Homer ILIAD : Rhapsody 8

Page 3

Meanwhile the long-haired Greeks were taking their repast in a hurried manner through the tents, and after that they put on their armour. But the Trojans, on the other side, were arming themselves through the city, fewer in number; yet even thus, they were eager to fight in battle, compelled by necessity, in defence of their children and their wives. And the gates were opened wide, and the forces rushed out, both chariot warriors and foot, and much tumult arose. But when these collecting together came into one place, they clashed together shields and spears, and the might of brazen-mailed men; but the bossy shields approached one another, and much tumult arose. There at the same time were both lamentation and boasting of men destroying and destroyed, and the earth flowed with blood. As long as the forenoon lasted, and the sacred day was in progress, so long did the weapons touch both, and the people fell. But when the sun had ascended the middle heaven, then at length did Father Jove raise the golden scales, and placed in them two destinies of long-reposing death, [the destinies] both of the horse-breaking Trojans and of the brazen-mailed Greeks, and holding them in the middle, he poised them; but the fatal day of the Greeks inclined low. The destinies of the Greeks, indeed, rested on the bounteous earth, but those of the Trojans on the contrary were elevated to the wide heaven.

But he himself mightily thundered from Ida, and sent his burning lightning against the army of the Greeks: they having seen it, were amazed, and pale fear seized them all. Then neither Idomeneus, nor Agamemnon, nor the two Ajaces, the servants of Mars, dared to remain. Gerenian Nestor alone, the guardian of the Greeks, remained, not willingly, but one of his horses was disabled, which noble Alexander, husband of fair-haired Helen, had pierced with an arrow in the top of the forehead, where the forelocks of horses grow out of the head, and is most fatal.[269] In torture he reared, for the arrow had entered the brain; and he disordered the [other] horses, writhing round the brazen barb. Whilst the old man hastening, was cutting away the side reins of the horse with his sword, then were the swift steeds of Hector coming through the crowd, bearing the bold charioteer Hector. And then the old man would certainly have lost his life, if Diomede, brave in the din of battle, had not quickly observed it; and he shouted, dreadfully exhorting Ulysses, [thus]:

[Footnote 269: Or "opportune" viz for inflicting a fatal wound.—Kennedy.]

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