An Iliad Read Online Free PDF Page B

at one end. My companions, around me, must have understood what I had in mind, because they raised their shields to hide and protect me. I opened my quiver and took out a new, swift arrow. Briefly I addressed a prayer to Apollo, the god who protects us archers. Then I pinched together arrow and string and pulled them back until my right hand came to my chest and the point of the arrow was steady at the bow. With all my strength I bent the ibex horn and stretched the ox sinew until they formed a circle.
    Then I shot.
    The bowstring whistled and the sharp-pointed arrow flew swiftly, high above the men. It struck Menelaus just where thegold clasps fasten the breastplate to the war belt. The tip cut through the fastenings, through the leather band that protects the belly, and reached his flesh. Blood oozed along his thighs, down his legs, to his slender ankles. Menelaus shuddered when he saw the black blood, and so, too, did his brother Agamemnon, who immediately went to him. He took him by the hand and began to weep.
    “My brother,” he said, “have I perhaps sent you to die by making a foolish pact with the Trojans, under which you fought, alone and defenseless, before our eyes? Now the Trojans, who swore to the pact, have wounded you, breaking our agreement …” Agamemnon wept. He said, “If you die, Menelaus, I will die of grief. No Achaean will stay and fight here. We’ll leave your wife, Helen, to Priam, and I’ll be forced to return to Argos in disgrace. Your bones will rot here, beside the walls of Troy, and the proud Trojans will trample on them, saying, ‘Where is Agamemnon, the great hero, who brought the Achaean army here only to return home with empty ships, leaving his brother on the battlefield?’ Menelaus, don’t die: if you die the earth will open up beneath me.”
    “Don’t be afraid, Agamemnon,” Menelaus said to him. “And don’t frighten the Achaeans. You can see, the point of the arrow hasn’t gone all the way into the flesh, it’s just grazed it. First the breastplate and then the belt deflected it. It’s a slight wound.”
    “If only that may be true,” said Agamemnon. Then he ordered the heralds to call Machaon, the son of Asclepius, who was famous as a healer. They found him in the ranks of the army, among his men, and led him to where fair-haired Menelaus lay wounded. Around him were all the bravest Achaean warriors. Machaon leaned over Menelaus. He pulledthe arrow from the flesh, observed the wound. Then he sucked the blood and skillfully applied soothing drugs that the centaur Cheiron had once given to his father in friendship.
    They were still gathered around Menelaus when we Trojans began to advance. We had all taken up our arms, and in our hearts had only a desire for battle. Then we heard Agamemnon call to his men: “Argives, may you be strong and brave. Zeus does not help traitors, and those men whom you saw violate our agreement will be devoured by vultures, while we, having conquered their city, will carry off on our ships their wives and children.” He was no longer the hesitant and doubtful Agamemnon we knew. That was a man who wanted the glory of battle.
    We advanced in a tumult of sound. We were of different lands and peoples, and each cried out in his own tongue. We were a herd of beasts with a thousand different voices. The Achaeans, instead, marched in silence. You heard only the voices of the commanders giving orders, and it was something to see all the men obey, submissive, without a word. They came toward us like waves toward the rocky shore. Their armor sparkled like the foam of the sea spraying along the crest of the waves.
    When the two armies met, there was a huge crashing of shields and spears and fury of armed men in bronze. The convex leather shields collided, and cries rose, of joy and grief intertwined, of the dead and the living, all mixed up in a single immense roar in the blood that soaked the earth.
Aeneas
    The first to kill was Antilochus. He hurled