Page 213 - the-iliad

cheeks for grief and his children will be fatherless: there
will he rot, reddening the earth with his blood, and vul-
tures, not women, will gather round him.’
Thus he spoke, but Ulysses came up and stood over him.
Under this cover he sat down to draw the arrow from his
foot, and sharp was the pain he suffered as he did so. Then
he sprang on to his chariot and bade the charioteer drive
him to the ships, for he was sick at heart.
Ulysses was now alone; not one of the Argives stood by
him, for they were all panic-stricken. ‘Alas,’ said he to him-
self in his dismay, ‘what will become of me? It is ill if I turn
and fly before these odds, but it will be worse if I am left
alone and taken prisoner, for the son of Saturn has struck
the rest of the Danaans with panic. But why talk to myself
in this way? Well do I know that though cowards quit the
field, a hero, whether he wound or be wounded, must stand
firm and hold his own.’
While he was thus in two minds, the ranks of the Trojans
advanced and hemmed him in, and bitterly did they come
to rue it. As hounds and lusty youths set upon a wild boar
that sallies from his lair whetting his white tusks—they at-
tack him from every side and can hear the gnashing of his
jaws, but for all his fierceness they still hold their ground—
even so furiously did the Trojans attack Ulysses. First he
sprang spear in hand upon Deiopites and wounded him on
the shoulder with a downward blow; then he killed Thoon
and Ennomus. After these he struck Chersidamas in the
loins under his shield as he had just sprung down from his
chariot; so he fell in the dust and clutched the earth in the

1 The Iliad