Homer ILIAD : Rhapsody 16

Page 19

But when, advancing, they were now near each other, then indeed Patroclus [struck] illustrious Thrasymelus, who was the brave companion of king Sarpedon, him he struck upon the lower part of the belly, and relaxed his limbs. Then Sarpedon, attacking second, missed him with his splendid javelin; but he wounded his horse Pedasus, with his spear, in the right shoulder; but he groaned, breathing out his life, and fell in the dust, moaning, and his spirit fled from him. But the two [other steeds] leaped asunder, and the yoke crashed, and the reins were entangled about them, when the side horse lay in the dust. But spear-renowned Automedon found an end of this. Drawing his long sword from his robust thigh, rising, he cut away the farther horse, nor did he act slothfully. And the two [remaining horses] were set aright, and were directed by the reins; and they [the men] again engage in life-devouring combat.

Then again Sarpedon missed [him] with his shining spear, and the point of the weapon passed over the left shoulder of Patroclus, nor did it wound him. But Patroclus rushed on with his javelin, and the weapon did not escape in vain from his hand, for he struck him where the midriff encloses the compact[532] heart. And he fell, as when falls some oak, or poplar, or lofty pine, which the workmen fell in the mountains with newly-sharpened axes, to be a naval timber: so he lay stretched out before his horses and chariot, gnashing with his teeth, grasping the bloody dust. As a lion slays a bull, coming among a herd, tawny, noble-spirited, among the stamping[533] oxen, and he perishes, bellowing, beneath the jaws of the lion; so the leader of the shielded Lycians was indignant,[534] being slain by Patroclus, and addressed his dear companion by name:

[Footnote 532: "By comparing the different uses of [Greek: adinos] together, one thing is clear, that all the meanings which can occur in them, proceed from one, which is that in the epithet of the heart, dense or compact, which physical idea the word retains, according to the Homeric usage, in Od. t. 516, as a fixed epithet of the heart, although there its physical state has nothing to do with the context." Buttm. Lexil. p. 33.]

[Footnote 533: See Buttm. Lexil. p. 267.]

[Footnote 534: "Indignata anima gemebat,"—Heyne, comparing Aen. xii. Ult. "Vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras."]

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