Chapter summary
While Patroclus tends the wounded Eurypylus in the tent, Greeks and Trojans keep fighting en masse, and the narrator interrupts the action to say that the Greeks' ditch and wall will not last. The Greeks raised them to guard the ships and the spoils, but without offering hecatombs to the gods, and so the work was born against the will of the immortals. It stands firm only while Hector lives, Achilles keeps his anger, and Priam's city is not sacked. When Troy falls, in the tenth year, and the Greeks have sailed home to their homeland, Poseidon and Apollo decide to raze it: Apollo turns against the wall the mouths of all the rivers of Ida, and Zeus makes it rain without stop for nine days, while Poseidon, with his trident, carries the foundations into the sea and covers the beach with sand. That will happen only later. For now the wall rings under the blows, and the Greeks, under the lash of Zeus, are trapped by the ships, afraid of Hector, who fights like a storm.
Hector wants to lead the Trojans across the ditch, but the horses neigh at the edge and do not dare: the ditch is wide, has steep banks on both sides and, at the top, stakes driven in by the Greeks to stop the enemy, and no chariot gets in there easily. Polydamas, who stands beside Hector, proposes leaving the horses with the charioteers at the ditch and all going on foot, armed. He explains what he fears: if Zeus truly wants the ruin of the Greeks, let it happen now; but if the Greeks resist and the Trojans are trapped against the ditch, not one messenger will return to the city. Hector likes the counsel, leaps from the chariot in his arms, and the other Trojans imitate him on seeing it. Each chief orders his charioteer to hold the horses in order at the edge of the ditch, and the army divides into five columns: Hector and Polydamas lead the first; Paris, Alcathous and Agenor, the second; Helenus and Deiphobus, with Asius, the third; Aeneas, the fourth; and Sarpedon, with Glaucus and Asteropaeus, the allies, the fifth.
Only Asius, son of Hyrtacus, does not leave his horses and charioteer behind: he drives the chariot up to the ships, on the left side, where the fleeing Greeks usually come in, and finds the gate open, without bars, left so as to take in whoever escapes the war. The narrator calls him a fool, because he would not return to Ilium exulting in his chariot: before that, an evil fate would cover him, by the spear of Idomeneus. Before the gate stand two Lapiths, Polypoetes and Leonteus, firm as oaks with deep roots, confident in their hands and strength. When the Trojans arrive, the two come out and fight like wild boars awaiting dogs and hunters, while from above the Greeks throw stones to defend themselves, their tents and their ships. Asius strikes his thighs and accuses Zeus of lying, because he had not imagined that the Greeks would resist. The narrator replies that the complaint does not move Zeus, whose heart wants to give glory to Hector. The two Lapiths kill one man after another; around the other gates the fight is the same, and the gods who help the Danaans suffer to see the battle.
At the ditch, still on foot and undecided, Hector and Polydamas with their column see an omen: a high-flying eagle, on the left, crosses the army carrying in its talons a huge serpent, blood-red, still alive and writhing, which has not forgotten the fight. The serpent bites the eagle on the breast, near the neck, and the eagle, in pain, drops it in the midst of the crowd and flies off screaming into the wind. The Trojans tremble at seeing the serpent fallen among them, a sign from Zeus. Polydamas reads the omen as a warning and asks Hector not to attack the ships: if they break through gates and wall and the Greeks yield, the Trojans will not return in order, and many will be left dead, like the eagle that dropped its prey before reaching its nest. He says that a seer who knew how to read signs and was obeyed by the people would speak in the same way, and he first apologizes: Hector rebukes him in assembly whenever he says what is good, though it is not fitting for a commoner to speak against his leader, either in council or in war. Hector looks at him sidelong and answers that this does not please him. If Polydamas speaks in earnest, the gods have taken his wits, for he tells him to forget the design of Zeus, which was promised to Hector and confirmed with a nod, and to obey birds with spread wings, which Hector does not even heed, whether they come from the right, toward the dawn, or from the left, toward the dark. Let all obey the great Zeus: the best omen is to defend the homeland. He adds that Polydamas fears war because, even if all the others die by the ships, he will not be in danger, since his heart is neither firm nor warlike; and that if he withdraws from combat or dissuades anyone with words, he will die on the spot, pierced by Hector's spear.
Hector leads the Trojans on, and they follow him with a huge clamor. Zeus, who delights in the lightning, raises a windstorm from the mountains of Ida that drives the dust straight against the ships, bewitches the spirit of the Achaeans, and gives glory to the Trojans and to Hector. Trusting in the portents of Zeus and in their own strength, the Trojans try to break the wall: they tear away the parapets of the towers, knock down the battlements, and force with levers the posts that the Greeks first sank into the ground as the supports of the towers. The Greeks cover the battlements with oxhides and shoot from there at whoever comes near. The Ajax, son of Telamon, and the Ajax son of Oileus go along the towers, encouraging the men, some with gentle words, others with harsh ones, when they see someone slacken. They say that men are not all alike in war, but now there is work for everyone; that no one should return to the ships for hearing someone rebuke him; and that each should advance and urge on his neighbor, so that Zeus may grant them to drive the enemy back to the city. The stones fly from side to side like snowflakes, and the whole wall rings.
Even so, the Trojans and Hector would not have broken the gates if Zeus had not sent his son Sarpedon against the Argives, like a lion against oxen. Sarpedon advances with his beaten bronze shield and two spears, like a mountain lion, long without meat, which bold spirit leads to the fold and which, though it finds shepherds armed with dogs and spears, does not agree to leave without trying: either it seizes the prey or falls wounded among the first. So his spirit drives him to scale the wall and break through the battlements. He turns to Glaucus and asks why in Lycia the two of them are honored above all, with the seat of honor, the meats and the full cups, looked upon as gods, and lords of a great domain on the banks of the Xanthus, with orchard and wheat field. For this reason it falls to them to stand among the first Lycians and face the burning combat, so that people may say that the kings of Lycia are not without glory, that they eat rich meat and drink sweet wine, but also have valiant strength, for they fight at the front. If flight from war would make them immortal and ageless, he himself would not fight in the front rank nor send Glaucus into the combat that gives glory; but the Keres of death stand over both of them, countless, and no mortal escapes them: they must go, and either give glory to someone or receive it. Glaucus does not turn aside or disobey, and the two advance, leading the great host of the Lycians.
Menestheus, son of Peteus, sees the Lycians march toward the tower he guards and trembles, because they bring ruin. He searches among the Greek leaders for someone who can turn back the disaster threatening his companions, and he sees the two Ajaxes and Teucer, who has just come from the tent, but the din of shields, helmets, and battered gates is so great that shouting is useless. So he sends the herald Thoote to summon Ajax, both of them if possible, because soon there will be ruin there; if the combat weighs on them where they are, at least let the son of Telamon come, with Teucer, master of the bow. Ajax obeys: he entrusts the son of Oileus and Lycomedes with rousing the Danaans, and goes with Teucer and Pandion, who carries the bow. They reach the tower just as the Lycians, like a dark storm, climb the parapets, and the fighting begins.
Ajax first strikes down Epicles, a companion of Sarpedon, with a block of stone that no man of today could lift with both hands; Epicles falls from the tower like a diver, his skull crushed. Teucer shoots Glaucus, who was charging at the wall, at the point where he sees the arm uncovered, and makes him stop his fury. Glaucus leaps down from the wall in secret, so that no Achaean will see him wounded and boast. Sarpedon suffers to see Glaucus leave, but does not forget the fight: he kills Alcmaon with his spear, grabs the parapet with both hands and drags it down, and the wall is stripped bare and opens a way for many. Ajax and Teucer aim at him together: Teucer's arrow strikes the shining strap of the shield, but Zeus turns the Keres away from his son, so that he will not be cut down beside the sterns of the ships; Ajax strikes the shield and pushes him back. Sarpedon gives way a little, but does not withdraw altogether, because his spirit hopes to win glory. He turns and shouts to the Lycians: why do you slacken your ardor? Strong as he is, he alone cannot force a way through to the ships, and he asks them to follow him, because the work of many is better. Fearing the king's command, the Lycians press in around him. On the other side, the Argives reinforce their ranks inside the wall; the task is heavy for both, because the Lycians cannot break the wall and open a passage to the ships, nor can the Danaans drive back the Lycians once they have come close. Towers and parapets are soaked with blood on both sides, and still the Trojans cannot put the Achaeans to flight: the struggle stays even, like the scales of an honest woman who works wool.
Then Zeus gives greater glory to Hector, the first to leap inside the wall of the Achaeans. Hector shouts to the Trojans to rise up, tamers of horses, to break the wall and hurl fire at the ships. All hear him and hurl themselves en masse against the wall, climbing with sharpened spears. Hector picks up a stone that lies before the gates, thick at the base and pointed at the top, which two of the best men among the people could not lift from the ground onto a wagon, and he handles it alone with ease, because the son of Cronus makes it light. Like a shepherd who carries a ram's fleece in one hand, he carries it to the high gates, closed by two bars and a bolt, spreads his legs to steady his throw, and hurls it into the middle: it breaks both hinges, the stone falls inward under its weight, the gates roar, the bars do not hold, and the leaves splinter. Hector leaps inside, like swift night, with terrible bronze gleaming, two spears in his hands and eyes ablaze, and no one, except a god, could stop him. He calls the Trojans to scale the wall; they obey, some climbing, others entering through the gates, and the Danaans flee to the hollow ships in endless uproar.
Analysis
The song treats the Greeks' wall as a work with a deadline. The narrator says in advance that it was built without sacrifices and against the will of the gods, and he places the wrath of Achilles among the conditions for its endurance, alongside the life of Hector and the city of Priam. When Hector breaks through the gate, what gives way is a protection that the Greeks built without the consent of the gods, and that depended in part on a man who stayed out of the war. The song also has Hector and Polydamas disagree about the omen, and the two are right in different plans: Polydamas reads the price, the dead the Trojans will leave behind if they force their way, and Hector reads the promise of Zeus, which the song confirms by giving him the wind, the light stone, and the open gate. The poem does not judge Hector's decision: it shows that the decision has divine guarantee, and that the cost announced by Polydamas has not yet been collected in this song.
The code of honor is stated in two ways that complete each other. Sarpedon explains to Glaucus that the honors received in Lycia, the seat, the meat, the cup, the land, are the advance payment of a duty: whoever has received must be at the front. And he sees the duty only because of death, because if fleeing the war made one immortal, he would not fight. Hector speaks of the same duty from another angle: for him, defending the fatherland needs no other signs. In neither case is honor an ornament; it is the answer to a death that cannot be avoided. The song also recalls the hidden face of honor: Glaucus, wounded, leaps down from the wall in secret so that no Achaean will see him and boast.
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