BOOK 6 Hector in Troy: Glaucus and Diomedes trade armor on the field; Hector and Andromache at the Scaean Gates. TRANSLATOR'S COMMENTARY Book 6 is the poem's great turn inward: the battle continues offstage while Hector walks through his city — mother, brother, sister-in-law, wife, son — and every meeting is a farewell taken in advance. The book's engineering is visible and unbearable at once: Athena refuses Troy's prayer in a single line ("But Pallas Athena turned her head away," 311 — athetized by Aristarchus, kept here as the bleakest line in the poem), Hector answers Andromache's plea with the same verbatim prophecy Agamemnon spoke as a threat in Book 4 ("the day will come when holy Ilion shall perish," 448-449 — an echo the translation reproduces word for word), and the household mourns Hector alive before he has died (500-502). Against all this the poem sets its one scene of family comedy — the baby screaming at his father's helmet crest, and both parents laughing (466-474). The Glaucus-Diomedes encounter (119-236) — which some ancient critics wanted to transpose elsewhere in the poem (note [6]) — carries the book's other cargo: the generation-of-leaves simile, the Bellerophon story with the poem's only reference to writing (the "baneful signs... in a folded tablet," note [10]), and the guest-friendship that stops a duel and ends in the proverbial exchange of gold armor for bronze. Two register events. First, the δμώς policy adopted from the Odyssey project goes live: δμῳαί is rendered "slave-women" at its first occurrences (6.323, 375-376, note [21]), with ἀμφίπολος "handmaid" and ταμίη "housekeeper" kept distinct — the vocabulary of the household the book itself is about, in the book where Hector imagines Andromache's "day of slavery" (463). Second, Agamemnon's atrocity-counsel at 55-60 (kill even the unborn) is followed by the narrator's much-disputed half-line "for his urging was of things due" (αἴσιμα παρειπών) — translated at face value and flagged in note [3], where the interpretive dispute belongs. ------------------------------------------------------------ 1 So the dread din of Trojans and Achaeans was left to itself; 2 and this way and that the battle swayed across the plain 3 as they aimed their bronze-pointed spears at one another, 4 midway between the streams of Simois and Xanthus. 5 Ajax first, Telamon's son, wall of the Achaeans, 6 broke a Trojan company and made light for his companions, 7 striking the man who was best among the Thracians, 8 Acamas, Eussorus' son, tall and brave. 9 He struck him first on the ridge of his horsehair helmet, 10 and the bronze point fixed in his forehead and drove 11 inside the bone; and darkness covered his eyes. 12 And Diomedes, good at the war-cry, killed Axylus, 13 Teuthras' son, who lived in well-built Arisbe, 14 a man rich in substance, and a friend to all mankind:[1] 15 living in his house by the road, he welcomed all comers. 16 But not one of them stood before him then to beat off wretched destruction, 17 meeting the enemy for him; Diomedes took the life of both, 18 the man himself and his aide Calesius, who was then 19 his charioteer; and the two of them went under the earth. 20 And Euryalus killed Dresus and Opheltius, 21 and went after Aesepus and Pedasus, whom once the water-nymph 22 Abarbarea bore to blameless Bucolion. 23 Bucolion was proud Laomedon's son,[2] 24 eldest born, though his mother bore him in darkness: 25 shepherding his flocks he lay with the nymph in love, 26 and she conceived, and bore him twin sons — 27 and Mecisteus' son unstrung the strength and the shining limbs 28 of both, and stripped the armor from their shoulders. 29 And Polypoetes steadfast in battle killed Astyalus; 30 and Odysseus cut down Pidytes of Percote 31 with his bronze spear, and Teucer brilliant Aretaon. 32 Antilochus, Nestor's son, took Ablerus with his shining spear, 33 and the lord of men Agamemnon took Elatus, 34 who lived by the banks of fair-flowing Satnioeis 35 in steep Pedasus. And the hero Leïtus caught Phylacus 36 as he ran; and Eurypylus cut down Melanthius. 37 Then Menelaus, good at the war-cry, took Adrestus 38 alive: for his two horses, bolting across the plain, 39 fouled in a tamarisk branch, snapped the curved chariot 40 at the pole's tip, and themselves ran on 41 toward the city, where the rest were bolting in panic, 42 while he rolled from the car beside the wheel, 43 face-down in the dust on his mouth. And beside him stood 44 Atreus' son Menelaus, holding his long-shadowed spear. 45 Then Adrestus clasped his knees and begged him: 46 "Take me alive, son of Atreus — and take a worthy ransom. 47 Many treasures lie stored in my rich father's house, 48 bronze, and gold, and iron worked with much labor: 49 out of these my father would gladden you with ransom past counting 50 if he learned I was alive by the ships of the Achaeans." 51 So he spoke, and was moving the heart in his chest; 52 and soon he would have given him to his aide to lead down 53 to the Achaeans' swift ships. But Agamemnon 54 came running to meet him, and cried out his word: 55 "Soft-hearted Menelaus! Why do you care so tenderly 56 for men? Were such fine things done in your house 57 by Trojans? Let not one of them escape sheer destruction 58 and our hands — not even the boy his mother carries 59 in her womb, not even he: let all of them together 60 perish out of Ilion, unmourned, and leave no trace." 61 So speaking the hero turned his brother's mind, 62 for his urging was of things due; and Menelaus pushed[3] 63 the hero Adrestus back with his hand, and the lord Agamemnon 64 stabbed him in the flank; he doubled over, and Atreus' son 65 set a heel on his chest and pulled out the ash spear. 66 Then Nestor called to the Argives with a far-carrying shout: 67 "Friends, Danaan heroes, squires of Ares — 68 let no man now hang back for spoils, 69 to reach the ships carrying the biggest load: 70 let us kill men. Afterward, at your ease, 71 you will strip the corpses dead across the plain." 72 So speaking he stirred the fury and heart of every man. 73 Then once more the Trojans, under the Achaeans dear to Ares, 74 would have climbed back into Ilion, broken by their own cowardice, 75 had not Helenus, Priam's son, far the best of bird-readers,[4] 76 come and stood by Aeneas and Hector: 77 "Aeneas and Hector — since on you two above all rests 78 the labor of the Trojans and Lycians, because for every venture 79 you are the best men, for fighting and for counsel: 80 make your stand here; go everywhere and hold the army 81 before the gates, before they run and fall 82 into their women's arms, and become a joy to our enemies. 83 Then, when you have set all the companies moving, 84 we will hold here and fight the Danaans, 85 hard-pressed though we are: necessity drives. 86 But you, Hector — go to the city, and speak there 87 to your mother and mine: let her gather the older women 88 at grey-eyed Athena's temple on the city's height, 89 and open with her key the doors of the holy house, 90 and the robe that seems to her the loveliest and amplest 91 in the hall, and far the dearest to herself, 92 let her lay it on the knees of lovely-haired Athena,[5] 93 and vow to sacrifice to her in the temple twelve heifers, 94 yearlings, never goaded, if she will pity 95 the town, and the Trojans' wives, and their little children — 96 if she will hold back Tydeus' son from holy Ilion, 97 that wild spearman, that strong machine of rout, 98 who I say has proved the strongest of the Achaeans. 99 Not even Achilles, that leader of men, ever made us fear so, 100 who they say was born of a goddess; but this man 101 rages beyond measure, and no one can match his fury." 102 So he spoke, and Hector did not disobey his brother. 103 At once he leapt in his armor from the chariot to the ground, 104 and shaking his two sharp spears went everywhere through the army, 105 driving men to fight, and woke the dread din of battle. 106 And they wheeled about and stood to face the Achaeans; 107 and the Argives gave ground and left off their killing: 108 they thought some immortal had come down from the starry sky 109 to stand by the Trojans, so suddenly they wheeled. 110 And Hector called to the Trojans with a far-carrying shout: 111 "High-hearted Trojans, and you far-famed allies — 112 be men, my friends; remember your rushing courage, 113 while I go up to Ilion and tell 114 the elders of the council and our wives 115 to pray to the divine ones, and vow them hecatombs." 116 So speaking Hector of the flashing helmet went; 117 and against his ankles and his neck the black oxhide beat, 118 the rim that ran outermost on his bossed shield. 119 Now Glaucus, Hippolochus' son, and Tydeus' son[6] 120 came together in the space between, raging to fight. 121 And when they were close, advancing on one another, 122 Diomedes, good at the war-cry, spoke to him first: 123 "Who are you, brave friend, of mortal men? 124 I have never seen you in the battle where men win glory 125 before this; yet now you have come out far in front of all 126 in your daring, to stand my long-shadowed spear. 127 Unhappy are the fathers whose sons face my fury! 128 But if you are some immortal come down from the sky — 129 I will not fight with heavenly gods. 130 No — even Dryas' son, strong Lycurgus,[7] 131 did not live long, who strove with heavenly gods: 132 he once chased the nurses of raving Dionysus 133 down the holy mountain of Nysa; and all together 134 they flung their sacred wands to the ground, as man-slaughtering 135 Lycurgus beat them with an ox-goad; and Dionysus in terror 136 dived under the salt sea's wave, and Thetis took him, 137 frightened, to her bosom: for a strong trembling held him 138 at the man's shouting. But the gods who live at ease were angered 139 at Lycurgus, and Cronos' son struck him blind; nor did he 140 live long after, hated by all the immortal gods. 141 I would not choose to fight the blessed gods. 142 But if you are a mortal, one of those who eat the fruit of the field, 143 come closer — and come the sooner to the borders of destruction." 144 Then Hippolochus' shining son addressed him: 145 "Great-hearted son of Tydeus — why ask my lineage? 146 As the generation of leaves, so is the generation of men.[8] 147 The wind pours some leaves to the ground, and others the forest 148 grows in their fullness when the season of spring comes on: 149 so with the generations of men — one grows, one dies away. 150 But if you wish to hear even this, and to know 151 my lineage — many men know it already: 152 there is a city, Ephyra, in a fold of horse-pasturing Argos, 153 and there lived Sisyphus, craftiest of men —[9] 154 Sisyphus, Aeolus' son; and he fathered a son, Glaucus, 155 and Glaucus fathered blameless Bellerophon. 156 To him the gods gave beauty and lovely manhood; 157 but Proetus plotted evil against him in his heart, 158 and drove him out of the land of the Argives — being far 159 the stronger: for Zeus had bowed them under his scepter. 160 For Proetus' wife, brilliant Anteia, was mad 161 to lie with him in secret love; but she could not 162 move right-minded, war-minded Bellerophon. 163 So she lied to King Proetus: 164 'Die yourself, Proetus — or kill Bellerophon, 165 who wanted to lie with me in love, and I unwilling.' 166 So she spoke, and anger took hold of the king at what he heard. 167 He shrank from killing him — his heart stood in awe of that — 168 but he sent him to Lycia, and gave him baneful signs, 169 scratching in a folded tablet many life-destroying marks,[10] 170 and told him to show it to his wife's father: that he might perish. 171 So he went to Lycia, under the gods' blameless escort. 172 And when he came to Lycia and the flowing Xanthus, 173 the lord of wide Lycia honored him with a ready heart: 174 nine days he feasted him, and slaughtered nine oxen. 175 But when the tenth rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, 176 then he questioned him, and asked to see the token, 177 whatever it was he brought from his son-in-law Proetus. 178 And when he had received his son-in-law's evil token, 179 first he ordered him to kill the raging Chimaera — 180 a thing of divine stock, not of men: 181 in front a lion, behind a serpent, in the middle a she-goat, 182 breathing out the terrible fury of blazing fire.[11] 183 And he killed her, trusting the portents of the gods. 184 Second, he fought the far-famed Solymi: 185 the hardest battle of men, he said, he ever entered. 186 Third, he cut down the Amazons, the match of men. 187 And as he came back the king wove him another close-set trap: 188 choosing the best men out of wide Lycia 189 he set an ambush; and they never came home again — 190 blameless Bellerophon killed them all. 191 But when the king came to know he was the brave son of a god, 192 he kept him there, and gave him his daughter, 193 and gave him half of all his kingly honor; 194 and the Lycians cut him a precinct beyond all others, 195 fine land for orchard and plowland, to enjoy. 196 And she bore three children to war-minded Bellerophon: 197 Isander, and Hippolochus, and Laodameia. 198 By Laodameia Zeus the counselor lay, 199 and she bore godlike Sarpedon of the bronze helmet. 200 But when even Bellerophon came to be hated by all the gods, 201 he wandered alone across the Aleian plain, 202 eating out his heart, shunning the trodden paths of men;[12] 203 and his son Isander was killed by Ares insatiate of war 204 as he fought the far-famed Solymi; 205 and his daughter — Artemis of the golden reins killed her in anger. 206 But Hippolochus fathered me: from him I claim my birth. 207 He sent me to Troy, and he charged me strictly 208 always to be the best, and to hold my head above all others, 209 and not to shame the stock of my fathers, who were far the best 210 in Ephyra, and in wide Lycia. 211 Of this lineage and this blood I claim to be." 212 So he spoke; and Diomedes, good at the war-cry, rejoiced. 213 He planted his spear in the earth that feeds so many 214 and spoke with honeyed words to the shepherd of the people: 215 "Why — then you are my guest-friend from our fathers' time![13] 216 For brilliant Oeneus once entertained blameless 217 Bellerophon in his halls, and kept him twenty days; 218 and they gave one another fine gifts of friendship: 219 Oeneus gave a war-belt bright with crimson, 220 and Bellerophon a golden two-handled cup — 221 I left it in my house when I came away. 222 Tydeus I do not remember: I was still small 223 when he left me, that time the Achaean host perished at Thebes. 224 So now I am your dear guest-friend in the heart of Argos, 225 and you are mine in Lycia, whenever I come to that country. 226 Let us keep clear of each other's spears, even in the crush: 227 there are Trojans enough for me, and famed allies, 228 to kill whomever a god delivers and my feet overtake, 229 and Achaeans enough for you, to cut down whom you can. 230 And let us exchange armor with each other, so that these men too 231 may know we claim to be guest-friends from our fathers' time." 232 So the two spoke, and leapt down from their chariots 233 and took each other's hands and pledged their faith. 234 And then Zeus, Cronos' son, took Glaucus's wits away: 235 he exchanged with Tydeus' son Diomedes armor 236 of gold for bronze — a hundred oxen's worth for nine.[14] 237 Now when Hector came to the Scaean Gates and the oak,[15] 238 the Trojans' wives and daughters came running around him, 239 asking after sons and brothers and kinsmen 240 and husbands. And he told them to pray to the gods, 241 all of them, one after another: griefs hung over many. 242 But when he came to Priam's beautiful palace, 243 built with polished colonnades — and in it 244 were fifty chambers of polished stone,[16] 245 built close by one another, where the sons 246 of Priam slept beside their wedded wives, 247 and for the daughters, opposite, within the court, 248 were twelve roofed chambers of polished stone, 249 built close by one another, where the sons-in-law 250 of Priam slept beside their honored wives — 251 there his gentle-giving mother came to meet him, 252 leading in Laodice, loveliest of her daughters; 253 and she clung to his hand, and spoke a word, and named him: 254 "Child, why have you left the bold fighting and come here? 255 Surely they are wearing you down — those cursed sons 256 of the Achaeans, fighting around the town — and your heart sent you 257 here, to lift your hands to Zeus from the city's height. 258 But wait while I bring you honey-sweet wine, 259 to pour first to father Zeus and the other immortals, 260 and then to do yourself good, if you will drink. 261 Wine greatly swells the strength of a wearied man — 262 and you are wearied with defending your kinsmen." 263 Then great Hector of the flashing helmet answered her: 264 "Bring me no wine, honey-hearted lady mother, 265 or you may unstring my limbs and I forget my courage. 266 And I shrink from pouring gleaming wine to Zeus[17] 267 with unwashed hands: a man spattered with blood and filth 268 cannot pray to the son of Cronos, lord of the dark cloud. 269 No — you go to the temple of Athena, driver of the spoil, 270 with burnt offerings, when you have gathered the older women, 271 and the robe that is loveliest and amplest 272 in the hall, and far the dearest to yourself, 273 lay it on the knees of lovely-haired Athena, 274 and vow to sacrifice to her in the temple twelve heifers, 275 yearlings, never goaded, if she will pity 276 the town, and the Trojans' wives, and their little children — 277 if she will hold back Tydeus' son from holy Ilion, 278 that wild spearman, that strong machine of rout. 279 So go to the temple of Athena, driver of the spoil; 280 and I will go after Paris, to summon him, 281 if he is willing to hear me speak. May the earth gape for him 282 where he stands! The Olympian reared him as a great affliction 283 to the Trojans, and to great-hearted Priam, and Priam's sons. 284 If I could see that man gone down into Hades' house, 285 I could say my heart had forgotten its joyless misery." 286 So he spoke; and she went to the hall and called 287 her handmaids, and they gathered the older women through the city. 288 She herself went down to the fragrant storeroom 289 where her robes were kept, the richly patterned work of women 290 of Sidon, whom godlike Alexandros himself[18] 291 brought from Sidon, sailing the wide sea, 292 on that voyage on which he carried home high-born Helen. 293 Of these Hecuba took one to carry as gift to Athena, 294 the one that was loveliest in its patterning, and amplest, 295 and it shone like a star; it lay beneath all the others. 296 Then she set out, and the many older women hurried after. 297 And when they came to Athena's temple on the city's height, 298 fair-cheeked Theano opened the doors for them, 299 Cisseus' daughter, wife of Antenor, breaker of horses, 300 whom the Trojans had made priestess of Athena.[19] 301 With a wailing cry they all lifted their hands to Athena; 302 and fair-cheeked Theano took the robe 303 and laid it on the knees of lovely-haired Athena, 304 and vowing she prayed to the daughter of great Zeus: 305 "Lady Athena, guardian of the city, brilliant among goddesses: 306 break now the spear of Diomedes, and grant 307 that the man himself fall on his face before the Scaean Gates, 308 and we will sacrifice to you at once, here in the temple, 309 twelve heifers, yearlings, never goaded, if you will pity 310 the town, and the Trojans' wives, and their little children." 311 So she spoke, vowing. But Pallas Athena turned her head away.[20] 312 So they were praying to the daughter of great Zeus; 313 and Hector had gone to the house of Alexandros, 314 the beautiful house he had built himself with the men 315 who were then the best builders in deep-soiled Troy: 316 they had made him a chamber and a hall and a courtyard 317 close by Priam and Hector, on the city's height. 318 There Hector entered, dear to Zeus, and in his hand 319 he held a spear eleven cubits long; and before him the bronze 320 point of the shaft shone, and a ring of gold ran round it. 321 He found Paris in the chamber busy with his beautiful armor, 322 the shield and the corslet, and handling his curved bow; 323 and Argive Helen sat among her slave-women,[21] 324 directing her handmaids in their famous work. 325 And seeing him Hector raked him with shaming words: 326 "Strange man — it is not decent to nurse this anger in your heart. 327 The people are dying around the city and the steep wall 328 as they fight; and it is for your sake that the war-cry and the war 329 burn around this town. You would quarrel yourself 330 with any man you saw hanging back from hateful war. 331 Up — before the town is warmed by the enemy's fire!" 332 And godlike Alexandros answered him: 333 "Hector, you rake me justly, not more than justly; 334 so I will tell you — and you mark me, and hear me out. 335 It was not so much anger at the Trojans, or resentment, 336 that kept me sitting in my chamber: I wanted to give in to grief. 337 But just now my wife, coaxing me with soft words, 338 urged me back to the war; and it seems even to me 339 that it will be better so. Victory shifts from man to man. 340 Come then, wait while I put on the gear of Ares — 341 or go, and I will follow: I think I shall overtake you." 342 So he spoke; and Hector of the flashing helmet answered him nothing. 343 But Helen spoke to Hector with honeyed words: 344 "Brother — brother of me, the dog, the evil-scheming horror:[22] 345 how I wish that on the day my mother first bore me 346 some foul storm of wind had carried me off 347 to a mountain, or into the wave of the loud-roaring sea, 348 where the wave would have swept me away before all this was done. 349 But since the gods ordained these evils so, 350 then I wish I had been wife to a better man, 351 one who felt the world's anger and the long reproaches of men. 352 But this one — his wits are not steady now, and never 353 will be; and I think he will reap the harvest of it. 354 But come in now, brother, and sit on this chair, 355 since the labor rings your heart above all others' — 356 for the sake of me, the dog, and for Alexandros's blindness: 357 on whom Zeus has set an evil doom, so that hereafter 358 we may be subjects of song for men still to come."[23] 359 Then great Hector of the flashing helmet answered her: 360 "Do not seat me, Helen, though you love me. You will not persuade me. 361 Already my heart is driving me to stand by 362 the Trojans, who feel their great longing for me gone. 363 No — you rouse this man, and let him hurry himself, 364 so he may catch me still inside the city. 365 For I am going home first, to see 366 my household, and my dear wife, and my little son: 367 I do not know if I shall come back to them again, 368 or whether the gods will break me now under Achaean hands." 369 So speaking Hector of the flashing helmet went. 370 And quickly he came to his well-settled house — 371 but he did not find white-armed Andromache in the hall: 372 she had gone with the child and one fair-robed handmaid 373 and stood on the tower, weeping and mourning. 374 When Hector did not find his blameless wife within, 375 he stopped on the threshold and spoke among the slave-women: 376 "Come, slave-women, tell me the truth of it: 377 where has white-armed Andromache gone from the hall? 378 To one of my sisters, or my brothers' fair-robed wives? 379 Or out to Athena's temple, where the other 380 lovely-braided women of Troy are appeasing the dread goddess?" 381 And the busy housekeeper answered him: 382 "Hector — since you order me strictly to tell the truth: 383 not to one of your sisters, nor your brothers' fair-robed wives, 384 nor out to Athena's temple, where the other 385 lovely-braided women of Troy are appeasing the dread goddess — 386 she went up on the great tower of Ilion, because she heard 387 the Trojans were worn down, and the Achaeans' power was great. 388 She has gone hurrying to the wall 389 like a woman gone mad; and the nurse carries the child beside her." 390 So the housekeeper spoke; and Hector sped from the house 391 back the same way, down the well-built streets. 392 When, crossing the great city, he reached the gates — 393 the Scaean Gates, by which he meant to go out on the plain — 394 there his richly dowered wife came running to meet him, 395 Andromache, daughter of great-hearted Eëtion — 396 Eëtion, who lived under wooded Placus, 397 in Thebe-under-Placus, lord over the Cilician men: 398 his daughter was wife to Hector of the bronze helmet. 399 She met him there, and with her came the handmaid 400 holding the child at her breast, all baby-thoughts still, a little one, 401 the beloved son of Hector, like a beautiful star: 402 Hector called him Scamandrius, but the others 403 Astyanax — for Hector alone was the saving of Ilion.[24] 404 He looked at his boy and smiled in silence; 405 but Andromache came and stood close beside him, weeping, 406 and she clung to his hand, and spoke a word, and named him: 407 "Strange man — your own fury will destroy you. And you have no pity 408 for your son, a little child, or for doomed me, who soon 409 shall be your widow: for soon the Achaeans will kill you, 410 falling on you all together. And for me it would be better, 411 losing you, to go under the earth: there will be no other 412 comfort ever again, once you have met your doom — 413 only griefs. And I have no father, no lady mother. 414 My father — brilliant Achilles killed him, 415 the day he sacked the well-settled city of the Cilicians, 416 Thebe of the high gates. He killed Eëtion — 417 but he did not strip him: his heart stood in awe of that.[25] 418 He burned his body in the wrought armor 419 and heaped a grave-mound over him; and around it the mountain nymphs, 420 daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, planted elm trees. 421 And my seven brothers in our halls — 422 all of them went to Hades' house in a single day: 423 swift-footed brilliant Achilles killed them all 424 among their rolling-gaited cattle and their white sheep. 425 And my mother, who was queen under wooded Placus — 426 he brought her here with the rest of the plunder, 427 but set her free again, taking ransom past counting, 428 and in her father's halls Artemis who showers arrows struck her down. 429 Hector — so you are my father, and my lady mother, 430 and my brother; and you are my strong young husband.[26] 431 Come, take pity now, and stay here on the tower: 432 do not make your child an orphan and your wife a widow. 433 And station the army by the wild fig tree, where the city 434 is easiest to scale, and the wall lies open to assault.[27] 435 Three times their best men have come there and tried it, 436 the two Ajaxes and famous Idomeneus together, 437 and the sons of Atreus, and Tydeus' powerful son — 438 whether someone skilled in god-signs told them of it, 439 or their own hearts drive and command them to it." 440 Then great Hector of the flashing helmet answered her: 441 "All this is my care too, wife. But I would stand 442 in terrible shame before the Trojans, and the Trojan women 443 with their trailing gowns, if like a coward I skulked apart from the war; 444 and my own heart will not let me. I have learned to be brave 445 always, and to fight among the foremost Trojans, 446 winning great fame for my father, and for myself. 447 For this I know well in my mind and heart: 448 the day will come when holy Ilion shall perish,[28] 449 and Priam, and the people of Priam of the good ash spear. 450 But it is not the Trojans' coming grief that so much moves me — 451 not Hecuba's own, not lord Priam's, 452 not my brothers', who many and brave 453 may fall in the dust under enemy hands — 454 as yours: when some bronze-shirted Achaean 455 leads you away in tears, and takes your day of freedom; 456 and in Argos you would weave at another woman's loom, 457 and carry water from the spring Messeïs or Hypereia, 458 hating it, every step — and hard necessity on you; 459 and someone will say, seeing you letting fall your tears: 460 'This is the wife of Hector, who was best in battle 461 of all the horse-taming Trojans, when they fought around Ilion.' 462 So someone will say; and for you it will be fresh grief, 463 for want of such a man to beat off the day of slavery.[29] 464 But may the heaped earth cover me, dead, 465 before I hear your cry and see you dragged away." 466 So speaking, glorious Hector reached out for his boy — 467 and the child shrank back, crying, against the breast 468 of his fair-belted nurse, terrified at the sight of his own father, 469 frightened by the bronze and the horsehair crest, 470 seeing it nod terribly from the helmet's top. 471 And his dear father laughed aloud, and his lady mother;[30] 472 at once glorious Hector took the helmet from his head 473 and laid it, all shining, on the ground. 474 Then he kissed his dear son, and swung him in his arms, 475 and spoke in prayer to Zeus and the other gods: 476 "Zeus, and you other gods: grant that this boy, 477 my son, may become, as I am, preeminent among the Trojans, 478 as strong and brave as I; and rule Ilion in strength; 479 and may men someday say he is far better than his father 480 as he comes home from war. May he carry back the bloody spoils 481 of the enemy he has killed, and his mother's heart be glad."[31] 482 So speaking he laid his son in the arms 483 of his dear wife; and she took him to her fragrant breast, 484 laughing through her tears. And her husband saw, and pitied her, 485 and stroked her with his hand, and spoke a word, and named her: 486 "Strange woman — do not grieve too much for me in your heart. 487 No man will hurl me to Hades beyond my portion; 488 but his fate, I say, no man has ever escaped, 489 coward or brave man, once he has been born.[32] 490 Go home now, and set your own work in order — 491 the loom and the distaff — and tell your handmaids 492 to go about their work. War shall be men's concern — 493 all men's, and mine above all, of all who were born in Ilion."[33] 494 So speaking, glorious Hector took up the helmet 495 with its horsehair crest; and his dear wife went home, 496 turning back again and again, letting the full tears fall. 497 And quickly she came to the well-settled house 498 of man-slaughtering Hector, and found inside her many 499 handmaids; and in all of them she stirred lament. 500 So they mourned Hector, still alive, in his own house: 501 for they said he would never again come back 502 out of the war, escaping the fury and the hands of the Achaeans.[34] 503 Nor did Paris linger long in his high house: 504 when he had put on his famed armor, patterned with bronze, 505 he ran through the city, sure of his quick feet. 506 As when a stalled horse, corn-fed at the manger, 507 breaks his tether and gallops drumming across the plain, 508 used to bathing in the fair-flowing river, 509 glorying: he holds his head high, and the mane 510 streams along his shoulders; sure of his own splendor, 511 his knees carry him lightly to the haunts and pastures of horses:[35] 512 so Paris, Priam's son, came striding down from the height 513 of Pergamos, blazing in his armor like the beaming sun, 514 laughing aloud, and his quick feet carried him. And at once 515 he came on brilliant Hector, his brother, just turning away 516 from the place where he had talked with his wife. 517 Godlike Alexandros spoke to him first: 518 "Elder brother — surely I have held you back in your hurry, 519 lingering so long; I did not come promptly, as you asked.[36]" 520 Answering him spoke Hector of the flashing helmet: 521 "Strange man — no fair-minded man could disparage 522 your work in battle: you have your courage. 523 But you hang back by choice; you will not try. And my heart 524 aches in me when I hear your shame on Trojan lips — 525 the men who bear this long labor for your sake. 526 But let us go. We will make all this good later, if ever Zeus 527 grants us to set out for the heavenly gods who are forever 528 the mixing-bowl of freedom in our halls, 529 when we have driven the strong-greaved Achaeans out of Troy." ------------------------------------------------------------ Notes [1] (6.12-19) Axylus of Arisbe, "a friend to all mankind," who kept open house by the road — and not one guest stood by him at his death. The hospitality-vignette inverted: xenia builds a network of obligation, and the poem records the one moment it cannot pay out. [2] (6.21-28) Bucolion, Laomedon's eldest son "borne in darkness" (σκότιον — illegitimate), and the water-nymph Abarbarea: a shepherd's love-story compressed into five lines so that its twin sons can die in two. Nymph-brides on Mount Ida are a recurring Trojan genealogy (cf. Aeneas's own conception, 2.820-821). [3] (6.45-65) The Adrestus scene: a ransom-supplication (the standard battlefield transaction, cf. 1.12-13) refused in the war's most chilling terms — "not even the boy his mother carries in her womb." The narrator's comment, αἴσιμα παρειπών, is rendered at face value ("for his urging was of things due") and has been disputed since antiquity: does the poet endorse the atrocity as just payment for Paris's crime, or does αἴσιμα mean only "words of destiny"? The translation does not soften it; the dispute lives here. [4] (6.76) Helenus, Priam's son, "far the best of bird-readers" — the Trojan counterpart of Calchas (1.69, same formula); distinct from the Helenus killed at 5.707. [5] (6.90-97) The peplos-offering: a woven robe laid on the knees of the seated cult-statue, with a vow of twelve unworked heifers — the fullest description of civic ritual supplication in the poem. The instruction is relayed verbatim three times (Helenus 90-97, Hector 269-278, performed 293-310), per messenger convention; the English repeats identically. [6] (6.119-236) The Glaucus-Diomedes encounter. Aristonicus reports that some ancient critics transposed the whole episode elsewhere in the poem (apparatus, Line 119-236) — it sits oddly in mid-battle, two enemies talking genealogy at leisure. Kept, of course, where the tradition kept it: its meditation on lineage, mortality, and obligation is the hinge between the battlefield and Troy's interiors. [7] (6.130-140) Lycurgus who chased Dionysus's nurses with an ox-goad — the Iliad's only Dionysus narrative (the god is strikingly marginal in Homer), told as a cautionary paradigm against god-fighting. Thetis's sea-rescue of the terrified child is her third such rescue in the poem's memory (Zeus at 1.396-406, Hephaestus at 18.398). [8] (6.146-149) "As the generation of leaves, so is the generation of men" — the most famous simile in the poem, and the classic statement of its view of mortality; quoted, imitated, and answered from Mimnermus to the present. Glaucus's point is scornful — why ask lineage? — and he then gives sixty lines of it: the tension is the speech. [9] (6.152-155) Sisyphus "craftiest of men" — here simply a clever Corinthian ancestor; the Iliad knows nothing (or says nothing) of the underworld stone, which appears first in Odyssey 11. [10] (6.160-170) Proetus's wife Anteia and the lethal letter: the oldest Greek instance of the "Potiphar's wife" motif — and the "baneful signs... scratched in a folded tablet" are the only reference to writing in all of Homer. Whether the poet imagined true script or ominous symbols was already debated in antiquity; the translation keeps the vagueness ("marks"). [11] (6.179-186) Bellerophon's labors: the Chimaera (lion-serpent-goat, fire-breathing — the poem's canonical description), the Solymi, the Amazons "the match of men" (cf. 3.189). Pegasus is conspicuously absent: Homer's Bellerophon does his killing without the winged horse of later art. [12] (6.200-205) Bellerophon's end: "hated by all the gods," wandering the Aleian plain ("the Plain of Wandering" — the name puns on his roaming), "eating out his heart" — the poem's image of a man dropped by fortune, cause unstated. His son falls to Ares, his daughter to Artemis: in Homeric idiom, sudden death of a man is Ares' or Apollo's arrow, of a woman Artemis's (cf. 6.428). [13] (6.215-231) The discovery: Diomedes' grandfather hosted Glaucus's grandfather for twenty days, therefore the grandsons may not fight — guest-friendship binds across generations and across the war itself. They will kill other men's guest-friends all afternoon; the institution is particular, not humanitarian. The gift-list (war-belt for cup) is a miniature of the economy. [14] (6.234-236) "Zeus took Glaucus's wits away": gold armor for bronze, "a hundred oxen's worth for nine" — proverbial by Plato's time for a bad bargain. The narrator's only intrusion into the scene, and a famously debated one: divine folly, or the reckless magnificence that is exactly what Glaucus's speech about glory demanded? [15] (6.237) "the Scaean Gates and the oak" — the oak of Zeus (cf. 5.693), a fixed landmark of the battlefield's edge; some manuscripts read "tower" for "oak" (apparatus, Line 237). [16] (6.242-250) Priam's palace: fifty chambers for sons, twelve for daughters and sons-in-law — dynastic architecture, the physical form of Priam's abundance that the war is grinding away (cf. his own count of lost sons at 24.493-498). [17] (6.264-268) Hector's double scruple — wine would slacken him; blood-spattered hands cannot pour to Zeus: battlefield piety in its exact ritual grammar (cf. the hand-washing at 1.449, 3.270). [18] (6.289-295) The Sidonian robes: Phoenician luxury goods brought home by Paris "on that voyage on which he carried home high-born Helen" — the abduction had a shopping itinerary. The offering to Athena is thus chosen from the very cargo of the crime. [19] (6.298-300) Theano (cf. 5.70) as priestess of Athena "whom the Trojans had made" so — a civic appointment, the only such notice in Homer, and evidence that Athena has an established cult inside the city she is destroying. [20] (6.311) "But Pallas Athena turned her head away." Aristarchus athetized the line (apparatus); it is the bleakest single verse in the poem — the exact ritual performed exactly, and refused in four words. Kept, emphatically: without it the whole peplos sequence loses its point. [21] (6.323-324, 375-376) First occurrences of δμῳαί, rendered "slave-women" per the project's adopted policy (never "servants" or "maids"); ἀμφίπολος remains "handmaid," ταμίη "housekeeper," τιθήνη "nurse." The household vocabulary matters in this book above all: its climax turns on Andromache's foreseen "day of slavery" (463). [22] (6.344-356) Helen to Hector: "me, the dog, the evil-scheming horror" — her third self-directed dog-insult (3.180, 3.404's "hateful me"); no one in the poem abuses Helen except Helen. At 356 the printed text has "Alexandros's blindness" (ἄτης) — Zenodotus read ἀρχῆς, "Alexandros who began it" (apparatus; cf. 3.100). The ἄτη-reading ties Paris to the poem's key word for ruinous delusion. [23] (6.357-358) "so that hereafter we may be subjects of song for men still to come" — the poem explaining its own existence through Helen's mouth: their suffering is Zeus's device for making poetry. Cf. Alcinous's version of the same thought at Odyssey 8.579. [24] (6.402-403) The child's two names: Hector calls him Scamandrius (after the river), the city calls him Astyanax — "lord of the city" — "for Hector alone was the saving of Ilion." The people's name for the son is their thanks to the father; its bitter payoff comes at 22.506-507. Third instance of the double-naming motif (cf. 1.403-404, 2.813-814), here mortal/civic rather than divine/human. [25] (6.414-428) Andromache's family history is Achilles' work in its entirety: father killed (but honored — burned in his armor, mound heaped, elms planted by nymphs: even his enemies' awe, σεβάσσατο), seven brothers in one day, mother ransomed then dead. The raid on Thebe is the poem's economic backstory (Chryseis was taken there, 1.366-369; Briseis's city Lyrnessus fell in the same campaign, 2.690-691). When Achilles and Andromache's griefs finally meet, in Book 24, they will already share every dead person in them. [26] (6.429-430) "you are my father, and my lady mother, and my brother; and you are my strong young husband" — arithmetic of the preceding catalogue: everything the war has taken, refigured in the one person it is about to take. [27] (6.433-439) Andromache's tactical advice — mass the army at the wild fig tree where the wall is scalable and thrice-probed. Aristarchus athetized the lines (apparatus, Line 433-439), on the ancient view that military counsel was unfitting in her mouth. Kept: the poem's women know exactly how Troy falls; the fig tree recurs as a tactical landmark at 11.167 and 22.145. [28] (6.447-449) "the day will come when holy Ilion shall perish, and Priam, and the people of Priam of the good ash spear" — verbatim the lines Agamemnon spoke at 4.163-165. There they were a threat sworn in anger; here Hector speaks them as settled knowledge, and fights on anyway. The reuse is the measure of the man. (Echo note; English repeated word for word.) [29] (6.454-465) The enslaved future, imagined by the husband: the loom of another woman, the water of Messeïs or Hypereia, the stranger's comment on her tears. "Day of freedom" / "day of slavery" (ἐλεύθερον ἦμαρ / δούλιον ἦμαρ) — the Homeric idiom that makes a condition a date. Hector's wish to be dead first will be granted exactly. [30] (6.466-474) The helmet scene: the baby screaming at the nodding crest, and both parents laughing — the poem's only moment of family comedy, set precisely between prophecy and farewell. The flashing-helmet epithet the poem has attached to Hector some forty times becomes, for four lines, a thing his son cannot recognize him through. [31] (6.476-481) Hector's prayer: "may men someday say he is far better than his father... and his mother's heart be glad." The tradition beyond the poem answers with the child thrown from the walls; the Iliad says nothing of it, and the silence is part of the effect. Even within the prayer, joy is measured in "bloody spoils." [32] (6.486-489) "his fate, I say, no man has ever escaped, coward or brave man, once he has been born" — the consolation of shared mortality, Hector's plainest theology; the same thought Achilles will offer Priam in Book 24 at far greater length. [33] (6.490-493) "the loom and the distaff... War shall be men's concern" — the fixed formula dividing the spheres (Hector will be echoed nearly verbatim by Telemachus, with "speech" for "war," at Odyssey 1.356-359). Coming directly after note [27]'s athetized tactics, the line enacts the boundary the critics wanted enforced. [34] (6.500-502) "So they mourned Hector, still alive, in his own house" — the lament raised before the death; the poem lets the funeral of Book 24 begin here, eighteen books early. [35] (6.506-511) The stalled horse: Paris released, glorying, mane streaming — repeated verbatim at 15.263-268, where it describes Hector returning to battle; the same simile serving vanity there and heroism here is a masterclass in how formulas mean by placement. English fixed for the recurrence. [36] (6.519) The OCT punctuates Paris's close as a question — "and did I not come in due time, as you bade?" — a touch of fishing for reassurance. Printed here as a flat admission (a reading with editorial standing), which suits Hector's mollified reply; the crux is recorded.