Page:Iliad Buckley.djvu/244

232 reproach; for certainly a mighty contest hath arisen. Now indeed brave Hector, good in the din of war, combats at the ships, and hath burst through the gates and the long bar."

Thus then Neptune, exhorting, aroused the Greeks. But round the two Ajaces firm phalanxes stood, which not even Mars, coming among them, would have found fault with, nor Minerva, the confounder of armies; for the bravest selected awaited the Trojans and noble Hector; knitting spear with spear, shield with shield, one upon another, so that shield pressed upon shield, helmet upon helmet, and man upon man. And the horse-haired helmets of them, nodding, touched each other with their splendid ridges, so closely stood they to one another; and spears in the act of being hurled, were brandishing from their daring hands, while they wished [to go] straight [against the enemy], and were eager to fight. But the combined Trojans first made the attack, and impetuous Hector first rushed against them: as a destructively-rolling stone from a rock, which a wintery torrent drives down the brow, having burst with a mighty shower the stays of the rugged rock, and bounding along, it rolls, and the forest resounds beneath it: but straightway it runs on uninterruptedly until it reach the plain, but then it rolls no longer, though impelled; so Hector for awhile threatened that he would easily come as far as the sea, to the tents and ships of the Greeks, slaughtering. But when now he met the firm phalanxes, he stopped, being come into close contact; and the sons of the Greeks, opposing, repulsed him from them, striking him with their swords and two-edged spears; but retiring, he was compelled to withdraw; and he cried out shouting audibly to the Trojans:

"Ye Trojans and Lycians, and close-fighting Dardanians, stand firm. Not long will the Greeks withstand me, although they have drawn themselves up in very dense array. But I conceive, they will retire from my spear, if in truth the