Not knowing that Aesacus had gained wings, his father Priam mourned him as dead. At a tomb that bore his name, Hector and his brothers had made empty funeral offerings. Paris wasn't there for that sad ceremony. Later, he would bring long war to his homeland with the wife he'd stolen. A thousand ships sworn together followed, carrying the united Greek forces. Vengeance wouldn't have been delayed except that savage winds made the seas impassable, and the Boeotian land at fish-rich Aulis held back the ships ready to sail.

---

There, following ancestral custom, they'd prepared sacrifice to Jupiter. When the ancient altar blazed with kindled fires, the Greeks saw a dark blue serpent gliding up a plane tree that stood near the sacred rites. At the top of the tree was a nest with eight baby birds. The serpent seized them all, along with their mother flying frantically around her loss, and swallowed them in its greedy jaws.

Everyone was stunned. But Calchas, prophet who sees the truth, son of Thestor, said, "We'll win! Rejoice, Greeks! Troy will fall—but our labor will take a long time." And he divided the nine birds into the nine years of war. The serpent, still wrapped around the green branches in the tree, turned to stone, its form preserving the image of a snake.

Fierce north winds kept blowing across the Boeotian waters, preventing the fleet from sailing. Some believed Neptune was sparing Troy because he'd built the city's walls. But not Calchas. He knew—and didn't hide the truth—that the virgin goddess's anger must be appeased with virgin blood. Once duty to the public cause prevailed and the king conquered the father in him, Iphigenia stood before the altar, ready to give her chaste blood while the attendants wept. But the goddess was moved. She threw a cloud before their eyes, and amid the ceremony's confusion, the sacred ritual, the chanting prayers, they say she replaced the girl from Mycenae with a deer.

So when Diana was appeased with a killing befitting her, and the fury of Phoebe and the sea's fury both subsided, the thousand ships caught favorable winds at their backs. After enduring much, they landed on the Trojan shore.

---

At the center of the world lies a place between land, sea, and sky—the boundary of the threefold universe. From here, everything that exists anywhere, however distant, can be observed. Every voice penetrates to its hollow ears. Fame holds this spot. She chose her home on the highest peak. She added countless entrances and a thousand openings to the building and installed no doors at the thresholds. It stands open night and day. The whole structure is made of echoing bronze. The whole place hums and repeats voices, echoing back whatever it hears. There's no quiet inside, no silence in any part. Yet there's no shouting either, just the murmur of low voices—like the sound of ocean waves if you listen from far off, or like the rumble distant thunder makes when Jupiter has crashed dark clouds together.

Crowds fill the halls. A fickle mob comes and goes. Thousands of rumors mixed with truth wander everywhere, rolling confused words around. Some fill idle ears with talk. Others carry stories elsewhere. The measure of fiction grows, and each new teller adds something to what they've heard. Here dwells Credulity, here reckless Error, groundless Joy, panicked Fears, sudden Sedition, and Whispers from dubious sources. Fame herself watches what happens in heaven, on the sea, and on the earth. She investigates the entire world.

---

Fame had made it known that the Greeks were approaching with a strong fighting force. The enemy wasn't unexpected—they arrived armed. The Trojans defended the shores and guarded the access points. And you, Protesilaus, were the first to fall—fated to die by Hector's spear. The early battles cost the Greeks dearly. They learned what Hector's fierce spirit could do. The Trojans, too, discovered at no small cost what Greek fighting hands could achieve. Already the Sigean shores ran red with blood. Already Neptune's son Cycnus had killed a thousand men. Already Achilles was pressing forward in his chariot, mowing down whole battalions with strikes from his Pelian ash spear. Searching through the ranks for either Cycnus or Hector, he encountered Cycnus. Hector's fate was delayed for ten years.

Then, urging on his white-necked horses straining at the yoke, Achilles steered his chariot toward the enemy. Shaking his quivering spear with powerful arms, he said, "Whoever you are, young man, take comfort in your death—you were killed by Achilles from Thessaly!" That was all the son of Aeacus said. His heavy spear followed his words. Though the spear flew true with no error in its aim, the sharp iron point accomplished nothing. It barely bruised Cycnus's chest with a blunt impact.

"Son of a goddess—for your reputation reached us first," Cycnus said, "why are you surprised I have no wound?" (Achilles was indeed surprised.) "This helmet you see with its tawny horsehair crest, this curved shield my left arm carries—these aren't what protect me. They're just for decoration. That's why Mars wears armor too! Even if this protection were stripped away, I'd still leave without a scratch. It means something to be born not from some sea-nymph but from the god who rules Nereus, his daughters, and the entire ocean."

With that, he hurled a spear that would stick in Achilles' curved shield. It pierced the bronze and the nine layers of oxhide beneath, but stopped at the tenth layer. The hero shook it off and hurled his quivering weapon again with his strong hand. Again Cycnus's body remained unharmed and whole. A third spear couldn't wound Cycnus either, though he stood exposed and offered himself as a target.

Achilles blazed up like a bull in an open arena when it charges the crimson cloaks with its terrible horns—and realizes its attacks are being evaded. He checked to see if the iron point had fallen from the spear shaft. It was still attached to the wood. "Is my hand weak, then?" he said. "Has the strength it had before drained away on this one enemy? It certainly had strength when I was first to storm the walls of Lyrnessus, when I filled Tenedos and Eetion's Thebes with their own blood, when the Caicus river ran purple with slaughter of its people, when Telephus felt my spear's work twice. Here too, among the piles of dead I've made and can see scattered along the shore, my right hand has been powerful and remains so."

He spoke as if doubting his earlier deeds. Then he hurled his spear at Menoetes, a man from the Lycian ranks. It broke through his breastplate and the chest beneath. As Menoetes beat his dying head against the hard ground, Achilles pulled the weapon from the warm wound and said, "This is the hand, this is the spear with which I just won! I'll use the same against him. May the outcome be the same, I pray!" He spoke and aimed at Cycnus again. The ash shaft flew true and rang against his left shoulder—couldn't be dodged. But it bounced back as if from a wall or solid cliff. Yet where Cycnus had been struck, Achilles saw him marked with blood. His joy was premature—there was no wound. The blood belonged to Menoetes!

Then Achilles truly raged. He leaped headlong from his high chariot, roaring, and attacked his unworried enemy close up with his gleaming sword. He saw the sword carve through the shield and helmet, but even the hard blade was damaged against Cycnus's tough body. He couldn't bear it any longer. Shield-boss facing forward, he battered Cycnus's face three, four times with the sword's hilt and hollow temples. He pressed forward as Cycnus gave ground, pursuing him, confusing him, overwhelming him, allowing the dazed man no rest. Terror seized Cycnus. Darkness swam before his eyes. As he staggered backward, a stone in the middle of the field blocked his retreating steps. Achilles threw his weight against it, toppling Cycnus's body backward, then slammed him violently to the ground.

Pressing hard on Cycnus's chest with shield and ruthless knees, Achilles yanked at the helmet straps. Fastened under the chin, they crushed Cycnus's throat, cutting off breath, blocking the passage of life. Achilles prepared to strip his defeated enemy—but found only abandoned armor. The god of the sea had transformed the body into the white bird whose name Cycnus had just borne.

---

This battle, this fight over many days, brought rest to both sides. Each army laid down its arms. While vigilant guards watched the Trojan walls and vigilant guards watched the Greek trenches, a feast day arrived. Achilles, victor over Cycnus, was appeasing Pallas with the blood of a slaughtered cow. When he'd placed the entrails on the heated altars and the fragrance pleasing to the gods rose into the air, the sacred rites took their portion. The rest was set out for the feast. The leaders reclined on couches, satisfying their bodies with roasted meat and washing away their cares and thirst with wine.

No lyres entertained them, no songs, no long flute of boxwood with many holes. Instead, they drew out the night with conversation. Courage was their topic. They recounted battles—the enemy's and their own. Again and again they took turns recalling the dangers they'd faced and escaped. What else would Achilles talk about? What else would others talk about in great Achilles' presence?

The recent victory over conquered Cycnus dominated the conversation. Everyone thought it remarkable that the young man's body couldn't be penetrated by any weapon, was invincible against wounds, and blunted iron. Achilles himself and all the Greeks marveled at this.

Then Nestor spoke: "In your generation, Cycnus alone scorned iron and couldn't be pierced by any blow. But I myself once saw a man who endured a thousand wounds with his body unharmed—Caeneus of Thessaly. Caeneus of Thessaly, famous for his deeds, who lived on Mount Othrys. What made this even more remarkable—he'd been born a woman."

The strangeness of this marvel stirred everyone present. They asked him to tell the story. Among them, Achilles said, "Please, speak! We all want to hear this. O eloquent old man, wisdom of our age—who was Caeneus? Why was he changed into the opposite sex? In what campaign, in what battle did you meet him? Who defeated him, if anyone defeated him?"

The old man replied: "Though slow old age obstructs me, and many things I witnessed in my early years escape me, I still remember much. Nothing sticks more firmly in my mind among all the events of war and peace. And if long life can make someone a witness to many deeds, I've lived two hundred years. Now I'm living my third century.

---

"Caenis, daughter of Elatus, was renowned for her beauty—the most beautiful virgin in Thessaly. Throughout the nearby cities and throughout yours too, Achilles (for she was your countrywoman), many suitors hoped for her hand in vain. Peleus might have tried to win her too, but by then he'd either already married your mother or been promised to her. Caenis married no one. She was walking along a deserted beach when she suffered the violence of the sea god—or so the story went. After Neptune took pleasure in this new love, he said, 'Your wishes won't fear rejection. Choose what you want!'—the same story reported this too.

"Caenis answered, 'This injury I've suffered makes me ask a great favor—that I never be able to suffer such a thing again. Make me not a woman, and you'll have given me everything.' She spoke the last words in a deeper voice. Her voice could have seemed a man's—and indeed it was. For already the god of the deep sea had granted her wish and given something more besides: she couldn't be wounded by any blow or fall by the sword. Delighted with the gift, Caeneus, child of Atrax, lived out his years in manly pursuits and wandered through the Penean plains.

---

"Ixion's bold son had married Hippodame. He'd invited the cloud-born Centaurs to recline at tables arranged in order in a leafy cave beneath the trees. The Thessalian chiefs were there. We were there too. The festive palace rang with the joyful commotion. Look—they were singing the wedding hymn! The halls smoked with fires. The bride arrived, surrounded by a crowd of matrons and young wives, remarkable for her beauty. We declared Pirithous lucky in his bride—which nearly made our blessing a curse.

"For you, Eurytus, most savage of savage Centaurs—your chest was inflamed as much by wine as by the sight of the virgin. Drunkenness doubled by lust took command. Immediately the tables were overturned, throwing the feast into chaos. The new bride was seized by the hair and dragged away by force. Eurytus grabbed Hippodame. The others seized whichever woman each desired or could grab. It looked like a captured city. The house echoed with women's screams. Immediately we all jumped up.

"Theseus was first: 'What madness drives you, Eurytus,' he said, 'that you provoke Pirithous while I'm alive? Don't you know that in attacking him, you attack two men in one?' The great-hearted hero didn't speak in vain. He pushed back those pressing forward and tore the bride away from the frenzied Centaurs.

"Eurytus said nothing in reply—such deeds can't be defended with words—but attacked his accuser's face with insolent fists and beat his noble chest. An ancient mixing bowl happened to be nearby, rough with raised designs. Huge as it was, the even huger son of Aegeus lifted it and hurled it straight into Eurytus's face. He vomited clots of blood mixed with brains and wine through both his wound and his mouth, then kicked and thrashed on his back in the wet sand. His two-formed brothers burned with rage at his death. All together they shouted with one voice: 'Weapons! Weapons!'

"Wine gave them courage. In the first assault flew wine cups, fragile mixing bowls, and curved serving dishes—things once for feasting, now fit for war and slaughter.

---

"Amycus, son of Ophion, was first to plunder the inner shrine of its decorations. First from the sanctuary he grabbed a chandelier thick with blazing lamps. Lifting it high, like someone about to split a white bull's neck with the sacrificial axe, he smashed it into the forehead of the Lapith Celadon, leaving the bones of his face crushed beyond recognition. His eyes burst from their sockets. The bones of his face were shattered. His nose was driven backward and stuck to the center of his palate.

"But Pelates from Pella knocked him to the ground with the leg torn from a maple table—drove his chin down into his chest—and as Amycus spat teeth mixed with dark blood, sent him with a second blow to the shades of Tartarus.

"Gryneus stood next, staring at the smoking altar with a terrifying expression. 'Why not use these?' he said. He lifted up the massive altar with its fires and hurled it into the middle of the Lapith ranks, crushing two men—Broteas and Orion. Orion's mother was Mycale, known for successfully chanting down the unwilling moon's horns with her spells.

"'You won't get away with this if I can find a weapon!' shouted Exadius. He found one—a stag's antlers that had been hung on a tall pine as a votive offering. He drove the double-pronged branch into Gryneus's eyes, gouging them out. Part of the eyes stuck to the horns. Part flowed down into his beard and hung there, thick with blood.

"Look—Rhoetus grabbed a blazing torch of holm oak from the center of the altars and smashed it into Charaxus's right temple, protected though it was by tawny hair. The hair caught fire like dry grain and burned up in quick flames. The blood in his wound, seared by the heat, made a terrible hissing sound—like iron red-hot in the fire often does when a blacksmith pulls it out with curved tongs and plunges it into water, and it hisses and sputters in the nervous pool.

"Wounded, Charaxus shook the greedy flame from his singed hair, lifted up a threshold stone torn from the ground—a wagon's load—and hoisted it onto his shoulders. But its very weight kept him from hurling it at his enemy. The rocky mass crushed Cometes, who was standing close beside him.

"Rhoetus couldn't contain his joy. 'I hope the rest of your brave troop fights like that!' he said, and with the half-burned log renewed his attack on Charaxus's head, beating it again and again with heavy blows. He smashed through the joints of his skull until the bones sank into the liquid brain.

"Victorious, he moved on to Euagrus, Corythus, and Dryas. When Corythus fell—his cheeks covered with their first down—Euagrus said, 'What glory do you win killing a boy?' Rhoetus wouldn't let him say more. Savage, he drove the blazing torch deep into Euagrus's open, speaking mouth and through the mouth into his chest in flames. You too, cruel Dryas—Rhoetus went after you, whirling the fire around your head. But the outcome wasn't the same for you. As he was gloating in his continuous slaughter, you stabbed him where neck joins shoulder with a fire-hardened stake. Rhoetus groaned and barely pulled the stake from the hard bone, then ran off soaked in his own blood.

"Orneus fled too, and Lycabas, and Medon wounded in the right shoulder, and Thaumas, and Pisenor, and Mermeros—who'd recently beaten everyone in a footrace but now walked slower because of his wound. Pholus fled, and Melaneus, and Abas the boar-hunter, and the augur Asbolus who'd vainly warned his comrades against this war. He even said to the fearful Nessus, 'Don't run! You'll be saved for Hercules's arrows.'

"But Eurynomus, Lycidas, Areos, and Imbreus didn't escape death. Dryas's right hand struck them all as they faced him head-on. You too, Crenaeus, took a frontal wound though you'd turned your back in flight. Looking backward, you took heavy iron right between your eyes, where nose joins forehead.

---

"Amid all this uproar, Aphidas lay sleeping endlessly, sunk in slumber, veins heavy with wine, never waking. He was sprawled on a shaggy bearskin from Mount Ossa, holding a mixing cup in his limp hand, serving no purpose in the fight. When Phorbas saw him from a distance moving no weapon, he wound his fingers into the throwing strap and said, 'You'll mix your wine with the river Styx instead!' Without further delay he hurled the javelin at the young man. The iron-tipped ash shaft pierced his neck as he lay on his back. Death came without sensation. Black blood poured from his full throat onto the couches and into the cups themselves.

"I saw Petraeus trying to uproot an oak heavy with acorns from the earth. While he wrapped his arms around it, shaking it this way and that, hurling the loosened timber, Pirithous's spear, sent into Petraeus's ribs, pinned his chest to the hard oak as it struggled. Lycus was said to have fallen by Pirithous's courage, Chromis too by Pirithous's courage, but each brought their victor less glory than Dictys and Helops did. Helops was pierced by a javelin that went through his temples—sent from the right side, it penetrated to the left ear. Dictys, fleeing in panic from Ixion's attacking son, slipped on the steep slope of a two-edged mountain, fell headlong, and broke a huge ash tree with the weight of his body, impaling his guts on the shattered branches.

"Aphareus came as avenger and tried to hurl a rock torn from the mountain. As he struggled, the son of Aegeus struck him with an oaken club and shattered the huge bones of his elbow. No time or need to finish off his useless body for death—Theseus leaped onto the back of tall Bienor, who was used to carrying no one but himself. He pressed a knee into his ribs, grabbed his hair in his left hand, and with a knotted club smashed his threatening face and hard temples.

"With that club he laid low Nedymnus, the javelin-thrower Lycopes, Hippason whose chest was protected by a flowing beard, Ripheus who towered above the highest forests, and Thereus, who used to capture bears on Thessalian mountains and bring them home alive and raging.

"Demoleon couldn't bear to see Theseus succeeding in battle any longer. He tried with great effort to pull up an ancient pine from its solid trunk. When he couldn't, he broke it off and hurled it at his enemy. But Theseus stepped back from the coming missile, warned by Pallas—or so he wanted people to believe. Yet the tree didn't fall uselessly. It severed the neck, chest, and left shoulder of tall Crantor. He'd been the armor-bearer of your father, Achilles—Amyntor, king of the Dolopians, conquered in war, had given him to Aeacus as a pledge and proof of peace.

"When Peleus saw Crantor from a distance, mangled by the terrible wound, he said, 'At least accept funeral offerings, dearest of young men!' With his powerful arm he hurled his ash spear with all his strength at Demoleon. It broke through the ribcage and stuck quivering in the bones. Demoleon pulled out the shaft with his hand—even that barely came free. The spearhead stayed lodged in his lung. Pain itself gave strength to his spirit. Wounded, he reared up against his enemy and trampled the man beneath his horse hooves.

"Peleus received the blows clanging on helmet and shield. He protected his shoulders and held his outstretched weapons firm, then with a single thrust drove his weapon through both shoulders, piercing two chests. But earlier, from a distance, he'd already sent Phlegreas and Hyles to their deaths, and in close combat Iphinous and Clanis. To these he added Dorylas, who wore a wolf's hide on his temples, and instead of a cruel weapon carried the curving horns of an ox, red with much blood.

"I said to him—for courage gave me strength—'See how much your horns yield to my iron!' And I hurled my javelin. Since he couldn't dodge it, he raised his right hand to protect his forehead from the wound. His hand was pinned to his forehead. A shout went up. But Peleus, who was standing closer, struck him in the middle of the belly with his sword while he stood there frozen by the brutal wound. He leaped forward savagely and dragged his own guts along the ground. He walked on the dragged entrails and crushed them underfoot, and with his belly emptied, he collapsed. His entangled legs tripped him up.

---

"Your beauty didn't save you in battle, Cyllarus—if we grant that such a creature has beauty. His beard was just beginning to grow. The beard's color was golden. Golden hair hung from his shoulders to the middle of his back. An attractive vigor showed in his face. His neck, shoulders, hands, and chest looked as fine as sculptures praised by artists—and whatever was man in him. The horse-half beneath wasn't inferior to the man—no flaw there. Give him neck and head, and he'd be worthy of Castor. His back was perfect for a rider. His chest was high and muscular. All of him was blacker than black pitch, except his tail and legs, which were white.

"Many females of his race wanted him, but Hylonome alone won him—the most beautiful woman living among the half-wild creatures in the deep forests. She alone held Cyllarus with endearments, with loving and admitting love, and with grooming too—as much as those limbs allowed—so her hair was smooth from the comb, so she sometimes wove sea-rosemary or violets or roses into it, sometimes wore white lilies. Twice a day she washed her face in the springs that flow down from Pagasae's wooded height. Twice a day she bathed her body in the river. She draped only the finest pelts of choice wild beasts over her left shoulder or side. Their love was equal. Together they wandered the mountains. Together they entered caves. They'd entered the Lapith dwelling together and were fighting the savage battle together now.

"A javelin—from which direction, unknown—came from the left and struck you, Cyllarus, where chest extends below neck. The heart, barely wounded, went cold when the weapon was pulled from the body. Immediately Hylonome caught his dying limbs in her arms, pressed her hand to the wound, put her mouth to his mouth, tried to block his fleeing spirit. When she saw he was dead—her words were kept from my ears by the shouting—she fell on the weapon that had stuck in him and, dying, embraced her husband.

---

"There's still before my eyes the one who'd bound together six lion hides with knotted fastenings—Phaeocomes—protecting both man and horse. He hurled a log that would barely move two yoke of oxen and crushed Tectaphus, son of Olenus, from the top of his head downward. The wide curve of his skull was shattered. Through mouth, through hollow nostrils, through eyes and ears, the soft brain flowed out—like milk thickened in woven oak-wood baskets usually does, or like liquid oozing from holes of a loose sieve, pressed out thick through the dense openings.

"But as he prepared to strip the fallen man's armor—your father knows this, Achilles—I drove my sword deep into the despoiler's groin. Cthonius and Teleboas fell by my sword too. One had carried a forked branch, the other a javelin. The javelin gave me a wound—you can see the mark. An old scar still shows there. Back then I should have been sent to capture Troy! Back then I could have held—if not defeated—great Hector's forces with mine. But at that time either Hector didn't exist yet, or he was still a boy. Now my years have failed me.

"Why should I tell you about Periphantes, victor over double-formed Pyraethus? Or Ampyx, who drove a spear—though it had no point—into the face of four-legged Eche clus? Macareus from Pelethroni um laid low Erigdupus, driving a crowbar into his chest. I remember too that hunting spears thrown by Nessus's hand buried themselves in Cymelus's groin. Don't think Ampycides Mopsus only prophesied the future. It was Mopsus's javelin that brought down the two-formed Hodites, who tried in vain to speak—his tongue was pinned to his chin, his chin to his throat.

"Caeneus had sent five to death—Styphelus, Bromus, Antimachus, Elymus, and Pyracmon who carried an axe. I don't remember their wounds, only noted their number and names. Latreus charged forward, armed with spoils from Emathian Halesus whom he'd killed—huge in limb and body. His age was between young man and old man, but he had a young man's strength. Gray hair streaked his temples. Conspicuous with shield, helmet, and Macedonian pike, he faced both battle lines, clashed his weapons, rode in a set circle, and boldly poured these empty words into the air:

"'Must I endure you too, Caenis? You'll always be a woman to me. You'll always be Caenis to me. Doesn't your birth remind you? Do you remember what deed you did, what reward you got for taking on a man's false appearance? Consider what you were born, consider what you suffered! Go, take your basket and spinning wool, twist the thread with your thumb. Leave war to men!'

"As he was boasting like this, Caeneus with hurled spear gashed his extended flank as he galloped past, where man joined to horse. Mad with pain, Latreus struck Caeneus's bare face with his pike. It bounced back like hail from a rooftop, or like hitting hollow drums with a small stone. He closed in and tried to drive his sword deep into Caeneus's hard flank. The sword found no opening. 'But you won't escape anyway!' he said. 'You'll die by the sword's edge, since the point is blunt.' And he turned the blade sideways and reached around with his long right hand to embrace Caeneus's sides. The blow made a sound like striking a marble body. The blade shattered, broken on the hardened flesh.

"When Caeneus had shown his unhurt limbs long enough to the amazed Latreus, he said, 'Now let's test your body against my steel!' He buried his death-dealing sword up to the hilt in Latreus's shoulder and moved his hand around blindly in his guts, twisting, making wound within wound.

"Look—the two-formed creatures rushed at him with huge roar, raging. They all hurled weapons at this one man alone. The weapons fell back blunted. Caeneus, son of Elatus, remained unpierced by any blow, unbloodied. The strange sight stunned them. 'Oh, what disgrace!' Monychus cried out. 'A whole race beaten by one man—barely a man! Though he's the man, and we with our sluggish deeds are what he used to be. What good are our massive limbs? What good are our double strengths, that the mightiest of creatures—two animals—were joined in us? We weren't born from a goddess. We weren't fathered by Ixion, who was so great he could hope for high Juno herself. We're beaten by an enemy who's half man! Heap rocks and trees on him! Roll whole mountains over him! Crush his stubborn life with the forests you hurl! Let the mass choke his throat. Weight will serve instead of wounds.'

"He spoke, and by chance finding a beam thrown down by the violent south wind's force, he hurled it at his strong enemy—setting an example. In a short time Mount Othrys stood bare of trees, and Pelion had no shade. Buried under the immense pile, Caeneus struggled beneath the weight. He bore the heaped timber on his hard shoulders. But when the load rose above his head and mouth and he had no air to draw breath, he sometimes weakened. Sometimes he tried in vain to push himself up through the air and shake off the hurled forest. Sometimes he moved—like if we were to see lofty Mount Ida shaken by earthquakes.

"His end is uncertain. Some said his body was thrust down under the pile of trees to the empty halls of Tartarus. Mopsus disagreed. From the middle of the heap he saw a bird with golden wings rising into the clear air. I saw it then for the first time and last time. When Mopsus saw it circling the camp with easy flight, sounding with a great cry, he followed it with his eyes and spirit together and said, 'Hail to you, glory of the Lapith race! Once the greatest of men, now the only bird of your kind—Caeneus!' The story was believed because of its teller. Grief added to our anger. We could hardly bear that one man was overwhelmed by so many enemies. We didn't stop working our grief with the sword until either part was given to death or part was removed by flight and night.'

---

"As Nestor of Pylos recounted these battles between Lapiths and half-men Centaurs, Tlepolemus couldn't bear in silent patience the omission of Hercules's praise and said, 'Old man, it's strange you've forgotten Hercules's glory. My father often used to tell me about the cloud-born ones he'd defeated.'

"Sadly the Pylian replied, 'Why do you force me to remember evils and reopen griefs buried by the years, and to confess hatred and offenses against your father? By the gods, he achieved greater things than belief allows! He filled the world with his merits—which I wish I could deny. But we don't praise Deiphobus or Polydamas or Hector himself. Who praises an enemy? That father of yours once destroyed Messenia's walls. He razed the innocent cities of Elis and Pylos. He brought sword and flame against my own home. To say nothing of others he killed, we twelve sons of Neleus were a remarkable group of young men. Twelve sons of Neleus fell to Hercules's strength—all but me. The others could be endured as conquered. But Periclymenus's death was strange. Neptune, source of Neleus's blood, had given him the power to take whatever forms he wished and to put them off again once taken.

"When he'd tried every form in vain, he changed into the appearance of the bird that holds thunderbolts in its curved talons—the king of gods' favorite. Using the bird's strength, with wings, hooked beak, and curving talons, he tore at the hero's face. But the man from Tiryns aimed his too-sure bow at him and, as Periclymenus was carrying his high limbs through the clouds, suspended there, struck him where wing joins side. The wound wasn't severe, but the sinews ruptured by the wound failed and denied movement and power of flight. He fell to earth, his weak wings not catching the air. Where the arrow had lightly stuck in his wing, pressed by the weight of his falling body it was driven through his side and came out through the top left side of his throat.

"Now, does it seem I should sing praise for Hercules's deeds, O most handsome leader of the Rhodian fleet? Still, I take no further vengeance for my brothers than by keeping silent about his brave acts. My friendship with you remains solid.'

---

"After Nestor finished this speech with his sweet eloquence, they took up the gift of Bacchus again, rose from the couches, and gave the rest of the night to sleep.

"But the god who rules the ocean waves with his trident grieved with a father's heart for his son transformed into the bird that bears Phaethon's name. Hating cruel Achilles, he nursed vengeful anger beyond what was civil. Now, with the war dragged on for nearly two five-year periods, he addressed long-haired Apollo with these words:

"'O far dearest to me of my brother's sons, who with me built Troy's walls—now futile—when you see these citadels about to fall, do you groan at all? Do you mourn at all for the thousands slaughtered defending the walls? To pass over all the rest, does the shade of Hector, dragged around his own Troy, come to mind? Yet that savage one, more brutal than war itself—Achilles, destroyer of our work—still lives. Let him come to me! I'll make him feel what my three-pronged spear can do. But since fighting my enemy hand-to-hand isn't granted, kill him unexpectedly with your hidden arrow!'

"Apollo nodded, indulging both his uncle's wish and his own. Veiled in mist, he came among the Trojan army and, amid the slaughter of men, saw Paris shooting scattered arrows at unknown Greeks. Revealing himself as a god, Apollo said, 'Why waste your arrows on common blood? If you care for your people at all, turn against Achilles and avenge your slaughtered brothers!' He spoke, and showing him the son of Peleus laying low Trojan bodies with his sword, he turned Paris's bow toward him and guided the fatal arrow with unerring hand.

"This was what old Priam could rejoice in after Hector's death. So you, Achilles, victor over so many great men, were conquered by the coward who stole a Greek wife! If you had to fall by a woman's warfare, you would have preferred to die by the Thermodontian two-edged axe.

"Now that terror of the Trojans, glory and guardian of the Greek name, the son of Aeacus, unconquerable head in war, had burned. The same god had armed him and now cremated him. Now he's ashes. Of so great an Achilles there remains some trivial thing that barely fills an urn. But his glory lives on—enough to fill the whole world. This is the measure that suits the man. In this Achilles equals himself and doesn't sense the empty void of Tartarus.

"Even his shield, so you can know whose it was, stirs up warfare. Weapons are fought over for weapons. Tydeus's son doesn't dare claim them. Ajax, son of Oileus, doesn't dare. Neither of the sons of Atreus—the younger or the older and greater in war—dares claim them. No others. Only the two sons of Telamon and Laertes had confidence in such great glory.

"The son of Tantalus removed the burden and envy from himself. He ordered the Greek leaders to sit in the middle of the camp and referred the judgment of the dispute to them all.