The Iliad: Book 12

The Earth-shaker himself, trident locked in his grip,
led the way, rocking loose, sweeping up in his breakers
all the bastion's strong supports of logs and stones

They balked, whinnying shrill at the edge, the brink—
a dead stop—frightened off by the trench so broad

No light work for the teams that trundled chariots
churning massive wheels to make it through in stride

It's madness to drive our teams across that trench,
impossible to traverse it.

Both warriors planted there before the towering gates
rose like oaks that rear their crests on a mountain ridge,
standing up to the gales and driving rains, day in, day out

I never dreamed these heroic Argive ranks
could hold back our charge, our invincible arms.

So a knowing seer of the gods would read this omen,
someone clear in his mind and skilled with signs

But if you hold back from the bloody foray here
or turn some other soldier back from battle,
winning him over—you with your soft appeals—
at one quick stroke my spear will beat you down

They tore at the towers' outworks, pulled at battlements

They tore at the towers' outworks, pulled at battlements,
heaving, trying to pry loose with levers the buttress stakes
Achaeans first drove in the earth to shore the rampart up—
they struggled to root these out, hoping to break down
the Achaean wall itself.

Quickly Sarpedon swung his shield before him—
balanced and handsome beaten bronze a bronzesmith
hammered out with layer on layer of hide inside
and stitched with golden rivets round the rim.

Ah my friend, if you and I could escape this fray
and live forever, never a trace of age, immortal,
I would never fight on the front lines again

He spotted the Great and Little Ajax, gluttons for battle

He called out to his smaller, faster brother
with orders flying, "Ajax, you stay here,
you and the burly Lycomedes stand your ground..."

There they found the defenders packed, hard-pressed
as the Lycians' stalwart lords and captains stormed
like a black tornado up against the breastworks

So he called, and dreading their captain's scorn
they bore down fiercer, massing round Sarpedon now

As two farmers wrangle hard over boundary-stones,
measuring rods in hand, locked in a common field,
and fight it out on the cramped contested strip
for equal shares of turf—so now the rocky bastion
split the troops apart and across the top they fought

They held tight as a working widow holds the scales,
painstakingly grips the beam and lifts the weight
and the wool together, balancing both sides even,
struggling to win a grim subsistence for her children.

They held tight as a working widow holds the scales,
painstakingly grips the beam and lifts the weight
and the wool together, balancing both sides even,
struggling to win a grim subsistence for her children.

So he cried,
driving them on, and all ears rang with his cries
and a tight phalanx launched straight at the wall