son of Priam, terrible as Mars The slayer of men, cheered on the gallant sons Of Troy against the Greeks. Himself, inspired With fiery valor, rushed among the foes In the mid-battle foremost, like a storm That swoops from heaven, and on the dark-blue sea Falls suddenly, and stirs it to its depths.
Who then was slain the first, and who the last, By Hector, Priam’s son, whom Jove designed To honor? First, Asaeus; Uolops, son Of Clytis; and Autonoüs; and then Opites and Opheltius; next to whom Aesymnus, Agelaus, Orus fell, And resolute Hipponous the last. All these, the princes of the Greeks, he slew, Then smote the common crowd. As when a gale Blows from the west upon the mass of cloud Piled up before the south-wind’s powerful breath, And tears it with a mighty hurricane, While the swol’n billows tumble, and their foam Is flung on high before the furious blast, So by the sword of Hector fell the heads Of the Greek soldiery; and there had been Ruin and ravage not to be repaired, And the defeated Greeks had flung themselves Into their ships, had not Ulysses then Exhorted thus Tydides Diomed:—