Page:The Story of the Iliad.djvu/74

58 Diomed, and fight with the men of Troy! I have breathed into thy heart the spirit that was in Tydeus, thy father, and I have taken away the mist that was upon thine eyes, that thou mayest know god from man. Fight not thou with any of the immortals, if a god should come in thy way; only if Aphrodité comes into the battle, her thou mayest wound."

So spake Athené, and went her way; and Diomed turned back to the battle, and mingled with the foremost. Eager he had been before to fight, but now his eagerness was increased threefold. Even as a lion whom a shepherd wounds a little as he leaps into the fold, but kills not, and the man escapes into his house, and the sheep flee in their terror, falling huddled in a heap, even so did Diomed rage among the men of Troy.

Many did he slay, as the two sons of Eurydamas, the old dreamer of dreams, who read no dream to them aright of safe return, and the two sons of Phœnops, darlings of their father, for they were his only sons, and he had none besides, and two sons of Priam, riding in one chariot. As a lion leaps into the herd,