Page 407 - the-iliad

it can go here and there, and as a man says, so shall he be
gainsaid. What is the use of our bandying hard like women
who when they fall foul of one another go out and wrangle
in the streets, one half true and the other lies, as rage in-
spires them? No words of yours shall turn me now that I
am fain to fight—therefore let us make trial of one another
with our spears.’
As he spoke he drove his spear at the great and terrible
shield of Achilles, which rang out as the point struck it. The
son of Peleus held the shield before him with his strong
hand, and he was afraid, for he deemed that Aeneas’s spear
would go through it quite easily, not reflecting that the god’s
glorious gifts were little likely to yield before the blows of
mortal men; and indeed Aeneas’s spear did not pierce the
shield, for the layer of gold, gift of the god, stayed the point.
It went through two layers, but the god had made the shield
in five, two of bronze, the two innermost ones of tin, and
one of gold; it was in this that the spear was stayed.
Achilles in his turn threw, and struck the round shield of
Aeneas at the very edge, where the bronze was thinnest; the
spear of Pelian ash went clean through, and the shield rang
under the blow; Aeneas was afraid, and crouched back-
wards, holding the shield away from him; the spear, however,
flew over his back, and stuck quivering in the ground, after
having gone through both circles of the sheltering shield.
Aeneas though he had avoided the spear, stood still, blinded
with fear and grief because the weapon had gone so near
him; then Achilles sprang furiously upon him, with a cry as
of death and with his keen blade drawn, and Aeneas seized

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