Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
company of Thracian soldiers, who were sleeping, tired out with
their day’s toil; their goodly armour was lying on the ground
beside them all orderly in three rows, and each man had his yoke
of horses beside him. Rhesus was sleeping in the middle, and hard
by him his horses were made fast to the topmost rim of his chariot.
Ulysses from some way off saw him and said, “This, Diomed, is the
man, and these are the horses about which Dolon whom we killed
told us. Do your very utmost; dally not about your armour, but
loose the horses at once- or else kill the men yourself, while I see to
the horses.”
Thereon Minerva put courage into the heart of Diomed, and he
smote them right and left. They made a hideous groaning as they
were being hacked about, and the earth was red with their blood.
As a lion springs furiously upon a flock of sheep or goats when he
finds without their shepherd, so did the son of Tydeus set upon the
Thracian soldiers till he had killed twelve. As he killed them
Ulysses came and drew them aside by their feet one by one, that
the horses might go forward freely without being frightened as
they passed over the dead bodies, for they were not yet used to
them. When the son of Tydeus came to the king, he killed him too
(which made thirteen), as he was breathing hard, for by the counsel
of Minerva an evil dream, the seed of Oeneus, hovered that night
over his head. Meanwhile Ulysses untied the horses, made them
fast one to another and drove them off, striking them with his bow,
for he had forgotten to take the whip from the chariot. Then he
whistled as a sign to Diomed.
But Diomed stayed where he was, thinking what other daring deed
he might accomplish. He was doubting whether to take the chariot
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