Page 69 - the-iliad

thereon he went up to him and said, ‘Son of Aesculapius,
King Agamemnon says you are to come and see Menelaus
immediately. Some Trojan or Lycian archer has wounded
him with an arrow to our dismay and to his own great glo-
ry.’
Thus did he speak, and Machaon was moved to go. They
passed through the spreading host of the Achaeans and
went on till they came to the place where Menelaus had
been wounded and was lying with the chieftains gathered
in a circle round him. Machaon passed into the middle of
the ring and at once drew the arrow from the belt, bend-
ing its barbs back through the force with which he pulled
it out. He undid the burnished belt, and beneath this the
cuirass and the belt of mail which the bronze-smiths had
made; then, when he had seen the wound, he wiped away
the blood and applied some soothing drugs which Chiron
had given to Aesculapius out of the good will he bore him.
While they were thus busy about Menelaus, the Trojans
came forward against them, for they had put on their ar-
mour, and now renewed the fight.
You would not have then found Agamemnon asleep nor
cowardly and unwilling to fight, but eager rather for the
fray. He left his chariot rich with bronze and his panting
steeds in charge of Eurymedon, son of Ptolemaeus the son
of Peiraeus, and bade him hold them in readiness against
the time his limbs should weary of going about and giv-
ing orders to so many, for he went among the ranks on foot.
When he saw men hasting to the front he stood by them
and cheered them on. ‘Argives,’ said he, ‘slacken not one

The Iliad