Prevod
So the Trojans, who had fled like fawns into the city, cooled their sweat and drank to quench their thirst, leaning against the fine battlements, while the Achaeans advanced toward the wall with shields braced against their shoulders.
But deadly fate held Hector fast outside Ilium and the Scaean Gates. Meanwhile Phoebus Apollo spoke to the son of Peleus: “Why do you chase me on your swift feet, son of Peleus, you a mortal and I an undying god? Have you still not recognized that I am a god, in your headlong fury?”
“Do you care nothing for your struggle with the Trojans, whom you routed? They have crowded into the city while you have turned aside here. You will not kill me: death at your hands is not my destiny.” Deeply angered, swift-footed Achilles answered him: “You have thwarted me, god of the far-striking bow, most destructive of all the gods, by turning me here away from the wall. Many more would have bitten the earth before they reached Ilium.”
“Now you have robbed me of great glory and saved them easily, since you had no fear of vengeance afterward. I would make you pay, if only I had the power.” With that he strode toward the city, proud at heart, racing like a prize-winning horse that draws a chariot and runs effortlessly, stretching out across the plain. So swiftly Achilles plied his feet and knees.
Old Priam was the first to see him with his own eyes, flashing as he swept across the plain like the star that rises in late summer, whose rays shine conspicuously among the countless stars in the deep of night—the star men call Orion’s Dog.
Brightest of all it is, yet an evil sign, bringing burning fever to wretched mortals. So the bronze shone about his breast as he ran.
The old man groaned and raised his hands high to beat his head. With a great cry he called out, pleading with his beloved son, who stood before the gates, fiercely intent on fighting Achilles. Stretching out his hands, the old man addressed him piteously: “Hector, my dear child, do not face this man alone, away from the others, or you will soon meet your doom, struck down by the son of Peleus. He is far stronger than you, ruthless man! If only the gods loved him as little as I do! Then dogs and vultures would soon devour him where he lay, and a dreadful grief would lift from my heart. He has robbed me of so many brave sons, killing them or selling them away on distant islands.”
“Even now I cannot see two of my children, Lycaon and Polydorus, among the Trojans who have crowded into the city, the sons Laothoe, queen among women, bore me. If they are alive among the enemy’s army, we will ransom them with bronze and gold, for we have stores at home: old Altes, renowned among men, gave his daughter great wealth.”
“But if they are already dead and in the house of Hades, there will be sorrow in my heart and in their mother’s, who brought them into the world. Yet the grief of the rest of the people will be briefer, if you too do not die, struck down by Achilles.”
“Come inside the wall, my child, so that you may save the Trojan men and women. Do not grant the son of Peleus great glory and lose your own dear life. And pity me, your wretched father, while I can still feel my misery. On the threshold of old age, father Zeus, the son of Cronus, will destroy me by a cruel fate, after I have seen so many horrors: my sons slaughtered, my daughters dragged away, my chambers plundered, little children dashed to the ground in the savagery of war, and my sons’ wives hauled off by the murderous hands of the Achaeans.”
“Last of all, the dogs that eat raw flesh will drag me at my own front door, when someone has struck or stabbed me with sharp bronze and taken the life from my limbs—the very dogs I fed at my table in the palace to guard my doors. They will drink my blood and lie in the gateway, their hearts maddened. For a young man slain in war, torn by sharp bronze, it is fitting to lie dead: whatever is seen of him is beautiful, even in death. But when dogs defile the white head, the white beard, and the naked parts of an old man killed in battle, that is the most pitiful sight of all for wretched mortals.”
So the old man spoke, tearing at his white hair and wrenching it from his head, but he could not sway Hector’s heart. On the other side his mother wept and lamented, loosening her robe and lifting a breast in her hand. Through her tears she spoke winged words to him: “Hector, my child, respect this breast and pity me, if ever I offered it to soothe your troubles. Remember that, dear child, and defend yourself against your enemy from inside the wall. Do not stand out there to face him, cruel man! For if he kills you, I shall never lay you on a bed and mourn you, my dear blossom, whom I myself bore, nor will your richly dowered wife. Far away from us both, beside the Argive ships, swift dogs will devour you.”
So the two of them wept and spoke to their beloved son, pleading earnestly, but they could not sway Hector’s heart. He waited for mighty Achilles to draw near. As a mountain serpent waits beside its hole for a man, fed on poisonous herbs, and dreadful anger fills it as it coils about its lair and glares fiercely, so Hector, with unquenchable courage, would not retreat, but stood with his shining shield propped against a jutting tower. Troubled, he spoke to his own proud heart: “Ah, what misery! If I go inside the gates and walls, Polydamas will be the first to heap reproach on me. He urged me to lead the Trojans back to the city on that dreadful night when godlike Achilles rose to fight.”
“But I would not listen. It would have been far better if I had. Now that I have destroyed my people through my own recklessness, I am ashamed to face the Trojan men and the Trojan women in their trailing robes. Some lesser man may say, ‘Hector trusted in his strength and destroyed his people.’”
“So they will say. Far better for me, then, to face Achilles and either kill him and return, or die gloriously at his hands before the city. But what if I lay down my bossed shield and heavy helmet, lean my spear against the wall, and go out myself to meet noble Achilles? What if I promise him that the sons of Atreus may take Helen and all the wealth with her, everything Alexandros brought to Troy in his hollow ships—the beginning of our quarrel—and that we will share with the Achaeans half of all the other treasures this city holds? Then I could bind the Trojan elders by an oath to hide nothing, but to divide in two all the wealth enclosed within this lovely city. But why does my heart debate these things?”
“If I go to him, he will show me neither pity nor respect, but kill me unarmed, like a woman, once I have stripped off my armor. There is no time now to talk with him of oak or rock, as a maiden and a young man talk together—a maiden and a young man whispering to each other.”
“Better to clash in battle at once. Let us see to which of us the Olympian grants glory.” So he pondered as he waited, and Achilles came close to him, like Enyalius, the helmet-shaking warrior, brandishing over his right shoulder his dreadful spear of Pelian ash. The bronze shone about him like the blaze of burning fire or the rising sun.
At the sight of him, trembling seized Hector. He could no longer bear to stand his ground, but left the gates behind and fled in terror. The son of Peleus sprang after him, trusting in his swift feet.
As a mountain hawk, swiftest of winged creatures, swoops effortlessly after a trembling dove, and she flees before him while he darts close with shrill cries, striking at her again and again, his heart urging him to seize her, so Achilles flew straight on in fury, and Hector fled beneath the Trojan wall, plying his knees swiftly.
Past the lookout and the wind-swept fig tree they raced along the wagon road, always keeping clear of the wall, until they reached the two fair-flowing fountains. There the two springs of eddying Scamander rise.
One flows with warm water, and steam rises from it as though from a blazing fire. The other runs even in summer cold as hail, or freezing snow, or ice formed on water.
Beside them stood broad washing pools, beautiful basins of stone, where the Trojans’ wives and lovely daughters used to wash their shining garments in the days of peace, before the sons of the Achaeans came.
Past these they ran, one fleeing, the other pursuing. A brave man fled before them, but a far better man chased him swiftly. They were not competing for a sacrificial beast or an oxhide, the prizes men win in footraces: they were running for the life of Hector, tamer of horses.
As prize-winning, single-hoofed horses race swiftly round the turning posts, and a great prize is set before them—a tripod or a woman, at the funeral games of a dead man—so the two circled Priam’s city three times on their swift feet, and all the gods looked on. Then the father of gods and men began to speak among them: “Ah, I see with my own eyes a man I love being chased around the wall, and my heart grieves for Hector, who has burned so many ox-thighs for me on the peaks of many-folded Ida, and at other times on the city’s highest point. Now godlike Achilles pursues him on swift feet around Priam’s town.”
“Come, gods, consider and take counsel: shall we save him from death, or let Achilles, son of Peleus, strike him down, brave though he is?” Then the goddess, bright-eyed Athena, answered him: “Father of the flashing thunderbolt, wrapped in dark clouds, what are you saying? Will you free a mortal man from grievous death, when fate marked him out long ago?”
“Do so, then—but the rest of us gods will not all approve.” Zeus the cloud-gatherer answered her: “Take courage, Tritogeneia, dear child. I do not speak in earnest, and I wish to indulge you. Do as your heart intends, and hold back no longer.”
With these words he urged on Athena, who was eager already, and she darted down from the heights of Olympus. Swift Achilles kept pressing Hector in relentless pursuit. As a hound on the mountains chases a deer’s fawn, rousing it from its bed and driving it through glens and hollows, and even if it escapes his sight by crouching beneath a bush, he runs steadily on its trail until he finds it, so Hector could not elude the swift-footed son of Peleus.
Whenever he tried to dash toward the Dardanian Gates, beneath the well-built towers, hoping that those above might defend him with their missiles, Achilles would overtake him and turn him back toward the plain, always keeping himself on the side nearest the city.
As in a dream a man cannot catch the one he pursues, and neither can the fugitive escape nor the pursuer overtake him, so Achilles could not catch Hector on foot, nor could Hector get away.
How could Hector have escaped the spirits of death, had not Apollo come near him for the last and final time, rousing his strength and making his knees swift? Godlike Achilles shook his head at his men, forbidding them to hurl their bitter missiles at Hector, lest someone else strike him and win the glory, leaving Achilles second.
But when they reached the fountains for the fourth time, the Father held out his golden scales and placed in them two dooms of death that lays men low, one for Achilles and one for Hector, tamer of horses. He lifted the balance by its center, and Hector’s destined day sank down toward Hades. Then Phoebus Apollo left him.
The goddess, bright-eyed Athena, came to the son of Peleus, stood close beside him, and spoke winged words: “Now, glorious Achilles, dear to Zeus, I believe the two of us will carry great glory back to the Achaeans beside the ships, when we have killed Hector, insatiable though he is in battle.”
“He can no longer escape us, not even if far-striking Apollo suffers greatly, rolling at the feet of his father Zeus who bears the aegis. But stop now and catch your breath. I will go and persuade him to face you in combat.”
So Athena spoke, and he obeyed, glad at heart, and stood leaning on his bronze-pointed ash spear. She left him and overtook godlike Hector, taking the form and tireless voice of Deiphobus. Standing close beside him, she spoke winged words: “Brother, swift Achilles is pressing you hard, chasing you on his fast feet around Priam’s city. Come, let us stand our ground and defend ourselves.”
Great Hector of the flashing helmet answered her: “Deiphobus, even before this you were by far the dearest to me of all the brothers whom Hecuba and Priam brought into the world. Now I feel I must honor you still more, since you have dared to come outside the wall for my sake, when you saw my plight, while the others remain within.”
The goddess, bright-eyed Athena, answered him: “Brother, our father and our honored mother pleaded with me in turn, clasping my knees, and our comrades gathered round, begging me to stay inside. Such trembling has fallen on them all. But my heart within was worn with bitter grief.”
“Now let us fight with all our fury, and spare no spears, so that we may see whether Achilles will kill us both and carry our bloodstained armor to the hollow ships, or fall beneath your spear.”
So Athena spoke, and led him on by cunning. When the two men had drawn near each other, great Hector of the flashing helmet spoke first: “Son of Peleus, I will no longer flee from you, as I did before, when I ran three times around Priam’s great city and could not bring myself to stand against your coming. Now my heart bids me face you. I shall kill or be killed.”
“But come, let us call the gods to witness, for they are the best witnesses and guardians of agreements. I will not outrage your body terribly, if Zeus grants me endurance and I take your life. When I have stripped you of your glorious armor, Achilles, I will give your body back to the Achaeans. Do the same for me.”
Swift-footed Achilles glared at him and answered: “Hector, you whom I cannot forgive, do not speak to me of agreements. There are no binding oaths between lions and men, nor do wolves and lambs share a common heart, but forever plot harm against each other. So there can be no love between you and me, no oaths between us, until one of us falls and gluts with his blood Ares, the warrior who bears the shield of hide.”
“Summon every kind of courage you possess. Now you must indeed be a spearman and a fearless fighter. There is no escape for you any longer: Pallas Athena will soon strike you down with my spear. Now you will pay in full for all the sorrows of my comrades whom you killed in your raging spear-charge.”
He spoke, balanced his long-shadowed spear, and hurled it. Glorious Hector saw it coming and avoided it: he watched its flight and crouched, and the bronze spear flew over him and stuck in the ground. Pallas Athena snatched it up and gave it back to Achilles, unseen by Hector, shepherd of the people.
Hector spoke to the noble son of Peleus: “You missed! So you did not know my fate from Zeus after all, godlike Achilles, though you claimed you did. You were only glib and deceitful in your words, hoping I would fear you and forget my strength and courage.”
“You will not plant your spear in my back as I run. Drive it straight through my breast as I charge you, if a god has granted you that power. Now in your turn avoid my bronze spear. I wish you might take its whole length into your flesh!”
“War would be lighter for the Trojans if you were dead, for you are their greatest affliction.” He spoke, balanced his long-shadowed spear, and hurled it. He struck the center of the shield of Peleus’ son and did not miss, but the spear glanced far away from the shield. Hector was angered that his swift weapon had flown uselessly from his hand. He stood downcast, for he had no other ash spear.
He called aloud to Deiphobus of the white shield, asking him for a long spear, but Deiphobus was nowhere near him. Then Hector understood in his heart and said: “Ah, the gods have surely summoned me to death. I thought the warrior Deiphobus was beside me, but he is within the wall, and Athena has deceived me.”
“Now evil death is close at hand, no longer far away, and there is no escape. This, then, has long been pleasing to Zeus and to Zeus’s son, the far-striking archer, who until now have gladly protected me. Now fate has caught me.”
“But let me not die without a struggle and without glory. Let me do some great deed that men yet unborn will hear of.” With these words he drew his sharp sword, the great, sturdy blade that hung at his side, gathered himself, and swooped like a high-flying eagle that plunges through dark clouds toward the plain to seize a tender lamb or a cowering hare. So Hector swooped, brandishing his sharp sword.
Achilles charged, his heart filled with savage fury. He covered his breast with his beautiful, cunningly wrought shield, and nodded his shining helmet with its four ridges. The lovely golden horsehair streamed about it, which Hephaestus had set thickly along the crest.
As the evening star moves among the stars in the deep of night, the loveliest star that stands in heaven, so shone the keen spear point Achilles brandished in his right hand, bent on godlike Hector’s destruction, scanning his fair flesh for the place where it would yield most readily.
All the rest of his body was covered by the fine bronze armor he had stripped from mighty Patroclus when he killed him. But there was an opening where the collarbones hold the neck above the shoulders, at the throat, where life is most swiftly lost. There godlike Achilles drove his spear as Hector charged, and the point passed straight through his tender neck. Yet the bronze-weighted ash shaft did not sever his windpipe, so that he could still speak words in answer.
He fell in the dust, and godlike Achilles exulted over him: “Hector, when you stripped Patroclus, you thought you would be safe. You gave no thought to me, far away. Fool! Far from him, beside the hollow ships, I had stayed behind, a far stronger avenger, and I have brought you to your knees. Dogs and birds will tear you shamefully, but the Achaeans will give him burial.”
His strength failing, Hector of the flashing helmet answered him: “I beg you by your life, your knees, and your own parents, do not let the dogs devour me beside the Achaean ships. Accept bronze and gold in abundance, the gifts my father and honored mother will give you, and send my body home, so that the Trojan men and their wives may grant me my portion of fire when I am dead.”
Swift-footed Achilles glared at him and answered: “Do not beg me by my knees or parents, you dog! If only my rage and fury could drive me to cut your flesh away and eat it raw, for what you have done! As surely as that, no one shall keep the dogs from your head—not if they bring ten times, twenty times the ransom and lay it here, and promise more besides; not even if Priam, son of Dardanus, should offer your weight in gold. Not even then shall your honored mother lay you on a bed and mourn the son she bore. Dogs and birds will divide you wholly among them.”
Dying, Hector of the flashing helmet answered him: “Now I look on you and know you well. I was never to persuade you. The heart within your breast is iron.”
“But take care that I do not bring the gods’ wrath upon you, on the day when Paris and Phoebus Apollo destroy you at the Scaean Gates, brave though you are.” As he spoke, the end of death covered him. His soul flew from his limbs and went to Hades, mourning its fate, leaving manhood and youth behind.
Godlike Achilles spoke to him even in death: “Die. I will meet my own doom when Zeus and the other immortal gods choose to bring it about.” He drew the bronze spear from the corpse and laid it aside, then stripped the bloodstained armor from his shoulders. The other sons of the Achaeans ran up around him, marveling at Hector’s stature and splendid beauty. Not one stood beside him without wounding him.
One man would glance at his neighbor and say: “Ah, Hector is far softer to handle now than when he burned our ships with blazing fire.” So each would speak, standing beside him, and stab him.
When swift-footed, godlike Achilles had stripped him, he stood among the Achaeans and spoke winged words: “Friends, leaders and rulers of the Argives, since the gods have granted us victory over this man, who did us more harm than all the rest together, come, let us advance in arms around the city and test the Trojans, to learn what they have in mind: whether they will abandon their high citadel now that this man has fallen, or whether they mean to stand firm, though Hector is no more.”
“But why does my heart debate these things? By the ships lies a corpse, unwept and unburied—Patroclus. I will not forget him while I am among the living and my own knees have strength. Though men forget their dead in the house of Hades, even there I shall remember my dear companion.”
“Come now, sons of the Achaeans, let us return to the hollow ships singing the song of triumph, and take this man with us. We have won great glory: we have killed godlike Hector, to whom the Trojans throughout their city prayed as to a god.”
He spoke, and devised a shameful outrage for godlike Hector. He pierced the tendons behind both feet, from heel to ankle, threaded oxhide thongs through them, and bound them to his chariot, leaving the head to drag. Then he lifted the glorious armor aboard, mounted the chariot, and lashed the horses onward. Willingly the pair flew off.
Dust rose around the body as it was dragged. His dark hair spread about him, and his whole head lay in the dust, once so lovely. Now Zeus had given him to his enemies to outrage in his own native land.
So his whole head was covered in dust. His mother tore her hair and flung her shining veil far away, shrieking loudly at the sight of her son. His dear father groaned piteously, and throughout the city the people were overcome with wailing and lamentation.
It was as though all lofty Ilium were burning from its highest point to its foundations. The people could barely restrain the old man in his anguish, so eager was he to go out through the Dardanian Gates.
Rolling in the filth, he pleaded with them all, calling each man by name: “Leave me, friends. Though you care for me, let me go out of the city alone and make my way to the Achaean ships.”
“Let me plead with this violent, ruthless man. Perhaps he will respect my years and pity my old age. He too has a father such as I am—Peleus, who begot and reared him to become a scourge to the Trojans. But on me, beyond all others, he has heaped sorrows.”
“So many flourishing sons of mine he has killed! Yet for all my grief, I do not mourn them all as I mourn this one, Hector, whose loss will bring me down to Hades in bitter anguish. If only he had died in my arms! Then we could have wept and mourned our fill, his ill-fated mother who bore him, and I myself.”
So he spoke in tears, and the citizens groaned with him. Among the Trojan women Hecuba led the passionate lament: “My child, how wretched I am! Why should I live in such terrible suffering now that you are dead? Night and day you were my pride throughout the city, a blessing to all the Trojan men and women, who welcomed you like a god. For while you lived you were indeed their great glory. Now death and fate have overtaken you.”
So she spoke in tears. But Hector’s wife had heard nothing yet, for no truthful messenger had come to tell her that her husband was still outside the gates. In an inner room of the lofty house she was weaving a double-folded purple cloth, working into it a pattern of many-colored flowers.
She had called to her lovely-haired maids throughout the house to set a great tripod over the fire, so that Hector would have a warm bath when he returned from battle. Poor woman! She did not know that far from any bath, bright-eyed Athena had struck him down by the hands of Achilles.
Then she heard wailing and groaning from the tower. Her limbs shook, and her shuttle fell to the ground. She spoke again to her lovely-haired servants: “Come, two of you, follow me, so that I may see what has happened.”
“I heard the voice of my honored husband’s mother. My heart is pounding up into my mouth, and my knees beneath me are stiff with fear. Some evil is close upon the children of Priam. Would that such words had never reached my ears! But I dread terribly that godlike Achilles has cut my bold Hector off alone from the city and is chasing him across the plain, and may already have put an end to the fatal courage that possessed him. He would never stay among the mass of men, but always ran far ahead, yielding to none in his fury.”
With these words she rushed from the house like a frenzied woman, her heart pounding, and her maids went with her. When she reached the tower and the crowd of men, she stood upon the wall and looked about. Then she saw him being dragged before the city. Swift horses were hauling him pitilessly toward the hollow ships of the Achaeans.
Black night covered her eyes. She fell backward and gasped away her senses. Far from her head she cast the shining bands, the frontlet, the net, the woven headband, and the veil golden Aphrodite had given her on the day Hector of the flashing helmet brought her from Eetion’s house, after giving countless bridal gifts.
Her husband’s sisters and his brothers’ wives crowded about her and held her among them, distraught and near to death. When at last she breathed again and her spirit gathered within her, she broke into sobbing lament among the Trojan women: “Hector, how wretched I am! It seems we both were born to the same fate: you in Troy, in Priam’s house, and I at Thebe beneath wooded Placus, in the house of Eetion, who reared me from a little child—an ill-fated father with an ill-fated daughter. If only he had never begotten me!”
“Now you go down to the house of Hades in the hidden depths of the earth, and leave me in bitter sorrow, a widow in your halls. Our child is still so little, the son you and I brought into the world, unhappy parents. You will be no help to him now that you are dead, Hector, nor he to you.”
“Even if he escapes this tearful war with the Achaeans, toil and sorrow will always follow him. Others will take his fields away. The day that makes a child an orphan strips him of all his friends. His head is always bowed, his cheeks are wet with tears. In his need the child approaches his father’s companions, tugging one by the cloak, another by the tunic. One of them, moved to pity, holds out his cup a little: it wets his lips, but does not wet his palate.”
“A child with both parents living drives him from the feast, striking him with his hands and taunting him: ‘Get out! Your father does not feast with us.’ In tears the child returns to his widowed mother—Astyanax, who once upon his father’s knees ate only marrow and the rich fat of sheep. When sleep took him and he ceased his childish play, he would lie in bed in his nurse’s arms, on a soft couch, his heart full of good things. Now he will suffer much, bereft of his dear father—Astyanax, as the Trojans call him, because you alone defended their gates and lofty walls.”
“But you, beside the beaked ships, far from your parents, the writhing maggots will devour your naked body when the dogs have had their fill. Yet in your halls lie garments, fine and lovely, made by women’s hands.”
“I will burn them all in blazing fire. They can be of no use to you, since you will never lie in them, but let them be your glory before the Trojan men and women.” So she spoke in tears, and the women groaned with her.
