Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
and credit, for the hazard of the fight is extreme. Great Hector is
now fighting at our ships; he has broken through the gates and the
strong bolt that held them.”
Thus did the earth-encircler address the Achaeans and urge them
on. Thereon round the two Ajaxes there gathered strong bands of
men, of whom not even Mars nor Minerva, marshaller of hosts
could make light if they went among them, for they were the
picked men of all those who were now awaiting the onset of Hector
and the Trojans. They made a living fence, spear to spear, shield to
shield, buckler to buckler, helmet to helmet, and man to man. The
horse-hair crests on their gleaming helmets touched one another as
they nodded forward, so closely seffied were they; the spears they
brandished in their strong hands were interlaced, and their hearts
were set on battle.
The Trojans advanced in a dense body, with Hector at their head
pressing right on as a rock that comes thundering down the side of
some mountain from whose brow the winter torrents have torn it;
the foundations of the dull thing have been loosened by floods of
rain, and as it bounds headlong on its way it sets the whole forest
in an uproar; it swerves neither to right nor left till it reaches level
ground, but then for all its fury it can go no further- even so easily
did Hector for a while seem as though he would career through the
tents and ships of the Achaeans till he had reached the sea in his
murderous course; but the closely serried battalions stayed him
when he reached them, for the sons of the Achaeans thrust at him
with swords and spears pointed at both ends, and drove him from
them so that he staggered and gave ground; thereon he shouted to
the Trojans, “Trojans, Lycians, and Dardanians, fighters in close
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