previous next
So spake he, and went back again, a god into the toil of men. Then unto wise-hearted Cebriones glorious Hector gave command to lash his horses into the battle. But Apollo went his way, and entered into the throng, and sent an evil panic upon the Argives, [730] and vouchsafed glory to the Trojans and to Hector. But Hector let be the other Danaans, neither sought to stay them, but drave his strong-hoofed horses against Patroclus; and Patroclus over against him leapt from his chariot to the ground with a spear in his left hand, [735] while with the other he grasped a stone, shining and jagged, that his hand compassed about. Firmly he planted himself, and hurled it, neither had he long awe of his foe, nor sped he his missile in vain, but smote the charioteer of Hector, even Cebriones, a bastard son of glorious Priam, upon the forehead with the sharp stone, as he was holding the reins of the horses. [740] And both his brows did the stone dash together, and the bone held not, but the eyes fell to the ground in the dust even there, before his feet. And like a diver he fell from the well-wrought car, and his spirit left his bones. Then with mocking words didst thou speak to him, knight Patroclus: [745] “Hah, look you, verily nimble is the man; how lightly he diveth! In sooth if he were on the teeming deep, this man would satisfy many by seeking for oysters, leaping from his ship were the sea never so stormy, seeing that now on the plain he diveth lightly from his car. Verily among the Trojans too there be men that dive.”

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide References (7 total)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: