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never hear of them in the battles that followed, so Ulysses and Diomede deprived the Trojans of
thousands of men. The other princes went to bed in good spirits, but Ulysses and Diomede took a
swim in the sea, and then went into hot baths, and so to breakfast, for rosy-fingered Dawn was
coming up the sky.
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BATTLE AT THE SHIPS
With dawn Agamemnon awoke, and fear had gone out of his heart. He put on his armour, and
arrayed the chiefs on foot in front of their chariots, and behind them came the spearmen, with the
bowmen and slingers on the wings of the army. Then a great black cloud spread over the sky, and
red was the rain that fell from it. The Trojans gathered on a height in the plain, and Hector, shining
in armour, went here and there, in front and rear, like a star that now gleams forth and now is
hidden in a cloud.
The armies rushed on each other and hewed each other down, as reapers cut their way through a
field of tall corn. Neither side gave ground, though the helmets of the bravest Trojans might be
seen deep in the ranks of the Greeks; and the swords of the bravest Greeks rose and fell in the ranks
of the Trojans, and all the while the arrows showered like rain. But at noon-day, when the weary
woodman rests from cutting trees, and takes his dinner in the quiet hills, the Greeks of the first line
made a charge, Agamemnon running in front of them, and he speared two Trojans, and took their
breastplates, which he laid in his chariot, and then he speared one brother of Hector and struck
another down with his sword, and killed two more who vainly asked to be made prisoners of war.
Footmen slew footmen, and chariot men slew chariot men, and they broke into the Trojan line as
fire falls on a forest in a windy day, leaping and roaring and racing through the trees. Many an
empty chariot did the horses hurry madly through the field, for the charioteers were lying dead,
with the greedy vultures hovering above them, flapping their wide wings. Still Agamemnon
followed and slew the hindmost Trojans, but the rest fled till they came to the gates, and the oak
tree that grew outside the gates, and there they stopped.
But Hector held his hands from fighting, for in the meantime he was making his men face the
enemy and form up in line and take breath, and was encouraging them, for they had retreated from
the wall of the Greeks across the whole plain, past the hill that was the tomb of Ilus, a king of old,
and past the place of the wild fig-tree. Much ado had Hector to rally the Trojans, but he knew that
when men do turn again they are hard to beat. So it proved, for when the Trojans had rallied and
formed in line, Agamemnon slew a Thracian chief who had come to fight for Troy before King
Rhesus came. But the eldest brother of the slain man smote Agamemnon through the arm with his
spear, and, though Agamemnon slew him in turn, his wound bled much and he was in great pain, so
he leaped into his chariot and was driven back to the ships.
Then Hector gave the word to charge, as a huntsman cries on his hounds against a lion, and he
rushed forward at the head of the Trojan line, slaying as he went. Nine chiefs of the Greeks he
slew, and fell upon the spearmen and scattered them, as the spray of the waves is scattered by the
wandering wind.
Now the ranks of the Greeks were broken, and they would have been driven among their ships and
killed without mercy, had not Ulysses and Diomede stood firm in the centre, and slain four Trojan
leaders. The Greeks began to come back and face their enemies in line of battle again, though
Hector, who had been fighting on the Trojan right, rushed against them. But Diomede took good
aim with his spear at the helmet of Hector, and struck it fairly. The spear-point did not go through
the helmet, but Hector was stunned and fell; and, when he came to himself, he leaped into his
chariot, and his squire drove him against the Pylians and Cretans, under Nestor and Idomeneus,
who were on the left wing of the Greek army. Then Diomede fought on till Paris, who stood beside
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the pillar on the hillock that was the tomb of old King Ilus, sent an arrow clean through his foot.
Ulysses went and stood in front of Diomede, who sat down, and Ulysses drew the arrow from his
foot, and Diomede stepped into his chariot and was driven back to the ships.
Ulysses was now the only Greek chief that still fought in the centre. The Greeks all fled, and he
was alone in the crowd of Trojans, who rushed on him as hounds and hunters press round a wild
boar that stands at bay in a wood. "They are cowards that flee from the fight," said Ulysses to
himself; "but I will stand here, one man against a multitude." He covered the front of his body with
his great shield, that hung by a belt round his neck, and he smote four Trojans and wounded a fifth.
But the brother of the wounded man drove a spear through the shield and breastplate of Ulysses,
and tore clean through his side. Then Ulysses turned on this Trojan, and he fled, and Ulysses sent a
spear through his shoulder and out at his breast, and he died. Ulysses dragged from his own side the
spear that had wounded him, and called thrice with a great voice to the other Greeks, and Menelaus
and Aias rushed to rescue him, for many Trojans were round him, like jackals round a wounded
stag that a man has struck with an arrow. But Aias ran and covered the wounded Ulysses with his
huge shield till he could climb into the chariot of Menelaus, who drove him back to the ships.
Meanwhile, Hector was slaying the Greeks on the left of their battle, and Paris struck the Greek
surgeon, Machaon, with an arrow; and Idomeneus bade Nestor put Machaon in his chariot and
drive him to Nestor's hut, where his wound might be tended. Meanwhile, Hector sped to the centre
of the line, where Aias was slaying the Trojans; but Eurypylus, a Greek chief, was wounded by an
arrow from the bow of Paris, and his friends guarded him with their shields and spears.
Thus the best of the Greeks were wounded and out of the battle, save Aias, and the spearmen were
in flight. Meanwhile Achilles was standing by the stern of his ship watching the defeat of the
Greeks, but when he saw Machaon being carried past, sorely wounded, in the chariot of Nestor, he
bade his friend Patroclus, whom he loved better than all the rest, to go and ask how Machaon did.
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