Book VII

The duel of Hector and Ajax, the burial truce, and the building of the Achaean wall.

Translator’s note on Book 7

Book 7 is the poem's book of institutions. Its duel replays Book 3 with the war's real fighters — and the poem says so in its own medium: the spear-exchange at 244-254 reuses the Paris-Menelaus lines of 3.355-360 verbatim, and this translation repeats its own Book 3 English word for word (note 16). Around the duel stand the machinery of managed violence: the challenge with terms for the corpse, the marked lots, the heralds parting the fighters at dusk ("It is good to yield to night as well"), the exchange of gifts — Hector's sword and Ajax's belt, on which later tradition hung both their deaths (note 20) — the burial truce, the diplomatic offer and its refusal, and at last the wall and ditch that will be the stage-set of Books 8-15.

The wall carries the book's strangest scene: Poseidon's complaint that the Achaeans built it "and gave the gods no glorious hecatombs," and Zeus's answer licensing its future erasure — sweep it into the sea, hide the beach under sand again. All three Alexandrian critics athetized the exchange (443-464), and it is easy to see why it unsettled them: the poem pauses to arrange the demolition of its own scenery, as if to certify that no trace of the fiction will contradict the visible coastline (note 27; the demolition is narrated at 12.13-33). Nestor's proposal that each man's bones be carried "home to the children" (334-335) was also athetized — the custom looks Athenian, not Homeric — and Antenor's motion to hand Helen back completes the pattern of a book in which every institution for ending the war is tried and fails (notes [22], [23]).

Small register notes: αἴσιμα παρειπών, the disputed narratorial phrase from the Adrestus scene (6.62), recurs at 120-121 in a context where it is plainly benign — evidence worth weighing back into that dispute. Poseidon "the earth-shaker" enters the register, with "green fear," the "bronze-greaved" hapax at 41, and the slave-trade line at 475 — the only occurrence of ἀνδράποδα in Homer, athetized by all three critics, and rendered "slaves" under the project's policy (note 28).

1So speaking, glorious Hector swept out through the gates,

and with him went Alexandros his brother; and in their hearts

both were raging for war and for battle.

As a god gives to longing sailors

5a following wind, when they have worn themselves out at the polished

pine oars, driving the sea, and their limbs are unstrung with weariness:

so those two appeared to the longing Trojans.

Then each took his man: Paris the son of lord Areithous,

Menesthius, who had his home in Arne — whom the club-man¹

10Areithous fathered with ox-eyed Phylomedusa;

and Hector hit Eioneus with his sharp spear

in the neck, under the fine bronze helmet-rim, and unstrung his limbs.

And Glaucus, Hippolochus' son, captain of the Lycian men,

hit Iphinous, Dexias' son, with his spear in the strong encounter

15as he leapt up behind his fast mares,

in the shoulder; he dropped from the car to the ground, and his limbs were unstrung.

Now when the goddess grey-eyed Athena marked them

killing Argives in the strong encounter,

down from the peaks of Olympus she went darting

20to holy Ilion; and Apollo rose to meet her,

looking out from Pergamos, wanting victory for the Trojans;

and the two of them met each other beside the oak.

Lord Apollo, Zeus's son, spoke to her first:

"Why so eager, this time, daughter of great Zeus?

25Why come from Olympus? What great passion sent you?

Is it to give the Danaans victory that turns the battle's tide?

You have no pity, none, for the Trojans as they die.

But if you would let me persuade you, it would be far better:

let us stop the war and the fighting

30for today. Later they will fight again, until they find

the appointed end of Ilion — since it is so dear to the hearts

of you immortal goddesses to sack this city."

Then the goddess grey-eyed Athena answered him:

"So be it, worker-from-afar. With that very thought

35I came from Olympus among the Trojans and Achaeans.

Come then — how do you mean to stop the men's fighting?"

And lord Apollo, Zeus's son, answered her:

"Let us rouse the strong fury of Hector, breaker of horses,

to see if he will challenge some one of the Danaans

40to fight him man to man in dread combat,

and the bronze-greaved Achaeans, stung to honor,

will send out one man alone to fight brilliant Hector."

So he spoke, and the goddess grey-eyed Athena did not disobey.

And Helenus, Priam's dear son, put together in his heart

45their counsel — the plan that had pleased the plotting gods;

and he came and stood by Hector and spoke his word:

"Hector, son of Priam, the equal of Zeus in counsel,

would you let me persuade you? I am your brother.

Make the other Trojans sit down, and all the Achaeans,

50and yourself challenge whoever is best of the Achaeans

to fight you man to man in dread combat.

It is not yet your fate to die and meet your doom:

so I heard it in the voice of the gods who are forever."²

So he spoke, and Hector rejoiced greatly to hear the word,

55and he went into the middle and held back the Trojan lines,

gripping his spear by the middle; and they all sat down,

and Agamemnon seated the strong-greaved Achaeans.

And Athena and Apollo of the silver bow,

in the likeness of vulture birds, settled

60on the tall oak of father Zeus who bears the aegis,³

delighting in the men; and the ranks of them sat close,

bristling with shields and helmets and spears.

As a shiver from the West Wind spreads down over the deep

when the wind first rises, and the sea darkens beneath it,

65such were the ranks of the Achaeans and Trojans sitting

in the plain. And Hector spoke between the two armies:

"Hear from me, Trojans and strong-greaved Achaeans,

so I may say what the heart in my chest commands me.

Our sworn oaths — the high-throned son of Cronos did not seal them,

70but plans evil for both sides, and marks it out,

until either you take fair-towered Troy

or are broken yourselves beside your seagoing ships.

Among you are the chief men of all the Achaeans:

of these, let the man whose heart bids him fight me

75come out here now, before you all, to champion you against brilliant Hector.

And this is my word — let Zeus be our witness to it:

if that man takes my life with the long-edged bronze,

let him strip my armor and carry it to the hollow ships,

but give my body back to my home, so that in death

80the Trojans and the Trojans' wives may give me my due of fire.

But if I take him, and Apollo gives me the glory,

I will strip his armor and carry it to holy Ilion

and hang it before the temple of Apollo the far-striker;

but the corpse I will give back to the well-benched ships,

85so the long-haired Achaeans may give him burial

and heap him a mound beside the wide Hellespont.

And someday a man will say, even among men born late,

sailing his many-benched ship over the wine-dark sea:

'This is the mound of a man who died long ago,

90whom once, fighting his best, glorious Hector killed.'

So someone will say; and my fame will never perish."⁴

So he spoke, and they all went still in silence:

ashamed to refuse, and afraid to accept.

At long last Menelaus stood up and spoke among them,

95raking them with his scorn, groaning deep at heart:

"Ah me — you threateners! Women of Achaea, men of Achaea no longer!⁵

Surely this disgrace will be grim beyond grimness

if no Danaan now goes out to meet Hector.

May every one of you turn to water and earth,

100sitting there where you sit, heartless, fameless.

Against this man I will arm myself; the ends of victory

are held above us, in the hands of the immortal gods."

So speaking he began to put on his beautiful armor.

And then, Menelaus, the end of your life would have shown

105at Hector's hands, since he was far the stronger,

had not the kings of the Achaeans sprung up and caught you —

and Atreus' son himself, wide-ruling Agamemnon,

took him by the right hand, and spoke a word, and named him:

"You are raving, Zeus-nurtured Menelaus — and this raving

110is not required of you. Hold back, though it stings,

and do not, for pride's sake, fight a better man than you,

Hector, Priam's son — a man the others shudder at.

Even Achilles, in the battle where men win glory,

shivered to meet this man — and he is far better than you.⁶

115Go now and sit among the company of your companions;

the Achaeans will put up another champion against this one.

Fearless though he is, and never sated with the grind of battle,

I say he will be glad to bend his knee in rest, if he escapes

out of the fury of war and the dread combat."

120So speaking the hero turned his brother's mind,

for his urging was of things due; and he obeyed. Then his aides,⁷

rejoicing, lifted the armor from his shoulders;

and Nestor stood up among the Argives and spoke:

"Shame! Great grief comes upon the Achaean land.

125How the old horseman Peleus would groan aloud,⁸

the good counselor of the Myrmidons, their speaker —

who once in his own house delighted in questioning me

for the lineage and the birth of every man of the Argives.

If he heard of them now, cowering, every one, before Hector,

130he would lift his dear hands to the immortals, over and over,

praying his spirit down out of his body into Hades' house.

O father Zeus, Athena, Apollo —

would I were young, as when by quick-running Celadon

the Pylians and the spear-mad Arcadians met and fought

135by the walls of Pheia, around the streams of Iardanus.

Their champion stood forth: Ereuthalion, a man like a god,⁹

wearing on his shoulders the armor of lord Areithous —

brilliant Areithous, whom men called by his surname

Club-man — the men, and the fair-belted women —

140because he fought with no bow, no long spear:

with a club of iron he smashed the companies apart.

Lycurgus killed him — by craft, not force at all —

in a narrow lane, where the iron club was no use

to ward destruction off: Lycurgus was in first,

145pinned him through the middle with his spear, and he crashed back on the earth;

and he stripped the armor brazen Ares had given him.

That armor he wore himself, after, in the grind of Ares;

and when Lycurgus was growing old in his halls

he gave it to Ereuthalion, his dear aide, to wear —

150and wearing it, Ereuthalion challenged all our best.

They trembled, they were terrified; no man dared.

But my much-enduring heart drove me on

to fight him with its daring — and I was youngest-born of all —

and I fought him, and Athena gave me my glory.

155The tallest and the strongest man I ever killed:

a great sprawl of him lay there, this way and that.

Would that I were young like that, my strength still steady!

Hector of the flashing helmet would soon have his fight.

But you — you who are the chief men of all the Achaeans —

160not even you are heartily eager to go and face Hector."

So the old man raked them; and nine men in all stood up.¹⁰

First by far to rise was the lord of men Agamemnon;

after him rose Tydeus' son, strong Diomedes;

after them the two Ajaxes, clothed in rushing courage;

165after them Idomeneus, and Idomeneus' comrade

Meriones, the equal of Enyalius, slayer of men;

after them Eurypylus, Euaemon's shining son;

and up rose Thoas, Andraemon's son, and brilliant Odysseus:

all these were willing to fight brilliant Hector.

170And among them spoke the Gerenian horseman Nestor:

"Shake now the lots, all of you, for the man who draws it:

he is the one who will profit the strong-greaved Achaeans,

and he will profit his own heart too, if he escapes

out of the fury of war and the dread combat."

175So he spoke, and each man marked his lot

and they threw them into the helmet of Atreus' son Agamemnon;

and the armies prayed, and lifted their hands to the gods,

and thus would one say, looking into the wide sky:

"Father Zeus, let it be Ajax, or Tydeus' son,

180or the king himself of Mycenae rich in gold."

So they spoke; and the Gerenian horseman Nestor shook,

and out of the helmet leapt the lot they had wished for —

Ajax's. And a herald carried it everywhere through the crowd,

showing it left to right to all the chief men of the Achaeans;

185and each, not knowing the mark, denied it was his.

But when, carrying it everywhere through the crowd, he came

to the man who had marked it and thrown it in the helmet — glorious Ajax —

Ajax held out his hand, and the herald stood by him and dropped it in,

and he knew his lot's mark at a glance, and rejoiced at heart.¹¹

190He threw it to the ground beside his foot, and called out:

"Friends — the lot is mine! And I am glad

with my whole heart, for I think I shall beat brilliant Hector.

Come then: while I put on my battle armor,

you pray to lord Zeus, the son of Cronos —

195in silence, to yourselves, so the Trojans do not hear —

or aloud, for that matter, since we fear no man in any case.¹²

For no man by force, by his will against my will, shall drive me off,

nor by know-how either; I hope I was not born in Salamis

and raised there to be such a know-nothing as that."

200So he spoke, and they prayed to lord Zeus, son of Cronos,

and thus would one say, looking into the wide sky:

"Father Zeus, ruling from Ida, most glorious, greatest:

grant Ajax the victory and the winning of shining glory;

but if you love Hector too, and care for him,

205then give to both of them equal strength and glory."

So they spoke; and Ajax armed himself in gleaming bronze.

And when he had put all his armor about his body,

he charged out, huge as Ares comes on

when he goes to war among men whom the son of Cronos

210has thrown together to fight in the fury of heart-devouring strife.

Such was gigantic Ajax as he rose, wall of the Achaeans,

smiling with his grim face; and beneath him his feet

went in long strides, and he shook his long-shadowed spear.

And the Argives rejoiced to look at him,

215but a dread trembling came into the limbs of every Trojan,

and Hector's own heart hammered in his chest;

but there was no way now to shrink back or retreat

into the crowd of his people: he had made the challenge.

Ajax came near, carrying his shield like a tower,

220bronze, of seven oxhides, which Tychius labored to make,¹³

far the best of leather-cutters, whose home was in Hyle:

he made him the glancing shield of seven hides

from well-fed bulls, and hammered on an eighth layer of bronze.

Carrying it before his chest, Telamonian Ajax

225stood close in front of Hector, and spoke to him in threat:

"Hector, now you will learn, plainly, man to man,

what sort of chief men the Danaans have among them

even after Achilles, breaker of men, the lion-heart.¹⁴

He lies among his beaked seagoing ships,

230nursing his rage at Agamemnon, shepherd of the people;

but we are such as can stand up against you —

and there are many of us. Begin the fight."

Then great Hector of the flashing helmet answered him:

"Ajax, Zeus-sprung son of Telamon, marshal of the people:

235do not test me like some feeble boy

or a woman, who does not know the works of war.

I know battles; I know the killings of men.

I know how to swing my dried oxhide to the right,

I know how to swing it left — that, to me, is shieldcraft that lasts;

240I know how to charge into the tumult of fast mares;

and I know, at close quarters, the dance of hostile Ares.¹⁵

But I have no wish to hit a man of your size

by stealth, watching my moment: openly, if I can."

He spoke, and balancing his long-shadowed spear he hurled it,

245and struck the terrible sevenhide shield of Ajax

on the outermost bronze, the eighth layer upon it:

through six folds the unwearying bronze went shearing,

and in the seventh hide it held. Second in turn,

Zeus-sprung Ajax hurled his long-shadowed spear

250and struck the shield of Priam's son, balanced every way.¹⁶

Through the shining shield the heavy spear went,

and through the richly worked corslet it drove;

and straight on beside his flank the spear sheared through

the tunic — but he had swerved aside, and dodged black doom.

255Then the two of them, pulling out the long spears with their hands,

fell on each other like lions that eat flesh raw

or wild boars, whose strength does not give out.¹⁷

Priam's son stabbed the shield full in the middle with his spear,

but the bronze did not break through: its point was bent back.

260And Ajax, leaping in, pierced the shield: straight through

the spear went, and staggered him in his fury;

it came cutting in a graze at his neck, and the black blood welled up.

But even so Hector of the flashing helmet did not leave the fight:

he gave ground, and seized in his thick hand a stone

265lying in the plain, black and rough and huge;

with it he struck the terrible sevenhide shield of Ajax

full on the central boss, and the bronze rang out around.

Then Ajax in turn lifted a far greater stone,

whirled, and threw it, putting measureless force behind it,

270and broke the shield inward with the millstone rock

and hurt his knees under him; and he was stretched on his back,

pinned to the shield. But Apollo straightened him at once.¹⁸

And now they would have been stabbing hand to hand with swords,

had not the heralds, messengers of Zeus and of men,

275come between — one from the Trojans, one from the bronze-shirted

Achaeans: Talthybius and Idaeus, wise men both.

They held their staffs between the two; and the herald Idaeus,

whose mind was full of wise counsel, spoke his word:

"Fight no more, dear sons; battle no longer.

280Zeus the cloud-gatherer loves you both alike,

and both of you are spearmen: that we all know.

And night is coming on. It is good to yield to night as well."¹⁹

Answering him spoke Telamonian Ajax:

"Idaeus, tell Hector to say those things:

285it was he who challenged all our best men to the fight.

Let him lead; and I will follow whatever he does."

Then great Hector of the flashing helmet answered him:

"Ajax — since a god has given you stature and strength

and good sense, and with the spear you are strongest of the Achaeans,

290let us stop our fighting and our combat

for today. Later we will fight again, until the god

decides between us, and hands victory to one side or the other.

And night is coming on. It is good to yield to night as well —

so you may gladden all the Achaeans by the ships,

295your kinsmen above all, and the companions who are yours;

and I, through the great city of lord Priam,

will gladden the Trojans and the Trojan women with their trailing gowns,

who will go into the gods' assembly-place with prayers for me.

Come — let us give each other glorious gifts,

300so that Achaeans and Trojans alike will say:

'The two of them fought in heart-devouring strife,

and parted again joined together in friendship.'"

So speaking, he gave him his silver-studded sword,

bringing it with its sheath and its well-cut baldric;

305and Ajax gave his war-belt, bright with crimson.²⁰

So the two parted: one went to the Achaean host,

the other to the crowd of the Trojans. And they rejoiced

to see him come to them alive and unhurt,

escaped from the fury of Ajax and his untouchable hands,

310and led him to the city, scarcely believing him safe.

And on the other side the strong-greaved Achaeans led Ajax,

glad in his victory, to brilliant Agamemnon.

And when they were gathered in the huts of Atreus' son,

the lord of men Agamemnon slaughtered an ox for them,

315a male of five years, to the overmastering son of Cronos.

They flayed it and dressed it, and cut it all apart,

and deftly chopped it small and threaded it on spits,

roasted it with care, and drew it all off.

Then when they had finished the work and made the meal ready,

320they feasted, and no heart lacked a fair share of the feast;

and Ajax was honored with the long cuts of the chine²¹

by the hero, Atreus' son, wide-ruling Agamemnon.

And when they had put away desire for eating and drinking,

the old man first of all began to weave his counsel —

325Nestor, whose plan had shown itself best before as well.

With good will toward them he spoke and addressed them:

"Son of Atreus, and you other chief men of all the Achaeans:

many of the long-haired Achaeans are dead,

whose dark blood sharp Ares has scattered now

330along fair-flowing Scamander, and their souls have gone down to Hades.

Therefore with dawn have the Achaeans stop the fighting;

and let us gather and wheel the corpses back here

with oxen and mules, and burn them

a little off from the ships, so each man may carry the bones

335home to the children, when we return to our fatherland.²²

And around the pyre let us heap a single mound, drawn up

from the plain, one mound for all alike; and against it build

with all speed high towers, a shelter for the ships and ourselves.

And in them let us make close-fitted gates,

340so that a road for chariots runs through;

and outside, close by, let us dig a deep ditch

to circle it, and hold off chariots and men,

so the war of the proud Trojans never breaks over us."

So he spoke, and all the kings approved.

345Now the Trojans held assembly on the height of Ilion,

a dread assembly, all in tumult, at Priam's doors;

and among them wise Antenor began to speak:

"Hear from me, Trojans and Dardanians and allies,

so I may say what the heart in my chest commands me.

350Come now: Argive Helen and her possessions with her

let us give to the sons of Atreus to lead away. Now it is with sworn

oaths made false that we fight; and so I have no hope

that anything will end well for us, unless we do this."²³

So he spoke and sat down; and among them rose

355brilliant Alexandros, husband of lovely-haired Helen,

who spoke to him in answer with winged words:

"Antenor, this talk of yours pleases me no longer;

you know how to think another word, better than this one.

But if you truly say this thing in earnest,

360then the gods themselves have destroyed your wits.

And I will speak out among the horse-taming Trojans:

I say it straight out — the woman I will not give back.

But the goods, all I brought from Argos to our house —

all these I am willing to give, and to add more of my own."

365So he spoke and sat down; and among them rose

Priam, Dardanus' descendant, the equal of the gods in counsel.

With good will toward them he spoke and addressed them:

"Hear from me, Trojans and Dardanians and allies,

so I may say what the heart in my chest commands me.

370Now take your supper through the city, as before,

and remember the watch, and stay awake, every man.

At dawn let Idaeus go to the hollow ships

to tell the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus,

the word of Alexandros, for whose sake this quarrel rose;

375and to say this shrewd word too: whether they are willing

to rest from the harsh-crying war until we burn

the dead. Later we will fight again, until the god

decides between us, and hands victory to one side or the other."

So he spoke, and they listened well to him and obeyed;

380and they took their supper through the army, in their companies.

At dawn Idaeus went to the hollow ships,

and found the Danaans, squires of Ares, in assembly

by the stern of Agamemnon's ship; and among them,

standing in the middle, the far-calling herald spoke:

385"Son of Atreus, and you other chief men of all the Achaeans:

Priam and the other proud Trojans command me

to tell you — if it should be welcome and sweet to you —

the word of Alexandros, for whose sake this quarrel rose.

The goods that Alexandros brought to Troy in his hollow

390ships — how he should have perished first! —

all these he is willing to give, and to add more of his own.

But the wedded wife of glorious Menelaus

he says he will not give — though the Trojans, I tell you, command it.

And they told me to say this too: whether you are willing

395to rest from the harsh-crying war until we burn

the dead. Later we will fight again, until the god

decides between us, and hands victory to one side or the other."

So he spoke, and they all went still in silence.

At long last Diomedes, good at the war-cry, spoke:

400"Let no man now accept the goods of Alexandros —

nor Helen either. It is known, even to a plain fool,

that the cables of destruction are fastened on the Trojans already."²⁴

So he spoke, and all the sons of the Achaeans shouted,

marveling at the word of Diomedes, breaker of horses;

405and then the lord Agamemnon spoke to Idaeus:

"Idaeus — you hear the word of the Achaeans yourself,

how they give you their answer. And it pleases me so.

But as for the dead — I do not grudge their burning.

There is no stinting toward the bodies of the dead:

410once they are gone, be quick with the fire's appeasement.

And let Zeus the loud-thunderer, Hera's lord, witness the oaths."

So speaking he lifted up the scepter to all the gods,

and Idaeus went back toward holy Ilion.

The Trojans and Dardanians were sitting in assembly,

415all gathered together, waiting for the moment

Idaeus should come; and he came, and delivered his message,

standing in the middle. Then they made ready with all speed,

in two parties: one to bring the corpses, one to fetch wood;

and the Argives on their side, from the well-benched ships,

420hurried too — some to bring the corpses, others to fetch wood.

The sun was just striking the fields with its first light,

climbing into the sky out of the deep, soft-flowing

stream of Ocean, when the two sides met each other.

Then it was hard to know each man again;

425but washing off the clotted gore with water,

and letting warm tears fall, they lifted them onto the wagons.

But great Priam would not let them wail; so in silence²⁵

they heaped the corpses on the pyre, grieving at heart,

and when they had burned them in the fire, went to holy Ilion.

430And just so, on the other side, the strong-greaved Achaeans

heaped the corpses on the pyre, grieving at heart,

and when they had burned them in the fire, went to the hollow ships.

And when it was not yet dawn, but the night still half-light,²⁶

then a picked company of Achaeans woke around the pyre,

435and they heaped around it a single mound, drawn up

from the plain, one mound for all alike; and against it they built

a wall with high towers, a shelter for the ships and themselves.

And in them they set close-fitted gates,

so that a road for chariots ran through;

440and outside they dug a deep ditch hard against it,

wide and great, and planted a row of stakes within it.

So the long-haired Achaeans labored;

and the gods, sitting beside Zeus the lord of lightning,

watched the great work of the bronze-shirted Achaeans.

445And Poseidon the earth-shaker began to speak among them:

"Father Zeus, is there a mortal left on the boundless earth

who will still tell the immortals his mind and purpose?

Do you not see? The long-haired Achaeans

have built themselves a wall to landward of the ships, and driven

450a ditch around it — and gave the gods no glorious hecatombs!

The fame of this will spread as far as the dawn-light scatters,

and men will forget that wall which I and Phoebus Apollo

built for the hero Laomedon, laboring hard."

Deeply troubled, Zeus the cloud-gatherer answered him:

455"Shame, wide-ruling earth-shaker — what a thing to say!

Some other god might tremble at this thought,

one far feebler than you in hand and fury:

your fame will spread as far as the dawn-light scatters.

Come now: when the long-haired Achaeans are gone

460again with their ships to their dear fatherland,

break the wall up, sweep it all into the sea,

and hide the wide beach over again with sand,

so the great wall of the Achaeans may be effaced."²⁷

So they spoke such things to one another;

465and the sun went down, and the Achaeans' work was finished,

and they slaughtered oxen through the huts, and took their supper.

And ships had come in from Lemnos, carrying wine,

many of them, sent out by Jason's son Euneus,

whom Hypsipyle bore to Jason, shepherd of the people.

470Separately, for the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus,

Jason's son had given a thousand measures of wine to carry.

From these ships the long-haired Achaeans bought their wine,

some with bronze, and some with gleaming iron,

some with hides, and some with the live cattle themselves,

475and some with slaves; and they set the rich feast going.²⁸

All night long the long-haired Achaeans

feasted, and the Trojans through the city, and their allies;

and all night long Zeus the counselor devised evil against them,

thundering terribly. And green fear took hold of them:²⁹

480they poured the wine from their cups onto the ground, and no man

dared drink before he poured to the overmastering son of Cronos.

Then they lay down, and took the gift of sleep.

Notes

1 lines 8–10 — Paris kills Menesthius, son of Areithous "the club-man" — the very Areithous whose story Nestor will tell in full at 136-149: the son dies at the book's door, the father's legend follows. A plant-and-payoff inside a single book. ↩

2 lines 44–53 — Helenus "put together in his heart" the gods' private plan — how the seer overheard a conversation between Apollo and Athena was already a problem for ancient critics; Aristarchus athetized 53 ("so I heard it in the voice of the gods"), the line that makes the eavesdropping explicit (apparatus, Line 53). Kept: seercraft as reception of divine speech is exactly Helenus's office (6.76). ↩

3 lines 58–61 — Athena and Apollo settle on the oak of Zeus "in the likeness of vulture birds, delighting in the men" — the gods as spectators, perched carrion-fashion above the duel they arranged. The poem's frankest image of the divine audience. ↩

4 lines 76–91 — Hector's terms and the mound-speech: armor to the victor, the corpse home for its "due of fire" — and then the imagined sailor of a later age reading the tomb by the Hellespont. The poem's clearest statement of the kleos-economy, spoken from the winner's side of an imagined victory: even the man Hector kills is conscripted into Hector's undying fame. (The Iliad's audience knew such mounds on that shore.) ↩

5 line 96 — "Women of Achaea, men of Achaea no longer" — Menelaus borrows Thersites' taunt verbatim (2.235): the loudmouth's insult has become respectable under shame's pressure. (Echo note; English repeats 2.235's rendering.) ↩

6 lines 113–114 — "Even Achilles... shivered to meet this man." The absent hero as unit of measure again (cf. 2.768-770, 5.788-791) — here bent into hyperbole: nothing in the poem shows Achilles fearing Hector, and Book 22 will show the reverse. Agamemnon's flattery of Hector serves his need to stop his brother. ↩

7 lines 120–121 — αἴσιμα παρειπών — "his urging was of things due" — the same narratorial formula that follows Agamemnon's atrocity-counsel at 6.62. Here the counsel is unimpeachable (saving Menelaus from a fatal mismatch), which weighs on the Book 6 dispute: the formula commends the persuasion's aptness, not its morality. ↩

8 lines 124–131 — Nestor conjures Peleus at home — the old man who once joyfully catalogued the Argives' lineages, now imagined praying for death at news of their shame. First full sounding of the Peleus-motif: the father at home as the war's moral audience (Odysseus will weaponize the same figure to Achilles at 9.252-259). ↩

9 lines 132–156 — The Ereuthalion story, promised at 4.319 and delivered here: Areithous the Club-man with his iron club (iron again the marked exception, cf. 4.123), killed by craft in a lane too narrow to swing in; the armor's passage from Ares' gift to Lycurgus to Ereuthalion; and young Nestor, "youngest-born of all," taking down the giant. This Lycurgus is an Arcadian mortal — not the Thracian god-fighter of 6.130-140 who shares the name. ↩

10 lines 161–169 — The nine volunteers — the poem's explicit roster of the best available Achaeans with Achilles out: both Atreidae, Diomedes, both Ajaxes, Idomeneus, Meriones, Eurypylus, Thoas, Odysseus. The lot-prayer at 179-180 then ranks the top three in the army's own eyes: Ajax, Diomedes, Agamemnon. ↩

11 lines 175–189 — The lot-procedure: each man scratches his mark (σῆμα) on his token; the herald carries the leaping lot around until its owner recognizes it. Like the "baneful signs" of 6.168, marks that identify without being read as language — the poem's world writes tokens, not texts. ↩

12 lines 195–199 — Ajax's instructions — pray silently so the Trojans don't hear, "or aloud, for that matter, since we fear no man" — athetized by Zenodotus, Aristophanes, and Aristarchus all three (apparatus, Line 195-199). The swagger is pure Ajax; kept. ↩

13 lines 219–223 — The tower shield: seven oxhides and an eighth face of bronze, made by Tychius of Hyle, "far the best of leather-cutters" — the craftsman-vignette again (cf. Phereclus, 5.59-64). Ajax's body-length shield is older military technology than the round shields elsewhere in the poem — a fossil the tradition preserved with the hero it belonged to. ↩

14 lines 226–232 — "even after Achilles, breaker of men, the lion-heart" — Ajax concedes the ranking in the act of boasting; the poem's second-best hero is the one who says "second" out loud (cf. 2.768-769). ↩

15 lines 237–241 — Hector's credo: shield-work right and left, the charge, and "at close quarters, the dance of hostile Ares" — war as a craft with figures and steps (μέλπεσθαι, properly of dance and song). The self-description of a man who has made himself skilled at what he tells Andromache he has "learned" to do (6.444-445). ↩

16 lines 244–254 — The spear-exchange replays the Paris-Menelaus duel verbatim: 250-254 = 3.355-360, and the English here repeats the Book 3 rendering word for word. The rematch of Book 3 with the war's real principals is scored on the same notes — except that this time both men are too good for the first exchange to decide anything. ↩

17 lines 255–257 — The lions-and-boars simile — athetized by Zenodotus (apparatus, Line 255-257); nearly the same pair as 5.782-783. Kept, as the moment the formal duel becomes simply combat. ↩

18 lines 268–272 — The stones: Hector's blow rings the bronze; Ajax's millstone rock breaks the shield inward and folds Hector's knees — "but Apollo straightened him at once." The god's whole intervention in five words; without it the duel (and the poem) ends here. ↩

19 lines 279–282 — The heralds part them with staffs, and Idaeus — the Trojan herald of 3.248 — gives the evening its proverb: "It is good to yield to night as well." Night as the arbiter both armies obey; Hector repeats the line back with full agreement (293). ↩

20 lines 287–305 — The gift-exchange: Hector's silver-studded sword for Ajax's crimson war-belt, "so that Achaeans and Trojans alike will say... they parted again joined together in friendship." Tradition made both gifts fatal: Ajax falls on Hector's sword (Sophocles' Ajax), and Hector's corpse is dragged by Ajax's belt — "the gifts of enemies are no gifts." The poem itself says nothing; the exchange is left shining. (Aristarchus athetized 295, the "kinsmen and companions" line, within Hector's speech.) ↩

21 lines 321–322 — The chine — the unbroken length of the back-cut — is the portion of honor, awarded to Ajax by Agamemnon: the feast as scoreboard (cf. Idomeneus's ever-full cup, 4.257-263). ↩

22 lines 327–343 — Nestor's double proposal: burn the dead, and build the wall. Aristarchus athetized 334-335 — carrying the bones "home to the children" reflects classical Athenian practice (the state funeral), not Homeric cremation-and-mound, and the couplet has long been suspected as an Athenian interpolation (apparatus, Line 334-335). The wall itself is the poem's new stage-set: Books 8-15 will be fought around it. ↩

23 lines 345–353 — Antenor moves to give Helen back — the appeasement party in Troy made explicit (he hosted the pre-war embassy, 3.205-224; later tradition spared his house at the sack for it). Aristarchus athetized 353. Paris's counter-offer — goods yes, "the woman I will not give back" — and Priam's meek relay of it complete the pattern: Troy's assembly knows the right answer and cannot act on it. ↩

24 lines 399–402 — Diomedes' refusal: take neither the goods "nor Helen either — the cables of destruction are fastened on the Trojans already." The rope-image answers Menelaus's "ends of victory... held above" (101-102): the gods hold the rope-ends of outcomes. The young man silent under rebuke in Book 4 now answers embassies for the army, with the crowd shouting assent — the arc runs straight on to 9.32-49. (Echo note.) ↩

25 lines 421–432 — The shared field at dawn: both sides washing the clotted blood from the dead they cannot recognize, "letting warm tears fall" — and Priam forbidding lament, as the Achaeans mourn unforbidden. The armies' identical griefs are given identical lines (428-429 = 431-432, Ilion for the ships); the translation keeps the symmetry exact. ↩

26 lines 433–441 — "not yet dawn, but the night still half-light" (ἀμφιλύκη νύξ — only here in Homer): in the grey hour, the Achaeans raise one mound "for all alike" (ἄκριτον — undivided, no man singled) — the common grave of a common army, in contrast to every individual mound the poem imagines (cf. 86-91). ↩

27 lines 443–464 — The gods audit the wall: Poseidon's professional jealousy (he and Apollo built Laomedon's wall — the last time Troy's ruler cheated them, 21.441-457), the missing hecatombs, and Zeus's remedy: erase it when the war ends, sea and sand over everything. Zenodotus, Aristophanes, and Aristarchus athetized the whole exchange (apparatus, Line 443-464); Aristotle admired it as the poet "effacing" his own invention — the poem arranges in advance why no trace of its greatest earthwork survives on the real coast (the demolition comes at 12.13-33). ↩

28 lines 467–475 — The wine-fleet from Lemnos, sent by Euneus, son of Jason and Hypsipyle — the poem's one glance at the Argonaut generation, now middle-aged commerce. The market-list prices the camp's economy: bronze, iron, hides, live cattle — "and some with slaves" (ἀνδραπόδεσσι, the only occurrence of the classical word for chattel-slaves in Homer; all three Alexandrians athetized the line, partly for that anachronism). Rendered "slaves" under the project's policy: the traffic the poem's captives fear is here, briefly, a line-item. ↩

29 lines 478–482 — The book closes on the uneasy feast: Zeus thundering all night "devising evil," green fear (χλωρὸν δέος — the fixed color of dread) on both armies, and no man drinking undedicated wine. After a day of institutions — duel, truce, wall, market — the last word is the god's weather, and it is against them. ↩