a great purple cloak, and took his stand by the huge black hull
of Ulysses' ship, which was middlemost of all; it was from this
place that his voice would carry farthest, on the one hand
towards the tents of Ajax son of Telamon, and on the other
towards those of Achilles--for these two heroes, well assured of
their own strength, had valorously drawn up their ships at the
two ends of the line. From this spot then, with a voice that
could be heard afar, he shouted to the Danaans, saying, "Argives,
shame on you cowardly creatures, brave in semblance only; where
are now our vaunts that we should prove victorious--the vaunts we
made so vaingloriously in Lemnos, when we ate the flesh of horned
cattle and filled our mixing-bowls to the brim? You vowed that
you would each of you stand against a hundred or two hundred men,
and now you prove no match even for one--for Hector, who will be
ere long setting our ships in a blaze. Father Jove, did you ever
so ruin a great king and rob him so utterly of his greatness?
Yet, when to my sorrow I was coming hither, I never let my ship
pass your altars without offering the fat and thigh-bones of
heifers upon every one of them, so eager was I to sack the city
of Troy. Vouchsafe me then this prayer--suffer us to escape at
any rate with our lives, and let not the Achaeans be so utterly
vanquished by the Trojans."

Thus did he pray, and father Jove pitying his tears vouchsafed
him that his people should live, not die; forthwith he sent them
an eagle, most unfailingly portentous of all birds, with a young
fawn in its talons; the eagle dropped the fawn by the altar on
which the Achaeans sacrificed to Jove the lord of omens; when,
therefore, the people saw that the bird had come from Jove, they
sprang more fiercely upon the Trojans and fought more boldly.

There was no man of all the many Danaans who could then boast
that he had driven his horses over the trench and gone forth to
fight sooner than the son of Tydeus; long before any one else
could do so he slew an armed warrior of the Trojans, Agelaus the
son of Phradmon. He had turned his horses in flight, but the
spear struck him in the back midway between his shoulders and
went right through his chest, and his armour rang rattling round
him as he fell forward from his chariot.

After him came Agamemnon and Menelaus, sons of Atreus, the two
Ajaxes clothed in valour as with a garment, Idomeneus and his
companion in arms Meriones, peer of murderous Mars, and Eurypylus
the brave son of Euaemon. Ninth came Teucer with his bow, and
took his place under cover of the shield of Ajax son of Telamon.
When Ajax lifted his shield Teucer would peer round, and when he
had hit any one in the throng, the man would fall dead; then
Teucer would hie back to Ajax as a child to its mother, and again
duck down under his shield.

Which of the Trojans did brave Teucer first kill? Orsilochus, and
then Ormenus and Ophelestes, Daetor, Chromius, and godlike
Lycophontes, Amopaon son of Polyaemon, and Melanippus. these in
turn did he lay low upon the earth, and King Agamemnon was glad
when he saw him making havoc of the Trojans with his mighty bow.
He went up to him and said, "Teucer, man after my own heart, son
of Telamon, captain among the host, shoot on, and be at once the
saving of the Danaans and the glory of your father Telamon, who
brought you up and took care of you in his own house when you
were a child, bastard though you were. Cover him with glory
though he is far off; I will promise and I will assuredly
perform; if aegis-bearing Jove and Minerva grant me to sack the
city of Ilius, you shall have the next best meed of honour after
my own--a tripod, or two horses with their chariot, or a woman
who shall go up into your bed."

And Teucer answered, "Most noble son of Atreus, you need not urge
me; from the moment we began to drive them back to Ilius, I have
never ceased so far as in me lies to look out for men whom I can
shoot and kill; I have shot eight barbed shafts, and all of them
have been buried in the flesh of warlike youths, but this mad dog
I cannot hit."

As he spoke he aimed another arrow straight at Hector, for he was
bent on hitting him; nevertheless he missed him, and the arrow
hit Priam's brave son Gorgythion in the breast. His mother, fair
Castianeira, lovely as a goddess, had been married from Aesyme,
and now he bowed his head as a garden poppy in full bloom when it
is weighed down by showers in spring--even thus heavy bowed his
head beneath the weight of his helmet.

Again he aimed at Hector, for he was longing to hit him, and
again his arrow missed, for Apollo turned it aside; but he hit
Hector's brave charioteer Archeptolemus in the breast, by the
nipple, as he was driving furiously into the fight. The horses
swerved aside as he fell headlong from the chariot, and there was
no life left in him. Hector was greatly grieved at the loss of
his charioteer, but for all his sorrow he let him lie where he
fell, and bade his brother Cebriones, who was hard by, take the
reins. Cebriones did as he had said. Hector thereon with a loud
cry sprang from his chariot to the ground, and seizing a great
stone made straight for Teucer with intent kill him. Teucer had
just taken an arrow from his quiver and had laid it upon the
bow-string, but Hector struck him with the jagged stone as he was
taking aim and drawing the string to his shoulder; he hit him
just where the collar-bone divides the neck from the chest, a
very deadly place, and broke the sinew of his arm so that his
wrist was less, and the bow dropped from his hand as he fell
forward on his knees. Ajax saw that his brother had fallen, and
running towards him bestrode him and sheltered him with his


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