One man got away on foot uncaught, running at full speed, and wished to get into the coppice not far off where he had been hidden before; but Erechtheus pursued him riding a windfoot horse. When he had caught him up so close that a front-fighter could aim his flying lance for a straight throw, the man turned about and faced him, awaiting the horseman on foot. He bent his knee, and planted his left foot on the ground turning sideways, lifted his right foot and stretched it behind, stiffened the toes of his right foot and pressed them firmly into the ground. He carried a sevenhide Indian shield like a tower, he carried a sharp naked sword ; holding the bronzeplated shield before his face the brave Indian faced his foe, ready to die or strike the man or pierce the horse with daring sword. As he came on the footman from one side struck up at the horse’s cheek with a knob of steel and unsettled the man above on his back, and he would have thrown the citizen of unmothered Athena; but Erechtheus struck him with a spear by his midnipple-tip, and with sharp-slaughtering bronze pierced the man through the middle and sent him flying till he fell through the air to the ground, slipping headforemost, and rolled over and over in the dust, and with a somersault took a header like a tumbling clown. There the Athenian left him in convulsions, and turned back his horse to attack other enemies.
(Oiagros was still fighting.) He bent his bow, fitted a shaft to the string, and drew it right back to the tip of the iron and let fly at the mark, trusting all hopes of victory to his bride Calliopeia, mother of a noble son. Nine longbarbed arrows he shot, nine men he slew—one number for the arrows let fly and the warriors killed. One flying shaft pierced a forehead, one cut the round of a hairy breast, another fell on a flank, another upon a belly and dug deep into the hollow middle. Again one went through a side, another caught a running man on the sole of his storming foot and nailed the foot close fastened to the earth. Again he drew back a windswift shaft: and from that quiver another flew, and a shower of arrows went one after another hurtling through the air. As when a man hammers metal on a smith’s anvil, and rings the fiery clinks with unwearied sledge beating the mass below, the sparks leap out in showers, spurting when the iron is struck, and heat the air ; under blow after blow first one goes up then another, one leaps after another and catches it leaping in its fiery course: so he shooting at the Indian host before him scattered the warriors with arrows without respite, slaying on all sides with the incessant shafts. The centre of the line gave way before this cloud of arrows and a space was left clear, like the crescent moon when it shines dim at either horn and fills the two ends with new-lighted sheen, marking off the middle of the orb with receding beams, and the two horns apart gleaming softly, but the middle orb of the moon marked off is yet seen to be bare.
Nor did Aiacos slacken fight, that fearless ally of Dionysos, but he moved furious in the fray killing here and killing there ; he chased the people away from the plain and drove them into the river flood. The warriors gathered around him, alone in their midst, struck by their swords and not caring for sabre-stroke nor winged shot. With incessant swoops he reaped the iron harvest of black battle, that stirring hero, and fought them all, slaying some on the banks, some down in the river with battling hand. He filled the whole stream with corpses; white Hydaspes turned red, boiling with the blood of the slain. One man to escape the champion, rushing like the wind, dived of himself, tumbling into the stream ; many a corpse newly slain by that darting steel was carried floating upon the billowy flood with swollen limbs. The blood ran deep, and the Naiads washed in gory water, the black water reddened with clots of blood. Many threw away their spears in the river and offered supplication unarmed, this on the bank, that stretched on the sand, one again on land kneeling upright and bending an arched neck. But Aiacos threw up his head refusing their prayers, and let his unbending wrath grow against his adversaries. Not one Lycaon alone did he slay, a warrior unarmed and still praying for mercy; but innumerable enemies he destroyed, rolling over and over on the earth with unweaponed hands, and defiled the running river : many a dead Asteropaios Hydaspes received.
Not without God’s help Aiacos also fought. As befitted the father of Peleus, he slew his enemies in the river, a watery battle, a conflict among the waves, as if to foretell the unfinished battle for Achilles in time to come at the river Camandros: the grandfather’s battle prophesied the grandson’s conflict.
And a Naiad Nymph in the river unshod, unveiled, peeped out of the stream and cried—
“Kinsman of the Naiads! with the blood of Zeus in your veins! Pity the holy water of the river that fell from Zeus! Indians enough your spear has destroyed. Cease to call for the tears from the tearless Naiad Nymphs! A Naiad of the water was your own mother; yes, I hear that your Aigina was a river’s daughter. Think who brought you forth, and you will no longer defile a river. I will go away to another stream, one without stain, I will go down to the sea, and seaborn Thetis is ready to receive me. Let this river of blood be the care of Erinys and Dionysos.”
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