Book X

The Doloneia: both armies send spies into the same night — Dolon dies talking, and Odysseus and Diomedes come home laughing, with the horses of Rhesus.

Translator’s note on Book 10

Book 10 is the Iliad's night. Nothing in it happens by daylight rules: the arming is in animal skins, the omens are heard rather than seen, the fighting is throat-cutting among sleeping men, and the one killing that follows a supplication does not even wait for the suppliant to finish his sentence. It is also the only book of the Iliad whose right to be in the poem has been disputed since antiquity (curated dispute #8): a scholion reports that "this rhapsody was arranged separately by Homer and not counted part of the Iliad, but was placed into the poem by Pisistratus." Aristarchus kept it; Analysts have excised it; its defenders answer that the ambush (the lochos) is an ancient heroic theme with its own conventions — leaders' fear, borrowed gear, beast- skins, two-man teamwork — which this book executes with complete control, and that the poem's long day of Books 11-18 needs precisely this restorative night between the Embassy's failure and disaster. The internal evidence cuts both ways: the diction has an Odyssean cast (the bathing-tubs of 576 and the whistle of 502 occur nowhere else in the Iliad; Athena tells Diomedes to "think of your return"), and nothing in the book — Rhesus, his marvelous horses, Dolon's intelligence — is ever mentioned again in the poem. Our policy is unchanged: the printed text is translated entire, and the argument lives in the notes ([1], [39], [43]).

What the book is, read on its own terms, is a study in symmetry. Two sleepless kings; two councils held in the dark, each seated in the other's killing-ground (note 13); two spies sent out in the same hour with twinned volunteer-speeches (note 25) — but one side sends its best two men for a black ewe apiece, and the other sends its worst man alone, for a promise of Achilles' horses that was never Hector's to give. The interrogation runs on the courteous formulas of guest- conversation with a corpse at the end of it (note 29); the thirteenth Thracian killed matches the "thirteenth" scout in Odysseus's tally (note 42); and the book ends with the poem's only laughter after killing and its only hot bath — the night washed off before rosy- fingered dawn restores the day-world's rules.

Register notes: the boar's-tusk helmet pedigree returns the loot of Phoenix's father's house (note 19); "when two go together" enters the proverb-stock (note 15); ἀλαοσκοπιή "no blind man's watch" is fixed for Books 13-14; ἄτη "blindness" shrinks to fit Dolon (note 30); and 10.199 reuses our 8.491 verbatim, as the Greek does.

1The other captains of all the Achaeans by the ships¹

slept the whole night through, mastered by soft sleep;²

but not Atreus' son Agamemnon, shepherd of the people —

sweet sleep did not hold him, his mind churning many things.

5As when the husband of lovely-haired Hera flashes lightning,

working a huge rain beyond all telling, or hail,

or a snowstorm, when snow powders over the plowlands,

or somewhere the great mouth of bitter war,³

so thick and fast came the groans of Agamemnon in his chest,

10from the bottom of his heart; and his mind shook within him.

Whenever he looked out toward the Trojan plain,

he marveled at the many fires burning before Ilion,

at the voice of flutes and pipes, and the din of men;⁴

but whenever he looked at the ships and the Achaean host,

15he tore the hair from his head out by the roots

before Zeus on high, and his glorious heart groaned greatly.

And this to his mind seemed the best counsel:

to go first of all men to Nestor, Neleus' son,

and see whether with him he might build some blameless plan

20that would prove a warder-off of evil for all the Danaans.

He rose upright, and put his tunic on about his chest,

and beneath his shining feet he bound fair sandals,

and after that wrapped round him the blood-red hide of a lion,

fiery, huge, reaching his feet; and he took up a spear.

25In the same way trembling held Menelaus; on his eyelids

either, sleep would not settle: for fear something befall

the Argives, who for his sake across so much water

had come to Troy, nursing their audacious war.

First he covered his broad back with the skin of a leopard,⁵

30dappled; and then he lifted a rimmed helmet of bronze

and set it on his head, and took a spear in his thick hand.

Then he went to rouse his brother, who ruled with might

over all the Argives, honored by the people like a god.

He found him putting his fine armor about his shoulders

35by the stern of his ship; and his coming was welcome to him.

Menelaus, good at the war-cry, spoke to him first:

"Elder brother, why arm yourself so? Is it to rouse

some companion to spy upon the Trojans? I am afraid,

badly afraid, that no one will undertake that work for you —

40to go out alone against the enemy men, and scout them,

through the ambrosial night. It will need a very bold heart."

Answering him spoke the lord Agamemnon:

"There is need of counsel, Zeus-nurtured Menelaus, for me

and for you — cunning counsel, that will protect and save

45the Argives and the ships; for the mind of Zeus has turned:

his heart is set now rather on Hector's sacrifices.

For never have I seen, nor heard a man tell of it,

one man contriving so much havoc in one day

as Hector, dear to Zeus, has done against the sons of the Achaeans,

50unaided — no dear son of a goddess or a god.

He has done deeds that I tell you will be the Argives' concern

long and lastingly — such evils he has devised against the Achaeans.⁶

But go now, run beside the ships, and call

Ajax and Idomeneus; and I will go to brilliant Nestor

55and urge him to rise — to see if he is willing

to go to the sacred company of the guards, and give the orders.

They would obey him soonest, for his own son

is a commander of the guards, with Idomeneus' aide

Meriones; to them above all others we gave the charge."

60Then answered him Menelaus, good at the war-cry:

"How do you mean this word of command you give me?

Do I stay there with them, waiting until you come,

or run after you again, once I have delivered your orders?"

Then the lord of men Agamemnon answered him:

65"Stay there, so that we do not miss one another

as we come and go; there are many paths through the camp.

Call out, wherever you go, and bid them stay awake,

naming each man from his father, by his lineage,⁷

giving every man his honor. Do not be lofty in spirit;

70no, let us do the labor ourselves, we too. This must be

the heavy misery Zeus laid on us at our very birth."

So speaking, he sent his brother off with clear instructions,

and set out himself for Nestor, shepherd of the people.

He found him beside his hut and his black ship,

75in a soft bed; beside him lay his intricate gear —

a shield, and two spears, and a shining helmet;

beside him lay the glittering war-belt the old man girded on

whenever he armed himself for man-destroying war

and led out his people; he made no concession to grim old age.

80He raised himself up on his elbow, lifted his head,

and spoke to Atreus' son, questioning him with a word:

"Who are you, walking alone through the camp among the ships

in the murky night, when other mortals are sleeping?

Seeking one of your mules, or one of your companions?⁸

85Speak — do not come at me silent. What is your need?"

Then answered him the lord of men Agamemnon:

"Nestor, Neleus' son, great glory of the Achaeans,

you will know Atreus' son Agamemnon — the man whom Zeus

beyond all men has plunged into toils without end, while breath

90stays in my chest and my knees have their spring.

I wander so because sweet sleep will not settle on my eyes;

the war is my care, and the sufferings of the Achaeans.

I fear terribly for the Danaans. My heart is not

steady; I am storm-tossed; the heart leaps out of my chest,

95and my shining limbs tremble beneath me.

But if you will bestir yourself — since sleep has not come to you either —

come, let us go down to the guards, and look:

for fear that, sodden with weariness and with sleep,

they have dropped off, and forgotten the watch entirely.

100Enemy men are camped close by, and we know nothing:

they might even be minded to fight us in the night."

Then answered him the Gerenian horseman Nestor:

"Most glorious son of Atreus, lord of men Agamemnon,

surely not all of Hector's designs will Zeus the counselor

105accomplish for him — all he now hopes. I think instead

he will sweat under troubles even more than ours, if once Achilles

turns his own heart back from its galling anger.

And I will follow you, gladly. But let us wake others as well:

Tydeus' son, famed with the spear, and Odysseus,

110and swift Ajax, and the stout son of Phyleus.⁹

And if someone would also go and summon the rest —

godlike Ajax, and the lord Idomeneus,

whose ships are the farthest off of all, nowhere near us.

But Menelaus — dear though he is to me, and respected —

115I will fault him, though you may resent me; I will not hide it:¹⁰

he sleeps, and has left the labor to you alone.

Now is when he should be laboring among all the captains,

pleading with them; the need that has come will not be borne."

Then the lord of men Agamemnon answered him:

120"Old man, another day I would even bid you blame him;

he does often hang back, and is unwilling to labor —

not that he yields to sloth or thoughtlessness of mind,

but he looks to me, and waits for my lead.

This time he woke well before me, and came and stood over me,

125and I sent him ahead to summon the very men you ask for.

Let us go: we shall overtake them before the gates,

among the guards; for that is where I told them to gather."

Then answered him the Gerenian horseman Nestor:

"Then no man of the Argives will resent him

130or disobey, when he stirs a man on and gives commands."

So speaking, he put his tunic on about his chest,

and beneath his shining feet he bound fair sandals,

and pinned about himself a purple-red cloak,

double-folded, full-falling, thick with a nap of wool.

135And he took up a stout spear, edged with sharp bronze,

and went along the ships of the bronze-shirted Achaeans.

First it was Odysseus, the equal of Zeus in counsel,

that the Gerenian horseman Nestor woke from sleep,

calling out; and the voice came quickly about his senses,

140and he came out of the hut, and spoke to them a word:

"Why do you wander alone like this by the ships, through the camp,

in the ambrosial night — what need is so great upon you?"

Then answered him the Gerenian horseman Nestor:

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

145do not be angry: such grief has overmastered the Achaeans.

Come with us, so we may wake the next man too, one fit

to take counsel together, whether to run or fight."

So he spoke; and resourceful Odysseus, going into the hut,

put his figured shield about his shoulders, and went with them.

150They went on to Tydeus' son Diomedes, and came upon him

outside his hut with his weapons; and around him his companions

slept with their shields beneath their heads; their spears

stood driven upright on their butt-spikes, and far off the bronze

flashed like the lightning of father Zeus. The hero himself

155slept, the hide of a field-ox spread underneath him

and a bright carpet stretched beneath his head.

The Gerenian horseman Nestor stood by him and woke him,

stirring him with a kick of his heel, and scolded him to his face:

"Wake, son of Tydeus! Why doze away the whole night's sleep?¹¹

160Do you not hear how the Trojans, on the swell of the plain,

sit close to the ships, and only a little ground still holds them off?"

So he spoke; and Diomedes started sharply out of sleep,

and speaking winged words he addressed him:

"You are a hard one, old man. You never cease from labor.

165Are there not other, younger sons of the Achaeans,

who might go round and wake each of the kings in turn,

walking everywhere? You are impossible, old man."

Then answered him the Gerenian horseman Nestor:

"Yes, friend — all this you have said rightly and in due measure.

170I have blameless sons of my own, and I have people,

plenty of them; one of these might go around and call.

But a very great need has overmastered the Achaeans:

now for all of us it stands upon the razor's edge —¹²

either grim destruction for the Achaeans, or life.

175Go then and rouse swift Ajax and the son of Phyleus —

you are the younger — if you have pity on me."

So he spoke; and round his shoulders he wrapped the hide of a lion,

fiery, huge, reaching his feet; and he took up a spear.

And the hero went, woke those men, and brought them from their places.

180And when they came among the assembled guards,

they did not find the leaders of the watch asleep:

all of them sat wide awake with their weapons.

As dogs around sheep in a fold keep painful watch,

hearing a hard-hearted beast that through the timber

185comes down among the mountains, and much clamor rises

about it from men and dogs, and their sleep is destroyed,

so sweet sleep was destroyed from their eyelids

as they kept watch through the evil night; toward the plain

they were turned always, listening for the Trojans coming.

190The old man rejoiced to see them, and heartened them with a word,

and speaking winged words he addressed them:

"Keep your watch like that, dear children. Let no one

be taken by sleep — or we become a joy to our enemies."

So speaking he swept on across the ditch; and with him followed

195the kings of the Argives, all who had been summoned to council.

With them went Meriones and Nestor's shining son,

for the kings themselves had called them in to share the counsels.

They crossed the deep-dug ditch and seated themselves

in a clear space, where ground showed empty of the dead¹³

200who had fallen — there where massive Hector had turned back

from destroying Argives, when night closed in around them.

There they sat down and declared their words to one another,

and the Gerenian horseman Nestor began to speak among them:

"Friends, will no man put trust enough in his own

205daring heart to go out among the great-hearted

Trojans? He might catch some straggler at the enemy's edge,

or he might even gather some rumor among the Trojans —

what they are counseling among themselves — whether they mean

to stay where they are by the ships, far away, or will withdraw

210back to the city, since they have beaten down the Achaeans.

All that he might learn, and come back to us again

unharmed; and great would his fame be under heaven

among all men, and a noble gift will be his:

for as many of the best men as command the ships,

215of all of those, each single one will give him a black ewe,

a female with lamb at teat — no possession like it —¹⁴

and he will always be included at feasts and banquets."

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

And among them spoke Diomedes, good at the war-cry:

220"Nestor, my own heart and my proud spirit urge me

to enter the camp of the enemy men who lie

close by — the Trojans. But if some other man went with me,

there would be more comfort in it, and more boldness too.

When two go together, one marks before the other¹⁵

225where the advantage lies. A man alone may see it,

but his wit is slower, and his cunning thin."

So he spoke; and many were willing to follow Diomedes.

The two Ajaxes were willing, those squires of Ares;

Meriones was willing; most willing, Nestor's son;

230willing was Atreus' son Menelaus, famed with the spear;

and willing was hardy Odysseus to slip into the throng

of the Trojans — the heart in his chest was always daring.

And among them spoke the lord of men Agamemnon:

"Diomedes, Tydeus' son, delight of my heart,

235the companion — you shall choose him yourself, whichever you want,

the best of those who offer themselves; many are eager.

Do not, from deference in your heart, leave the better man

behind, and take the worse to go with you,

yielding to respect, eyeing birth — not even if he is the more kingly."

240So he spoke, and was afraid for tawny-haired Menelaus.¹⁶

And among them spoke again Diomedes, good at the war-cry:

"If you truly bid me choose my companion myself,

how then could I forget godlike Odysseus,

whose heart is forward and whose spirit proud

245in every kind of labor — and Pallas Athena loves him.

With him following me, even out of blazing fire

the two of us would come home; he knows beyond all how to think."

Then answered him much-enduring brilliant Odysseus:

"Tydeus' son, neither praise me overmuch nor blame me;

250these are things known to the Argives you say them among.

Come, let us go. The night is far spent, and dawn is near;

the stars have moved far on; and more of the night has passed

than two of its parts, and only the third part is left."¹⁷

So the two spoke, and got themselves into their fearsome gear.

255Thrasymedes, steadfast in battle, gave Tydeus' son

a two-edged sword — for his own was left by his ship —

and a shield; and about his head he set a helmet

of bull's hide, ridgeless, crestless — the kind men call

a skull-cap, and it guards the heads of strong young men.¹⁸

260And Meriones gave Odysseus a bow and a quiver

and a sword; and about his head he set a helmet

made of leather; and inside it was strung taut

with many thongs; and outside the white teeth

of a shining-tusked boar were set close along it, this way and that,

265well and with skill; and in the middle a cap of felt was fitted.

This helmet Autolycus once stole out of Eleon¹⁹

from Amyntor, Ormenus' son, breaking into his close-built house;

he gave it at Scandeia to Amphidamas of Cythera;

Amphidamas gave it to Molus, to be his guest-gift,

270and Molus gave it to his son Meriones to wear;

and now it was set round the head of Odysseus, and covered it.

And when the two had got themselves into their fearsome gear,

they set out, and left all the best men there in their places.

And close by their road Pallas Athena sent them

275a heron on the right; their eyes could not see it²⁰

through the murky night, but they heard it cry aloud.

Odysseus rejoiced at the bird-sign, and prayed to Athena:

"Hear me, child of aegis-bearing Zeus — you who always

stand beside me in every labor, and I do not

280escape your eye when I move: now again love me best, Athena,

and grant that we come back with glory to the ships,

having done a great deed, one that will be the Trojans' concern."

And second in turn prayed Diomedes, good at the war-cry:

"Hear me now also, child of Zeus, Unwearied one.

285Go with me as once you went with my father, brilliant Tydeus,²¹

into Thebes, when he went before the Achaeans as their envoy.

He left the bronze-shirted Achaeans there at the Asopus,

and himself carried a honeyed word to the Cadmeans

there; but on the way back he devised deeds of sheer havoc

290with you, brilliant goddess, when you stood by him in your kindness.

So now again be willing to stand by me, and guard me.

And I in return will sacrifice to you a yearling heifer,

broad-browed, unbroken, that no man has yet led under the yoke:

that I will sacrifice to you, and sheathe her horns in gold."²²

295So they spoke in prayer, and Pallas Athena heard them.

And when they had prayed to the daughter of great Zeus,

they went on their way like two lions through the black night,

through the slaughter, through the corpses, through the gear and the black blood.²³

Nor did Hector allow the proud Trojans to sleep

300either; he called together all their best men,

all who were leaders and lords of the Trojans;

and calling them together he framed his shrewd plan:

"Who will undertake a work for me and bring it through

to the end, for a great gift? The wage will be enough:

305I will give a chariot and two strong-necked horses,

the finest that there are beside the swift ships of the Achaeans,

to the man who dares — and he will win glory for himself —

to go close to the swift-faring ships, and find out

whether the swift ships are guarded as before,

310or whether by now, beaten down under our hands,

they are planning flight among themselves, and have no wish

to keep watch through the night, sodden with brutal weariness."

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

Now there was among the Trojans one Dolon, the son of Eumedes²⁴

315the sacred herald — rich in gold and rich in bronze —

who was ugly to look at, but swift-footed;

and he was an only son among five sisters.

He then spoke his word to the Trojans and Hector:

"Hector, my own heart and my proud spirit urge me²⁵

320to go close to the swift-faring ships, and find out.

Come then, lift up your scepter to me, and swear

that you will give the horses, and the chariot intricate with bronze,

that carry the blameless son of Peleus;

and I will not be a vain scout for you, nor fall short of your thought.

325For I will go straight on through the camp until I come

to Agamemnon's ship, where no doubt their best men

are taking counsel together, whether to run or fight."

So he spoke; and Hector took the scepter in his hand, and swore:

"Let Zeus himself now witness it, the loud-thunderer, Hera's lord:

330no other man of the Trojans shall mount behind those horses;

you and none other, I declare, shall glory in them forever."

So he spoke, and swore it falsely — and set the man on fire.

At once he slung his curved bow over his shoulders,

and over it put on the hide of a grey wolf,

335and on his head a ferret-skin cap; and he took a sharp javelin,²⁶

and set out from the camp toward the ships — nor was he ever

to come back from the ships and carry his word to Hector.

But when he had left the crowds of horses and men behind,

he went up the road, all eagerness; and Zeus-sprung Odysseus

340marked him coming on, and said to Diomedes:

"Diomedes, here is some man coming out of the camp;

I cannot tell if he means to spy upon our ships

or to strip one of the corpses of the dead.

Let us let him pass us by on the plain

345a little first; then rushing after we can take him

quickly. And if he outruns the two of us on foot,

keep crowding him always toward the ships, away from the camp,

lunging with your spear, so he cannot slip off to the town."

So the two spoke, and they lay down off the road

350among the corpses; and in his folly he ran quickly past.

But when he was as far away as mules plow in one stretch —²⁷

for mules are better beasts than oxen

at dragging the jointed plow through deep fallow land —

the two ran after him; and he stopped still at the sound of feet,

355for he hoped in his heart they were companions coming

from the Trojans to turn him back, Hector recalling him.

But when they were a spear-throw off, or even less,

he knew them for enemy men, and moved his nimble knees

in flight; and they leapt quickly into the chase.

360As when two jag-toothed hounds that know the hunt

press hard on a fawn or a hare, unrelenting, always,

through wooded country, and it runs crying before them,

so Tydeus' son and Odysseus, sacker of cities,

cut him off from his people and chased him, unrelenting, always.

365But when he was on the point of mixing with the guards

in his flight toward the ships, then Athena put fury

into Tydeus' son, so that no bronze-shirted Achaean

might boast that he struck first, with Diomedes coming second.

Rushing at him with the spear, strong Diomedes spoke:

370"Stand — or I reach you with the spear; and I tell you,

you will not long escape sheer destruction from my hand."

He spoke, and let the spear fly — and missed the man on purpose:²⁸

over his right shoulder the point of the polished spear

stuck fast in the earth. Dolon stood still, terrified,

375stammering — through his mouth came the chatter of his teeth —

green with fear. Panting, the two caught up with him

and seized his hands; and he burst into tears and said:

"Take me alive, and I will ransom myself: at home there lies

bronze, and gold, and iron worked with much labor;

380out of these my father would gladden you with ransom past counting

if he learned I was alive by the ships of the Achaeans."

Answering him spoke resourceful Odysseus:

"Take heart; and let death be no concern of your mind.²⁹

But come, tell me this, and recount it truly:

385where are you going alone to the ships, away from the camp,

in the murky night, when other mortals are sleeping?

To strip one of the corpses of the dead?

Or did Hector send you out to spy on everything

at the hollow ships? Or did your own heart drive you?"

390Then Dolon answered him, his limbs trembling under him:

"With many blindnesses Hector led my mind astray:³⁰

the whole-hoofed horses of the illustrious son of Peleus

he promised on his nod to give, and the chariot intricate with bronze,

and told me to go on through the swift black night,

395and get close to the enemy men, and find out

whether the swift ships are guarded as before,

or whether by now, beaten down under our hands,

they are planning flight among themselves, and have no wish

to keep watch through the night, sodden with brutal weariness."³¹

400And resourceful Odysseus answered him, smiling:

"Great gifts indeed those were your heart was set on —

the horses of the war-minded son of Aeacus. They are hard

for mortal men to break or to drive,

for any man but Achilles, whom an immortal mother bore.

405But come, tell me this, and recount it truly:

where, when you came here, did you leave Hector, shepherd of the people?

Where does his warlike gear lie? Where are his horses?

And the other Trojans — how are their watches and sleeping-places?

What are they counseling among themselves — whether they mean

410to stay where they are by the ships, far away, or will withdraw

back to the city, since they have beaten down the Achaeans?"

Then answered him Dolon, Eumedes' son:

"Well then, I will recount all this to you very truly.

Hector, with all those men who are counselors,

415is taking counsel by the tomb of godlike Ilus,³²

apart from the din. But the watches you ask about, hero —

no picked guard protects the camp, and none keeps watch.

As for the Trojans' watch-fires: the men under necessity,

they stay awake beside them, and call to one another

420to keep the watch. But the allies, called from many lands,

are sleeping; they leave the watching to the Trojans,

for their own children and wives do not lie near them."

Answering him spoke resourceful Odysseus:

"Now how is it — do they sleep mingled with the horse-taming

425Trojans, or apart? Tell me plainly, so I may know."

Then answered him Dolon, Eumedes' son:

"Well then, I will recount this too to you very truly.

Toward the sea lie the Carians and the Paeonians of the curved bows,³³

the Leleges and the Caucones and the brilliant Pelasgians;

430toward Thymbre fell the lot of the Lycians and the lordly Mysians

and horse-fighting Phrygians, and Maeonians, men who fight from chariots.

But why do you question me through all this, point by point?

If you two are bent on slipping into the Trojans' throng,

here, apart, are the Thracians, new-come, outermost of all,

435and among them their king Rhesus, son of Eïoneus.

His horses are the finest I have ever seen, and the biggest:

whiter than snow, and like the winds in running.

His chariot is finely worked with gold and silver,

and the armor he came in is golden, gigantic, a wonder³⁴

440to look at — armor that suits, not mortal men

to carry, but the deathless gods.

But now, take me with you to the swift-faring ships,

or bind me with a pitiless bond and leave me here,

until you two have gone and made your trial of me,

445whether I have spoken to you justly, or not."

Glaring at him darkly, strong Diomedes spoke:

"Do not put escape into your heart, Dolon,

good though your news is, now you have come into our hands.

For if we free you now for ransom, or let you go,

450surely later you will come again to the swift ships of the Achaeans,

either spying once more, or fighting us face to face;

but if, beaten down under my hands, you lose your life,

never again will you be a plague upon the Argives."

He spoke; and the man was reaching for his chin with his broad hand,

455meaning to plead — but the other drove at the middle of his neck,

springing with the sword, and sheared through both the tendons;

and the head of the still-speaking man was mingled with the dust.³⁵

From him they took the cap of ferret skin,

the grey wolf's hide, the back-bent bow, and the long spear;

460and these to Athena of the Spoils brilliant Odysseus³⁶

held up high in his hand, and praying spoke a word:

"Rejoice in these, goddess. To you first of all the immortals

on Olympus we will give your share. But once again

send us on, to the Thracian men's horses and sleeping-places."

465So he spoke, and lifted the spoils high away from himself

and set them on a tamarisk; and he set a mark plain to see,

pulling together reeds and the tamarisk's flourishing boughs,

so they would not miss it, coming back through the swift black night.

The two went forward, through the gear and the black blood,

470and quickly, pressing on, they reached the company of Thracian men.

They were sleeping, sodden with weariness, and their fine gear

lay by them on the ground, all in good order,

in three rows; and beside each man his yoke-pair of horses.

Rhesus slept in the middle, and beside him his swift horses

475were tethered by the reins to the chariot's outer rail.

Odysseus saw him first, and pointed him out to Diomedes:

"That is the man, Diomedes; and those are the horses

that Dolon marked out for us — the man we killed.

Come then, show your great strength. You have no business

480standing idle in your armor. Untie the horses —

or else you kill the men, and the horses will be my care."

So he spoke; and grey-eyed Athena breathed fury into him.

He killed, wheeling on every side, and a hideous groaning rose

from men struck by the sword; and the earth reddened with blood.

485As a lion coming upon flocks without their herdsman,

on goats or on sheep, springs in with evil purpose,

so Tydeus' son moved up and down among the Thracian men

until he had killed twelve. And resourceful Odysseus —

whomever Tydeus' son struck with the sword, standing above him,

490him Odysseus would seize by the foot from behind and drag aside,

with this thought in his mind: that the fair-maned horses

might pass through easily, and not shiver in their hearts

at stepping on dead men — being still unused to them.

But when Tydeus' son came upon the king,

495he was the thirteenth he robbed of his honey-sweet life,

gasping hard: for an evil dream stood at his head

that night — the son of Oeneus' son — by the cunning of Athena.³⁷

All that time hardy Odysseus was untying the whole-hoofed horses;

he bound them together with reins and drove them from the crowd,

500beating them with his bow, because he had not thought³⁸

to take up in his hands the shining whip from the intricate chariot;

then he gave a whistle, his signal to brilliant Diomedes.

But Diomedes waited, weighing what boldest thing he might do:

whether to seize the chariot where the intricate gear lay

505and drag it out by the pole, or heave it high and carry it,

or take away the life of still more Thracians.

While he was turning this over in his mind, Athena

came near and stood, and spoke to brilliant Diomedes:

"Think of your return now, son of great-hearted Tydeus,³⁹

510back to the hollow ships — or you may go back to them running,

and some other god may waken the Trojans too."

So she spoke; and he knew the voice of the goddess speaking,

and swiftly mounted a horse; and Odysseus struck the pair

with his bow, and they flew toward the swift ships of the Achaeans.

515But Apollo of the silver bow kept no blind man's watch⁴⁰

when he saw Athena attending on Tydeus' son:

angry with her, he sank into the great throng of Trojans

and woke a counselor of the Thracians, Hippocoon,

Rhesus' noble kinsman. And he leapt up out of sleep,

520and when he saw the place empty where the swift horses had stood,

and the men gasping amid the grim slaughter,

he groaned aloud, and called out the name of his dear companion.

And a clamor rose from the Trojans, and measureless uproar,

as they rushed together; they gazed at the deeds of havoc —

525all that the men had done before going to the hollow ships.

And when the two came where they had killed Hector's scout,

there Odysseus, dear to Zeus, held in the swift horses,

and Tydeus' son leapt down, and put the bloody spoils

into Odysseus' hands, and mounted up again;

530and he whipped the horses on, and the two flew, nothing loath,

toward the hollow ships; for that way was dear to their hearts.

Nestor was the first to hear the drumming of hooves, and spoke:

"Friends, leaders and lords of the Argives,

shall I be wrong, or right, in what I say? My heart commands it.⁴¹

535The drumming of swift-footed horses strikes about my ears.

If only it were Odysseus and strong Diomedes

driving whole-hoofed horses here, so quickly, out of the Trojans!

But terribly I fear in my heart that they have come to harm —

the best of the Argives — in the uproar of the Trojans."

540The whole word was not yet spoken when they came themselves,

and stepped down to the ground; and the others, rejoicing,

welcomed them with clasped right hands and honeyed words.

And first to question them was the Gerenian horseman Nestor:

"Come, tell me, Odysseus of the many tales, great glory of the Achaeans:

545how did you two take these horses? By slipping into the throng

of the Trojans? Or did some god meet you, and give them?

They are terribly like the rays of the sun.

Always I mix with the Trojans; I say I am no lingerer

beside the ships, old warrior though I am;

550but never yet have I seen such horses, or dreamed of them.

No — I think some god must have met you and given them,

for Zeus the cloud-gatherer loves the two of you,

and the daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus, grey-eyed Athena."

Answering him spoke resourceful Odysseus:

555"Nestor, Neleus' son, great glory of the Achaeans,

easily could a god, if he wished, give better horses

even than these, since the gods are far mightier.

But these horses you ask about, old man, are newly come —

Thracians; their lord — brave Diomedes killed him,

560and beside him twelve companions, all their best men.

The thirteenth was a scout we took near the ships,⁴²

a man sent out to be a spy upon our army

by Hector and the rest of the illustrious Trojans."

So speaking, he drove the whole-hoofed horses across the ditch,

565laughing aloud; and the other Achaeans followed, rejoicing.

And when they reached the well-built hut of Tydeus' son,

they tied up the horses with well-cut thongs

at the horse-manger, where the horses of Diomedes

stood, swift-footed, eating their honey-sweet grain.

570And on his ship's stern Odysseus laid the bloody spoils

of Dolon, till they could make the offering ready for Athena.

And the men themselves waded into the sea, and washed away

the heavy sweat from their shins and necks and thighs.

And when the waves of the sea had washed the heavy sweat

575from their skin, and the dear heart in them was cooled,

they stepped into polished bathing-tubs and bathed.⁴³

And when the two had bathed and rubbed themselves sleek with oil,

they sat down to their meal, and from a brimming mixing-bowl

they drew honey-sweet wine and poured it out to Athena.

Notes

1 line 1 — The Doloneia is the only book of the Iliad whose place in the poem was disputed in antiquity as a whole (curated dispute #8). A scholion preserved in the T manuscript reports: "they say that this rhapsody was arranged separately by Homer and was not counted part of the Iliad, but was placed into the poem by Pisistratus." Aristarchus treated the book as genuine; modern critics have gone both ways, Analysts excising it, defenders reading it as an old ambush-theme (the lochos) integral to the tradition. The internal evidence is genuinely double-edged — see the commentary above and notes [39] and [43]. The apparatus for this book records only line-level variants; the whole-book question lives in the testimonia. ↩

2 lines 1–2 — The opening repeats the shape of Book 2's opening, in our same words ("slept the whole night through"; 2.1-2). The reversal is exact: there all slept but Zeus, who lay awake devising the Achaeans' ruin through a false dream; here all sleep but Agamemnon, who lies awake suffering that ruin — and the night will end with a true nightmare standing over a sleeper's head (note [37]). ↩

3 lines 5–8 — Zeus's lightning as the portent of prodigious rain, hail, snow, "or somewhere the great mouth of bitter war": πευκεδανοῖο (8), a rare word cognate with pine-pitch bitterness, occurs only here in Homer. Agamemnon's groans come as thick as the flashes. ↩

4 lines 11–13 — The many fires are the ones Hector lit at the end of Book 8 (8.553-565): Book 10, like Book 9 (9.77), opens inside the tableau Book 8 left burning. The "flutes and pipes" are the only battlefield music in the Iliad — the sound of an army sure of tomorrow — heard otherwise only in the city at peace on the Shield (18.495). ↩

5 line 29 — Night gear. This book replaces the formal bronze arming scene with skins: Agamemnon's lion (23-24), Menelaus's leopard and plain bronze cap, Diomedes' lion (177-178), Dolon's wolf-hide and ferret cap (334-335), and the two spies' leather helmets (257-265). Animal dress belongs to the night-world of the ambush, where the day-world's flashing crests would kill their wearer; the poet has an exact costume-vocabulary for it, most of it appearing nowhere else. ↩

6 lines 51–52 — Athetized by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus — the hyperbole (one day's work to be the Argives' concern "long and lastingly") judged un-Homeric. ↩

7 line 68 — "naming each man from his father, by his lineage" — courtesy as night-discipline: a voice in the dark must honor to be trusted. With it goes Agamemnon's "let us do the labor ourselves... Zeus laid this heavy misery on us at our very birth" (70-71): the night-book consistently shows the commanders' fear and drudgery that the day-books dress in ceremony. ↩

8 line 84 — Athetized by Aristarchus, presumably for the mules: Nestor's guess that a man groping through the camp at midnight is after a strayed mule struck ancient taste as beneath the epic. It is also the poem's one quartermaster's-eye view of its own camp. ↩

9 line 110 — "swift Ajax" is the Locrian, Oïleus' son (2.527); "the stout son of Phyleus" is Meges (2.627). The greater Ajax is the "godlike Ajax" of 112, paired as usual with Idomeneus. ↩

10 lines 114–125 — Nestor's rebuke of the sleeping Menelaus, and Agamemnon's careful defense — he often hangs back, "not that he yields to sloth... but he looks to me, and waits for my lead" — reverse the Book 1 Agamemnon, who could not take one word of blame. The night steadies him; his fairest self appears at his least kingly hour. ↩

11 lines 158–159 — Nestor wakes Diomedes "with a kick of his heel" — the poem's only comic reveille, answered by the sleeper's growl that the old man is "impossible." After 159 some ancient texts carried an extra line preserved only by Diogenes Laertius (6.53), who has Diogenes the Cynic quote it while prodding a sleeping man: "lest someone plant a spear in your back while you sleep." It is not in the printed text. ↩

12 lines 173–174 — "it stands upon the razor's edge" — ἐπὶ ξυροῦ ἵσταται ἀκμῆς: the earliest surviving occurrence of the idiom English still uses, taken up by Theognis, Sophocles, and Herodotus (6.11). ↩

13 lines 199–201 — The Achaean council convenes beyond the ditch "in a clear space, where ground showed empty of the dead" — line 199 repeats 8.491 (our wording kept), where Hector held his night assembly by the river on the same terms. Each army deliberates sitting in the other's killing-ground; the mirrored councils organize the whole book (note [25]). ↩

14 lines 212–217 — The scout's reward: fame "under heaven," plus a black ewe with her lamb from every captain, and a standing place at the feasts. Livestock and a seat at table — the modest, concrete economy of the night-book, set against Book 9's seven tripods, twenty cauldrons, and seven cities. ↩

15 lines 224–226 — "When two go together, one marks before the other / where the advantage lies" — proverbial already in antiquity: Plato has Socrates quote it on the way to the banquet (Symposium 174d) and again at Protagoras 348d. The couplet is the book's thesis; the Iliad's only two-man aristeia follows from it. ↩

16 line 240 — Omitted by Zenodotus, athetized by Aristarchus: the narrator's aside that Agamemnon "was afraid for tawny-haired Menelaus." The aside decodes 237-239 — "do not leave the better man behind... not even if he is the more kingly" is a king's coded plea that his brother not be chosen; the critics apparently preferred the code left unbroken. ↩

17 lines 252–253 — Odysseus tells time by the stars — the working star-clock of a night operation. Line 253 was athetized by Aristophanes and Aristarchus over the arithmetic: if "more of the night has passed than two of its parts," then less than a third should remain — yet Odysseus allows "the third part." The Greek is loose the way spoken time-reckoning is loose ("it's past two in the morning; we have till first light"), and the ancient fussing over it is a small monument of pedantry. ↩

18 lines 257–259 — The καταῖτυξ, "skull-cap": a plain bull's-hide helmet, "ridgeless, crestless," glossed in-line by the poet as if his audience needed the word explained — it occurs nowhere else in Greek literature. Night war strips off whatever catches light. ↩

19 lines 261–271 — The boar's-tusk helmet is a genuine Bronze Age object: rows of sliced boar-tusk plates over felt and leather, known from Mycenaean excavation and art, and centuries obsolete by any plausible date of the poem's composition — the pedigree the poet gives it (stolen by Autolycus, passed via Amphidamas of Cythera to Molus to Meriones) is epic's own memory of the object's antiquity. Two ironies ride with it. Autolycus is Odysseus's maternal grandfather (Od. 19.394-466): the master- thief's loot ends the night on his own grandson's head. And its original owner, "Amyntor, Ormenus' son" of Eleon, is Phoenix's father (9.448) — the house Phoenix fled in Book 9 is burgled again, as it were, in Book 10's props. ↩

20 lines 274–276 — A heron on the right hand is a favorable sign; in the dark the omen is heard, not seen. The entire daylight apparatus of the poem — arming, augury, even prayer-answer — is systematically converted to the ear in this book (cf. the hooves at 532-535, the whistle at 502). ↩

21 lines 285–290 — Tydeus at Thebes for the fourth time in the poem (4.372-398; 5.800-808; cf. 23.679-680): the friendly embassy, the "honeyed word," and on the road home the ambush of fifty men that he destroyed — "deeds of sheer havoc." Diomedes has been measured against his father since Book 4; only here, on a night ambush, does the paternal precedent exactly fit the son's occasion. ↩

22 lines 292–294 — The vow of the unbroken heifer with gilded horns recurs nearly verbatim in the Odyssey (3.382-384) — vowed there too by a Nestor, and fulfilled at 3.430-438, where a goldsmith actually sheathes the horns in gold leaf: the fullest "receipt" for any Homeric vow, and a famous cross-epic pair with this passage. ↩

23 lines 297–298 — The epigraph lines. "Through the slaughter, through the corpses" (ἂμ φόνον, ἂν νέκυας) is the literal ground of the whole night-walk — repeated when they go forward again at 469. The two lions become two hounds on a hare (360-362) and a lion among unshepherded flocks (485-486): the book's men are beasts of prey throughout, and the skins they wear (note [5]) say so. ↩

24 lines 314–317 — Dolon: the name is transparently "Sneak" (from δόλος, "trick"). A rich herald's son, "ugly to look at, but swift-footed" — the poet lends him Achilles' own epithet — and an only son among five sisters: a portrait, unique in the poem, of the spoiled volunteer. He will demand Achilles' horses as his wage (321-323) and be run down on foot. ↩

25 lines 319–332 — Dolon's speech opens word for word as Diomedes' did (220): "my own heart and my proud spirit urge me..." — twinned volunteer-scenes, one issuing in the choice of Odysseus, the other in an empty oath. Hector swears by the scepter that "no other man of the Trojans shall mount behind those horses," and the narrator files his verdict flat: "he swore it falsely" — not because Hector meant to cheat, but because the oath was never his to keep. Coveting the immortal horses of Achilles is this book's measure of delusion (cf. note [30]; at 17.75-78 Hector himself is warned off them). ↩

26 lines 334–335 — The grey wolf's hide and the ferret-skin cap (κτιδέη, marten or weasel): the spy dressed as a small night predator — the bottom rung of the book's ladder of skins (note [5]). Attic vase-painters loved the costume; several show Dolon on all fours in the wolf-suit. ↩

27 lines 351–353 — Distance measured by plowing: "as far as mules plow in one stretch" is the οὖρον, the length of furrow a team draws before turning. The homely aside — mules out-pull oxen in deep fallow — arrives at the moment of highest suspense; the epic measures its night-chase by a farmer's daylight (cf. the fence-post interval of 23.431-432). ↩

28 lines 372–376 — The spear "missed the man on purpose" — thrown to stop, not kill: they need him talking. Dolon's terror is clinically itemized: rooted feet, stammer, teeth chattering audibly, "green with fear" — our fixed color of fear (7.479), here soaked into the man himself. ↩

29 line 383 — "Take heart; and let death be no concern of your mind" — literally true (his death is already decided, so no longer worth minding) and utterly false as the comfort it pretends to be. The interrogation that follows is the poem's only one: two rounds, each opened with the courteous fixed line "But come, tell me this, and recount it truly" (384 = 405), each answered "Well then, I will recount... very truly" (413, 427) — the formulas of guest-conversation conducted over a man already dead. ↩

30 line 391 — "With many blindnesses Hector led my mind astray" — ἄτῃσι, the register's "blindness" (1.412): the god-sent delusion by which Agamemnon will explain the whole war in Book 19, here claimed by a small man about a promise of horses. Everyone in this poem accounts for ruin the same way; the poet lets the excuse shrink to the size of its owner. ↩

31 lines 397–399, 409–411 — Both passages were athetized by Aristophanes and Aristarchus. Dolon reports Hector's briefing in Hector's very words (396-399 = 309-312 — kept verbatim in our English, "our hands" and all), and Odysseus's question repeats Nestor's proposal (409-411 = 208-210, flagged in the scholia as a wrongful repeat). The critics disliked the mechanical reuse; but verbatim relay is exactly how a chain of command speaks, and the poem's economy of repeated blocks is nowhere more functional than in a spy's debriefing. ↩

32 line 415 — The tomb of Ilus, eponym and founder of Ilion, is the plain's standing landmark (11.166, 371-372; 24.349): Hector holds his war-council at the ancestor's grave, as the Achaeans hold theirs among the fresh dead (note [13]). ↩

33 lines 428–431 — A miniature order of battle, complement to the Trojan Catalogue (2.816-877): the same allied peoples, now laid out by billet rather than muster — Carians, Paeonians, Leleges, Caucones, Pelasgians toward the sea; Lycians, Mysians, Phrygians, Maeonians toward Thymbre. The Thracians of Rhesus stand in no catalogue: "new-come, outermost of all" — arrived, and doomed, within the one night. ↩

34 lines 435–441 — Rhesus: horses "whiter than snow, and like the winds in running," a gold-and-silver chariot, and golden armor fit for "the deathless gods." Later tradition — the scholia, Virgil (Aeneid 1.469-473), and the Rhesus transmitted under Euripides' name — knew an oracle that Troy could never fall once Rhesus and his horses had grazed Trojan pasture and drunk of Scamander, making the raid a preemption of fate. Our text knows nothing of it: here the splendor simply dwarfs its owner's one-night part, and the armor "for the deathless gods" lies on the ground at 504 while the gods' own agent decides against taking it. ↩

35 lines 454–457 — Dolon's hand is out for the suppliant's touch of the chin (the gesture of 1.501) when the sword falls: supplication not refused, as Agamemnon refused Adrestus (6.55-65), but forestalled — a beat crueler. "And the head of the still-speaking man was mingled with the dust" (457): Aristotle quotes the line in earnest (Parts of Animals 673a), discussing whether severed heads can speak. The grammar performs the horror: the man is still a speaking subject in mid-construction as his head meets the ground. ↩

36 lines 460–466 — "Athena of the Spoils" (ληῖτις) — an epithet found only here. The trophies are hung on a tamarisk and flagged with reeds and boughs for the return leg: fieldcraft doubling as votive religion, an altar-less offering to match the unseen omen of note [20]. The dedication is completed at 570-571 and the libation of 578-579. ↩

37 lines 496–497 — Rhesus dies "gasping hard: for an evil dream stood at his head / that night — the son of Oeneus' son — by the cunning of Athena." The nightmare stands at the sleeper's head in the regular posture of Homeric dreams (2.20, 23.68) — and the dream is Diomedes himself, Oeneus' grandson, sword in hand: dream and killer are one figure, the boldest compression in the book, closing the frame the false dream of Book 2 opened (note [2]). Zenodotus and Aristophanes omitted 497 and Aristarchus athetized it — flattening the vision back into ordinary death; the printed text keeps it. ↩

38 lines 498–502 — Odysseus improvises: the whip is still lying in the chariot, so he beats the horses with his bow, and signals with a whistle — the only whistle in Homer. Someone did not think of everything: the small unheroic realism the day-books never allow. ↩

39 lines 509–513 — "Think of your return" — νόστου δὴ μνῆσαι: the Odyssey's theme-word sounded by Athena in the Iliad, to the other poem's kind of hero on the other poem's kind of errand; a centerpiece of the book's Odyssean coloring (see commentary). And they escape riding bareback — nearly the only riding of horses in the Iliad (elsewhere a simile, 15.679-684) — because the chariot stayed with the dead. ↩

40 line 515 — "kept no blind man's watch" — ἀλαοσκοπιή, fixed here at its first occurrence; it recurs of Poseidon at 13.10 and 14.135. Zenodotus read the phrase as two words with a different sense; the printed text follows Aristarchus. ↩

41 line 534 — "shall I be wrong, or right, in what I say? My heart commands it" — literally "shall I lie, or speak true?": Nestor's strange scruple, omitted by Zenodotus here, recurs in Helen's mouth at Odyssey 4.140. It is the night-book's epistemology in one line: hooves heard in the dark must be guessed at aloud before they can be greeted. ↩

42 lines 561–565 — Odysseus's tally makes Dolon "the thirteenth" — answering Rhesus, the thirteenth Thracian (495): each side's night closes its account in the same figure, and Odysseus books his interrogation-kill as a line-item. Then he drives the ditch "laughing aloud" (565) — no other killing in the Iliad ends in laughter; the book's moral register, and part of what has always made readers uneasy in it, is in that word. ↩

43 lines 572–579 — The close: a wade in the sea, then "polished bathing-tubs" — ἀσάμινθοι, only here in the Iliad against nine occurrences in the Odyssey — oil, a meal, and honey-sweet wine poured to Athena. An Odyssean hospitality-sequence grafted onto the war-camp, and a chief exhibit in the authenticity dossier (note [1]); it is also precisely what the poem's one successful night requires — the blood of 483-484 washed off before rosy-fingered dawn, eight lines into Book 11, restores the rules of the day. In 579 Aristarchus read "drew" (ἀφυσσόμενοι); the vulgate carried a variant of the same sense. ↩