The Iliad: Book 5

And so, luring the headlong Ares off the lines
Athena sat him down on Scamander's soft, sandy banks
while Argives bent the Trojans back.

Artemis taught the man herself to track and kill
wild beasts, whatever breeds in the mountain woods,
but the Huntress showering arrows could not save him now
nor the archer's long shots, his forte in days gone by.

Meriones killed Phereclus—son of Tecton,
son of the blacksmith Harmon—the fighter's hands
had the skill to craft all kinds of complex work
since Pallas Athena loved him most, her protégé
who had built Paris his steady, balanced ships

Euaemon's son Eurypylus cut down brave Hypsenor,
son of lofty Dolopion, a man the Trojans made
Scamander's priest and worshipped like a god.

Down the plain he stormed like a stream in spate,
a routing winter torrent sweeping away the dikes:
the tight, piled dikes can't hold it back any longer

So now if a god comes up to test your mettle,
you must not fight the immortal powers head-on,
all but one of the deathless gods, that is—
if Aphrodite daughter of Zeus slips into battle,
she's the one to stab with your sharp bronze spear!

...the man scurries for shelter,
leaving his flocks panicked, lost as the ramping beast
mauls them thick-and-fast, piling corpse on corpse
and in one furious bound clears the fenced yard—
so raging Diomedes mauled the Trojans.

One he stabbed with a bronze lance above the nipple,
the other his heavy sword hacked at the collarbone,
right on the shoulder, cleaving the whole shoulder
clear of neck and back.

Next Diomedes killed two sons of Dardan Priam
careening on in a single car, Echemmon and Chromius.

As a lion charges cattle, calves and heifers
browsing the deep glades and snaps their necks,
so Tydides pitched them both from the chariot,
gave them a mauling—gave them little choice—
quickly stripped their gear and passed their team
to his men to lash back to the ships.

Lift your hands to Zeus,
you whip an arrow against that man, whoever he is
who routs us, wreaking havoc against us, cutting the legs
from under squads of good brave men.

They'd never starve for fodder—
crammed with the fighters—bred to eat their fill.

"No hit—you missed!
But the two of you will never quit this fight. I'd say,
till one of you drops and dies and gluts with blood
Ares who hacks at men behind his rawhide shield!"

But Phoebus Apollo plucked him up in his hands
and swathed him round in a swirling dark mist
for fear some Argive fast with chariot-team
might hurl bronze in his chest and rip his life out.

The son of Tydeus stabbed me,
Diomedes, that overweening, insolent—all because
I was bearing off my son from the fighting.

Ares had to endure it, when giant Ephialtes and Otus,
sons of Aloeus, bound him in chains he could not burst,
trussed him up in a brazen cauldron, thirteen months.

Soothing words,
and with both her hands Dione gently wiped the ichor
from Aphrodite's arm and her wrist healed at once,
her stark pain ebbed away.

I chafe to face my man, full force,
though there's not a scrap of mine for looting here,
no cattle or gold the foe could carry off.

Remember the wind that scatters the dry chaff,
sweeping it over the sacred threshing floor,
the men winnowing hard and blond Demeter culling
grain from dry husk in the rough and gusting wind
and under it all the heaps of chaff are piling white…

Remember the wind that scatters the dry chaff,
sweeping it over the sacred threshing floor,
the men winnowing hard and blond Demeter culling
grain from dry husk in the rough and gusting wind
and under it all the heaps of chaff are piling white…

Remember the wind that scatters the dry chaff,
sweeping it over the sacred threshing floor,
the men winnowing hard and blond Demeter culling
grain from dry husk in the rough and gusting wind
and under it all the heaps of chaff are piling white…

Remember the wind that scatters the dry chaff,
sweeping it over the sacred threshing floor,
the men winnowing hard and blond Demeter culling
grain from dry husk in the rough and gusting wind
and under it all the heaps of chaff are piling white…

Their father lived in the fortress town of Phera,
a man of wealth and worth, born of Alpheus River
running wide through Pylian hills, the stream
that sired Ortilochus to rule their many men.

As Aeneas and Menelaus came within arm's reach,
waving whetted spears in each other's faces,
nerved to fight it out, Antilochus rushed in

But Tlepolemus' shaft had struck Sarpedon too,
the honed tip of the weapon hitting his left thigh,
ferocious, razoring into flesh and scraping bone
but his Father beat off death a little longer.

Whirling, killing Coeranus, Chromius and Alastor,
killing Alcander and Halius, Prytanis and Noëmon—
and stalwart Odysseus would have killed still more
but tall Hector, his helmet flashing, marked him quickly,
plowed through the front, helmed in fiery bronze,
filling the Argives' hearts with sudden terror.

Then Athena, child of Zeus whose shield is thunder,
letting fall her supple robe at the Father's threshold—
rich brocade, stitched with her own hands' labor—
donned the battle-shirt of the lord of lightning

But look at you—
fatigue from too much charging has sapped your limbs,
that or some lifeless fear has paralyzed you now.

No more, you lying, two-faced…
no more sidling up to me, whining here before me.
You—I hate you most of all the Olympian gods.

You have your mother's uncontrollable rage—incorrigible,
that Hera—say what I will, I can hardly keep her down.