Page:Iliad Buckley.djvu/162

150 walls, or whether I shall bear away his bloody spoils, having slain him with my brazen spear. To-morrow shall he make manifest his valor, if he shall withstand my assaulting spear. But I think that he will lie wounded among the first at sunrise to-morrow, and many companions around him. Would that I were so certainly immortal, and free from old age all my days, and honored, as Minerva and Apollo are honored, as [I am certain] that this day will bring evil upon the Greeks."

Thus Hector harangued them; but the Trojans applauded aloud. And they loosed from the yoke their sweating steeds, and bound them with halters, each to his own chariot. Quickly they brought from the city oxen and fat sheep: and they brought sweet wine, and bread from their homes, and also collected many faggots. But the winds raised the savor from the plain to heaven.

But they, greatly elated, sat all night in the ranks of war, and many fires blazed for them. As when in heaven the stars appear very conspicuous around the lucid moon, when the æther is wont to be without a breeze, and all the pointed rocks and lofty summits and groves appear, but in heaven the immense æther is disclosed, and all the stars are seen, and the shepherd rejoices in his soul. Thus did many fires of the Trojans kindling them appear before Ilium, between the ships and the streams of Xanthus. A thousand fires blazed in the plain, and by each sat fifty men, at the light of the blazing fire. But their steeds eating white barley and oats, standing by the chariots, awaited beautiful-throned Aurora.