Page 84 - the-iliad

ing Jove, unweariable, if ever you loved my father well and
stood by him in the thick of a fight, do the like now by me;
grant me to come within a spear’s throw of that man and
kill him. He has been too quick for me and has wounded
me; and now he is boasting that I shall not see the light of
the sun much longer.’
Thus he prayed, and Pallas Minerva heard him; she made
his limbs supple and quickened his hands and his feet. Then
she went up close to him and said, ‘Fear not, Diomed, to do
battle with the Trojans, for I have set in your heart the spirit
of your knightly father Tydeus. Moreover, I have withdrawn
the veil from your eyes, that you know gods and men apart.
If, then, any other god comes here and offers you battle, do
not fight him; but should Jove’s daughter Venus come, strike
her with your spear and wound her.’
When she had said this Minerva went away, and the son
of Tydeus again took his place among the foremost fighters,
three times more fierce even than he had been before. He
was like a lion that some mountain shepherd has wounded,
but not killed, as he is springing over the wall of a sheep-
yard to attack the sheep. The shepherd has roused the brute
to fury but cannot defend his flock, so he takes shelter un-
der cover of the buildings, while the sheep, panic-stricken
on being deserted, are smothered in heaps one on top of
the other, and the angry lion leaps out over the sheep-yard
wall. Even thus did Diomed go furiously about among the
Trojans.
He killed Astynous, and Hypeiron shepherd of his peo-
ple, the one with a thrust of his spear, which struck him