o was his wife and sister, "Alas, that it should be the lot of
Sarpedon whom I love so dearly to perish by the hand of Patroclus. I am
in two minds whether to catch him up out of the fight and set him down
safe and sound in the fertile land of Lycia, or to let him now fall by
the hand of the son of Menoetius."

And Juno answered, "Most dread son of Saturn, what is this that you are
saying? Would you snatch a mortal man, whose doom has long been fated,
out of the jaws of death? Do as you will, but we shall not all of us be
of your mind. I say further, and lay my saying to your heart, that if
you send Sarpedon safely to his own home, some other of the gods will
be also wanting to escort his son out of battle, for there are many
sons of gods fighting round the city of Troy, and you will make every
one jealous. If, however, you are fond of him and pity him, let him
indeed fall by the hand of Patroclus, but as soon as the life is gone
out of him, send Death and sweet Sleep to bear him off the field and
take him to the broad lands of Lycia, where his brothers and his
kinsmen will bury him with mound and pillar, in due honour to the dead."

The sire of gods and men assented, but he shed a rain of blood upon the
earth in honour of his son whom Patroclus was about to kill on the rich
plain of Troy far from his home.

When they were now come close to one another Patroclus struck
Thrasydemus, the brave squire of Sarpedon, in the lower part of the
belly, and killed him. Sarpedon then aimed a spear at Patroclus and
missed him, but he struck the horse Pedasus in the right shoulder, and
it screamed aloud as it lay, groaning in the dust until the life went
out of it. The other two horses began to plunge; the pole of the
chariot cracked and they got entangled in the reins through the fall of
the horse that was yoked along with them; but Automedon knew what to
do; without the loss of a moment he drew the keen blade that hung by
his sturdy thigh and cut the third horse adrift; whereon the other two
righted themselves, and pulling hard at the reins again went together
into battle.

Sarpedon now took a second aim at Patroclus, and again missed him, the
point of the spear passed over his left shoulder without hitting him.
Patroclus then aimed in his turn, and the spear sped not from his hand
in vain, for he hit Sarpedon just where the midriff surrounds the
ever-beating heart. He fell like some oak or silver poplar or tall pine
to which w