Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
built a house of sand and then kicks it down again and destroys iteven
so did you, O Apollo, shed toil and trouble upon the Argives,
filling them with panic and confusion.
Thus then were the Achaeans hemmed in at their ships, calling out
to one another and raising their hands with loud cries every man to
heaven. Nestor of Gerene, tower of strength to the Achaeans, lifted
up his hands to the starry firmament of heaven, and prayed more
fervently than any of them. “Father Jove,” said he, “if ever any one
in wheat-growing Argos burned you fat thigh-bones of sheep or
heifer and prayed that he might return safely home, whereon you
bowed your head to him in assent, bear it in mind now, and suffer
not the Trojans to triumph thus over the Achaeans.”
All counselling Jove thundered loudly in answer to die prayer of
the aged son of Neleus. When the heard Jove thunder they flung
themselves yet more fiercely on the Achaeans. As a wave breaking
over the bulwarks of a ship when the sea runs high before a galefor
it is the force of the wind that makes the waves so great- even so
did the Trojans spring over the wall with a shout, and drive their
chariots onwards. The two sides fought with their double-pointed
spears in hand-to-hand encounter-the Trojans from their chariots,
and the Achaeans climbing up into their ships and wielding the
long pikes that were lying on the decks ready for use in a sea-fight,
jointed and shod with bronze.
Now Patroclus, so long as the Achaeans and Trojans were fighting
about the wall, but were not yet within it and at the ships,
remained sitting in the tent of good Eurypylus, entertaining him
with his conversation and spreading herbs over his wound to ease
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