e Ilium, who shall escape death; but above all of the sons of
Priam. But die thou also, my friend; why weepest thou thus? Patroclus
likewise died, who was much better than thou. Seest thou not how great I
am? both fair and great; and I am from a noble sire, and a goddess
mother bore me; but Death and violent Fate will come upon thee and me,
whether [it be] morning, evening, or mid-day;[672] whenever any one
shall take away my life with a weapon, either wounding me with a spear,
or with an arrow from the string."

[Footnote 672: See Kennedy.]

Thus he spoke; but his knees and dear heart were relaxed. He let go the
spear, indeed, and sat down, stretching out both hands. But Achilles,
drawing his sharp sword, smote [him] at the clavicle, near the neck. The
two-edged sword penetrated totally, and he, prone upon the ground, lay
stretched out, but the black blood flowed out, and moistened the earth.
Then Achilles, seizing him by the foot, threw him into the river, to be
carried along, and, boasting, spoke winged words:

"Lie there now with the fishes,[673] which, without concern, will lap
the blood of thy wound; nor shall thy mother[674] weep, placing thee
upon the funeral couch, but the eddying Scamander shall bear thee into
the wide bosom of the ocean. Some fish, bounding through the wave, will
escape to the dark ripple,[675] in order that he may devour the white
fat of Lycaon. Perish [ye Trojans], till we attain to the city of sacred
Ilium, you flying, and I slaughtering in the rear: nor shall the
wide-flowing, silver-eddying river, profit you, to which ye have already
sacrificed many bulls, and cast solid-hoofed steeds alive into its
eddies. But even thus shall ye die an evil death, until ye all atone for
the death of Patroclus, and the slaughter of the Greeks, whom ye have
killed at the swift ships, I being absent."

[Footnote 673: Cf. Virg. AEn. x. 555, sqq.; Longus, ii. 20:
[Greek: alla boran [ymas] ichthyon theso katadysas].]

[Footnote 674: Cf. Soph. Electr. 1138, sqq. with my note.]

[Footnote 675: _I.e._ the surface.]

Thus he spoke; but the River was the more enraged at heart, and revolved
in his mind how he might make noble Achilles cease from labour, and
avert destruction from the Trojans. But meanwhile the son of Peleus,
holding his long-shadowed spear, leaped upon Asteropaeus, son of Pelegon,
desirous to kill him whom the wide-flowing Axius begat, and Periboea,
eldest of the daughters of