Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
“No need,” he cried, “to give orders to such leaders of the Argives
as you are, for of your own selves you spur your men on to fight
with might and main. Would, by father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo
that all were so minded as you are, for the city of Priam would then
soon fall beneath our hands, and we should sack it.”
With this he left them and went onward to Nestor, the facile
speaker of the Pylians, who was marshalling his men and urging
them on, in company with Pelagon, Alastor, Chromius, Haemon,
and Bias shepherd of his people. He placed his knights with their
chariots and horses in the front rank, while the foot-soldiers, brave
men and many, whom he could trust, were in the rear. The cowards
he drove into the middle, that they might fight whether they would
or no. He gave his orders to the knights first, bidding them hold
their horses well in hand, so as to avoid confusion. “Let no man,”
he said, “relying on his strength or horsemanship, get before the
others and engage singly with the Trojans, nor yet let him lag
behind or you will weaken your attack; but let each when he meets
an enemy’s chariot throw his spear from his own; this be much the
best; this is how the men of old took towns and strongholds; in this
wise were they minded.”
Thus did the old man charge them, for he had been in many a fight,
and King Agamemnon was glad. “I wish,” he said to him, that your
limbs were as supple and your strength as sure as your judgment
is; but age, the common enemy of mankind, has laid his hand upon
you; would that it had fallen upon some other, and that you were
still young.”
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