Page 101 - the-iliad

that no one thought of drawing the spear from his thigh
so as to let him walk uprightly. Meanwhile the Achaeans
carried off the body of Tlepolemus, whereon Ulysses was
moved to pity, and panted for the fray as he beheld them.
He doubted whether to pursue the son of Jove, or to make
slaughter of the Lycian rank and file; it was not decreed,
however, that he should slay the son of Jove; Minerva, there-
fore, turned him against the main body of the Lycians. He
killed Coeranus, Alastor, Chromius, Alcandrus, Halius,
Noemon, and Prytanis, and would have slain yet more, had
not great Hector marked him, and sped to the front of the
fight clad in his suit of mail, filling the Danaans with terror.
Sarpedon was glad when he saw him coming, and besought
him, saying, ‘Son of Priam, let me not be here to fall into the
hands of the Danaans. Help me, and since I may not return
home to gladden the hearts of my wife and of my infant son,
let me die within the walls of your city.’
Hector made him no answer, but rushed onward to fall
at once upon the Achaeans and kill many among them. His
comrades then bore Sarpedon away and laid him beneath
Jove’s spreading oak tree. Pelagon, his friend and comrade,
drew the spear out of his thigh, but Sarpedon fainted and a
mist came over his eyes. Presently he came to himself again,
for the breath of the north wind as it played upon him gave
him new life, and brought him out of the deep swoon into
which he had fallen.
Meanwhile the Argives were neither driven towards their
ships by Mars and Hector, nor yet did they attack them; when
they knew that Mars was with the Trojans they retreated,

100 The Iliad