Antilochus! oh hear me, noble friend!
And thou shalt learn tidings of such a deed
As best had never been. Thou know’st, I judge,830
And hast already seen, how Jove exalts
To victory the Trojan host, and rolls
Distress on ours; but ah! Patroclus lies,
Our chief Achaian, slain, whose loss the Greeks
Fills with regret. Haste, therefore, to the fleet,835
Inform Achilles; bid him haste to save,
If save he can, the body of his friend;
He can no more, for Hector hath his arms.
He ceased. Antilochus with horror heard
Those tidings; mute long time he stood, his eyes840
Swam tearful, and his voice, sonorous erst,
Found utterance none. Yet even so distress’d,
He not the more neglected the command
Of Menelaus. Setting forth to run,
He gave his armor to his noble friend845
Laodocus, who thither turn’d his steeds,
And weeping as he went, on rapid feet
Sped to Achilles with that tale of wo.
Nor could the noble Menelaus stay
To give the weary Pylian band, bereft850
Of their beloved Antilochus, his aid,
But leaving them to Thrasymedes’ care,
He flew to Menœtiades again,
And the Ajaces, thus, instant bespake.
He goes. I have dispatch’d him to the fleet855
To seek Achilles; but his coming naught
Expect I now, although with rage he burn
Against illustrious Hector; for what fight
Can he, unarm’d, against the Trojans wage?
Deliberating, therefore, frame we means860
How best to save Patroclus, and to ’scape
Ourselves unslain from this disastrous field.
Whom answer’d the vast son of Telamon.
Most noble Menelaus! good is all
Which thou hast spoken. Lift ye from the earth865
Thou and Meriones, at once, and bear
The dead Patroclus from the bloody field.
To cope meantime with Hector and his host
Shall be our task, who, one in name, nor less
In spirit one, already have the brunt870
Of much sharp conflict, side by side, sustain’d.
He ended; they enfolding in their arms
The dead, upbore him high above the ground
With force united; after whom the host
Of Troy, seeing the body borne away,875
Shouted, and with impetuous onset all
Follow’d them. As the hounds, urged from behind
By youthful hunters, on the wounded boar
Make fierce assault; awhile at utmost speed
They stretch toward him hungering, for the prey,880
But oft as, turning sudden, the stout brawn
Faces them, scatter’d on all sides escape;
The Trojans so, thick thronging in the rear,
Ceaseless with falchions and spears double-edged
Annoy’d them sore, but oft as in retreat885
The dauntless heroes, the Ajaces turn’d
To face them, deadly wan grew every cheek,
And not a Trojan dared with onset rude
Molest them more in conflict for the dead.
Thus they, laborious, forth from battle bore890
Patroclus to the fleet, tempestuous war
Their steps attending, rapid as the flames
Which, kindled suddenly, some city waste;
Consumed amid the blaze house after house
Sinks, and the wind, meantime, roars through the fire;895
So them a deafening tumult as they went
Pursued, of horses and of men spear-arm’d.
And as two mules with strength for toil endued,
Draw through rough ways down from the distant hills
Huge timber, beam or mast; sweating they go,900
And overlabor’d to faint weariness;
So they the body bore, while, turning oft,
The Ajaces check’d the Trojans. As a mound
Planted with trees and stretch’d athwart the mead
Repels an overflow; the torrents loud905
Baffling, it sends them far away to float
The level land, nor can they with the force
Of all their waters burst a passage through;
So the Ajaces, constant, in the rear
Repress’d the Trojans; but the Trojans them910
Attended still, of whom Æneas most
Troubled them, and the glorious Chief of Troy.
They as a cloud of starlings or of daws
Fly screaming shrill, warn’d timely of the kite
Or hawk, devourers of the smaller kinds,915
So they shrill-clamoring toward the fleet,
Hasted before Æneas and the might
Of Hector, nor the battle heeded more.
Much radiant armor round about the foss
Fell of the flying Grecians, or within920
Lay scatter’d, and no pause of war they found.