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201—238. king; and thus would one of them say, looking toward the wide heaven:

"O father Jove, ruling from Ida, most glorious, most mighty, grant to Ajax to bear away victory, and illustrious glory. But if thou lovest Hector also, and carest for him, grant equal might and glory to both."

Thus they spake, and Ajax was arming himself in splendid brass. But when he had put on all his armor around his body, then he rushed forward: as moves mighty Mars, who goes to war amid men, whom the son of Saturn has engaged to fight with the strength of soul-gnawing strife, such mighty Ajax advanced, the bulwark of the Greeks, smiling with grim countenance; but he advanced, taking long strides with his feet beneath, brandishing his long-shadowed spear. The Greeks on their part, rejoiced much on beholding him, but dire dismay seized the Trojans, each one as to his limbs, and the soul panted in the breast of Hector himself. But now he could not in any wise retract through fear, nor retire back into the crowd of the people, since he had challenged to the fight. But Ajax drew near, bearing a shield, like a tower, brazen, covered with seven ox-hides, which for him the artist Tychius laboring had wrought, dwelling at his home in Hyla, by far the most excellent of leather-cutters, who for him had made a movable shield, of seven hides of very fat bulls, and drawn over it an eighth [layer] of brass. Carrying this before his breast, Telamonian Ajax stood very near Hector, and menacing addressed him:

"O Hector, now thou, alone with me alone, shalt plainly know, what kind of chiefs are present with the Greeks, even besides Achilles, the breaker of ranks, the lion-hearted. But he, indeed, abides at his high-beaked sea-traversing ships, enraged against Agamemnon, the shepherd of the people. Yet we are such, even many of us, who can go against thee; but begin the battle and the strife."

Him then in turn the mighty crest-tossing Hector addressed: "Thou Jove-sprung Ajax, son of Telamon, ruler of forces, tamper not with me as with a weak boy, or a woman, who knows not warlike deeds. But I well know both battles and man-slaughterings. I know how to shift my dry shield to the right and to the left; wherefore to me it belongs to fight unwearied. I am also skilled to rush to the battle of