Hard going

   Likewise the human champions until

   Patroclus' spear nosed past Sarpedon's busy heart

   And the ground sense in his body leached away.

   Even multi-millionaire entertainers in a

   racket strangling on corruption know the

   game they're bred to mime may come true.

   You are the same age as my son.

   He worships you. Ask him,

   That boy will follow you through arrowfire like rain.

   My sticks are cut.

   It is my place to tell you right from wrong.

     Far better men than you have seen the sky

   And I have fought beside, and saved, their like;

   And I have fought against, and killed, their like;

   And when the fight is done I let

   Those standing know how victors act ..

Christopher Logue

An Account of Books I-IV and

  XVI-XIX of Homer's 'Iliad'
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1991©

Marcos Brindicci, Reuters

The New York Times

July 8, 2014©