Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
On this Menelaus and Meriones took the dead man in their arms
and lifted him high aloft with a great effort. The Trojan host raised
a hue and cry behind them when they saw the Achaeans bearing
the body away, and flew after them like hounds attacking a
wounded boar at the loo of a band of young huntsmen. For a while
the hounds fly at him as though they would tear him in pieces, but
now and again he turns on them in a fury, scaring and scattering
them in all directions- even so did the Trojans for a while charge in
a body, striking with sword and with spears pointed ai both the
ends, but when the two Ajaxes faced them and stood at bay, they
would turn pale and no man dared press on to fight further about
the dead.
In this wise did the two heroes strain every nerve to bear the body
to the ships out of the fight. The battle raged round them like fierce
flames that when once kindled spread like wildfire over a city, and
the houses fall in the glare of its burning- even such was the roar
and tramp of men and horses that pursued them as they bore
Patroclus from the field. Or as mules that put forth all their
strength to draw some beam or great piece of ship’s timber down a
rough mountain-track, and they pant and sweat as they, go even so
did Menelaus and pant and sweat as they bore the body of
Patroclus. Behind them the two Ajaxes held stoutly out. As some
wooded mountain-spur that stretches across a plain will turn water
and check the flow even of a great river, nor is there any stream
strong enough to break through it- even so did the two Ajaxes face
the Trojans and stern the tide of their fighting though they kept
pouring on towards them and foremost among them all was
Aeneas son of Anchises with valiant Hector. As a flock of daws or
starlings fall to screaming and chattering when they see a falcon,
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