Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
forward with intent to strip him of his armour; but as he was doing
so, Hector took aim at him with a spear. Teucer saw the spear
coming and swerved aside, whereon it hit Amphimachus, son of
Cteatus son of Actor, in the chest as he was coming into battle, and
his armour rang rattling round him as he fell heavily to the ground.
Hector sprang forward to take Amphimachus’s helmet from off his
temples, and in a moment Ajax threw a spear at him, but did not
wound him, for he was encased all over in his terrible armour;
nevertheless the spear struck the boss of his shield with such force
as to drive him back from the two corpses, which the Achaeans then
drew off. Stichius and Menestheus, captains of the Athenians, bore
away Amphimachus to the host of the Achaeans, while the two
brave and impetuous Ajaxes did the like by Imbrius. As two lions
snatch a goat from the hounds that have it in their fangs, and bear it
through thick brushwood high above the ground in their jaws, thus
did the Ajaxes bear aloft the body of Imbrius, and strip it of its
armour. Then the son of Oileus severed the head from the neck in
revenge for the death of Amphimachus, and sent it whirling over
the crowd as though it had been a ball, till fell in the dust at
Hector’s feet.
Neptune was exceedingly angry that his grandson Amphimachus
should have fallen; he therefore went to the tents and ships of the
Achaeans to urge the Danaans still further, and to devise evil for
the Trojans. Idomeneus met him, as he was taking leave of a
comrade, who had just come to him from the fight, wounded in the
knee. His fellow-soldiers bore him off the field, and Idomeneus
having given orders to the physicians went on to his tent, for he
was still thirsting for battle. Neptune spoke in the likeness and
with the voice of Thoas son of Andraemon who ruled the Aetolians
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