Page 335 - the-iliad

would the brave Lycians stand firm; they were dismayed
when they saw their king lying struck to the heart amid a
heap of corpses—for when the son of Saturn made the fight
wax hot many had fallen above him. The Achaeans, there-
fore stripped the gleaming armour from his shoulders and
the brave son of Menoetius gave it to his men to take to
the ships. Then Jove lord of the storm-cloud said to Apol-
lo, ‘Dear Phoebus, go, I pray you, and take Sarpedon out of
range of the weapons; cleanse the black blood from off him,
and then bear him a long way off where you may wash him
in the river, anoint him with ambrosia, and clothe him in
immortal raiment; this done, commit him to the arms of
the two fleet messengers, Death, and Sleep, who will carry
him straightway to the rich land of Lycia, where his broth-
ers and kinsmen will inter him, and will raise both mound
and pillar to his memory, in due honour to the dead.’
Thus he spoke. Apollo obeyed his father’s saying, and
came down from the heights of Ida into the thick of the
fight; forthwith he took Sarpedon out of range of the weap-
ons, and then bore him a long way off, where he washed
him in the river, anointed him with ambrosia and clothed
him in immortal raiment; this done, he committed him to
the arms of the two fleet messengers, Death, and Sleep, who
presently set him down in the rich land of Lycia.
Meanwhile Patroclus, with many a shout to his horses
and to Automedon, pursued the Trojans and Lycians in the
pride and foolishness of his heart. Had he but obeyed the
bidding of the son of Peleus, he would have, escaped death
and have been scatheless; but the counsels of Jove pass

The Iliad