Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
With these words he put on his armour; and then, O Menelaus,
your life would have come to an end at the hands of hands of
Hector, for he was far better the man, had not the princes of the
Achaeans sprung upon you and checked you. King Agamemnon
caught him by the right hand and said, “Menelaus, you are mad; a
truce to this folly. Be patient in spite of passion, do not think of
fighting a man so much stronger than yourself as Hector son of
Priam, who is feared by many another as well as you. Even
Achilles, who is far more doughty than you are, shrank from
meeting him in battle. Sit down your own people, and the
Achaeans will send some other champion to fight Hector; fearless
and fond of battle though he be, I ween his knees will bend gladly
under him if he comes out alive from the hurly-burly of this fight.”
With these words of reasonable counsel he persuaded his brother,
whereon his squires gladly stripped the armour from off his
shoulders. Then Nestor rose and spoke, “Of a truth,” said he, “the
Achaean land is fallen upon evil times. The old knight Peleus,
counsellor and orator among the Myrmidons, loved when I was in
his house to question me concerning the race and lineage of all the
Argives. How would it not grieve him could he hear of them as
now quailing before Hector? Many a time would he lift his hands
in prayer that his soul might leave his body and go down within
the house of Hades. Would, by father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo,
that I were still young and strong as when the Pylians and
Arcadians were gathered in fight by the rapid river Celadon under
the walls of Pheia, and round about the waters of the river
Iardanus. The godlike hero Ereuthalion stood forward as their
champion, with the armour of King Areithous upon his shoulders-
Areithous whom men and women had surnamed ‘the Mace-man,’
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