The Combat of Hector and Ajax
Prowess of Hector—Meeting of Minerva and Apollo near the Scaean Gates—They incite Hector to challenge the Greeks to a single combat—Ajax selected by lot to meet Hector—The combat ended by the night—Proposal of Antenor to deliver Helen to the Greeks—Refusal of Paris, who offers to restore her wealth—Rejection of this offer by Agamemnon—A truce for burying the dead—The Greek camp fortified.
The illustrious Hector spake, and rapidly Passed through the gate, and with him issued forth His brother Alexander—eager, both, For war and combat. As when God bestows, To glad the long-expecting mariners, A favorable wind while wearily They beat the ocean with their polished oars, Their arms all nerveless with their length of toil, Such to the expecting Trojans was the sight Of the two chiefs. First Alexander slew Menesthius, who in Arnè had his home, A son of Areïthoüs the king. Large-eyed Philomedusa brought him forth To the mace-bearer Areïthoüs. And Hector smote Eïoneus, the spear Piercing his neck beneath the brazen casque, And straightway he dropped lifeless. Glaucus then Son of Hippolochus, and chief among The Lycians—in that fiery onset slew Iphinous, son of Dexius, with his spear. It pierced the warrior’s shoulder as he sprang To mount his rapid car, and from the place He fell to earth, his limbs relaxed in death Now when Minerva of the azure eyes Beheld them in the furious combat thus Wasting the Grecian host, she left the peaks Of high Olympus, and came down in haste To sacred Ilium. Straight Apollo flew To meet her, for he marked from Pergamus Her coming, and he greatly longed to give The victory to the Trojans. As they met Beside the beechen tree, the son of Jove, The king Apollo, spake to Pallas thus:—