Homer, Iliad

Then ox-eyed queenly Hera answered him: [440] “Most dread son of Cronos, what a word hast thou said! A man that is mortal, doomed long since by fate, art thou minded to deliver again from dolorous death? Do as thou wilt; but be sure that we other gods assent not all thereto. And another thing will I tell thee, and do thou lay it to heart: [445] if thou send Sarpedon living to his house, bethink thee lest hereafter some other god also be minded to send his own dear son away from the fierce conflict; for many there be fighting around the great city of Priam that are sons of the immortals, and among the gods wilt thou send dread wrath. [450] But and if he be dear to thee, and thine heart be grieved, suffer thou him verily to be slain in the fierce conflict beneath the hands of Patroclus, son of Menoetius; but when his soul and life have left him, then send thou Death and sweet Sleep to bear him away [455] until they come to the land of wide Lycia; and there shall his brethren and his kinsfolk give him burial with mound and pillar; for this is the due of the dead.” So spake she, and the father of men and gods failed to hearken. Howbeit he shed bloody rain-drops on the earth, [460] shewing honour to his dear son—his own son whom Patroclus was about to slay in the deep-soiled land of Troy, far from his native land. Now when they were come near, as they advanced one against the other, then verily did Patroclus smite glorious Thrasymelus, that was the valiant squire of the prince Sarpedon; [465] him he smote on the lower belly, and loosed his limbs. But Sarpedon missed him with his bright spear, as in turn he got upon him, but smote with his spear the horse Pedasus on the right shoulder; and the horse shrieked aloud as he gasped forth his life, and down he fell in¹ the dust with a moan, and his spirit flew from him. [470] But the other twain reared this way and that, and the yoke creaked, and above them the reins were entangled, when the trace-horse lay low in the dust. Howbeit for this did Automedon, famed for his spear, find him a remedy; drawing his long sword from beside his stout thigh, he sprang forth and cut loose the trace-horse, and faltered not, [475] and the other two were righted, and strained at the reins; and the two warriors came together again in soul-devouring strife.