Page:Iliad Buckley.djvu/320

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308
ILIAD. XVI.
643—699.

season, when the milk makes moist the vessel. So they still crowded round the body: nor did Jove ever turn his bright eyes from the violent conflict; but he ever beheld them, and meditated many evil things in his mind concerning the death of Patroclus, anxiously deliberating whether now illustrious Hector should kill him with his spear in the brave battle, over godlike Sarpedon, and spoil the armor from his shoulders, or whether he should still increase the severe labor to the multitude. To him, thus reflecting, it appeared better that the brave servant of Achilles, the son of Peleus, should repulse the Trojans and brazen-armed Hector, toward the city, and take away the life of many. Into Hector, therefore, first [of all], he sent unwarlike fright, and ascending his chariot, he turned himself to flight, and advised the other Trojans to fly, for he recognized the sacred scales of Jove.[1] Then not even the brave Lycians remained, but were all turned in flight, when they beheld their king wounded to the heart, lying in the heap of dead; for many had fallen over him, while the son of Saturn stretched on the violent strife. But after they had taken from the shoulders of Sarpedon the brazen and glittering armor, the gallant son of Menœtius gave them to his companions to carry to the hollow ships; and then cloud-compelling Jove addressed Apollo:

"Come now, dear Phœbus, going, cleanse Sarpedon, [withdrawn] from among the heap of weapons, of sable gore, and afterward bearing him far away, lave him in the stream of the river, and anoint him with ambrosia, and put around him immortal garments, then give him in charge to the twin-brothers, Sleep and Death, swift conductors, to be borne away, who will quickly place him in the rich state of wide Lycia. There will his brethren and kindred perform his obsequies with a tomb and a pillar,[2] for this is the honor of the dead."

Thus he spoke; nor was Apollo inattentive to bis father, but he descended from the Idæan mountains to the grievous conflict. Immediately removing noble Sarpedon out of [the reach of] weapons, and bearing him far away, he laved him

  1. i. e., he perceived that the fortune of the battle was changed by the will of Jove.
  2. i. e., a cippus, or column reared upon the tomb. See Pollux, viii. 14, and the Scriptures Rei Agrim. p. 88, ed. Goes.