The Trojans heard that shout, and saw that host,
And marvelled. Crushed with fear were all their hearts
Foreboding doom; for like a huge cloud seemed
That throng of foes: with clashing arms they came:
Volumed and vast the dust rose ‘neath their feet.
Then either did some God with hardihood thrill
Deiphobus’ heart, and made it void of fear,
Or his own spirit spurred him on to fight,
To drive by thrust of spear that terrible host
Of foemen from the city of his birth.
So there in Troy he cried with heartening speech:
“O friends, be stout of heart to play the men!
Remember all the agonies that war
Brings in the end to them that yield to foes.
Ye wrestle not for Alexander alone,
Nor Helen, but for home, for your own lives,
For wives, for little ones, for parents grey,
For all the grace of life, for all ye have,
For this dear land—oh may she shroud me o’er
Slain in the battle, ere I see her lie
‘Neath foemen’s spears—my country! I know not
A bitterer pang than this for hapless men!
O be ye strong for battle! Forth to the fight
With me, and thrust this horror far away!
Think not Achilles liveth still to war
Against us: him the ravening fire consumed.
Some other Achaean was it who so late
Enkindled them to war. Oh, shame it were
If men who fight for fatherland should fear
Achilles’ self, or any Greek beside!
Let us not flinch from war-toil! have we not
Endured much battle-travail heretofore?
What, know ye not that to men sorely tried
Prosperity and joyance follow toil?
So after scourging winds and ruining storms
Zeus brings to men a morn of balmy air;
After disease new strength comes, after war
Peace: all things know Time’s changeless law of change.”
Then eager all for war they armed themselves
In haste. All through the town rang clangour of arms
As for grim fight strong men arrayed their limbs.
Here stood a wife, shuddering with dread of war,
Yet piling, as she wept, her husband’s arms
Before his feet. There little children brought
To a father his war-gear with eager haste;
And now his heart was wrung to hear their sobs,
And now he smiled on those small ministers,
And stronger waxed his heart’s resolve to fight
To the last gasp for these, the near and dear.
Yonder again, with hands that had not lost
Old cunning, a grey father for the fray
Girded a son, and murmured once and again:
“Dear boy, yield thou to no man in the war!”
And showed his son the old scars on his breast,
Proud memories of fights fought long ago.
So when they all stood mailed in battle-gear,
Forth of the gates they poured all eager-souled
For war. Against the chariots of the Greeks
Their chariots charged; their ranks of footmen pressed
To meet the footmen of the foe. The earth
Rang to the tramp of onset; pealed the cheer
From man to man; swift closed the fronts of war.
Loud clashed their arms all round; from either side
War-cries were mingled in one awful roar
Swift-winged full many a dart and arrow flew
From host to host; loud clanged the smitten shields
‘Neath thrusting spears, ‘neath javelin-point and sword:
Men hewed with battle-axes lightening down;
Crimson the armour ran with blood of men.
And all this while Troy’s wives and daughters watched
From high walls that grim battle of the strong.
All trembled as they prayed for husbands, sons,
And brothers: white-haired sires amidst them sat,
And gazed, while anguished fear for sons devoured
Their hearts. But Helen in her bower abode
Amidst her maids, there held by utter shame.
So without pause before the wall they fought,
While Death exulted o’er them; deadly Strife
Shrieked out a long wild cry from host to host.
With blood of slain men dust became red mire:
Here, there, fast fell the warriors mid the fray.
Then slew Deiphobus the charioteer
Of Nestor, Hippasus’ son: from that high car
Down fell he ‘midst the dead; fear seized his lord
Lest, while his hands were cumbered with the reins,
He too by Priam’s strong son might be slain.
Melanthius marked his plight: swiftly he sprang
Upon the car; he urged the horses on,
Shaking the reins, goading them with his spear,
Seeing the scourge was lost. But Priam’s son
Left these, and plunged amid a throng of foes.
There upon many he brought the day of doom;
For like a ruining tempest on he stormed
Through reeling ranks. His mighty hand struck down
Foes numberless: the plain was heaped with dead.
As when a woodman on the long-ridged hills
Plunges amid the forest-depths, and hews
With might and main, and fells sap-laden trees
To make him store of charcoal from the heaps
Of billets overturfed and set afire:
The trunks on all sides fallen strew the slopes,
While o’er his work the man exulteth; so
Before Deiphobus’ swift death-dealing hands
In heaps the Achaeans each on other fell.
The charging lines of Troy swept over some;
Some fled to Xanthus’ stream: Deiphobus chased
Into the flood yet more, and slew and slew.
As when on fish-abounding Hellespont’s strand
The fishermen hard-straining drag a net
Forth of the depths to land; but, while it trails
Yet through the sea, one leaps amid the waves
Grasping in hand a sinuous-headed spear
To deal the sword-fish death, and here and there,
Fast as he meets them, slays them, and with blood
The waves are reddened; so were Xanthus’ streams
Impurpled by his hands, and choked with dead.
Yet not without sore loss the Trojans fought;
For all this while Peleides’ fierce-heart son
Of other ranks made havoc. Thetis gazed
Rejoicing in her son’s son, with a joy
As great as was her grief for Achilles slain.
For a great host beneath his spear were hurled
Down to the dust, steeds, warriors slaughter-blent.
And still he chased, and still he slew: he smote
Amides war-renowned, who on his steed
Bore down on him, but of his horsemanship
Small profit won. The bright spear pierced him through
From navel unto spine, and all his bowels
Gushed out, and deadly Doom laid hold on him
Even as he fell beside his horse’s feet.
Ascanius and Oenops next he slew;
Under the fifth rib of the one he drave
His spear, the other stabbed he ‘neath the throat
Where a wound bringeth surest doom to man.
Whomso he met besides he slew—the names
What man could tell of all that by the hands
Of Neoptolemus died? Never his limbs
Waxed weary. As some brawny labourer,
With strong hands toiling in a fruitful field
The livelong day, rains down to earth the fruit
Of olives, swiftly beating with his pole,
And with the downfall covers all the ground,
So fast fell ‘neath his hands the thronging foe.
Elsewhere did Agamemnon, Tydeus’ son,
And other chieftains of the Danaans toil
With fury in the fight. Yet never quailed
The mighty men of Troy: with heart and soul
They also fought, and ever stayed from flight
Such as gave back. Yet many heeded not
Their chiefs, but fled, cowed by the Achaeans’ might.
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