cries in their panic and had no
more fight left in them.

Meanwhile great Ajax kept on trying to drive a spear into Hector,
but Hector was so skilful that he held his broad shoulders well
under cover of his ox-hide shield, ever on the look-out for the
whizzing of the arrows and the heavy thud of the spears. He well
knew that the fortunes of the day had changed, but still stood
his ground and tried to protect his comrades.

As when a cloud goes up into heaven from Olympus, rising out of a
clear sky when Jove is brewing a gale--even with such panic
stricken rout did the Trojans now fly, and there was no order in
their going. Hector's fleet horses bore him and his armour out of
the fight, and he left the Trojan host penned in by the deep
trench against their will. Many a yoke of horses snapped the pole
of their chariots in the trench and left their master's car
behind them. Patroclus gave chase, calling impetuously on the
Danaans and full of fury against the Trojans, who, being now no
longer in a body, filled all the ways with their cries of panic
and rout; the air was darkened with the clouds of dust they
raised, and the horses strained every nerve in their flight from
the tents and ships towards the city.

Patroclus kept on heading his horses wherever he saw most men
flying in confusion, cheering on his men the while. Chariots were
being smashed in all directions, and many a man came tumbling
down from his own car to fall beneath the wheels of that of
Patroclus, whose immortal steeds, given by the gods to Peleus,
sprang over the trench at a bound as they sped onward. He was
intent on trying to get near Hector, for he had set his heart on
spearing him, but Hector's horses were now hurrying him away. As
the whole dark earth bows before some tempest on an autumn day
when Jove rains his hardest to punish men for giving crooked
judgement in their courts, and arriving justice therefrom without
heed to the decrees of heaven--all the rivers run full and the
torrents tear many a new channel as they roar headlong from the
mountains to the dark sea, and it fares ill with the works of
men--even such was the stress and strain of the Trojan horses in
their flight.

Patroclus now cut off the battalions that were nearest to him and
drove them back to the ships. They were doing their best to reach
the city, but he would not let them, and bore down on them
between the river and the ships and wall. Many a fallen comrade
did he then avenge. First he hit Pronous with a spear on the
chest where it was exposed near the rim of his shield, and he
fell heavily to the ground. Next he sprang on Thestor son of
Enops, who was sitting all huddled up in his chariot, for he had
lost his head and the reins had been torn out of his hands.
Patroclus went up to him and drove a spear into his right jaw; he
thus hooked him by the teeth and the spear pulled him over the
rim of his car, as one who sits at the end of some jutting rock
and draws a strong fish out of the sea with a hook and a line--
even so with his spear did he pull Thestor all gaping from his
chariot; he then threw him down on his face and he died while
falling. On this, as Erylaus was on to attack him, he struck him
full on the head with a stone, and his brains were all battered
inside his helmet, whereon he fell headlong to the ground and the
pangs of death took hold upon him. Then he laid low, one after
the other, Erymas, Amphoterus, Epaltes, Tlepolemus, Echius son of
Damastor, Pyris, Ipheus, Euippus and Polymelus son of Argeas.

Now when Sarpedon saw his comrades, men who wore ungirdled
tunics, being overcome by Patroclus son of Menoetius, he rebuked
the Lycians saying. "Shame on you, where are you flying to? Show
your mettle; I will myself meet this man in fight and learn who
it is that is so masterful; he has done us much hurt, and has
stretched many a brave man upon the ground."

He sprang from his chariot as he spoke, and Patroclus, when he
saw this, leaped on to the ground also. The two then rushed at
one another with loud cries like eagle-beaked crook-taloned
vultures that scream and tear at one another in some high
mountain fastness.

The son of scheming Saturn looked down upon them in pity and said
to Juno who was his wife and sister, "Alas, that it should be the
lot of Sarpedon whom I love so dearly to perish by the hand of
Patroclus. I am in two minds whether to catch him up out of the
fight and set him down safe and sound in the fertile land of
Lycia, or to let him now fall by the hand of the son of
Menoetius."


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