Page 150 - the-iliad

brought you up and took care of you in his own house when
you were a child, bastard though you were. Cover him with
glory though he is far off; I will promise and I will assur-
edly perform; if aegis-bearing Jove and Minerva grant me
to sack the city of Ilius, you shall have the next best meed
of honour after my own—a tripod, or two horses with their
chariot, or a woman who shall go up into your bed.’
And Teucer answered, ‘Most noble son of Atreus, you
need not urge me; from the moment we began to drive them
back to Ilius, I have never ceased so far as in me lies to look
out for men whom I can shoot and kill; I have shot eight
barbed shafts, and all of them have been buried in the flesh
of warlike youths, but this mad dog I cannot hit.’
As he spoke he aimed another arrow straight at Hec-
tor, for he was bent on hitting him; nevertheless he missed
him, and the arrow hit Priam’s brave son Gorgythion in the
breast. His mother, fair Castianeira, lovely as a goddess, had
been married from Aesyme, and now he bowed his head
as a garden poppy in full bloom when it is weighed down
by showers in spring—even thus heavy bowed his head be-
neath the weight of his helmet.
Again he aimed at Hector, for he was longing to hit him,
and again his arrow missed, for Apollo turned it aside; but
he hit Hector’s brave charioteer Archeptolemus in the breast,
by the nipple, as he was driving furiously into the fight. The
horses swerved aside as he fell headlong from the chariot,
and there was no life left in him. Hector was greatly grieved
at the loss of his charioteer, but for all his sorrow he let him
lie where he fell, and bade his brother Cebriones, who was

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