Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
necked swans- even so did Hector make straight for a dark-prowed
ship, rushing right towards it; for Jove with his mighty hand
impelled him forward, and roused his people to follow him.
And now the battle again raged furiously at the ships. You would
have thought the men were coming on fresh and unwearied, so
fiercely did they fight; and this was the mind in which they werethe
Achaeans did not believe they should escape destruction but
thought themselves doomed, while there was not a Trojan but his
heart beat high with the hope of firing the ships and putting the
Achaean heroes to the sword.
Thus were the two sides minded. Then Hector seized the stern of
the good ship that had brought Protesilaus to Troy, but never bore
him back to his native land. Round this ship there raged a close
hand-to-hand fight between Danaans and Trojans. They did not
fight at a distance with bows and javelins, but with one mind
hacked at one another in close combat with their mighty swords
and spears pointed at both ends; they fought moreover with keen
battle-axes and with hatchets. Many a good stout blade hilted and
scabbarded with iron, fell from hand or shoulder as they fought,
and the earth ran red with blood. Hector, when he had seized the
ship, would not loose his hold but held on to its curved stern and
shouted to the Trojans, “Bring fire, and raise the battle-cry all of
you with a single voice. Now has Jove vouchsafed us a day that
will pay us for all the rest; this day we shall take the ships which
came hither against heaven’s will, and which have caused us such
infinite suffering through the cowardice of our councillors, who
when I would have done battle at the ships held me back and
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