Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
With these words he urged Minerva, who was already of the same
mind. She darted down from heaven into the air like some falcon
sailing on his broad wings and screaming. Meanwhile the
Achaeans were arming throughout the host, and when Minerva had
dropped nectar and ambrosia into Achilles so that no cruel hunger
should cause his limbs to fail him, she went back to the house of
her mighty father. Thick as the chill snow-flakes shed from the
hand of Jove and borne on the keen blasts of the north wind, even
so thick did the gleaming helmets, the bossed shields, the strongly
plated breastplates, and the ashen spears stream from the ships.
The sheen pierced the sky, the whole land was radiant with their
flashing armour, and the sound of the tramp of their treading rose
from under their feet. In the midst of them all Achilles put on his
armour; he gnashed his teeth, his eyes gleamed like fire, for his
grief was greater than he could bear. Thus, then, full of fury against
the Trojans, did he don the gift of the god, the armour that Vulcan
had made him.
First he put on the goodly greaves fitted with ancle-clasps, and
next he did on the breastplate about his chest. He slung the silverstudded
sword of bronze about his shoulders, and then took up
the shield so great and strong that shone afar with a splendour as
of the moon. As the light seen by sailors from out at sea, when men
have lit a fire in their homestead high up among the mountains,
but the sailors are carried out to sea by wind and storm far from the
haven where they would be- even so did the gleam of Achilles’
wondrous shield strike up into the heavens. He lifted the
redoubtable helmet, and set it upon his head, from whence it shone
like a star, and the golden plumes which Vulcan had set thick
about the ridge of the helmet, waved all around it. Then Achilles
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