An Iliad (12 page)

Achilles went into his tent and lifted the cover of a splendid chest, all inlaid, that his mother had had brought onto the ship so that he could take it with him: it was full of tunics, mantles, and heavy coverings. There was also a precious cup that only Achilles could use, and used to drink only in homage to Zeus, and to no other god. He took it, purified it with sulfur, then washed it in clear water, washed his hands, and finally poured into it sparkling wine. Then he came out, and before us all drank the wine and, gazing up to heaven, prayed to almighty Zeus that Patroclus would fight, and win, and return. And all of us together with him.

We fell on the Trojans suddenly, like a furious swarm of wasps. The black hulls of the ships resounded with our cries. Patroclus, in the forefront, magnificent in the armor of Achilles, gave a shout. And the Trojans saw him, dazzling, in the chariot, beside Automedon. Achilles, they thought. And suddenly confusion reigned in their army, and despair consumed their souls. The abyss of death opened under their feet as they tried to escape. The first spear to fly was that of Patroclus, hurled straight into the heart of the tumult: it struck Pyraechmes, the leader of the Paeonians, hit him in the right shoulder, and he fell with a cry; gripped by fear, the Paeonians vanished, abandoning the ship they had boarded and had already half burned.

Patroclus put out the fire and rushed toward the other ships. The Trojans didn’t give up. They retreated, but they were unwilling to leave the ships. The contest was brutal, and hard. One after another all our heroes had to fight, to overcome the enemy; one after another the Trojans fell, until it was
too much, even for them, and they began to scatter and flee, like sheep pursued by a pack of savage wolves. The hooves of the galloping horses raised a cloud of dust into the sky. They fled in a tumultuous uproar, covering every path to the horizon. And where their flight was thickest, Patroclus attacked, shouting and killing, and many men fell under his hands, many chariots overturned with a crash.

But the truth is that he wanted Hector: in his heart, secretly, he was looking for Hector, for his own honor and his own glory. And at a certain point he saw him among the Trojans, who, fleeing, were trying to get back across the trench, he saw him and pursued him. Around him everywhere were warriors in flight: the trench hindered their course, making everything difficult. The poles of the Trojans’ chariots broke and the horses galloped away, like rivers in flood, but Hector—he had the ability of great warriors, and he made his way through the battle with an ear for the whiz of spears and the whistle of arrows, he knew where to go, how to move, he knew when to stay with his companions and when to abandon them, he knew how to hide and how to be seen. His horses, swift as the wind, bore him away, and Patroclus turned then and began to drive the Trojans back toward the ships, cutting off their flight and pushing them again toward the ships. It was there that he wanted to close in and annihilate them.

He struck Pronous in the breast where the shield had left it unprotected. He saw Thestor huddled in his chariot, as if dazed, and gored him in the jaw, sending the spear’s bronze tip through his skull. Patroclus raised the spear as if he had caught a fish, lifting the body of Thestor up over the edge of the chariot, openmouthed—and then with a rock he struck Ery-laus between the eyes. Inside the helmet his head split in two. The hero fell to the ground, and upon him life-destroying death
descended, and descended also upon Erymas, Amphoterus, Epaltes, Tlepolemus, Echius, Pyris, Ipheus, Euippus, Poly-melus, all by the hand of Patroclus.

“Shame on you!” It was the voice of Sarpedon, the son of Zeus and leader of the Lycians. “Shame to flee before this man! I will challenge him. I want to know who he is.” He got out of his chariot and Patroclus saw him, and he, too, got out. They stood facing each other like two vultures who fight on a high cliff, with curved beaks and sharp claws. Slowly they walked toward each other. Sarpedon’s spear flew high over Patroclus’s left shoulder, but Patroclus struck Sarpedon in the chest, just where the heart is. He fell like a tall oak brought down by men’s axes to become the keel of a ship. He lay beside his chariot, groaning, his hands scratching at the bloody dirt. He was dying like an animal. With the life that remained he called on his friend Glaucus, entreating him, “Glaucus, don’t let them strip me of my armor. Rally the Lycian fighters, come and defend me. You will be dishonored forever if you allow Patroclus to carry off my armor, Glaucus!”

Patroclus approached, placed his foot on his chest, and pulled out the spear, taking with it the guts and the heart. Thus, in a single gesture, he carried off from that body the bronze point and life itself. Meanwhile, Glaucus, mad with grief, rushed from place to place, calling together all the Lycian chiefs and Trojan heroes. “Sarpedon is dead, Patroclus has killed him. Come and defend his armor!” And they ran to him, stricken by the death of that man who was one of the bravest and most beloved defenders of Troy. They ran and closed their ranks around the body, Hector in the lead, to defend it. Patroclus saw them coming and he assembled us, then, and arrayed us opposite, saying that if we were truly the bravest of all, this was the moment to show it. There was the
body of Sarpedon in the middle, Trojans and Lycians on one side, we Myrmidons on the other. And it was a battle, for that body and that armor.

At first the Trojans overwhelmed us. But when Patroclus saw his friends around him giving way under the assault, he rushed into the front line and, like a hawk that puts crows and starlings to flight, fell on the enemy, driving them back. From the earth rose a din of bronze, of leather, of the thick hides of oxen, under the blows of swords and double-pointed spears. No man, however acute, would by now have been able to recognize the body of Sarpedon, because from head to foot it was covered with arrows and dust and blood. We continued to fight over that corpse without respite, like flies in a barn buzzing ceaselessly around the pails of white milk. And it went on like that until Hector did something surprising. Maybe fear had overwhelmed him; I don’t know. We saw him jump in his chariot, and, turning his back, he fled, shouting to his men to follow. And, indeed, they followed, abandoning Sarpedon’s body and the battlefield.

There was something I didn’t understand.
They ran toward their city. A few hours earlier they had been on our ships setting fire to our hopes, and now they were fleeing toward their city. We should have let them go. That was what Achilles had said. Drive them from the ships but then stop, come back. We should have let them go. But Patroclus couldn’t stop. The courage in his heart was great, and the fate of death that awaited him clear.

He threw himself into pursuit and drew us all along with him. He never stopped killing as he rushed toward the walls of Troy. Adrastus, Autonous, Echeclus, Perimus all fell under his assault, and then Epistor, Melanippus, Elasus, Mulius,

Pylartes, and when he reached the Scaean gates he charged the tower—once, and then a second time, and yet again, always repulsed by the Trojans’ shining shields, and a fourth time— before giving up. I looked around then to find Hector. He seemed undecided whether to draw the army back inside the walls or stay and fight. Now I know there was no doubt in his mind, but only the instinct of the great warrior. I saw him gesture to Cebriones, his driver. Then his chariot hurtled into the heart of the battle. I saw Hector upright in the chariot. Passing among the soldiers without even taking the trouble to kill, he simply cut through the throng and headed straight for Patro-clus. That was where he wanted to go.

Patroclus understood and jumped down from his chariot. He bent down and picked up a sharp white rock off the ground. And when Hector’s chariot was in range he hurled it with all his strength. The rock struck Cebriones, the driver, who was holding the reins in his hands. It struck him in the forehead, the bone split, his eyes fell out on the ground, in the dust, and he, too, fell. “What agility,” Patroclus began to mock him. “You know what an expert fisherman you would be, Cebriones, if only you could dive into water as skillfully as you spring from a chariot. Who ever said there are no good swimmers among the Trojans?” He laughed—and found himself facing Hector.

As two famished lions in the mountains fight furiously over a dead deer, so the two began to fight for the body of Cebriones. Hector had taken the dead man by the head and wouldn’t let go. Patroclus had grabbed him by the feet and tried to drag him away. Around them a savage struggle arose, Trojans against Achaeans, over the corpse.

We fought for hours over that man who by now was in the dust, heedless of chariots and horses and all that had been his
life. When, in the end, we managed to drive the Trojans back, some of us seized the body and dragged it far from the fray to strip it. But Patroclus remained in the heart of the fight. It was no longer possible to stop him. Three times he hurled himself on the Trojans with a terrible cry, and killed nine men. But when he launched himself the fourth time, like a god, then, Patroclus, suddenly we all saw the end of your life appear. It was Euphorbus, and he struck you from behind, in the back. He arrived in his chariot, advancing through the fray. There was dust everywhere, an enormous cloud of dust. You didn’t see him coming. He appeared as if out of nowhere, suddenly, behind you, and you couldn’t see him. I saw him. From close up he thrust the spear in your back …
Do you remember Euphorbus, Patroclus, do you remember that we saw him in battle and remarked on his beauty; his hair hung long over his shoulders, and wasn’t he the most beautiful of all? …
He struck you in the back and then, immediately, dashed off to hide among his men, in fear of what he had just done.

Patroclus was motionless, stunned. His eyes rolled upward. His legs still supported that handsome body but no longer felt it. I remember his head lolling forward after the blow, and the helmet falling in the dust. That helmet, never would I have thought to see it grimed with dust and blood, on the ground. The helmet that had covered the head and beautiful face of godlike Achilles, I saw it rolling on the ground amid the horses’ hooves, in the dust and the blood.

Patroclus took a few steps, searched for something that might hide or save him. He didn’t want to die. Around him everything had come to a halt.
Certain deaths are rituals, but you can’t understand. No one stopped Hector when he approached. This you can’t understand.
Into the fray he went, with none of us able to stop him. He came within a step and
then thrust the spear through his belly. And Patroclus fell to the ground. We all saw him, this time, crumple to the ground, and then Hector, leaning over him, looking him in the eyes and speaking to him in that icy silence.

“Patroclus, you thought you would come here and destroy my city, right? You imagined returning home with a ship full of Trojan woman and Trojan treasure. Now you know that Troy is defended by brave men, and the bravest is called Hector. You are nothing now. You are food for the vultures. He won’t be much help to you, your friend Achilles, no matter how brave he is. It’s he, right, who sent you here. It’s he who told you, ‘Don’t come back, Patroclus, until you have ripped open Hector’s chest and bloodied his tunic’ And you, you fool, listened to him.”

Patroclus was dying, but still he found the strength to speak. “You can boast now, Hector, because you have vanquished me. But the truth is that to die was my destiny. The gods killed me, and among men Euphorbus was first. You, who are now ending my life, are only the third, Hector. You are only the last of those who killed me. And now listen to me, and don’t forget what I have to tell you. You are a dead man who is walking, Hector. Nothing can save you from your atrocious fate. The little life you have left—Achilles will come and tear it away from you.”

Then the veil of death enveloped him. His soul flew away and went to Hades, mourning lost strength, lost youth.

Hector placed his foot on Patroclus’s chest and drew the bronze spear out of the wound. The body rose up and then, lacerated, fell back in the dust. Hector stood there looking at it. He said something in a low voice. Then, as if seized by a fury, he was about to attack Automedon and would have killed him, but the swift horses carried him away, the horses
that the gods gave to Achilles carried him away from Hector’s grasp, from his rage and from death.

I died two years later, during the voyage on which I was seeking to return home from Troy. It was Neoptolemus who burned my body. He was the son of Achilles. Now my bones lie in a land whose name I don’t even know. Maybe it’s right that it ended like that, since I would never have been able truly to return from that war, from that bloodshed, and from the death of two boys I couldn’t save.

T
he first to realize that Patroclus was dead was Menelaus. He rushed to the spot and stood beside the body with his spear and his shield thrust forward, ready to kill anyone who approached. Euphorbus arrived, the one who had struck Patroclus first: he wanted to get his trophy. But Menelaus shouted at him, “Stay away, if you don’t want to die! You know what happened to your brother when he challenged me. He didn’t go home on his own two legs, to bring joy to his wife and his parents. I’ll kill you, too, if you don’t get away.” Euphorbus was the most beautiful of the Trojans. He had shining curls wound around his head and fastened with pins of gold and silver. He told Menelaus that he would avenge his brother, and hurled the spear at him. The bronze tip broke on the shield, and Menelaus leaped on him and plunged the spear into his throat, driving it in with the full weight of his arm. The point passed through his graceful neck, and his hair was bathed in blood. He fell to the ground like an olive tree,
young, beautiful, strong, covered with white blossoms, suddenly shattered by a bolt of lightning in a storm.

Menelaus was bending down to strip him of his armor when he realized that Hector was rushing at him, with a terrible cry. Frightened, he abandoned the body of Patroclus and began to retreat, looking all around for someone to help him. He saw Ajax and shouted, “Patroclus is dead, Ajax, and Hector is taking his armor. Come, we have to defend him.” Ajax turned and his heart was moved. He rushed to his aid. They returned to Patroclus and saw that Hector had taken the glorious armor and now had drawn his sword to cut off the head and abandon the body there, a meal for the dogs. Ajax set on him with such ferocity that Hector gave up his prey and withdrew among his men. Ajax bent over the body of Patroclus and covered it with his immense towering shield: he stood there as a lion stands beside its cubs when it catches the scent of the hunters.