Page 311 - the-iliad

Hector make straight for a dark-prowed ship, rushing right
towards it; for Jove with his mighty hand impelled him for-
ward, and roused his people to follow him.
And now the battle again raged furiously at the ships.
You would have thought the men were coming on fresh and
unwearied, so fiercely did they fight; and this was the mind
in which they were—the Achaeans did not believe they
should escape destruction but thought themselves doomed,
while there was not a Trojan but his heart beat high with
the hope of firing the ships and putting the Achaean heroes
to the sword.
Thus were the two sides minded. Then Hector seized
the stern of the good ship that had brought Protesilaus to
Troy, but never bore him back to his native land. Round this
ship there raged a close hand-to-hand fight between Dan-
aans and Trojans. They did not fight at a distance with bows
and javelins, but with one mind hacked at one another in
close combat with their mighty swords and spears pointed
at both ends; they fought moreover with keen battle-axes
and with hatchets. Many a good stout blade hilted and
scabbarded with iron, fell from hand or shoulder as they
fought, and the earth ran red with blood. Hector, when he
had seized the ship, would not loose his hold but held on
to its curved stern and shouted to the Trojans, ‘Bring fire,
and raise the battle-cry all of you with a single voice. Now
has Jove vouchsafed us a day that will pay us for all the rest;
this day we shall take the ships which came hither against
heaven’s will, and which have caused us such infinite suffer-
ing through the cowardice of our councillors, who when I

10 The Iliad