Homer, Iliad (Orange Street).pdf

Homer’s Iliad
have had for their incessant hardships. Are you likely, sir, to do
anything to help a man of less note, after leaving Sarpedon, who
was at once your guest and comrade in arms, to be the spoil and
prey of the Danaans? So long as he lived he did good service both
to your city and yourself; yet you had no stomach to save his body
from the dogs. If the Lycians will listen to me, they will go home
and leave Troy to its fate. If the Trojans had any of that daring
fearless spirit which lays hold of men who are fighting for their
country and harassing those who would attack it, we should soon
bear off Patroclus into Ilius. Could we get this dead man away and
bring him into the city of Priam, the Argives would readily give up
the armour of Sarpedon, and we should get his body to boot. For
he whose squire has been now killed is the foremost man at the
ships of the Achaeans- he and his close-fighting followers.
Nevertheless you dared not make a stand against Ajax, nor face
him, eye to eye, with battle all round you, for he is a braver man
than you are.”
Hector scowled at him and answered, “Glaucus, you should know
better. I have held you so far as a man of more understanding than
any in all Lycia, but now I despise you for saying that I am afraid of
Ajax. I fear neither battle nor the din of chariots, but Jove’s will is
stronger than ours; Jove at one time makes even a strong man draw
back and snatches victory from his grasp, while at another he will
set him on to fight. Come hither then, my friend, stand by me and
see indeed whether I shall play the coward the whole day through
as you say, or whether I shall not stay some even of the boldest
Danaans from fighting round the body of Patroclus.”
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