Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
And Juno answered, “Most dread son of Saturn, what is this that
you are saying? Would you snatch a mortal man, whose doom has
long been fated, out of the jaws of death? Do as you will, but we
shall not all of us be of your mind. I say further, and lay my saying
to your heart, that if you send Sarpedon safely to his own home,
some other of the gods will be also wanting to escort his son out of
battle, for there are many sons of gods fighting round the city of
Troy, and you will make every one jealous. If, however, you are
fond of him and pity him, let him indeed fall by the hand of
Patroclus, but as soon as the life is gone out of him, send Death and
sweet Sleep to bear him off the field and take him to the broad
lands of Lycia, where his brothers and his kinsmen will bury him
with mound and pillar, in due honour to the dead.”
The sire of gods and men assented, but he shed a rain of blood
upon the earth in honour of his son whom Patroclus was about to
kill on the rich plain of Troy far from his home.
When they were now come close to one another Patroclus struck
Thrasydemus, the brave squire of Sarpedon, in the lower part of
the belly, and killed him. Sarpedon then aimed a spear at Patroclus
and missed him, but he struck the horse Pedasus in the right
shoulder, and it screamed aloud as it lay, groaning in the dust until
the life went out of it. The other two horses began to plunge; the
pole of the chariot cracked and they got entangled in the reins
through the fall of the horse that was yoked along with them; but
Automedon knew what to do; without the loss of a moment he
drew the keen blade that hung by his sturdy thigh and cut the third
horse adrift; whereon the other two righted themselves, and
pulling hard at the reins again went together into battle.
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