Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
the spear was stayed by the visored helm made with three plates of
metal, which Phoebus Apollo had given him. Hector sprang back
with a great bound under cover of the ranks; he fell on his knees
and propped himself with his brawny hand leaning on the ground,
for darkness had fallen on his eyes. The son of Tydeus having
thrown his spear dashed in among the foremost fighters, to the
place where he had seen it strike the ground; meanwhile Hector
recovered himself and springing back into his chariot mingled with
the crowd, by which means he saved his life. But Diomed made at
him with his spear and said, “Dog, you have again got away
though death was close on your heels. Phoebus Apollo, to whom I
ween you pray ere you go into battle, has again saved you,
nevertheless I will meet you and make and end of you hereafter, if
there is any god who will stand by me too and be my helper. For
the present I must pursue those I can lay hands on.”
As he spoke he began stripping the spoils from the son of Paeon,
but Alexandrus husband of lovely Helen aimed an arrow at him,
leaning against a pillar of the monument which men had raised to
Ilus son of Dardanus, a ruler in days of old. Diomed had taken the
cuirass from off the breast of Agastrophus, his heavy helmet also,
and the shield from off his shoulders, when Paris drew his bow
and let fly an arrow that sped not from his hand in vain, but
pierced the flat of Diomed’s right foot, going right through it and
fixing itself in the ground. Thereon Paris with a hearty laugh
sprang forward from his hiding-place, and taunted him saying,
“You are wounded- my arrow has not been shot in vain; would that
it had hit you in the belly and killed you, for thus the Trojans, who
fear you as goats fear a lion, would have had a truce from evil.”
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