While these events were passing, the struggle over the slain Patroclus
raged fiercer than ever. Slowly the Greeks were driven back to the
very gates of their camp, and at the eleventh hour that pitiful prize
which had cost so much blood would have fallen into the hands of the
Trojans, had not Hera intervened and sent Iris to summon Achilles to
the rescue.
"Rouse thee, son of Peleus!" said Iris, appearing at his side. "Hector
hath sworn to set the head of Patroclus on the battlements of Troy, and
he will accomplish his threat if thou sittest idle here."
"How can I go unarmed to the field?" answered Achilles. "I know of
none whose armour I might wear, save only Ajax, and he is fighting at
the front."
"No more words," replied Iris. "Do as thou art bidden, and heaven will
find a way." Then Achilles arose, and went to the ramparts; and Athene
drew near him, and threw her tasselled ægis over his shoulders, and on
his head she caused a golden cloud to descend, which shot forth rays of
angry light. As in a beleaguered city, where a thousand watch-fires
are lighted, and all day long the pillars of smoke ascend, but in the
darkness the red blaze is seen afar, a signal of distress to distant
allies--so shone that unearthly fire on the head of Achilles, as he
stood on the brink of the moat. Then he lifted up his voice, and
shouted; and the sound was as the sound of a trumpet summoning to arms.
When they saw the dreadful light, and heard the brazen voice of
Pelides, the Trojans were astonished, and halted in the midst of their
wild assault; and while they wavered the Greeks fell upon them, and
drove them back in disorder. The tide had turned at last, and the long
day of battle, so full of strange revolutions of fortune, came to an
end.
Slowly and reverently the body of Patroclus was laid upon a bier, and
carried to the tent of Achilles. But a few short hours before he had
gone forth, with horses and with chariots, to battle, in the pride of
youth and strength; and now he lay cold in death, gored with hideous
wounds by Trojan spears. And all night long Achilles and his comrades
mourned for their slaughtered hero, the gentlest and the best of all
their band. Like a lion who leaves his whelps in their dark forest
lair, and returns to find his bed empty, and his young ones gone;
roaring with rage and grief he tracks the footsteps of the robber along
many a mountain path, and all the forest is filled with the sound of
his wrath: such was Pelides in his sorrow, and such the voice of his
mourning. "Vain, alas! was the promise which I made to thy father
Menœtius, that I would bring thee back safe to thy home in Locris,
loaded with the spoils of Troy. Thy blood is red on the Trojan sod,
where mine too shall flow before many days are passed. Now hear my
vow, Patroclus, and take comfort, even in death I will not pay the last
rites to thy corpse until I have brought Hector's body hither, with the
armour which he has taken, and slain twelve Trojan captives as a
sacrifice to thy shade. Till then thou shalt lie as thou art, and the
women of Troy, whom we won with the might of our hands, shall mourn
thee night and day."
Then they washed the body, and anointed it with fragrant oil, and laid
it, wrapped in fine linen, on a bed to wait for burial.