Seba.Health

The Iliad 16.473–487

The Iliad 16.473–487
and the other two were righted, and strained at the reins; and the two warriors came together again in soul-devouring strife. But Patroclus in turn rushed on with the bronze, and not in vain did the shaft speed from his hand, but smote his foe where the midriff is set close about the throbbing heart. And he fell as an oak falls, or a poplar, or a tall pine, that among the mountains shipwrights fell with whetted axes to be a ship's timber; even so before his horses and chariot he lay outstretched, moaning aloud and clutching at the bloody dust. And as a lion cometh into the midst of a herd and slayeth a bull, tawny and high of heart amid the kine of trailing gait, and with a groan he perisheth beneath the jaws of the lion;
σπασσάμενος τανύηκες ἄορ παχέος παρὰ μηροῦ ἀΐξας ἀπέκοψε παρήορον οὐδʼ ἐμάτησε· τὼ δʼ ἰθυνθήτην, ἐν δὲ ῥυτῆρσι τάνυσθεν· τὼ δʼ αὖτις συνίτην ἔριδος πέρι θυμοβόροιο. ἔνθʼ αὖ Σαρπηδὼν μὲν ἀπήμβροτε δουρὶ φαεινῷ, Πατρόκλου δʼ ὑπὲρ ὦμον ἀριστερὸν ἤλυθʼ ἀκωκὴ ἔγχεος, οὐδʼ ἔβαλʼ αὐτόν· δʼ ὕστερος ὄρνυτο χαλκῷ Πάτροκλος· τοῦ δʼ οὐχ ἅλιον βέλος ἔκφυγε χειρός, ἀλλʼ ἔβαλʼ ἔνθʼ ἄρα τε φρένες ἔρχαται ἀμφʼ ἁδινὸν κῆρ. ἤριπε δʼ ὡς ὅτε τις δρῦς ἤριπεν ἀχερωῒς ἠὲ πίτυς βλωθρή, τήν τʼ οὔρεσι τέκτονες ἄνδρες ἐξέταμον πελέκεσσι νεήκεσι νήϊον εἶναι· ὣς πρόσθʼ ἵππων καὶ δίφρου κεῖτο τανυσθεὶς βεβρυχὼς κόνιος δεδραγμένος αἱματοέσσης. ἠΰτε ταῦρον ἔπεφνε λέων ἀγέληφι μετελθὼν
Lattimore commentary
Sarpedon’s end, the first of three extended death scenes that climax the poem, is accompanied by two similes (the tree and bull), a death speech with last words (492–501), but no speech by the killer (unlike the subsequent examples). The presence of Glaukos here foregrounds the theme of intense comradeship embodied by Achilleus and Patroklos: one man’s close companion has now slain another’s.
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