Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
Meanwhile Nestor shouted to the Argives, saying, “My friends,
Danaan warriors, servants of Mars, let no man lag that he may spoil
the dead, and bring back much booty to the ships. Let us kill as
many as we can; the bodies will lie upon the plain, and you can
despoil them later at your leisure.”
With these words he put heart and soul into them all. And now the
Trojans would have been routed and driven back into Ilius, had not
Priam’s son Helenus, wisest of augurs, said to Hector and Aeneas,
“Hector and Aeneas, you two are the mainstays of the Trojans and
Lycians, for you are foremost at all times, alike in fight and
counsel; hold your ground here, and go about among the host to
rally them in front of the gates, or they will fling themselves into
the arms of their wives, to the great joy of our foes. Then, when you
have put heart into all our companies, we will stand firm here and
fight the Danaans however hard they press us, for there is nothing
else to be done. Meanwhile do you, Hector, go to the city and tell
our mother what is happening. Tell her to bid the matrons gather at
the temple of Minerva in the acropolis; let her then take her key
and open the doors of the sacred building; there, upon the knees of
Minerva, let her lay the largest, fairest robe she has in her housethe
one she sets most store by; let her, moreover, promise to
sacrifice twelve yearling heifers that have never yet felt the goad, in
the temple of the goddess, if she will take pity on the town, with
the wives and little ones of the Trojans, and keep the son of Tydeus
from falling on the goodly city of Ilius; for he fights with fury and
fills men’s souls with panic. I hold him mightiest of them all; we
did not fear even their great champion Achilles, son of a goddess
though he be, as we do this man: his rage is beyond all bounds,
and there is none can vie with him in prowess”
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