long spear and sent it forth. It smote Eupeithes on the helmet’s cheek. The brass stayed not the spear, the blade passed through, And heavily Eupeithes fell to earth, His armor clashing round him as he fell. Then rushed Ulysses and his valiant son Forward, the foremost of their band, and smote Their foes with swords and lancet double-edged, And would have struck them down to rise no more, If Pallas, daughter of the god who bears The aegis, had not with a mighty voice Commanded all the combatants to cease:—
“Stay, men of Ithaca; withhold your hands From deadly combat. Part, and shed no blood.”
So Pallas spake, and they grew pale with awe, And fear-struck; as they heard her words they dropped Their weapons all upon the earth. They fled Townward as if for life, while terribly The much-enduring chief Ulysses raised His voice, and shouted after them, and sprang Upon them as an eagle darts through air. Then Saturn’s son sent down a bolt of fire; It fell before his blue-eyed daughter’s feet, And thus the goddess to Ulysses called:—
“Son of Laertes, nobly born and wise, Ulysses, hold thy hand; restrain the rage Of deadly combat, lest the god who wields The thunder, Saturn’s son, be wroth with thee.”
She spake, and gladly he obeyed; and then Pallas, the child of aegis-bearing Jove, Plighted, in Mentor’s form with Mentor’s voice, A covenant of peace between the foes.