Page 301 - the-iliad

runs high before a gale—for it is the force of the wind that
makes the waves so great—even so did the Trojans spring
over the wall with a shout, and drive their chariots onwards.
The two sides fought with their double-pointed spears in
hand-to-hand encounter-the Trojans from their chariots,
and the Achaeans climbing up into their ships and wield-
ing the long pikes that were lying on the decks ready for use
in a sea-fight, jointed and shod with bronze.
Now Patroclus, so long as the Achaeans and Trojans were
fighting about the wall, but were not yet within it and at the
ships, remained sitting in the tent of good Eurypylus, en-
tertaining him with his conversation and spreading herbs
over his wound to ease his pain. When, however, he saw the
Trojans swarming through the breach in the wall, while the
Achaeans were clamouring and struck with panic, he cried
aloud, and smote his two thighs with the flat of his hands.
‘Eurypylus,’ said he in his dismay, ‘I know you want me bad-
ly, but I cannot stay with you any longer, for there is hard
fighting going on; a servant shall take care of you now, for I
must make all speed to Achilles, and induce him to fight if I
can; who knows but with heaven’s help I may persuade him.
A man does well to listen to the advice of a friend.’
When he had thus spoken he went his way. The Achaeans
stood firm and resisted the attack of the Trojans, yet though
these were fewer in number, they could not drive them back
from the ships, neither could the Trojans break the Achae-
an ranks and make their way in among the tents and ships.
As a carpenter’s line gives a true edge to a piece of ship’s tim-
ber, in the hand of some skilled workman whom Minerva

00 The Iliad