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326 from the black ships. But to these all day a mighty contest of severe strife arose, and ever incessantly the knees, the legs, and the feet of each under him, the hands and the eyes of those fighting around the brave companion of swift-footed Æacides, were defiled with fatigue and perspiration. And as when a man gives the hide of a huge ox, saturated with grease, to his people to stretch, but they, having received, stretch it, standing apart from each other in a circle, and straightway the moisture exudes, and the oily matter enters, many pulling it, till it is stretched in every direction; so they, on both sides, dragged the body here and there in a small space; for the mind of the Trojans, on the one hand, eagerly hoped to draw him to Ilium, but of the Greeks, on the other, to the hollow ships. Around him arose a fierce tumult; nor could Mars, the exciter of troops, nor Minerva, having beheld it, have found fault, not even if wrath had particularly come upon her; such an evil labor of men and horses did Jove extend over Patroclus on that day. Nor as yet did noble Achilles at all know that Patroclus was dead, because they fought far from the swift ships, beneath the wall of the Trojans. He never thought in his mind that he was dead; but that alive, having approached the gates, he would return back, since he did not at all suppose that he could sack the city without him, for he had often heard this from his mother, hearing it apart, who used to tell him the design of mighty Jove. Yet his mother had not then told him so great an evil as had happened, that the companion by far most dear to him had perished.

But they, ever around the dead body, holding their sharp spears, charged incessantly, and slaughtered one another, and thus would some of the brazen-mailed Greeks say:

"O friends, surely it will not be honorable for us to retreat to the hollow ships; but [rather] let the black earth here gape for all. This indeed would at once be better for us, than that we should permit the horse-breaking Trojans to drag him to their city, and obtain glory."

And thus also would some one of the magnanimous Trojans say:

"O friends, although it be our destiny that all be equally subdued beside this man, never let any one retire from the battle."