Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
came up to Achilles and clasped his knees in the hope that he
would spare him and not kill him but let him go, because they
were both of the same age. Fool, he might have known that he
should not prevail with him, for the man was in no mood for pity
or forbearance but was in grim earnest. Therefore when Tros laid
hold of his knees and sought a hearing for his prayers, Achilles
drove his sword into his liver, and the liver came rolling out, while
his bosom was all covered with the black blood that welled from
the wound. Thus did death close his eyes as he lay lifeless.
Achilles then went up to Mulius and struck him on the ear with a
spear, and the bronze spear-head came right out at the other ear. He
also struck Echeclus son of Agenor on the head with his sword,
which became warm with the blood, while death and stern fate
closed the eyes of Echeclus. Next in order the bronze point of his
spear wounded Deucalion in the fore-arm where the sinews of the
elbow are united, whereon he waited Achilles’ onset with his arm
hanging down and death staring him in the face. Achilles cut his
head off with a blow from his sword and flung it helmet and all
away from him, and the marrow came oozing out of his backbone
as he lay. He then went in pursuit of Rhigmus, noble son of Peires,
who had come from fertile Thrace, and struck him through the
middle with a spear which fixed itself in his belly, so that he fell
headlong from his chariot. He also speared Areithous squire to
Rhigmus in the back as he was turning his horses in flight, and
thrust him from his chariot, while the horses were struck with
panic.
As a fire raging in some mountain glen after long drought- and the
dense forest is in a blaze, while the wind carries great tongues of
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