Page:The Story of the Iliad.djvu/327

Rh Look ye, therefore; for I know not who cometh first, yet do I think that it is Diomed, son of Tydeus." Then spoke Ajax Oïleus, swift of foot: "Why talkest thou thus idly, and before the time? Thou art not the youngest among the Greeks, nor thine eyes the keenest. The horses are yet foremost that were at the first, and the charioteer is Eumelus." Then Idomeneus, in great wrath, made reply: "Ajax, thou art ready to strive and fierce of speech, for in naught else dost thou excel. Come, let us wager a kettle of bronze or a caldron, and Agamemnon shall judge. So when thou payest thou wilt learn wisdom."

But when Ajax would have answered him again, Achilles suffered him not, but made peace between them. Then came in Diomed first of all, and leapt from the chariot; and next to him Antilochus, having surpassed Menelaüs by craft and not by speed; nor, indeed, was Menelaüs far behind, being as near to him as a chariot is near to the horse which draweth it, so swift was the mare Flame-of-Fire, for at the first he had been a whole