Achilles sprang into midstream. The river raised a high wave, swept the dead out onto the land bellowing like a bull, and hid the living in eddies. The wave beat Achilles's shield so he could not stand.
He caught a great elm; it tore up by the roots, dammed the stream, and he struggled out onto the plain in fear.
The god pursued with a dark-crested wave. Achilles darted a spear's throw away like a black hunter-eagle, armor ringing, but the river tore after.
As a gardener's channel outruns its guide down a slope, so the wave kept catching him, for gods are stronger than men. Whenever he tried to stand and learn if all heaven drove him, a wave broke on his shoulders and sucked the dust from under his feet.
He cried to Zeus: is there no god to pity me and save me from the river? Afterward I do not care. I blame my mother most, who said I would fall under Troy by Apollo's arrows. Better Hector slay me there, hero by hero, than a pitiable end trapped like a swineherd's boy swept away in winter.
Poseidon and Athena came as two men and took his hand. Poseidon said they were there with Zeus's sanction; it was not his fate to perish in the river.
Do not stay your hand until the Trojans are penned in Ilios; then kill Hector and return to the ships — we grant you that glory. They left him.
Athena's strength let him force through flood and drifting armor and corpses, but Scamander only grew more furious and called Simois to raise torrents and tree-trunks against the savage man who thought himself equal to the gods.
The dark flood stood upright, seething with foam, blood, and bodies. Hera, fearing Achilles would be swept away, called to Hephaestus: kindle fierce fire; I will bring west and south wind from the sea to burn Trojans' dead and armor. Burn the trees on Xanthus's banks and set the river himself ablaze; do not stop for soft words until I cry out.
Hephaestus fired the plain first and dried the flood, consuming the dead. Then tongues of flame took the river — elms, willows, tamarisks, lotus, rushes — and eels and fishes tumbled worn out in the lovely waters.
Xanthus cried he would not fight while Hephaestus blazed; let Achilles drive the Trojans from the city. His waters boiled like a cauldron melting hog's fat over dry faggots and could flow no longer.
He swore to Hera he would never keep day of evil from Troy, even when the city burned. She told her son to hold; he quenched the flames, and the river returned to his fair bed.