The Iliad: Book 17

Father Zeus—listen to this indecent, reckless bluster!

Father Zeus—listen to this indecent, reckless bluster!

...the fear that grips their spirit makes them blanch

If I leave this splendid gear and desert Patroclus—
who fell here fighting, all to redeem my honor—
won't any comrade curse me, seeing me break away?

Hector—
our prince of beauty, in battle all a sham!
That empty glory of yours a runner's glory,
a scurrying girl's at that.

If the Trojans had that courage, unswerving courage
that fires men who fight for their own country,
beating their enemies down in war and struggle,
then we could drag Patroclus back to Troy at once.

Hector lashed back, "Glaucus, such brazen insolence
from a decent man like you, but why?..."

So great power for the moment
I will grant you to compensate for all that is to come:
never again will you return from battle, Hector

So he decreed
and the son of Cronus bowed his craggy dark brows.

Then, once more,
Trojan troops would have clambered back inside their walls,
whipped weak with fear by the Argives primed for battle
and they, they would have seized enormous glory—
yes, defying even the great decree of Zeus—
by dint of their own power and striking force.

As I've seen other men
who trust to their own power and striking force,
their own valor, their own troop-strength—
even badly outmanned—defend their country well.

Priam's son with his empty, futile boasting.

I can see the great runner Achilles' team—look there—
heading into the fight but reined by feeble drivers.

Reckless fools! They'd never disengage from Automedon,
not without some bloodshed.

Yes, down like a lurid rainbow Zeus sends arching
down to mortal men from the high skies, a sign of war
or blizzard to freeze the summer's warmth and put a halt
to men's work on the face of the earth and harry flocks—
so shrouded round in a lurid cloud came Pallas now
and dove in the Argive ranks to fire up each man.

You will hang your head
if under the walls of Troy the dogs in all their frenzy
drag and maul the proud Achilles' steadfast friend.

He dispelled the mist at once,
drove off the cloud and the sun came blazing forth

Ajax and Ajax, captains of Achaea, Meriones too,
remember Patroclus now, our stricken comrade!

So they labored to haul Patroclus from the war,
back to the beaked ships as fighting flared behind them
wild as a flash fire, sprung out of nowhere, storming down
on a teeming city, houses caving in to the big blaze
as gale-winds whip it into a roaring conflagration.

Flying before them now like clouds of crows or starlings
screaming murder, seeing a falcon dive in for the kill,
the hawk that wings grim death at smaller birds