The Iliad Sarpedon Quotes

But Sarpedon’s loyal comrades laid him down,
a man like a god beneath a fine spreading oak
sacred to Zeus whose shield is banked with clouds.
The veteran Pelagon, one of his closest aides,
pushed the shaft of ashwood out through his wound –
his spirit left him – a mist poured down his eyes…
but he caught his breath again. A gust of the North Wind
blowing round him carried back the life breath
he had gasped away in pain.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 5, lines 794-802. Zeus’s son Sarpedon has suffered a spear wound and is tended to by his comrades. The spear has lodged in his thigh and has to be extracted. The operation and the pain cause him to go unconscious, but he is revived by the North Wind. While he doesn’t die, the scene highlights the fine line between life and death that soldiers in the Trojan War walk – even the sons of gods. Sarpedon is described as being like a god in a simile.

That splendid shield he gripped before his chest
and shaking a pair of spears went stalking out
like a mountain lion starved for meat too long
and the lordly heart inside him fires him up
to raid some stormproof fold, to go at the sheep,
and even if he should light on herdsmen at the spot,
guarding their flocks with dogs and bristling spears,
the marauder has no mind to be driven off that steading,
not without an attack. All or nothing – he charges flocks
and hauls off bloody prey or he’s run through himself
at the first assault with a fast spear driven home.
So how the heart of Sarpedon stalwart as a god
impelled him to charge the wall and break it down.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 12, lines 346-358. The demi-god Sarpedon, son of Zeus and a Trojan ally from Lycia, charges the Achaean wall to attempt to break through it. The image of a mountain lion starved of meat and charging flocks of sheep and hauling off its bloody prey is used in an epic simile to describe Sarpedon, one of the big heroes of the Trojan War.

Ah my friend, if you and I could escape this fray
and live forever, never a trace of age, immortal,
I would never fight on the front lines again
or command you to the field where men win fame.
But now, as it is, the fates of death await us,
thousands poised to strike, and not a man alive
can flee them or escape – so in we go for attack!
Give our enemy glory or win it for ourselves!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 12, lines 374-381. Sarpedon, an ally of the Trojans from Lycia, describes the heroic code to his comrade Glaucus. He speaks about how in battle leaders face death, but that is now glory is won – you give it to your enemy or win it for yourself.

My cruel fate…
my Sarpedon, the man I love the most, my own son –
doomed to die at the hands of Menoetius’ son Patroclus.
My heart is torn in two as I try to weigh all this.
Shall I pluck him up, now, while he’s still alive
and set him down in the rich green land of Lycia,
far from the war at Troy and all its tears?
Or beat him down at Patrodus’ hands at last?

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 514-521. For the love of his son, the god Zeus considers defying cruel fate in order to save Sarpedon, destined to die at the hands of Patroclus.

He struck him right where the midriff packs the pounding heart
and down Sarpedon fell as an oak or white poplar falls
or towering pine that shipwrights up on a mountain
hew down with whetted axes for sturdy ship timber –
so he stretched in front of his team and chariot,
sprawled and roaring, clawing the bloody dust.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 569-574. Sarpedon, struck and killed by Patroclus’s spear, is described in an epic simile as falling down like a big tree axed by shipwrights for ship timber.
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