Page 284 - the-iliad

on very well without him if we keep each other in heart and
stand by one another. Now, therefore, let us all do as I say.
Let us each take the best and largest shield we can lay hold of,
put on our helmets, and sally forth with our longest spears
in our hands; I will lead you on, and Hector son of Priam,
rage as he may, will not dare to hold out against us. If any
good staunch soldier has only a small shield, let him hand it
over to a worse man, and take a larger one for himself.’
Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. The
son of Tydeus, Ulysses, and Agamemnon, wounded though
they were, set the others in array, and went about every-
where effecting the exchanges of armour; the most valiant
took the best armour, and gave the worse to the worse man.
When they had donned their bronze armour they marched
on with Neptune at their head. In his strong hand he grasped
his terrible sword, keen of edge and flashing like lightning;
woe to him who comes across it in the day of battle; all men
quake for fear and keep away from it.
Hector on the other side set the Trojans in array. Thereon
Neptune and Hector waged fierce war on one another—Hec-
tor on the Trojan and Neptune on the Argive side. Mighty
was the uproar as the two forces met; the sea came rolling
in towards the ships and tents of the Achaeans, but waves
do not thunder on the shore more loudly when driven be-
fore the blast of Boreas, nor do the flames of a forest fire
roar more fiercely when it is well alight upon the moun-
tains, nor does the wind bellow with ruder music as it tears
on through the tops of when it is blowing its hardest, than
the terrible shout which the Trojans and Achaeans raised as