Page 331 - the-iliad

and bade them come to fight about the body of Sarpedon.
From these he strode on among the Trojans to Polydamas
son of Panthous and Agenor; he then went in search of
Aeneas and Hector, and when he had found them he said,
‘Hector, you have utterly forgotten your allies, who lan-
guish here for your sake far from friends and home while
you do nothing to support them. Sarpedon leader of the
Lycian warriors has fallen— he who was at once the right
and might of Lycia; Mars has laid him low by the spear of
Patroclus. Stand by him, my friends, and suffer not the
Myrmidons to strip him of his armour, nor to treat his body
with contumely in revenge for all the Danaans whom we
have speared at the ships.’
As he spoke the Trojans were plunged in extreme and
ungovernable grief; for Sarpedon, alien though he was, had
been one of the main stays of their city, both as having much
people with him, and himself the foremost among them all.
Led by Hector, who was infuriated by the fall of Sarpedon,
they made instantly for the Danaans with all their might,
while the undaunted spirit of Patroclus son of Menoetius
cheered on the Achaeans. First he spoke to the two Ajax-
es, men who needed no bidding. ‘Ajaxes,’ said he, ‘may it
now please you to show yourselves the men you have always
been, or even better—Sarpedon is fallen—he who was first
to overleap the wall of the Achaeans; let us take the body
and outrage it; let us strip the armour from his shoulders,
and kill his comrades if they try to rescue his body.’
He spoke to men who of themselves were full eager; both
sides, therefore, the Trojans and Lycians on the one hand,

0 The Iliad