Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
yellow Ceres blows with the wind to sift the chaff from the grain,
and the chaff- heaps grow whiter and whiter- even so did the
Achaeans whiten in the dust which the horses’ hoofs raised to the
firmament of heaven, as their drivers turned them back to battle,
and they bore down with might upon the foe. Fierce Mars, to help
the Trojans, covered them in a veil of darkness, and went about
everywhere among them, inasmuch as Phoebus Apollo had told
him that when he saw Pallas, Minerva leave the fray he was to put
courage into the hearts of the Trojans- for it was she who was
helping the Danaans. Then Apollo sent Aeneas forth from his rich
sanctuary, and filled his heart with valour, whereon he took his
place among his comrades, who were overjoyed at seeing him
alive, sound, and of a good courage; but they could not ask him
how it had all happened, for they were too busy with the turmoil
raised by Mars and by Strife, who raged insatiably in their midst.
The two Ajaxes, Ulysses and Diomed, cheered the Danaans on,
fearless of the fury and onset of the Trojans. They stood as still as
clouds which the son of Saturn has spread upon the mountain tops
when there is no air and fierce Boreas sleeps with the other
boisterous winds whose shrill blasts scatter the clouds in all
directions- even so did the Danaans stand firm and unflinching
against the Trojans. The son of Atreus went about among them and
exhorted them. “My friends,” said he, “quit yourselves like brave
men, and shun dishonour in one another’s eyes amid the stress of
battle. They that shun dishonour more often live than get killed,
but they that fly save neither life nor name.”
As he spoke he hurled his spear and hit one of those who were in
the front rank, the comrade of Aeneas, Deicoon son of Pergasus,
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