the Trojans who had fled, nor did they strip the armour from Penthesilea
and her twelve maidens, but laid the bodies on biers, and sent them back
in peace to Priam. Then the Trojans burned Penthesilea in the midst of
her dead maidens, on a great pile of dry wood, and placed their ashes
in a golden casket, and buried them all in the great hill-grave of
Laomedon, an ancient King of Troy, while the Greeks with lamentation
buried them whom the Amazon had slain.
[Illustration: ACHILLES PITIES PENTHESILEA AFTER SLAYING HER.]
The old men of Troy and the chiefs now held a council, and Priam said
that they must not yet despair, for, if they had lost many of their
bravest warriors, many of the Greeks had also fallen. Their best plan
was to fight only with arrows from the walls and towers, till King
Memnon came to their rescue with a great army of Aethiopes. Now Memnon
was the son of the bright Dawn, a beautiful Goddess who had loved and
married a mortal man, Tithonus. She had asked Zeus, the chief of the
Gods, to make her lover immortal, and her prayer was granted. Tithonus
could not die, but he began to grow grey, and then white haired, with a
long white beard, and very weak, till nothing of him seemed to be left
but his voice, always feebly chattering like the grasshoppers on a
summer day.
Memnon was the most beautiful of men, except Paris and Achilles, and his
home was in a country that borders on the land of sunrising. There he
was reared by the lily maidens called Hesperides, till he came to his
full strength, and commanded the whole army of the Aethiopes. For their
arrival Priam wished to wait, but Polydamas advised that the Trojans
should give back Helen to the Greeks, with jewels twice as valuable as
those which she had brought from the house of Menelaus. Then Paris was
very angry, and said that Polydamas was a coward, for it was little to
Paris that Troy should be taken and burned in a month if for a month he
could keep Helen of the fair hands.
At length Memnon came, leading a great army of men who had nothing white
about them but the teeth, so fiercely the sun burned on them in their
own country. The Trojans had all the more hopes of Memnon because, on
his long journey from the land of sunrising, and the river Oceanus that
girdles the round world, he had been obliged to cross the country of the
Solymi. Now the Solymi were the fiercest of men and rose up against
Memnon, but he and his army fought them for a whole day, and defeated
them, and drove them to the hills. When Memnon came, Priam gave him a
great cup of gold, full of wine to the brim, and Memnon drank the wine
at one draught. But he did not make great boasts of what he could do,
like poor Penthesilea, 'for,' said he, 'whether I am a good man at arms
will be known in battle, where the strength of men is tried. So now let
us turn to sleep, for to wake and drink wine all through the night is an
ill beginning of war.'
Then Priam praised his wisdom, and all men betook them to bed, but the
bright Dawn rose unwillingly next day, to throw light on the battle
where her son was to risk his life. Then Memnon led out the dark clouds
of his men into the plain, and the Greeks foreboded evil when they saw
so great a new army of fresh and unwearied warriors, but Achilles,
leading them in his shining armour, gave them courage. Memnon fell upon
the left wing of the Greeks, and on the men of Nestor, and first he slew
Ereuthus, and then attacked Nestor's young son, Antilochus, who, now
that Patroclus had fallen, was the dearest friend of Achilles. On him
Memnon leaped, like a lion on a kid, but Antilochus lifted a huge stone
from the plain, a pillar that had been set on the tomb of some great
warrior long ago, and the stone smote full on the helmet of Memnon, who
reeled beneath the stroke. But Memnon seized his heavy spear, and drove
it through shield and corselet of Antilochus, even into his heart, and
he fell and died beneath his father's eyes. Then Nestor in great sorrow
and anger strode across the body of Antilochus and called to his other
son, Thrasymedes, 'Come and drive afar this man that has slain thy
brother, for if fear be in thy heart thou art no son of mine, nor of the
race of Periclymenus, who stood up in battle even against the strong man
Heracles!'
But Memnon was too strong for Thrasymedes, and drove him off, while old
Nestor himself charged sword in hand, though Memnon bade him begone, for
he was not minded to strike so aged a man, and Nestor drew back, for he
was weak with age. Then Memnon and his army charged the Greeks, slaying
and stripping the dead. But Nestor had mounted his chariot and driven to
Achilles, weeping, and imploring him to come swiftly and save the body
of Antilochus, and he sped to meet Memnon, who lifted a great stone, the
landmark of a field, and drove it against the shield of the son of
Peleus. But Achilles was not shaken by the blow; he ran forward, and
wounded Memnon over the rim of his shield. Yet wounded as he was Memnon
fought on and struck his spear through the arm of Achilles, for the
Greeks fought with no sleeves of bronze to protect their arms.
Then Achilles drew his great sword, and flew on Memnon, and with
sword-strokes they lashed at each other on shield and helmet, and the
long horsehair crests of the helmets were shorn off, and flew down the
wind, and their shields rang terribly beneath the sword strokes. They
thrust at each others' throats between shield and visor of the helmet,
they smote at knee, and thrust at breast, and the armour rang about
their bodies, and the dust from beneath their feet rose up in a cloud
around them, like mist round the falls of a great river in flood. So
they fought, neither of them yielding a step, till Achilles made so
rapid a thrust that Memnon could not parry it, and the bronze sword
passed clean through his body beneath the breast-bone, and he fell, and
his armour clashed as he fell.
Then Achilles, wounded as he was and weak from loss of blood, did not
stay to strip the golden armour of Memnon, but shouted his warcry, and
pressed on, for he hoped to enter the gate of Troy with the fleeing
Trojans, and all the Greeks followed after him. So they pursued, slaying
as they went, and the Scaean gate was choked with the crowd of men,
pursuing and pursued. In that hour would the Greeks have entered Troy,
and burned the city, and taken the women captive, but Paris stood on the
tower above the gate, and in his mind was anger for the death of his
brother Hector. He tried the string of his bow, and found it frayed, for
all day he had showered his arrows on the Greeks; so he chose a new
bowstring, and fitted it, and strung the bow, and chose an arrow from
his quiver, and aimed at the ankle of Achilles, where it was bare
beneath the greave, or leg-guard of metal, that the God had fashioned
for him. Through the ankle flew the arrow, and Achilles wheeled round,
weak as he was, and stumbled, and fell, and the armour that the God had
wrought was defiled with dust and blood.
Then Achilles rose again, and cried: 'What coward has smitten me with a
secret arrow from afar? Let him stand forth and meet me with sword and
spear!' So speaking he seized the shaft with his strong hands and tore
it out of the wound, and much blood gushed, and darkness came over his
eyes. Yet he staggered forward, striking blindly, and smote Orythaon, a
dear friend of Hector, through the helmet, and others he smote, but now
his force failed him, and he leaned on his spear, and cried his warcry,
and said, 'Cowards of Troy, ye shall not all escape my spear, dying as I
am.' But as he spoke he fell, and all his armour rang around him, yet
the Trojans stood apart and watched; and as hunters watch a dying lion
not daring to go nigh him, so the Trojans stood in fear till Achilles
drew his latest breath. Then from the wall the Trojan women raised a
great cry of joy over him who had slain the noble Hector: and thus was
fulfilled the prophecy of Hector, that Achilles should fall in the
Scaean gateway, by the hand of Paris.
Then the best of the Trojans rushed forth from the gate to seize the
body of Achilles, and his glorious armour, but the Greeks were as eager
to carry the body to the ships that it might have due burial. Round the
dead Achilles men fought long and sore, and both sides were mixed,
Greeks and Trojans, so that men dared not shoot arrows from the walls of
Troy lest they should kill their own friends. Paris, and Aeneas, and
Glaucus, who had been the friend of Sarpedon, led the Trojans, and Aias
and Ulysses led the Greeks, for we are not told that Agamemnon was
fighting in this great battle of the war. Now as angry wild bees flock
round a man who is taking their honeycombs, so the Trojans gathered
round Aias, striving to stab him, but he set his great shield in front,
and smote and slew all that came within reach of his spear. Ulysses,
too, struck down many, and though a spear was thrown and pierced his leg
near the knee he stood firm, protecting the body of Achilles. At last
Ulysses caught the body of Achilles by the hands, and heaved it upon his
back, and so limped towards the ships, but Aias and the men of Aias
followed, turning round if ever the Trojans ventured to come near, and
charging into the midst of them. Thus very slowly they bore the dead
Achilles across the plain, through the bodies of the fallen and the
blood, till they met Nestor in his chariot and placed Achilles therein,
and swiftly Nestor drove to the ships.
There the women, weeping, washed Achilles' comely body, and laid him on
a bier with a great white mantle over him, and all the women lamented
and sang dirges, and the first was Briseis, who loved Achilles better
than her own country, and her father, and her brothers whom he had slain
in war. The Greek princes, too, stood round the body, weeping and
cutting off their long locks of yellow hair, a token of grief and an
offering to the dead.
Men say that forth from the sea came Thetis of the silver feet, the
mother of Achilles, with her ladies, the deathless maidens of the
waters. They rose up from their glassy chambers below the sea, moving
on, many and beautiful, like the waves on a summer day, and their sweet
song echoed along the shores, and fear came upon the Greeks. Then they
would have fled, but Nestor cried: 'Hold, flee not, young lords of the
Achaeans! Lo, she that comes from the sea is his mother, with the
deathless maidens of the waters, to look on the face of her dead son.'
Then the sea nymphs stood around the dead Achilles and clothed him in
the garments of the Gods, fragrant raiment, and all the Nine Muses, one
to the other replying with sweet voices, began their lament.
Next the Greeks made a great pile of dry wood, and laid Achilles on it,
and set fire to it, till the flames had consumed his body except the
white ashes. These they placed in a great golden cup and mingled with
them the ashes of Patroclus, and above all they built a tomb like a
hill, high on a headland above the sea, that men for all time may see it
as they go sailing by, and may remember Achilles. Next they held in his
honour foot races and chariot races, and other games, and Thetis gave
splendid prizes. Last of all, when the games were ended, Thetis placed
before the chiefs the glorious armour that the God had made for her son
on the night after the slaying of Patroclus by Hector. 'Let these arms
be the prize of the best of the Greeks,' she said, 'and of him that
saved the body of Achilles out of the hands of the Trojans.'
Then stood up on one side Aias and on the other Ulysses, for these two
had rescued the body, and neither thought himself a worse warrior than
the other. Both were the bravest of the brave, and if Aias was the
taller and stronger, and upheld the fight at the ships on the day of the
valour of Hector; Ulysses had alone withstood the Trojans, and refused
to retreat even when wounded, and his courage and cunning had won for
the Greeks the Luck of Troy. Therefore old Nestor arose and said: 'This
is a luckless day, when the best of the Greeks are rivals for such a
prize. He who is not the winner will be heavy at heart, and will not
stand firm by us in battle, as of old, and hence will come great loss to
the Greeks. Who can be a just judge in this question, for some men will
love Aias better, and some will prefer Ulysses, and thus will arise
disputes among ourselves. Lo! have we not here among us many Trojan
prisoners, waiting till their friends pay their ransom in cattle and
gold and bronze and iron? These hate all the Greeks alike, and will
favour neither Aias nor Ulysses. Let _them_ be the judges, and decide
who is the best of the Greeks, and the man who has done most harm to the
Trojans.'
Agamemnon said that Nestor had spoken wisely. The Trojans were then made
to sit as judges in the midst of the Assembly, and Aias and Ulysses
spoke, and told the stories of their own great deeds, of which we have
heard already, but Aias spoke roughly and discourteously, calling
Ulysses a coward and a weakling. 'Perhaps the Trojans know,' said
Ulysses quietly, 'whether they think that I deserve what Aias has said
about me, that I am a coward; and perhaps Aias may remember that he did
not find me so weak when we wrestled for a prize at the funeral of
Patroclus.'
Then the Trojans all with one voice said that Ulysses was the best man
among the Greeks, and the most feared by them, both for his courage and
his skill in stratagems of war. On this, the blood of Aias flew into his
face, and he stood silent and unmoving, and could not speak a word, till
his friends came round him and led him away to his hut, and there he sat
down and would not eat or drink, and the night fell.
Long he sat, musing in his mind, and then rose and put on all his
armour, and seized a sword that Hector had given him one day when they
two fought in a gentle passage of arms, and took courteous farewell of
each other, and Aias had given Hector a broad sword-belt, wrought with
gold. This sword, Hector's gift, Aias took, and went towards the hut of
Ulysses, meaning to carve him limb from limb, for madness had come upon
him in his great grief. Rushing through the night to slay Ulysses he
fell upon the flock of sheep that the Greeks kept for their meat. And up
and down among them he went, smiting blindly till the dawn came, and,
lo! his senses returned to him, and he saw that he had not smitten
Ulysses, but stood in a pool of blood among the sheep that he had
slain. He could not endure the disgrace of his madness, and he fixed the
sword, Hector's gift, with its hilt firmly in the ground, and went back
a little way, and ran and fell upon the sword, which pierced his heart,
and so died the great Aias, choosing death before a dishonoured life.
XI
ULYSSES SAILS TO SEEK THE SON OF ACHILLES.--THE VALOUR OF EURYPYLUS
When the Greeks found Aias lying dead, slain by his own hand, they made
great lament, and above all the brother of Aias, and his wife Tecmessa
bewailed him, and the shores of the sea rang with their sorrow. But of
all no man was more grieved than Ulysses, and he stood up and said:
'Would that the sons of the Trojans had never awarded to me the arms of
Achilles, for far rather would I have given them to Aias than that this
loss should have befallen the whole army of the Greeks. Let no man blame
me, or be angry with me, for I have not sought for wealth, to enrich
myself, but for honour only, and to win a name that will be remembered
among men in times to come.' Then they made a great fire of wood, and
burned the body of Aias, lamenting him as they had sorrowed for
Achilles.
Now it seemed that though the Greeks had won the Luck of Troy and had
defeated the Amazons and the army of Memnon, they were no nearer taking
Troy than ever. They had slain Hector, indeed, and many other Trojans,
but they had lost the great Achilles, and Aias, and Patroclus, and
Antilochus, with the princes whom Penthesilea and Memnon slew, and the
bands of the dead chiefs were weary of fighting, and eager to go home.
The chiefs met in council, and Menelaus arose and said that his heart
was wasted with sorrow for the death of so many brave men who had sailed
to Troy for his sake. 'Would that death had come upon me before I
gathered this host,' he said, 'but come, let the rest of us launch our
swift ships, and return each to our own country.'
He spoke thus to try the Greeks, and see of what courage they were, for
his desire was still to burn Troy town and to slay Paris with his own
hand. Then up rose Diomede, and swore that never would the Greeks turn
cowards. No! he bade them sharpen their swords, and make ready for
battle. The prophet Calchas, too, arose and reminded the Greeks how he
had always foretold that they would take Troy in the tenth year of the
siege, and how the tenth year had come, and victory was almost in their
hands. Next Ulysses stood up and said that, though Achilles was dead,
and there was no prince to lead his men, yet a son had been born to
Achilles, while he was in the isle of Scyros, and that son he would
bring to fill his father's place.
'Surely he will come, and for a token I will carry to him those unhappy
arms of the great Achilles. Unworthy am I to wear them, and they bring
back to my mind our sorrow for Aias. But his son will wear them, in the
front of the spearmen of Greece and in the thickest ranks of Troy shall
the helmet of Achilles shine, as it was wont to do, for always he fought
among the foremost.' Thus Ulysses spoke, and he and Diomede, with fifty
oarsmen, went on board a swift ship, and sitting all in order on the
benches they smote the grey sea into foam, and Ulysses held the helm and
steered them towards the isle of Scyros.
Now the Trojans had rest from war for a while, and Priam, with a heavy
heart, bade men take his chief treasure, the great golden vine, with
leaves and clusters of gold, and carry it to the mother of Eurypylus,
the king of the people who dwell where the wide marshlands of the river
Caycus clang with the cries of the cranes and herons and wild swans. For
the mother of Eurypylus had sworn that never would she let her son go to
the war unless Priam sent her the vine of gold, a gift of the gods to an
ancient King of Troy.
With a heavy heart, then, Priam sent the golden vine, but Eurypylus was
glad when he saw it, and bade all his men arm, and harness the horses to
the chariots, and glad were the Trojans when the long line of the new
army wound along the road and into the town. Then Paris welcomed
Eurypylus who was his nephew, son of his sister Astyoche, a daughter of
Priam; but the grandfather of Eurypylus was the famous Heracles, the
strongest man who ever lived on earth. So Paris brought Eurypylus to his
house, where Helen sat working at her embroideries with her four bower
maidens, and Eurypylus marvelled when he saw her, she was so beautiful.
But the Khita, the people of Eurypylus, feasted in the open air among
the Trojans, by the light of great fires burning, and to the music of
pipes and flutes. The Greeks saw the fires, and heard the merry music,
and they watched all night lest the Trojans should attack the ships
before the dawn. But in the dawn Eurypylus rose from sleep and put on
his armour, and hung from his neck by the belt the great shield on which
were fashioned, in gold of many colours and in silver, the Twelve
Adventures of Heracles, his grandfather; strange deeds that he did,
fighting with monsters and giants and with the Hound of Hades, who
guards the dwellings of the dead. Then Eurypylus led on his whole army,
and with the brothers of Hector he charged against the Greeks, who were
led by Agamemnon.
In that battle Eurypylus first smote Nireus, who was the most beautiful
of the Greeks now that Achilles had fallen. There lay Nireus, like an
apple tree, all covered with blossoms red and white, that the wind has
overthrown in a rich man's orchard. Then Eurypylus would have stripped
off his armour, but Machaon rushed in, Machaon who had been wounded and
taken to the tent of Nestor, on the day of the Valour of Hector, when he
brought fire against the ships. Machaon drove his spear through the left
shoulder of Eurypylus, but Eurypylus struck at his shoulder with his
sword, and the blood flowed; nevertheless, Machaon stooped, and grasped
a great stone, and sent it against the helmet of Eurypylus. He was
shaken, but he did not fall, he drove his spear through breastplate and
breast of Machaon, who fell and died. With his last breath he said,
'Thou, too, shalt fall,' but Eurypylus made answer, 'So let it be! Men
cannot live for ever, and such is the fortune of war.'
Thus the battle rang, and shone, and shifted, till few of the Greeks
kept steadfast, except those with Menelaus and Agamemnon, for Diomede
and Ulysses were far away upon the sea, bringing from Scyros the son of
Achilles. But Teucer slew Polydamas, who had warned Hector to come
within the walls of Troy; and Menelaus wounded Deiphobus, the bravest of
the sons of Priam who were still in arms, for many had fallen; and
Agamemnon slew certain spearmen of the Trojans. Round Eurypylus fought
Paris, and Aeneas, who wounded Teucer with a great stone, breaking in
his helmet, but he drove back in his chariot to the ships. Menelaus and
Agamemnon stood alone and fought in the crowd of Trojans, like two wild
boars that a circle of hunters surrounds with spears, so fiercely they
stood at bay. There they would both have fallen, but Idomeneus, and
Meriones of Crete, and Thrasymedes, Nestor's son, ran to their rescue,
and fiercer grew the fighting. Eurypylus desired to slay Agamemnon and
Menelaus, and end the war, but, as the spears of the Scots encompassed
King James at Flodden Field till he ran forward, and fell within a
lance's length of the English general, so the men of Crete and Pylos
guarded the two princes with their spears.
There Paris was wounded in the thigh with a spear, and he retreated a
little way, and showered his arrows among the Greeks; and Idomeneus
lifted and hurled a great stone at Eurypylus which struck his spear out
of his hand, and he went back to find it, and Menelaus and Agamemnon had
a breathing space in the battle. But soon Eurypylus returned, crying on
his men, and they drove back foot by foot the ring of spears round
Agamemnon, and Aeneas and Paris slew men of Crete and of Mycenae till
the Greeks were pushed to the ditch round the camp; and then great
stones and spears and arrows rained down on the Trojans and the people
of Eurypylus from the battlements and towers of the Grecian wall. Now
night fell, and Eurypylus knew that he could not win the wall in the
dark, so he withdrew his men, and they built great fires, and camped
upon the plain.
The case of the Greeks was now like that of the Trojans after the death
of Hector. They buried Machaon and the other chiefs who had fallen, and
they remained within their ditch and their wall, for they dared not come
out into the open plain. They knew not whether Ulysses and Diomede had
come safely to Scyros, or whether their ship had been wrecked or driven
into unknown seas. So they sent a herald to Eurypylus, asking for a
truce, that they might gather their dead and burn them, and the Trojans
and Khita also buried their dead.
Meanwhile the swift ship of Ulysses had swept through the sea to Scyros,
and to the palace of King Lycomedes. There they found Neoptolemus, the
son of Achilles, in the court before the doors. He was as tall as his
father, and very like him in face and shape, and he was practising the
throwing of the spear at a mark. Right glad were Ulysses and Diomede to
behold him, and Ulysses told Neoptolemus who they were, and why they
came, and implored him to take pity on the Greeks and help them.
'My friend is Diomede, Prince of Argos,' said Ulysses, 'and I am Ulysses
of Ithaca. Come with us, and we Greeks will give you countless gifts,
and I myself will present you with the armour of your father, such as it
is not lawful for any other mortal man to wear, seeing that it is
golden, and wrought by the hands of a God. Moreover, when we have taken
Troy, and gone home, Menelaus will give you his daughter, the beautiful
Hermione, to be your wife, with gold in great plenty.'