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The archery of Teucer, brother of Ajax, was dealing destruction among
the Trojans, when Jove broke the bow-string; and thereafter the god
stirred

With such addition of his spirit the spirit Hector bore
To burn the fleet, that of itself was hot enough before.
But now he fared like Mars himself, so brandishing his lance
As through the deep shades of a wood a raging fire should glance,
Held up to all eyes by a hill; about his lips a foam
Stood, as when th' ocean is enraged; his eyes were overcome
With fervour, and resembled flames, set off by his dark brows,
And from his temples his bright helm abhorred lightnings throws.
He, girt in fire borne for the fleet, still rushed at every troop,
And fell upon it like a wave, high raised, that then doth stoop
Out from the clouds, grows as it stoops with storms, then down doth
come And cuff a ship, when all her sides are hid in brackish foam,
Strong gales still raging in her sails, her sailors' minds dismay'd,
Death being but little from their lives; so Jovelike Hector fray'd
And plied the Greeks, who knew not what would chance, for all their
guards. And as the baneful king of beasts, leapt in to oxen herds Fed
in the meadows of a fen exceeding great, the beasts In number infinite,
'mongst whom (their herdsmen wanting breasts To fight with lions for
the price of a black ox's life) He here and there jumps first and last,
in his bloodthirsty strife; Chased and assaulted, and at length down in
the midst goes one, And all the rest 'sperst through the fen; so now
all Greece was gone.

On the Grecian side Ajax

Stalked here and there, and in his hand a huge great bead-hook held,
Twelve cubits long, and full of iron. And then again there grew
A bitter conflict at the fleet. You would have said none drew
A weary breath, nor ever did, they laid so freshly on.

It seemed that even Ajax would be overborne. But Patroclus, the loved
friend of Achilles, saw this destruction coming upon the Greeks, and
he earnestly besought Achilles, if he would not be moved to sally
forth to the rescue himself, to suffer him to go out against the
Trojans, bearing the arms of Achilles and leading his Myrmidons into
the fray. Which leave Achilles granted him.


FOOTNOTES:

[F] Of the personality of Homer, the maker of the "Iliad" and
the "Odyssey," those great epic poems which were the common heritage
of all Greeks, we have no knowledge. Tradition pictures him as blind
and old. Seven cities claimed to be his birthplace. Probably he lived
in the ninth century B. C.
, since the particular stages of social life
which he portrays probably belong to that era. Beyond this, all is
conjecture. The poems were not written down till a later date, when
their authorship was already a matter of tradition; and when what
we may call the canon of the text of the epics was laid down in the
sixth century B. C. , it may be readily supposed that they were not in
the exact form which the master-poet himself had given them. Hence
the ingenuity of the modern commentator has endeavoured to resolve
Homer into an indefinite number of ballad-mongers, whose ballads were
edited into their existing unity. On the whole, this view may be called
Teutonic. Of the "Iliad," it suffices to say that it relates events
immediately preceding the fall of Troy, at the close of the tenth year
of the siege undertaken by the Greeks on account of the abduction of
Helen from Menelaus by Paris. Of Chapman's translation we shall speak
in the introduction to the "Odyssey. "


_III_. --_Of Patroclus, and the Rousing of Achilles_

Bearing the armour of Achilles, save the spear which none other could
wield, Patroclus sped forth, leading the Myrmidons.

And when ye see upon a mountain bred
A den of wolves about whose hearts unmeasured strengths are fed,
New come from currie of a stag, their jaws all blood-besmeared,
And when from some black-water fount they all together herd,
There having plentifully lapped with thin and thrust-out tongues
The top and clearest of the spring, go, belching from their lungs
The clottered gore, look dreadfully, and entertain no dread,
Their bellies gaunt, all taken up with being so rawly fed;
Then say that such in strength and look, were great Achilles' men
Now ordered for the dreadful fight.

The Trojans, taking Patroclus for Achilles, were now driven before
him and the other Grecian chiefs. Patroclus slew Sarpedon, king of
Lycia, and the fight raged furiously about the corse. The Trojans
fled, Patroclus pursued. At last Phoebus Apollo smote his armour from
him; Euphorbus thrust him through from behind, and Hector slew him.