But Sarpedon answered, “He indeed spoiled Troy, for Laomedon did him grievous wrong. But thou shalt not fare so, but rather meet with thy death.”
Then they both hurled their spears, aiming truly, both of them. For Sarpedon smote Tlepolemus in the neck, piercing it through so that he fell dead, and Tlepolemus smote Sarpedon in the left thigh, driving the spear close to the bone, but slaying him not, his father Zeus warding off the doom of death. And his comrades carried him out of the battle, sorely burdened with the spear, which no one had thought to take out of the wound. And as he was borne along, Hector passed by, and Sarpedon rejoiced to see him, and cried,--
“Son of Priam, suffer me not to become a prey to the Greeks; let me at least die in your city, for Lycia I may see no more, nor wife, nor child.”
But Hector heeded him not, so eager was he for the battle. So his comrades carried him to the great beech-tree and laid him down, and one of them drew the spear out of his thigh. When it was drawn out he fainted, but the cool north wind blew and revived him, and he breathed again.
But all the while Hector, with Ares at his side, dealt death and destruction through the ranks of the Greeks. Heré and Athené saw him where they sat on the top of Olympus, and were wroth. So they went to Father Zeus and prayed that it might be lawful to them to stop him in his fury. And Zeus said, “Be it as you will.” So they yoked the horses to the chariot of Heré and passed down to earth, the horses flying at every stride over so much space as a man sees who sits upon a cliff and looks across the sea to where it meets the sky. They alighted on the spot where the two rivers Simoïs and Scamander join their streams. There they loosed the horses from the yoke, and then sped like doves to where the bravest of the Greeks stood round King Diomed. There Heré took the shape of Stentor with the lungs of bronze, whose voice was as the voice of fifty men, and cried, “Shame, men of Greece! When Achilles went to the battle, the men of Troy came not beyond the gates, but now they fight far from the city, even by the ships.” But Athené went to Diomed where he stood wiping away the blood from the wound where Pandarus had struck him with the arrow. And she spake, “Surely the son of Tydeus is little like to his sire. Small of stature was he, but a keen fighter. But thou--whether it be weariness or fear that keeps thee back I know not--canst scarcely be a true son of Tydeus.”