“Friends, chiefs and princes of the Greeks, my heart—
Truly or falsely—urges me to speak.
The trampling of swift steeds is in my ears.
O that Ulysses and the gallant son
Of Tydeus might be bringing at this hour
Firm-footed coursers from the enemy’s camp!
Yet must I fear that these, our bravest chiefs,
Have met disaster from the Trojan crew.”
While he was speaking yet, the warriors came.
They sprang to earth; their friends, rejoicing, flocked
Around them, greeting them with grasp of hands
And with glad words, while the Gerenian knight,
Nestor, inquired: “Declare, illustrious chief,
Glory of Greece, Ulysses, how ye took
These horses: from the foe;—or did some god
Bestow them? They are glorious as the sun.
Oft am I midst the Trojans, for, though old,
I lag not idly at the ships; yet ne’er
Have my eyes looked on coursers like to these.
Some god, no doubt, has given them, for to Jove,
The God of storms, and Pallas, blue-eyed child
Of aegis-bearing Jove, ye both are dear.”
Then sage Ulysses answered: “Pride of Greece!
Neleian Nestor, truly might a god
Have given us nobler steeds than even these.
All power is with the gods. But these of which
Thou askest, aged man, are brought from Thrace,
And newly come. Brave Diomed hath slain
Their lord, and twelve companions by his side—
All princes. Yet another victim fell—
A spy whom, near our ships, we put to death—
A man whom Hector and his brother chiefs
Sent forth by midnight to explore our camp.”
He spake, and gayly caused the firm-paced steeds
To pass the trench; the other Greeks, well pleased,
Went with him. When they reached the stately tent
Of Diomed, they led the coursers on
To stalls where Diomed’s fleet horses stood
Champing the wholesome corn, and bound them there
With halters neatly shaped. Ulysses placed
Upon his galley’s stern the bloody spoil
Of Dolon, to be made an offering
To Pallas. Then, descending to the sea,
They washed from knees and neck and thighs the grime
Of sweat; and when in the salt wave their limbs
Were cleansed, and all the frame refreshed, they stepped
Into the polished basins of the bath,
And, having bathed and rubbed with fragrant oil
Their limbs, they sat them down to a repast,
And from a brimming jar beside them drew,
And poured to Pallas first, the pleasant wine.
Book XI
The Third Battle, and Exploits of Agamemnon
Renewal of the fight by Agamemnon—His prowess—Hector warned by Iris not to fight till Agamemnon is wounded—Agamemnon disabled—Hector makes great havoc till checked by Ulysses and Diomed—Diomed wounded by Paris, and rescued by Ajax, who rallies the Greeks—Machaon wounded—Conversations of Nestor and Patroclus.
Now did the Morning from her couch beside
Renowned Tithonus rise, that she might bring
The light to gods and men, when Jupiter
To the swift galleys of the Grecian host
Sent baleful Strife, who bore in hand aloft
War’s ensigns. On the huge black ship that brought
Ulysses, in the centre of the fleet,
She stood, where she might shout to either side—
To Telamonian Ajax in his tents
And to Achilles, who had ranged their ships
At each extreme of the Achaian camp,
Relying on their valor and strong arms.
Loud was the voice, and terrible, in which
She shouted from her station to the Greeks,
And into every heart it carried strength
And the resolve to combat manfully
And never yield. The battle now to them
Seemed more to be desired than the return
To their dear country in their roomy ships.
Atrides called aloud, exhorting them
To gird themselves for battle. Then he clad
Himself in glittering brass. First to his thighs
He bound the beautiful greaves with silver clasps,
Then fitted to his chest the breastplate given
By Cinyras, a pledge of kind intent;—
For, when he heard in Cyprus that the Greeks
Were bound for Ilium in their ships, he sent
This gift, a homage to the king of men;—
Ten were its bars of tawny bronze, and twelve
Were gold, and twenty tin; and on each side
Were three bronze serpents stretching toward the neck,
Curved like the colored bow which Saturn’s son
Sets in the clouds, a sign to men. He hung
His sword, all glittering with its golden studs,
About his shoulders. In a silver sheath
It nestled, which was slung on golden rings.
And then he took his shield, a mighty orb,
And nobly wrought and strong and beautiful,
Bound with ten brazen circles. On its disk
Were twenty bosses of white tin, and one
Of tawny bronze just in the midst, where glared
A Gorgon’s-head with angry eyes, round which
Were sculptured Fear and Flight. Along its band
Of silver twined a serpent wrought in bronze,
With three heads springing from one neck and formed
Into an orb. Upon his head he placed
A helmet rough with studs on every side,
And with four bosses, and a horse-hair plume
That nodded fearfully on high. He took
In hand two massive spears, brass-tipped and sharp,
That shone afar and sent their light to heaven,
Where Juno and Minerva made a sound
Like thunder in mid-sky, as honoring
The sovereign of Mycenae rich in gold.
Each chief gave orders to his charioteer
To stay his horses firmly by the trench,
While they rushed forth in arms. At once arose,
Ere yet the sun was up, a mighty din.
They marshalled by the trench the men on foot;
The horse came after, with short space between.
The son of Saturn sent among their ranks
Confusion, and dropped down upon the host
Dews tinged with blood, in sign that he that day
Would send to Hades many a valiant chief.
The Trojans, on their side, in the mid-plain
Drew up their squadrons on a hill, around
The mighty Hector, and Polydamas
The blameless, and Aeneas, who among
The sons of Troy was honored like a god,
And three sons of Antenor, who were named
Agenor and the noble Polybus
And the young Acamas of godlike bloom,
There Hector in the van uplifted bore
His broad round shield. As some portentous star
Breaks from the clouds and shines, and then again
Enters their shadow, Hector thus appeared
Among the foremost, issuing his commands,
Then sought the hindmost. All in brass, he shone
Like lightnings of the Aegis-bearer, Jove.
As when two lines of reapers, face to face,
In some rich landlord’s field of barley or wheat
Move on, and fast the severed handfuls fall,
So, springing on each other, they of Troy
And they of Argos smote each other down,
And neither thought of ignominious flight.
They met each other man to man;
