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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.
Sarpedon now took a second aim at Patroclus, and again missed him,
the point of the spear passed over his left shoulder without hitting
him. Patroclus then aimed in his turn, and the spear sped not from
his hand in vain, for he hit Sarpedon just where the midriff surrounds
the ever-­‐beating heart. He fell like some oak or silver poplar or
tall pine to which woodmen have laid their axes upon the mountains
to make timber for ship-­‐building-­‐ even so did he lie stretched at
full length in front of his chariot and horses, moaning and clutching
at the blood-­‐stained dust. As when a lion springs with a bound upon