Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
cupbearer, for his beauty’s sake, that he might dwell among the
immortals. Ilus begat Laomedon, and Laomedon begat Tithonus,
Priam, Lampus, Clytius, and Hiketaon of the stock of Mars. But
Assaracus was father to Capys, and Capys to Anchises, who was
my father, while Hector is son to Priam.
“Such do I declare my blood and lineage, but as for valour, Jove
gives it or takes it as he will, for he is lord of all. And now let there
be no more of this prating in mid-battle as though we were
children. We could fling taunts without end at one another; a
hundred-oared galley would not hold them. The tongue can run all
whithers and talk all wise; it can go here and there, and as a man
says, so shall he be gainsaid. What is the use of our bandying hard
like women who when they fall foul of one another go out and
wrangle in the streets, one half true and the other lies, as rage
inspires them? No words of yours shall turn me now that I am fain
to fight- therefore let us make trial of one another with our spears.”
As he spoke he drove his spear at the great and terrible shield of
Achilles, which rang out as the point struck it. The son of Peleus
held the shield before him with his strong hand, and he was afraid,
for he deemed that Aeneas’s spear would go through it quite easily,
not reflecting that the god’s glorious gifts were little likely to yield
before the blows of mortal men; and indeed Aeneas’s spear did not
pierce the shield, for the layer of gold, gift of the god, stayed the
point. It went through two layers, but the god had made the shield
in five, two of bronze, the two innermost ones of tin, and one of
gold; it was in this that the spear was stayed.
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