Book IV

The truce broken: Pandarus's arrow, the review of the troops, and the first battle of the poem.

Translator’s note on Book 4

Book 4 contains the poem's moral pivot — the gods deliberately engineer the breaking of a sworn truce — and its first battle. The divine council that opens the book is the darkest divine politics in the Iliad: Zeus proposes peace (perhaps in earnest, perhaps as bait), Hera offers him her own three dearest cities, Argos, Sparta, and Mycenae, to destroy at will in exchange for Troy's ruin, and Zeus concedes with the unforgettable "willingly — with unwilling heart." Aristarchus athetized the sharpest couplet of Hera's speech (55-56; note 3), but the transaction stands in the text: the war resumes because two gods trade cities like counters. I have translated the scene coldly, without softening the horse-trading tone, because the Pandarus scene that follows — Athena talking a fool into perjury his whole people will pay for — is its direct execution.

This is also the book where the poem's combat idiom begins, and the conventions set here bind the remaining twenty books (all logged in translation/CONVENTIONS.md): death formulas rendered fixed and unvarying ("darkness covered his eyes"; "he fell with a thud, and his armor clattered upon him"; "unstrung his limbs"), wound anatomy kept clinically precise as the Greek keeps it, and the armor vocabulary settled (ζωστήρ "war-belt," ζῶμα "loin-guard," μίτρη "waist-guard"). The first man to die in the Iliad is Echepolus at 457 (note 22); the first extended pathos-vignette is Simoeisios at 473-489 (note 23), the young man felled like a poplar cut for a chariot-wheel, who "never paid back the cost of his rearing" — the template for a hundred deaths to come.

Agamemnon's inspection tour (the epipōlēsis, 223-421) is the book's long character study: honeyed words for Idomeneus and the Ajaxes, wistful respect for Nestor, and gratuitous insults for Odysseus and Diomedes — both unearned, both answered in ways that define each man (Odysseus with hot dignity, Diomedes with a silence that will pay out in Book 9). The rebuke of Diomedes drags in the Theban saga (notes [18], [19]) — the Iliad's fullest glance at the war of the previous generation, and Sthenelus's retort ("we took seven-gated Thebes; our fathers died of their own recklessness") was athetized by Aristarchus, perhaps for its flat contradiction of Agamemnon's point.

1Now the gods, seated beside Zeus, were holding assembly

on the golden floor, and among them the lady Hebe

poured nectar; and they with golden cups

pledged one another, looking out at the city of the Trojans.

5And at once the son of Cronos set about provoking Hera

with needling words, speaking sidelong:

"Two of the goddesses are helpers of Menelaus —

Hera of Argos and Athena of Alalcomenae —¹

and yet the two of them sit apart, looking on,

10taking their pleasure; while laughter-loving Aphrodite

is forever at that other's side, and keeps the fates of death from him:

just now she saved him when he thought to die.

Still — victory belongs to Menelaus dear to Ares.

So let us consider how these things shall be:

15whether we shall stir up evil war again and the dread din

of battle, or cast friendship between the two sides.

If somehow this should be welcome and sweet to all,

then let the city of lord Priam stay a place men live in,

and let Menelaus take Argive Helen home again."

20So he spoke, and they murmured at it, Athena and Hera,

who sat side by side plotting evils for the Trojans.

Athena, to be sure, stayed silent and said nothing,

sulking at father Zeus, wild anger gripping her;

but Hera's breast could not contain her anger, and she spoke:

25"Most dread son of Cronos, what a word you have spoken!

How can you wish to make my labor vain and unaccomplished —

the sweat I sweated in my toil, my horses worn out

gathering the host, to bring evils on Priam and his sons?

Do it. But we other gods do not all approve it."

30Greatly troubled, Zeus the cloud-gatherer answered her:

"Possessed one — what great evils do Priam and Priam's sons

do you, that you rage without respite

to sack the well-built citadel of Ilion?

If you could go in through the gates and the long walls

35and eat Priam raw, and Priam's sons,²

and the other Trojans too — then you might cure your anger.

Do as you please. Only let not this quarrel

become in time a great strife between you and me.

And I will tell you another thing — put it away in your heart:

40whenever I in my turn am bent on sacking a city,

and choose one where men dear to you were born,

do not try to delay my anger, but let me be:

for I too have given you this willingly — with unwilling heart.

Of all the cities under the sun and the starry sky

45that men who dwell on the earth inhabit,

holy Ilion was most honored in my heart,

and Priam, and the people of Priam of the good ash spear.

Never did my altar lack its fair share of the feast,

the libation and the savor: for that is the honor-portion we gods have."

50Then the ox-eyed lady Hera answered him:

"Three cities there are far dearest of all to me:

Argos, and Sparta, and wide-wayed Mycenae.

Sack these, whenever they grow hateful to your heart;

I do not stand in front of them; I do not grudge them to you.

55For even if I did begrudge them, and refused you their sacking,

my grudging would accomplish nothing: you are far the stronger.³

But my labor too must not be made unaccomplished.

I also am a god; my birth is from the same stock as yours;

crooked-counseled Cronos begot me, eldest of his daughters —

60eldest doubly: by birth, and because I am called

your wife, and you are king among all the immortals.

Come — in this let us yield to one another,

I to you and you to me, and the other immortal gods

will follow. Quickly now: order Athena

65to go down into the dread din of Trojans and Achaeans

and contrive that the Trojans be the first to do harm,

against the oaths, to the Achaeans now in their glory."

So she spoke, and the father of men and gods did not disobey:

at once he addressed Athena with winged words:

70"Go with all speed to the armies, to the Trojans and Achaeans,

and contrive that the Trojans be the first to do harm,

against the oaths, to the Achaeans now in their glory."

So speaking, he stirred Athena, already eager;

and down from the peaks of Olympus she went darting.

75As the son of crooked-counseled Cronos sends a star,

a portent to sailors or to the wide host of an army,

blazing, and sparks stream from it in multitudes —

in such a likeness Pallas Athena darted to earth

and leapt down into the middle; and amazement held the watchers,

80the horse-taming Trojans and the strong-greaved Achaeans;

and thus one would say, with a glance at his neighbor:

"Either evil war and the dread din of battle

are coming again — or Zeus is setting friendship

between the two sides, Zeus, the dispenser of war to men."

85So one of the Achaeans and Trojans would say.

And she, in the likeness of a man, went down into the Trojan throng —

of Laodocus, Antenor's son, a strong spearman —

searching for godlike Pandarus, if she might find him.

She found Lycaon's son, blameless and strong,

90standing; and around him the strong ranks of shield-bearing

men who had followed him from the streams of Aesepus.

Standing close, she spoke winged words to him:

"Would you let me persuade you, war-minded son of Lycaon?

Would you dare send a swift arrow at Menelaus,

95and win favor and glory in the eyes of all the Trojans —

of prince Alexandros most of all?

From him first of anyone you would carry off shining gifts,

if he should see Menelaus, Atreus' warlike son,

brought down by your shaft and set on the grievous pyre.

100Come then — shoot an arrow at glorious Menelaus,

and vow to Apollo the Lycian-born, famed for the bow,⁴

to offer a splendid hecatomb of firstborn lambs

when you come home to the town of holy Zeleia."

So spoke Athena, and persuaded the fool's heart.

105At once he uncased his polished bow, made from the horn⁵

of a leaping wild ibex which he himself had once shot

under the chest as it stepped out from a rock — lying

in wait in a blind, he struck it in the chest,

and it fell back flat on the rock. From its head the horns

110had grown sixteen palms; and the craftsman, the horn-polisher,

fitted them together, smoothed all smooth, and set on a tip of gold.

This bow he strung, bending it well, and laid it down

propped against the ground; and his good companions held their shields before him,

so the warlike sons of the Achaeans should not spring up

115before Menelaus, Atreus' warlike son, was hit.

Then he stripped the lid from his quiver and took out an arrow,

never yet shot, winged, a base of black pains;⁶

and quickly he set the bitter shaft in order on the string,

and vowed to Apollo the Lycian-born, famed for the bow,

120to offer a splendid hecatomb of firstborn lambs

when he came home to the town of holy Zeleia.

Gripping together the notched butt and the string of ox-sinew, he drew:

the string he brought to his breast, and to the bow the iron head.⁷

And when he had strained the great bow into a circle,

125the horn sang, the string cried aloud, and the arrow leapt,

sharp-pointed, raging to fly on into the crowd.

But the blessed immortal gods did not forget you,

Menelaus — first among them Zeus's daughter, the driver of the spoil,

who stood before you and warded off the piercing shaft.

130She brushed it back from the skin just so far as a mother

brushes a fly from her child when he lies in sweet sleep,

and steered it herself to where the golden buckles⁸

of the war-belt met and the corslet lay doubled.

Into the fastened war-belt fell the bitter arrow:

135through the wrought belt it was driven,

through the richly worked corslet it pressed on,

and through the waist-guard he wore to shield his flesh, a fence against javelins —

that guarded him best, yet it passed through even this;

and the arrow grazed the outermost skin of the man,

140and at once dark-clouded blood ran down from the wound.

As when some woman of Maeonia or Caria stains⁹

ivory with crimson, to be a cheek-piece for horses;

it lies in a treasure-room, and many horsemen

have prayed to carry it; but it lies there, a king's treasure,

145both ornament for the horse and glory for the driver:

so, Menelaus, your shapely thighs were stained

with blood, your shins, and your fine ankles beneath.

Then the lord of men Agamemnon shuddered

as he saw the black blood running down from the wound,

150and Menelaus dear to Ares shuddered himself;

but when he saw the binding-cord and the barbs still outside the flesh,

the spirit was gathered back into his breast.

But groaning heavily, the lord Agamemnon spoke among them,

holding Menelaus by the hand, and the companions groaned with him:

155"Dear brother, it was your death I was cutting in those oaths,¹⁰

setting you out alone before the Achaeans to fight the Trojans —

now the Trojans have shot you down and trampled the sworn oaths.

Yet not in vain are the oath, the blood of lambs,

the unmixed libations, the right hands we trusted.

160For if the Olympian has not fulfilled it at once,

he fulfills it late — and men pay greatly for it,

with their own heads, and their wives, and their children.

For this I know well in my mind and heart:

the day will come when holy Ilion shall perish,

165and Priam, and the people of Priam of the good ash spear,

and Zeus the son of Cronos, high-throned, dwelling in the sky,

will himself shake his dark aegis over them all

in anger at this deceit. These things will not go unaccomplished.

But my grief for you will be terrible, O Menelaus,

170if you die and fill up your portion of life.

I would go back to thirsty Argos in utter disgrace,

for the Achaeans would think at once of their fatherland,

and we would leave to Priam and the Trojans their boast —

Argive Helen; and the field would rot your bones

175as you lay in Troy, the work unaccomplished.

And thus some overweening Trojan will say,

leaping on the tomb of glorious Menelaus:

'May Agamemnon bring his anger to this end in every case —

as now he led an Achaean army here for nothing,

180and has gone off home to his dear fatherland

with empty ships, and left good Menelaus behind.'

So some day one of them will say. Then let the wide earth gape for me."

But tawny-haired Menelaus spoke to reassure him:

"Take heart; do not frighten the Achaean host at all.

185The sharp shaft is not fixed in a mortal place: before that

my glittering war-belt saved me, and beneath it

the loin-guard, and the waist-guard bronze-smiths labored on."

Answering him spoke the lord Agamemnon:

"May it be so indeed, dear Menelaus.

190But a healer will probe the wound and lay on it

drugs to stop the black pains."

He spoke, and addressed Talthybius the godlike herald:

"Talthybius — as quick as you can, call Machaon here,

the man who is son of Asclepius the blameless healer,¹¹

195to see Menelaus, Atreus' warlike son,¹²

whom someone skilled in the bow has shot with an arrow,

some Trojan or Lycian: glory for him, grief for us."

So he spoke, and the herald heard and did not disobey.

He went through the host of the bronze-shirted Achaeans

200peering for the hero Machaon; and he saw him

standing, with the strong ranks of shield-bearing men

around him, who had followed him from horse-pasturing Tricca.

Standing close, he spoke winged words:

"Rise, son of Asclepius. The lord Agamemnon calls,

205to see Menelaus, the warlike captain of the Achaeans,

whom someone skilled in the bow has shot with an arrow,

some Trojan or Lycian: glory for him, grief for us."

So he spoke, and stirred the heart in his breast,

and they went through the crowd, through the wide Achaean camp.

210And when they came where tawny-haired Menelaus

was wounded — and around him all the best men were gathered

in a circle, and he, a man like a god, stood among them —

at once Machaon drew the arrow from the fastened belt;

and as it was drawn out, the sharp barbs broke backward.

215Then he loosed the glittering war-belt, and beneath it

the loin-guard, and the waist-guard bronze-smiths labored on.

And when he saw the wound where the bitter arrow had struck,

he sucked out the blood, and skillfully sprinkled on it

soothing drugs, which Chiron once gave his father out of friendship.

220While they were busy about Menelaus, good at the war-cry,

the ranks of the shield-bearing Trojans came on;

and the Achaeans put on their armor again, and remembered their fighting.

Then you would not have seen brilliant Agamemnon drowsing,¹³

or cowering, or unwilling to fight,

225but hurrying hard toward the battle where men win glory.

He left his horses and his chariot patterned with bronze —

his aide kept them snorting off to the side,

Eurymedon, son of Ptolemaeus, Peiraeus' son,

with strict orders to keep them close at hand for the moment

230weariness should take his limbs, commanding through so many —

and on foot he ranged the ranks of men.

Whomever of the Danaans of swift colts he saw pressing on,

he would stand beside them and hearten them with his words:

"Argives, do not let go your rushing courage now!

235Father Zeus will be no helper to liars:

those who were first to do harm against the oaths —

vultures will eat their tender flesh,

and we will carry off their dear wives and little children

in our ships, when we take their citadel."

240But whomever he saw hanging back from hateful war,

those he would rake with angry words:

"Argives — loud boasters — disgraces! Have you no shame?¹⁴

Why do you stand stunned like this, like fawns

that have run themselves tired over a wide plain

245and stand still, with no courage left in their hearts —

so you stand stunned, and do not fight.

Are you waiting for the Trojans to come right up to where the ships

with their fine sterns are drawn up on the shore of the grey sea,

to find out whether the son of Cronos will hold his hand over you?"

250So, commanding, he ranged through the ranks of men,

and came to the Cretans, moving through the crowd of fighters.

They were arming around war-minded Idomeneus:

Idomeneus among the front-fighters, like a wild boar in courage,

while Meriones hurried on the rearmost companies.

255Seeing them the lord of men Agamemnon rejoiced,

and at once he spoke to Idomeneus with honeyed words:

"Idomeneus, I honor you beyond all the Danaans of swift colts,

in war and in every other work,

and at the feast, when the chief men of the Argives

260mix the elders' gleaming wine in the bowl.

For even if the other long-haired Achaeans

drink their allotted share, your cup stands always

full, as mine does, to drink whenever the heart bids.

Rouse yourself for battle, and be the man you claim of old to be."

265And Idomeneus, captain of the Cretans, answered him:

"Son of Atreus, I will be a trusty companion to you

indeed, as I first promised and bowed my head;

go and rouse the other long-haired Achaeans,

so we may fight at once — since the Trojans have poured away

270the oaths. Death and sorrows hereafter will be theirs,

since they were first to do harm against the oaths."

So he spoke, and Atreus' son passed on, glad at heart,

and came to the two Ajaxes, moving through the crowd of fighters;

they were arming for war, and a cloud of foot-soldiers followed them.

275As when from a lookout a goatherd sees a cloud

coming over the deep before the drive of the West Wind:

from far off, blacker than pitch it shows,

moving over the deep, and it brings a great storm with it;

he shivers at the sight, and drives his flocks into a cave:

280such, beside the two Ajaxes, moved the close-packed companies

of Zeus-nurtured fighting men, dark masses,

into destroying war, bristling with shields and spears.

Seeing them too the lord Agamemnon rejoiced,

and speaking winged words he addressed them:

285"Ajaxes, leaders of the bronze-shirted Argives —

to you two I give no orders: it would not be right to push you;

you yourselves drive your people hard to fight in strength.

O father Zeus, Athena, Apollo —

if such a spirit were in every breast,

290then the city of lord Priam would soon bow its head,

taken and sacked beneath our hands."

So speaking he left them there and went to the others.

There he came on Nestor, the clear-voiced speaker of Pylos,

arraying his companions and driving them to fight,

295around tall Pelagon, and Alastor, and Chromius,

and the lord Haemon, and Bias, shepherd of the people.

The charioteers he arrayed in front with horses and cars,¹⁵

the foot-soldiers behind, many and brave,

to be a wall of war; the shirkers he drove into the middle,

300so that even the unwilling man would have to fight.

To the charioteers he gave his orders first: he bade them

hold their horses in hand and not tangle in the crowd:

"Let no man, trusting his horsemanship and his manhood,

burn to fight the Trojans alone out in front of the rest,

305and let no man fall back — you will be the weaker for it.

But the man who from his own car can reach an enemy's,

let him thrust with the spear: it is far better so.

This was the mind the men before us had when they sacked

cities and walls, keeping this thought and spirit in their breasts."

310So the old man drove them on, wise in war long since.

Seeing him too the lord Agamemnon rejoiced,

and speaking winged words he addressed him:

"Old man — would that, as the spirit is in your own breast,

so your knees kept pace, and your strength stood firm.

315But age wears you, age that comes to all. If only

some other man had your years, and you were among the young."

Then answered him the Gerenian horseman Nestor:

"Son of Atreus, I too could dearly wish to be

the man I was when I cut down brilliant Ereuthalion.

320But the gods never give men everything at once:¹⁶

if I was young then, now old age comes with me.

Even so I will be among the charioteers, and command them

with counsel and with words: that is the honor-portion of the old.

The spears the younger men will wield, who were born

325after me and trust in their strength."

So he spoke, and Atreus' son passed on, glad at heart.

He found Menestheus, driver of horses, son of Peteos,

standing; and around him the Athenians, masters of the war-cry;

and close by stood resourceful Odysseus,

330and beside him the ranks of Cephallenians, no weaklings,

stood; for their people had not yet heard the war-cry,

since the companies of horse-taming Trojans and Achaeans

had only just begun to move; and they stood waiting

for another Achaean column to come on,

335charge the Trojans, and begin the war.

Seeing them, the lord of men Agamemnon raked them,

and speaking winged words he addressed them:

"You — son of Peteos, that Zeus-nurtured king;

and you, master of evil tricks, greedy-hearted:

340why do you stand apart cowering, and wait for others?

It is for you two to stand among the first

and take your share of scorching battle face on;

for you are first to hear of my feast

whenever we Achaeans set out a feast for the elders.

345There it pleases you to eat the roasted meat and drink

the cups of honey-sweet wine as long as you wish;

but now you would gladly watch even if ten columns of Achaeans

fought with the pitiless bronze out in front of you."

Glaring at him darkly, resourceful Odysseus answered:

350"Son of Atreus — what a word has escaped the fence of your teeth!¹⁷

How can you say I hang back from fighting, whenever we Achaeans

wake sharp war on the horse-taming Trojans?

You will see — if you wish to, and if it matters to you —

the dear father of Telemachus mixing with the front-fighters

355of the horse-taming Trojans. What you say is empty wind."

And the lord Agamemnon answered him, smiling,

when he saw his anger, and took back his word:

"Zeus-sprung son of Laertes, Odysseus of many devices,

I neither scold you beyond measure nor give you orders.

360I know the heart in your breast

knows gentle counsels: you think what I think.

Come — we will make this good later, if any harsh thing

has been said now; may the gods make it all come to nothing."

So speaking he left them there and went to the others.

365He found Tydeus' son, high-hearted Diomedes,

standing among the horses and the bolted chariots,

and beside him stood Sthenelus, Capaneus' son.

Seeing him too the lord Agamemnon raked him,

and speaking winged words he addressed him:

370"Ah me — son of war-minded Tydeus, breaker of horses:¹⁸

why do you cower? Why do you eye the causeways of battle?

It was not Tydeus' way to cower like this,

but to fight the enemy far ahead of his own companions —

so said those who watched him at his work; I myself

375never met him, never saw him; but they say he was beyond all others.

Once, indeed, he came to Mycenae — no war in it —

a guest, with godlike Polyneices, raising troops:

they were then marching on the holy walls of Thebes,

and they begged us hard to give them famed allies;

380and our people were willing, and approved what they asked,

but Zeus turned them back with unfavorable signs.

So they went on their way, and when they were well along the road

and came to the Asopus, deep in rushes, bedded in grass,

the Achaeans sent Tydeus forward with a message.

385He went, and found the Cadmeans in their numbers

feasting through the house of the might of Eteocles.

There, stranger though he was, the horseman Tydeus

was not afraid, alone among so many Cadmeans:

he challenged them to contests, and won every one

390with ease — such a helper to him was Athena.

But the Cadmeans, goaders of horses, were angered,

and as he rode back they set a close-packed ambush,

fifty young men, with two leaders:

Maeon, Haemon's son, a match for the immortals,

395and Autophonus' son, Polyphontes steadfast in battle.

On these too Tydeus let loose an unseemly fate:

he killed them all, and sent one man alone home —

Maeon he sent off, obeying the gods' portents.

Such a man was Tydeus the Aetolian. But the son

400he fathered is worse than he in battle — better in the assembly."

So he spoke, and strong Diomedes said nothing at all,

humbled by the reverend king's rebuke.

But the son of glorious Capaneus answered him:

"Son of Atreus, do not lie when you know how to speak the truth.¹⁹

405We claim to be far better men than our fathers:

we took the seat of seven-gated Thebes,

though we led a smaller host beneath a stronger wall,

because we trusted the gods' portents and the help of Zeus;

they perished by their own recklessness.

410So never set our fathers in honor equal to ours."

Glaring at him darkly, strong Diomedes answered:

"Old friend — sit quiet, and listen to my word.²⁰

I hold nothing against Agamemnon, shepherd of the people,

for driving the strong-greaved Achaeans to fight:

415the glory will follow him if the Achaeans

cut down the Trojans and take holy Ilion —

and his the great grief if the Achaeans are cut down.

Come — let the two of us also remember our rushing courage."

He spoke, and leapt from the chariot to the ground in his armor,

420and the bronze rang terribly on the chest of the lord

as he sprang: fear would have seized even a stone-hearted man.

As when on a booming beach the swell of the sea

rises, wave on wave, under the West Wind's driving:

out on the deep it first rears its crest, and then

425breaking on the land it thunders aloud, and around the headlands

it arches and comes to a peak and spits out the salt foam:

so wave on wave the companies of the Danaans moved

without pause into war; and each captain called commands

to his own; and the rest went silently — you would not think

430so great a host was following with voices in their chests —

in silence, fearing their commanders; and on all of them

the patterned armor shone as they marched in order.

But the Trojans — as ewes past counting stand in the fold

of a man of much substance while their white milk is drawn,

435bleating without cease because they hear the voices of their lambs:

so the clamor of the Trojans rose through the wide army;

for their speech was not one, their cry not a single tongue,

but language mixed with language, men called from many lands.

These Ares drove on, and those grey-eyed Athena,

440and Terror, and Panic, and Strife insatiably raging,²¹

sister and companion of man-slaughtering Ares —

she who rears her crest small at first, but soon

props her head against heaven while she walks the earth.

She then cast common hatred into their midst,

445moving through the crowd, swelling the groaning of men.

And when they had come together into one place,

they dashed together shields, and spears, and the fury of men

armored in bronze; the bossed shields

pressed hard on one another, and a great din arose.

450There rose together the groaning and the boasting of men

killing and killed, and the earth ran with blood.

As when winter torrents pouring down the mountains

hurl together their weight of water at a meeting of glens

out of great springs, deep in a hollow ravine,

455and far off in the mountains a shepherd hears the thunder of it:

such was the roar and the toil of them as they came together.

First Antilochus took a Trojan armored fighter,²²

a brave man among the front-fighters, Echepolus, Thalysias' son:

he struck him first on the ridge of his horsehair helmet,

460and the bronze point fixed in his forehead and drove

inside the bone; and darkness covered his eyes,

and he crashed like a tower in the strong encounter.

As he fell, the lord Elephenor took him by the feet —

Chalcodon's son, chief of the great-hearted Abantes —

465and dragged him out from under the missiles, straining to strip

his armor with all speed. But his effort was short-lived:

great-hearted Agenor saw him dragging the corpse,

and where his side showed from under the shield as he bent,

he stabbed him with the bronze-pointed spear, and unstrung his limbs.

470So the spirit left him; and over his body the work

of Trojans and Achaeans grew grim: like wolves

they leapt at one another, and man tore at man.

Then Telamonian Ajax struck Anthemion's son,²³

the young man Simoeisios in his bloom, whom once his mother

475bore beside the banks of Simois, coming down

from Ida, where she had followed her parents to see the flocks:

for that they called him Simoeisios. But to his dear parents

he never paid back the cost of his rearing; his life was short,

broken under the spear of great-hearted Ajax.

480For as he came on in the front, Ajax struck him in the chest

by the right nipple, and straight through his shoulder

the bronze spear came; and he fell to the ground in the dust

like a poplar that has grown up in the wet meadow

of a great marsh — smooth, with the branches growing

485at its very top — and a chariot-maker with the bright iron

fells it, to bend a wheel-rim for a beautiful car,

and it lies there seasoning along the river bank:

such was Anthemion's son Simoeisios, whom Ajax

the Zeus-sprung killed. And at him Antiphos of the glancing corslet,

490Priam's son, cast his sharp spear through the crowd:

he missed him, but struck Leucus, Odysseus' brave companion,

in the groin as he dragged the corpse to the other side,

and he collapsed over it, and the body fell from his hand.

For his killing Odysseus was enraged to the heart,

495and he strode through the front-fighters helmed in flashing bronze,

and came up very close and cast his shining spear,

glancing all around him; and the Trojans shrank back

from the man as he cast. He did not send the shaft in vain,

but struck Democoon, Priam's bastard son,

500who had come from Abydos, from the fast mares:

him Odysseus, enraged for his companion, struck with the spear

in the temple, and out through the other temple passed

the bronze point; and darkness covered his eyes,

and he fell with a thud, and his armor clattered upon him.

505Then the front-fighters gave ground, and glorious Hector too;

and the Argives shouted aloud and dragged away the corpses

and pressed far forward. But Apollo took offense,

looking down from Pergamos, and called aloud to the Trojans:

"Rouse yourselves, horse-taming Trojans! Do not yield the fight

510to the Argives: their flesh is not stone, not iron,

to hold off the flesh-cutting bronze when they are hit.

And Achilles, son of lovely-haired Thetis, is not

fighting: by the ships he digests his heart-paining anger."

So spoke the dread god from the city. And the Achaeans

515were urged on by Zeus's daughter, most glorious Tritogeneia,²⁴

moving through the crowd wherever she saw them slacken.

Then fate shackled Diores, Amarynceus' son:

he was struck by a jagged stone beside the ankle,

in his right shin, and the thrower was the captain of the Thracians,

520Peiroos, Imbrasus' son, who had come from Aenus.

Both tendons and the bones the shameless stone

crushed utterly; and he fell back in the dust,

stretching out both hands to his dear companions,

gasping out his life; and the man who hit him ran up,

525Peiroos, and stabbed him with the spear beside the navel; and all

his bowels poured out on the ground, and darkness covered his eyes.

But as Peiroos sprang back, Thoas the Aetolian struck him

with a spear in the chest above the nipple, and the bronze fixed in his lung;

and Thoas came up close, wrenched the heavy spear

530out of his chest, and drew his sharp sword,

and struck him full in the belly, and took his life.

But he did not strip his armor: his companions stood round him,

the Thracians with their hair in topknots, long spears in their hands,

who, big and strong and proud as he was,

535thrust him back from them; and he gave ground, staggering.

So the two lay stretched in the dust beside each other,

captains, one of the Thracians, one of the bronze-shirted

Epeians; and around them many others were killed.

Then no man could have come and made light of the work —²⁵

540no man still unhit, unstabbed by the sharp bronze,

who whirled through the middle of it, with Pallas Athena leading him

by the hand and turning aside the rush of missiles:

for many Trojans and Achaeans on that day

were stretched face-down in the dust beside one another.

Notes

1 line 8 — "Hera of Argos and Athena of Alalcomenae" — cult titles tying each goddess to a major sanctuary (the Argive Heraion; Alalcomenae in Boeotia). Zeus needles them by their official addresses, like reading their titles off a temple inscription. ↩

2 lines 34–36 — "eat Priam raw" — the extremity of hatred in the poem's idiom; the image recurs at its darkest moments (Achilles to Hector, 22.346-347; Hecuba on Achilles, 24.212). Here it is Zeus's sardonic measure of Hera's appetite. ↩

3 lines 51–56 — Hera offers Zeus her own three dearest cities — Argos, Sparta, Mycenae, the great centers of her cult — to destroy at his pleasure, as the price of Troy. Aristarchus athetized 55-56 (apparatus, Line 55-56: ath. Ar), where she concedes that resistance would be futile anyway. The bargain frames the war's resumption as a cold divine transaction; note Zeus's matching concession at 43, "willingly — with unwilling heart" (ἑκὼν ἀέκοντί γε θυμῷ), the poem's most compressed oxymoron. ↩

4 line 101 — "Apollo the Lycian-born" (Λυκηγενής) — disputed already in antiquity: "born in Lycia" (Pandarus's men are Lycians of the Troad) or "wolf-born" (λύκος). The traditional rendering is kept. This is the same Pandarus whose bow "Apollo himself gave" (2.827) — the god of archery presides, with grim irony, over the poem's most disastrous bowshot. ↩

5 lines 105–111 — The bow: horns of a wild ibex Pandarus shot himself, sixteen palms (about four feet) of horn, joined and gold-tipped by a craftsman. The loving technical excursus at the moment of treachery is a signature Homeric effect — the made thing described while its use damns its user. ↩

6 line 117 — Aristarchus athetized this line ("never yet shot, winged, a base of black pains"), as he did 140 and 149 in the same scene (apparatus) — ornamental lines the tradition found dispensable. All are kept as printed. ↩

7 line 123 — "to the bow the iron head" — one of the poem's rare iron weapons: arms in the Iliad are bronze, and iron appears mainly as raw wealth or for tools (the chariot-maker's axe at 485). The arrowhead here and the mace of Areithous (7.141) are the notable exceptions — often taken as glimpses of the poet's own later age. ↩

8 lines 132–138 — The arrow passes through three layers: the ζωστήρ ("war-belt," the outer clasped belt), the doubled corslet, and the μίτρη ("waist-guard," a bronze-faced apron beneath). These renderings are fixed for the rest of the translation; the ζῶμα ("loin-guard") appears at 187. ↩

9 lines 141–147 — The ivory simile: a Maeonian or Carian craftswoman staining ivory crimson for a horse's cheek-piece — a treasure "many horsemen prayed to carry." Blood on Menelaus's thighs becomes luxury inlay: the poem's first great aestheticizing of a wound, and a deliberate shock after the fly-brushing tenderness of 130-131. ↩

10 line 155 — "it was your death I was cutting in those oaths" — the oath-cutting idiom (see Book 3 commentary) turned bitter: Agamemnon hears the ritual he performed as a throat-cutting of his own brother. ↩

11 lines 194, 219 — Asclepius is in Homer a mortal hero-physician, taught by Chiron the centaur (the wise counter-image of the beast-men of 1.268) — not yet the god of healing of later cult. His sons Machaon and Podaleirius lead a contingent (2.731-732); Machaon's treatment — extraction, sucking the wound, herbal dressings — is the poem's standard battlefield medicine. ↩

12 lines 195–197 — These lines recur verbatim at 205-207 when Talthybius delivers the message. Aristarchus athetized the first occurrence (apparatus, Line 195-197: ath. hic Ar. (= 205-207)) — a doctrinaire application of his dislike of repetition; the messenger-repetition is normal epic technique (cf. Book 2, note [4]). Both passages are translated, identically. ↩

13 lines 223–421 — The epipōlēsis ("review"): Agamemnon on foot down the line, praising Idomeneus, the Ajaxes, and Nestor, insulting Menestheus, Odysseus, and Diomedes. The scene is a portrait gallery — and a study of Agamemnon's leadership, whose goads are as ill-judged as his flatteries are smooth. ↩

14 line 242 — "loud boasters" (ἰόμωροι) — obscure insult, already opaque in antiquity: perhaps "braggarts with arrows" (fighting from range, not in the line), perhaps just "loudmouths." The translation keeps the taunt and this note keeps the doubt. ↩

15 lines 297–309 — Nestor's tactics — chariots massed in front, infantry behind, shirkers penned in the middle, with a doctrine of chariot- line fighting "the men before us" used — describe a kind of massed chariot warfare that the poem's actual battles never show (Homeric chariots are battle-taxis). Either a memory of older warfare or the old man's idealization of it; the poem lets Nestor be the keeper of both. ↩

16 line 320 — "the gods never give men everything at once" — athetized by Aristarchus (apparatus; cf. the similar 13.729). Ereuthalion (319) is the club-wielding champion Nestor killed in his youth — the full story is saved for 7.136-156. ↩

17 line 350 — "what a word has escaped the fence of your teeth" (ἕρκος ὀδόντων) — the fixed formula for speech that should have been kept in; always so rendered. ↩

18 lines 370–400 — Agamemnon's Tydeus-tale reaches back to the Theban war: Tydeus and Polyneices recruiting at Mycenae, the embassy to Thebes, the athletic challenges, the fifty-man ambush he wiped out. This is the Iliad's fullest window on the Theban saga — the great rival epic cycle — deployed, characteristically, as a father held up against a son. "The might of Eteocles" (386) is the same periphrasis pattern as "the might of Heracles" (2.658). ↩

19 lines 404–410 — Sthenelus's retort: the Epigoni — the sons of the Seven — actually took Thebes, which their fathers failed to do and died trying, "by their own recklessness" (ἀτασθαλίῃσιν, the Odyssey's opening moral keyword). Aristarchus athetized 407-409 (apparatus, Line 407-409: ath. Ar). Kept: the exchange sets up Diomedes' pointed contrast. ↩

20 line 412 — "Old friend" (τέττα) — an affectionate, untranslatable address found only here. Diomedes silences Sthenelus and absorbs the insult out of respect for the king's office — restraint he will pointedly recall when he answers Agamemnon back at 9.32-49. The moment defines him: youngest of the great captains and the most self-governed. ↩

21 lines 440–443 — Terror (Δεῖμος), Panic (Φόβος), and Strife (Ἔρις) — war's demons personified; Strife "small at first" but growing to prop her head on heaven is the ancestor of Virgil's Fama. Her epithet "insatiable" earns itself over the next twenty books. ↩

22 lines 457–462 — The first death of the Iliad: Antilochus (Nestor's son) kills Echepolus. The kill establishes the death-formulas this translation keeps fixed from here on: "darkness covered his eyes," "he fell with a thud, and his armor clattered upon him," "unstrung his limbs," "his spirit left him." Their unvarying recurrence is the poem's own drumbeat and is preserved, never elegantly varied. ↩

23 lines 473–489 — Simoeisios: named for the river Simois where his mother bore him, killed in his first bloom, who "never paid back the cost of his rearing" (θρέπτρα — the son's debt of care to his parents), falling like a poplar cut down to be a chariot's wheel-rim. The first full pathos-vignette of the battle books: an entire peacetime life conjured at the instant of its ending, the template for the poem's way of killing men. ↩

24 line 515 — "Tritogeneia" — ancient title of Athena, of unknown meaning even to the ancients (connected variously with lake Tritonis, the river Triton, or "third-born"). Left as a name, like Atrytone (2.157). ↩

25 lines 539–544 — The book closes with an imagined observer led through the carnage by Athena, untouched and turning missiles aside — only under those impossible conditions could a man "make light of the work." The narrator's device measures the day: many Trojans and Achaeans "stretched face-down in the dust beside one another." ↩