Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
Diomed all undaunted answered, “Archer, you who without your
bow are nothing, slanderer and seducer, if you were to be tried in
single combat fighting in full armour, your bow and your arrows
would serve you in little stead. Vain is your boast in that you have
scratched the sole of my foot. I care no more than if a girl or some
silly boy had hit me. A worthless coward can inflict but a light
wound; when I wound a man though I but graze his skin it is
another matter, for my weapon will lay him low. His wife will tear
her cheeks for grief and his children will be fatherless: there will he
rot, reddening the earth with his blood, and vultures, not women,
will gather round him.”
Thus he spoke, but Ulysses came up and stood over him. Under
this cover he sat down to draw the arrow from his foot, and sharp
was the pain he suffered as he did so. Then he sprang on to his
chariot and bade the charioteer drive him to the ships, for he was
sick at heart.
Ulysses was now alone; not one of the Argives stood by him, for
they were all panic-stricken. “Alas,” said he to himself in his
dismay, “what will become of me? It is ill if I turn and fly before
these odds, but it will be worse if I am left alone and taken
prisoner, for the son of Saturn has struck the rest of the Danaans
with panic. But why talk to myself in this way? Well do I know that
though cowards quit the field, a hero, whether he wound or be
wounded, must stand firm and hold his own.”
While he was thus in two minds, the ranks of the Trojans advanced
and hemmed him in, and bitterly did they come to me it. As
hounds and lusty youths set upon a wild boar that sallies from his
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