Sarpedon Seeks Fame

Iliad XII 290ff (Fagles, p 334)
                                                  Shouting he led the charge
and his armies swarmed behind with blood-chilling cries.
And above their onset Zeus who loves the lightning
launched from Ida's summits a sudden howling gale
that whipped a dust storm hard against the ships,
spellbinding Achaean units in their tracks,
handing glory to Hector and Hector's Trojans.
Inspired by the signs and their own raw power
all pitched in to smash the Achaeans' massive wall.
They tore at the towers' outworks, pulled at battlements,
heaving, trying to pry loose with levers the buttress stakes
Achaeans first drove in the earth to shore the rampart up—
they struggled to root these out, hoping to break down
the Achaean wall itself. But not yet did the Argives
give way to assault—no, they stopped the breaches up
with oxhide shields and down from the breastwork heights
they hurled rocks at the enemy coming on beneath the wall.

      And the two Aeantes ranged all points of the rampart,
calling out commands to spur their comrades' fury.
Now cheering a soldier on, tongue-lashing the next
if they marked a straggler hanging back from battle:
"Friends—you in the highest ranks of Argives,
you in the midst and you in rank and file,
we cannot all be equal in battle, ever,
but now the battle lies before us all—
come, see for yourselves, look straight' down.
Now let no fighter be turned back to the ships,
not with his captain's orders ringing in his ears--
keep pressing forward, shouting each other on!
If only Olympian Zeus the lord of lightning
grants us strength to repel this Trojan charge
then carve a passage through to Troy's high walls!"

       So their cries urged on the Achaeans' war-lust.
Thick-and-fast as the snows that fall on a winter dawn
when Zeus who rules the world brings on a blizzard,
displaying to all mankind his weaponry of war . . .
and he puts the winds to sleep, drifting on and on
until he has shrouded over the mountains' looming peaks
and the headlands jutting sharp, the lowlands deep in grass
and the rich plowed work of farming men, and the drifts fall
on the gray salt surf and the harbors and down along the beaches
and only breakers beating against the drifts can hold them off
but all else on the earth they cover over, snows from the sky
when Zeus comes storming down—now so thick-and-fast
they volleyed rocks from both sides, some at the Trojans,
some from Trojans against the Argives, salvos landing,
the whole long rampart thundering under blows.

      But not even now would Trojans and Prince Hector
have burst apart the rampart's gates and huge bar
if Zeus the Master Strategist had not driven
his own son Sarpedon straight at the Argives,
strong as a lion raiding crook-homed cattle.
Quickly Sarpedon swung his shield before him—
balanced and handsome beaten bronze a bronzesmith
hammered out with layer on layer of hide inside
and stitched with golden rivets round the rim.
That splendid shield he gripped before his chest
and shaking a pair of spears went stalking out
like a mountain lion starved for meat too long
and the lordly heart inside him fires him up
to raid some stormproof fold, to go at the sheep,
and even if he should light on herdsmen at the spot,
guarding their flocks with dogs and bristling spears,
the marauder has no mind to be driven off that steading,
not without an attack. All or nothing-he charges flocks
and hauls off bloody prey or he's run through himself
at the first assault with a fast spear driven home.
So now the heart of Sarpedon stalwart as a god
impelled him to charge the wall and break it down.
He quickly called Hippolochus' son: "Glaucus,
why do they hold us both in honor, first by far
with pride of place, choice meats and brimming cups,
in Lycia where all our people look on us like gods?
Why make us lords of estates along the Xanthus' banks,
rich in vineyards and plowland rolling wheat?
So that now the duty's ours—
we are the ones to head our Lycian front,
brace and fling ourselves in the blaze of war,
so a comrade strapped in combat gear may say,
'Not without fame, the men who rule in Lycia,
these kings of ours who eat fat cuts of lamb
and drink sweet wine, the finest stock we have.
But they owe it all to their own fighting strength—
our great men of war, they lead our way in battle!'
Ah my friend, if you and I could escape this fray
and live forever, never a trace of age, immortal,
I would never fight on the front lines again
or command you to the field where men win fame.
But now, as it is, the fates of death await us,
thousands poised to strike, and not a man alive
can flee them or escape—so in we go for attack!
Give our enemy glory or win it for ourselves!"

      Glaucus did not turn back or shun that call—
on they charged, leading the Lycians' main mass.