Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
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 Ajaxes, men who needed no bidding. “Ajaxes,”
said he, “may it now please you to show youselves 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, and the
Myrmidons and Achaeans on the other, strengthened their
battalions, and fought desperately about the body of Sarpedon,
shouting fiercely the while. Mighty was the din of their armour as
they came together, and Jove shed a thick darkness over the fight,
to increase the of the battle over the body of his son.
At first the Trojans made some headway against the Achaeans, for
one of the best men among the Myrmidons was killed, Epeigeus,
son of noble Agacles who had erewhile been king in the good city
of Budeum; but presently, having killed a valiant kinsman of his
own, he took refuge with Peleus and Thetis, who sent him to Ilius
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