Page 308 - the-iliad

ing the Trojans. For he meant giving glory to Hector son
of Priam, and letting him throw fire upon the ships, till he
had fulfilled the unrighteous prayer that Thetis had made
him; Jove, therefore, bided his time till he should see the
glare of a blazing ship. From that hour he was about so to
order that the Trojans should be driven back from the ships
and to vouchsafe glory to the Achaeans. With this purpose
he inspired Hector son of Priam, who was cager enough al-
ready, to assail the ships. His fury was as that of Mars, or as
when a fire is raging in the glades of some dense forest upon
the mountains; he foamed at the mouth, his eyes glared un-
der his terrible eye-brows, and his helmet quivered on his
temples by reason of the fury with which he fought. Jove
from heaven was with him, and though he was but one
against many, vouchsafed him victory and glory; for he was
doomed to an early death, and already Pallas Minerva was
hurrying on the hour of his destruction at the hands of the
son of Peleus. Now, however, he kept trying to break the
ranks of the enemy wherever he could see them thickest,
and in the goodliest armour; but do what he might he could
not break through them, for they stood as a tower four-
square, or as some high cliff rising from the grey sea that
braves the anger of the gale, and of the waves that thunder
up against it. He fell upon them like flames of fire from ev-
ery quarter. As when a wave, raised mountain high by wind
and storm, breaks over a ship and covers it deep in foam,
the fierce winds roar against the mast, the hearts of the sail-
ors fail them for fear, and they are saved but by a very little
from destruction—even so were the hearts of the Achaeans

0