or mountain. These last
moreover would rest for a while and leave off fighting, for they were
some distance apart and beyond the range of one another's weapons,
whereas those who were in the thick of the fray suffered both from
battle and darkness. All the best of them were being worn out by the
great weight of their armour, but the two valiant heroes, Thrasymedes
and Antilochus, had not yet heard of the death of Patroclus, and
believed him to be still alive and leading the van against the Trojans;
they were keeping themselves in reserve against the death or rout of
their own comrades, for so Nestor had ordered when he sent them from
the ships into battle.

Thus through the livelong day did they wage fierce war, and the sweat
of their toil rained ever on their legs under them, and on their hands
and eyes, as they fought over the squire of the fleet son of Peleus. It
was as when a man gives a great ox-hide all drenched in fat to his men,
and bids them stretch it; whereon they stand round it in a ring and tug
till the moisture leaves it, and the fat soaks in for the many that
pull at it, and it is well stretched--even so did the two sides tug the
dead body hither and thither within the compass of but a little
space--the Trojans steadfastly set on dragging it into Ilius, while the
Achaeans were no less so on taking it to their ships; and fierce was
the fight between them. Not Mars himself the lord of hosts, nor yet
Minerva, even in their fullest fury could make light of such a battle.

Such fearful turmoil of men and horses did Jove on that day ordain
round the body of Patroclus. Meanwhile Achilles did not know that he
had fallen, for the fight was under the wall of Troy a long way off the
ships. He had no idea, therefore, that Patroclus was dead, and deemed
that he would return alive as soon as he had gone close up to the
gates. He knew that he was not to sack the city neither with nor
without himself, for his mother had often told him this when he had sat
alone with her, and she had informed him of the counsels of great Jove.
Now, however, she had not told him how great a disaster had befallen
him in the death of the one who was far dearest to him of all his
comrades.

The others still kept on charging one another round the body with their
pointed spears and killing each other. Then would one say, "My friends,
we can never again show our faces at the ships--better, and greatly
better, that earth should open and swallo