s prayer; forthwith, therefore, he went among the Lycian
captains, and bade them come to fight about the body of Sarpedon. From
these he strode on among the Trojans to Polydamas son of Panthous and
Agenor; he then went in search of Aeneas and Hector, and when he had
found them he said, "Hector, you have utterly forgotten your allies,
who languish here for your sake far from friends and home while you do
nothing to support them. Sarpedon leader of the Lycian warriors has
fallen--he who was at once the right and might of Lycia; Mars has laid
him low by the spear of Patroclus. Stand by him, my friends, and suffer
not the Myrmidons to strip him of his armour, nor to treat his body
with contumely in revenge for all the Danaans whom we have speared at
the ships."

As he spoke the Trojans were plunged in extreme and ungovernable grief;
for Sarpedon, alien though he was, had been one of the main stays of
their city, both as having much people with him, and himself the
foremost among them all. Led by Hector, who was infuriated by the fall
of Sarpedon, they made instantly for the Danaans with all their might,
while the undaunted spirit of Patroclus son of Menoetius cheered on the
Achaeans. First he spoke to the two Ajaxes, men who needed no bidding.
"Ajaxes," said he, "may it now please you to show yourselves the men
you have always been, or even better--Sarpedon is fallen--he who was
first to overleap the wall of the Achaeans; let us take the body and
outrage it; let us strip the armour from his shoulders, and kill his
comrades if they try to rescue his body."

He spoke to men who of themselves were full eager; both sides,
therefore, the Trojans and Lycians on the one hand, and the Myrmidons
and Achaeans on the other, strengthened their battalions, and fought
desperately about the body of Sarpedon, shouting fiercely the while.
Mighty was the din of their armour as they came together, and Jove shed
a thick darkness over the fight, to increase the toil of the battle
over the body of his son.

At first the Trojans made some headway against the Achaeans, for one of
the best men among the Myrmidons was killed, Epeigeus, son of noble
Agacles who had erewhile been king in the good city of Budeum; but
presently, having killed a valiant kinsman of his own, he took refuge
with Peleus and Thetis, who sent him to Ilius the land of noble steeds
to fight the Trojans under Achilles. Hector now struck him on the head
with a stone just as he