64She had made it known that Greek ships were approaching with a brave army, and the enemy is not unexpected when he arrives in arms: the Trojans bar the landing and guard the shore, and you, Protesilaus, are the first to fall, doomed, by Hector's spear; and the battles joined cost the Danaans dear, and Hector, a man of brave spirit, made himself known by slaughter. 70Nor did the Phrygians learn at the cost of little blood what an Achaean right hand could do. 71And now the Sigean shores were red, now Cygnus, Neptune's offspring, had given a thousand men to death, now Achilles was pressing on in his chariot and laying whole columns low with the stroke of his Pelian spear, and, seeking through the ranks either Cygnus or Hector, he meets Cygnus (Hector had been put off to the tenth year): then, urging on his horses, their white necks pressed beneath the yoke, he steered his chariot at the enemy, and, brandishing the quivering weapon in his arms, said: 'Whoever you are, young man, take this comfort in your death, that you were slain by Haemonian Achilles.' 82So far the grandson of Aeacus; 82the heavy spear followed his words.
83But although there was no error in the sure spear, yet the point of the hurled iron achieved nothing, and merely bruised his chest, as if with a blunt blow. 86'Son of a goddess, for we know you beforehand by report,' said the other, 'why do you wonder that a wound is absent from me?' 88(for he was wondering) 'Neither this helmet you see, tawny with its horsehair crest, nor the hollow shield, the burden of my left hand, are any help to me: it is adornment that is sought from them. 91Mars too takes up arms for this reason! 91Let all the protection of armour be removed, yet I shall come away unscathed.
93It is something not to be born of a Nereid, but of one who rules both Nereus and his daughters and the whole sea.' 95He spoke, and hurled at the grandson of Aeacus a spear meant to stick in the curve of his shield, which broke through both the bronze and the next nine layers of oxhide, but was stopped at the tenth circle. 98The hero shakes it off and again hurled quivering weapons with his strong hand: again the body was without a wound and unharmed! 100Nor could a third spear graze Cygnus, though he was exposed and offering himself. 102He blazed up no differently than a bull in the open arena when with its terrible horn it charges the scarlet cloths that provoke it, and feels its blows evaded.
105Yet he examines whether the iron has fallen from the spear: it was fixed to the shaft. 106'Is my hand weak, then,' he says, 'and has it poured out on one man the strength it had before? 108For certainly it was strong, either when I first threw down the walls of Lyrnesus, or when I filled Tenedos and Eetion's Thebes with their own blood, or when the Caicus flowed crimson with the slaughter of its people, and Telephus twice felt the work of my spear. 113Here too, with so many slain, whose heaps along the shore I have both made and now see, my right hand was strong and is strong.' 115He spoke, and, as though he mistrusted what he had done before, hurled his spear at Menoetes, one of the Lycian common folk, who faced him, and broke through his breastplate and the chest beneath it together.
118As the man beat the heavy earth with his dying breast, he draws that same weapon out of the warm wound and says: 'This is the hand, this the spear with which we have just conquered: I shall use the same against him; 121may the outcome against him, I pray, be the same!' 122So speaking, he goes for Cygnus again, and the ash does not stray, and, not avoided, it rang on his left shoulder, and from there it was beaten back as if from a wall or solid rock; 125yet where he had been struck Achilles had seen Cygnus marked with blood, and had rejoiced in vain: there was no wound; that blood was Menoetes'!
128Then indeed, roaring, he leaps headlong down from his high chariot, and, attacking his unconcerned foe at close quarters with his gleaming blade, he sees the shield and helmet holed by the sword, and the steel too damaged on the hard body! 132He bore it no longer, and, drawing back his shield, three and four times he beats the man's face, turned towards him, and his hollow temples with the hilt, and following as he gives ground he presses, harries and rushes him, and denies him rest in his bewilderment: terror seizes him, and darkness swims before his eyes, and as he takes backward steps a stone in the middle of the field blocked his way.
138Over this Achilles, with great force, turned Cygnus, thrust back with his body face upwards, and dashed him to the ground. 140Then, pressing his chest with his shield and hard knees, he drags at the straps of his helmet: these, pressed beneath the chin, crush his throat and rob his breath of both its passages. 143He was preparing to strip the vanquished man: he sees the armour left behind; 144the god of the sea had changed the body into the white bird whose name it had just now borne.