Aineias kept fighting over Achilles, till with his spear

The warlike Ajax wounded him above the muscle

Of his right arm. He leapt with rapid motion

Clear of the deadly fray and returned at once to the city.

Men skilled in the art of healing worked upon him,

Cleaning first the blood from his wound and then performing

All else that’s needed to cure the suffering of the wounded.

Ajax fought on, as though with bolts of lightning

Killing in all directions, for great was his distress

And long the grief he felt for the death of his cousin.

Nearby the peerless son of the warrior Laertes

Engaged the enemy, who in terror fled before him.

He killed the swift Peisandros and Areios the son

Of Mainalos, whose home was the famous land of Abydos.

Next Odysseus slew Atymnios, who was borne

To strong Emathion by the fair-tressed nymph Pegasis

Beside the river Granikos. Close to that man

He struck dawn Proteus’ son Oresbios, who lived

Below the vales of lofty Ida, but whose mother,

The famous Panakeia, never welcomed him home,

Slain as he was by the hands of Odysseus, who also took

The lives of many others with his raging spear,

Killing any he met near the body. But then Alkon,

Son of fleet-foot Megaldes, struck him with his spear

Beside the right knee and round his glittering greave

Dark blood came welling. He, though, disregarding the wound,

At once was the death of the eager fighter who wounded him.

Stabbing him with his spear clean through the shield.

With all the force of his powerful arm he pushed him

Backward onto the ground. The armor on him clashed

As he fell in the dust; the breastplate round his body

Was drenched with gore. Odysseus pulled the fatal spear

Out of both his flesh and his shield, and with the spearpoint

Breath left his limbs and life immortal abandoned him.

Though wounded, Odysseus made a rush at Alkon’s comrades

And wouldn’t relax the noisy struggle.

Likewise the other

Danaans, all in a compact mass round great Achilles,

fought keenly on and at their hands a host of men

Were rapidly slaughtered with their spears of polished ashwood.

As when leaves are strewn upon the ground by winds

That press with violent blasts on woods and groves,

When autumn wanes toward the closing of the year,

So they were felled by the spears of the resolute Danaan warriors.

The concern of everyone was for the dead Achilles,

But especially that of warlike Ajax. That was why

He slew so many Trojans like an evil Fate.

Then Paris drew his bow at Ajax, who saw at once

And hurled a deadly rock that hit him on the head

And smashed his double-crested helmet, so that darkness

Engulfed him and he collapsed in the dust, his arrows failing

To achieve his purpose, scattered in all directions

In the dust and the quiver lying empty with them,