pompously when at the feast In Lemnos sitting ye devoured the flesh Of hornèd beeves, and drank from bowls of wine, Flower-crowned, and bragged that each of you would be A match for fivescore Trojans, or for twice Fivescore? And now we all are not a match For Hector singly, who will give our fleet Soon to consuming flames. O Father Jove, Was ever mighty monarch visited By thee with such affliction, or so robbed Of high renown! And yet in my good ship, Bound to this luckless coast, I never passed By thy fair altars that I did not burn The fat and thighs of oxen, with a prayer That I might sack the well-defended Troy. Now be at least one wish of mine fulfilled— That we may yet escape and get us hence; Nor let the Trojans thus destroy the Greeks.”
He spake, and wept. The All-Father, pitying him, Consented that his people should escape The threatened ruin. Instantly he sent His eagle, bird of surest augury, Which, bearing in his talons a young fawn, The offspring of a nimble-footed roe, Dropped it at the fair altar where the Greeks Paid sacrifice to Panomphaean Jove.
And they, when they beheld, and knew that Jove Had sent the bird, took courage, rallying, And rushed against the Trojans. Then no chief Of all the Greeks—though many they—could boast That he before Tydides urged his steeds To sudden speed and drave them o’er the trench, And mingled in the combat. First of all He struck down Agelaus, Phradmon’s son, Armed as he was, who turned his car to fly, And as he turned, Tydides with his spear Transfixed his back between the shoulder-blades, And drave the weapon through his breast. He fell To earth, his armor clashing with his fall. Then Agamemnon followed, and with him His brother Menelaus; after these The chieftains Ajax, fearful in their strength; Idomeneus, and he who bore his arms— Meriones, like Mars in battle-field; as Eurypylus, Evaemon’s glorious son; And ninthly Teucer came, who bent his bow Beneath the shield of Ajax Telamon— For Ajax moved his shield from side to side, And thence the archer looked abroad, and aimed His arrows thence. Whoever in the throng Was struck fell