Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
tripod or cauldron, and Agamemnon son of Atreus shall decide
whose horses are first. You will then know to your cost.”
Ajax son of Oileus was for making him an angry answer, and there
would have been yet further brawling between them, had not
Achilles risen in his place and said, “Cease your railing Ajax and
Idomeneus; it is not you would be scandalised if you saw any one
else do the like: sit down and keep your eyes on the horses; they
are speeding towards the winning-post and will be bere directly.
You will then both of you know whose horses are first, and whose
come after.”
As he was speaking, the son of Tydeus came driving in, plying his
whip lustily from his shoulder, and his horses stepping high as
they flew over the course. The sand and grit rained thick on the
driver, and the chariot inlaid with gold and tin ran close behind his
fleet horses. There was little trace of wheel-marks in the fine dust,
and the horses came flying in at their utmost speed. Diomed stayed
them in the middle of the crowd, and the sweat from their manes
and chests fell in streams on to the ground. Forthwith he sprang
from his goodly chariot, and leaned his whip against his horses’
yoke; brave Sthenelus now lost no time, but at once brought on the
prize, and gave the woman and the ear-handled cauldron to his
comrades to take away. Then he unyoked the horses.
Next after him came in Antilochus of the race of Neleus, who had
passed Menelaus by a trick and not by the fleetness of his horses;
but even so Menelaus came in as close behind him as the wheel is
to the horse that draws both the chariot and its master. The end
hairs of a horse’s tail touch the tyre of the wheel, and there is never
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