On this Menelaus and Meriones took the dead man in
their arms and lifted him high aloft with a great
effort. The Trojan host raised a hue and cry
behind them when they saw the Achaeans bearing the
body away, and flew after them like hounds attacking
a wounded boar at the loo of a band of young huntsmen.
For a while the hounds fly at him as though they would
tear him in pieces, but now and again he turns on
them in a fury, scaring and scattering them in all
directions—even so did the Trojans for a
while charge in a body, striking with sword and with
spears pointed at both the ends, but when the two
Ajaxes faced them and stood at bay, they would turn
pale and no man dared press on to fight further about
the dead.
In this wise did the two heroes strain every nerve
to bear the body to the ships out of the fight.
The battle raged round them like fierce flames that
when once kindled spread like wildfire over a city,
and the houses fall in the glare of its burning—
even such was the roar and tramp of men and horses
that pursued them as they bore Patroclus from the
field. Or as mules that put forth all their strength
to draw some beam or great piece of ship’s timber
down a rough mountain-track, and they pant and sweat
as they, go even so did Menelaus and pant and sweat
as they bore the body of Patroclus. Behind them
the two Ajaxes held stoutly out. As some wooded
mountain-spur that stretches across a plain will turn
water and check the flow even of a great river, nor
is there any stream strong enough to break through
it—even so did the two Ajaxes face the
Trojans and stem the tide of their fighting though
they kept pouring on towards them and foremost among
them all was Aeneas son of Anchises with valiant Hector.
As a flock of daws or starlings fall to screaming
and chattering when they see a falcon, foe to all
small birds, come soaring near them, even so did the
Achaean youth raise a babel of cries as they fled
before Aeneas and Hector, unmindful of their former
prowess. In the rout of the Danaans much goodly
armour fell round about the trench, and of fighting
there was no end.
BOOK XVIII
The grief of Achilles over Patroclus—The
visit of Thetis
to Vulcan and the armour that he made
for Achilles.
Thus then did they fight as it were a flaming fire.
Meanwhile the fleet runner Antilochus, who had been
sent as messenger, reached Achilles, and found him
sitting by his tall ships and boding that which was
indeed too surely true. “Alas,” said
he to himself in the heaviness of his heart, “why
are the Achaeans again scouring the plain and flocking
towards the ships? Heaven grant the gods be not
now bringing that sorrow upon me of which my mother
Thetis spoke, saying that while I was yet alive the
bravest of the Myrmidons should fall before the Trojans,
and see the light of the sun no longer. I fear
the brave son of Menoetius has fallen through his
own daring and yet I bade him return to the ships as
soon as he had driven back those that were bringing
fire against them, and not join battle with Hector.”
