Page 327 - the-iliad

and drove a spear into his right jaw; he thus hooked him by
the teeth and the spear pulled him over the rim of his car,
as one who sits at the end of some jutting rock and draws a
strong fish out of the sea with a hook and a line— even so
with his spear did he pull Thestor all gaping from his char-
iot; he then threw him down on his face and he died while
falling. On this, as Erylaus was on to attack him, he struck
him full on the head with a stone, and his brains were all
battered inside his helmet, whereon he fell headlong to the
ground and the pangs of death took hold upon him. Then
he laid low, one after the other, Erymas, Amphoterus, Ep-
altes, Tlepolemus, Echius son of Damastor, Pyris, lpheus,
Euippus and Polymelus son of Argeas.
Now when Sarpedon saw his comrades, men who wore
ungirdled tunics, being overcome by Patroclus son of Meno-
etius, he rebuked the Lycians saying. ‘Shame on you, where
are you flying to? Show your mettle; I will myself meet this
man in fight and learn who it is that is so masterful; he has
done us much hurt, and has stretched many a brave man
upon the ground.’
He sprang from his chariot as he spoke, and Patro-
clus, when he saw this, leaped on to the ground also. The
two then rushed at one another with loud cries like eagle-
beaked crook-taloned vultures that scream and tear at one
another in some high mountain fastness.
The son of scheming Saturn looked down upon them in
pity and said to Juno who was his wife and sister, ‘Alas, that
it should be the lot of Sarpedon whom I love so dearly to
perish by the hand of Patroclus. I am in two minds whether

The Iliad