The Iliad of Homer eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 667 pages of information about The Iliad of Homer.
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The Iliad of Homer eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 667 pages of information about The Iliad of Homer.
  With force united; after whom the host
  Of Troy, seeing the body borne away, 875
  Shouted, and with impetuous onset all
  Follow’d them.  As the hounds, urged from behind
  By youthful hunters, on the wounded boar
  Make fierce assault; awhile at utmost speed
  They stretch toward him hungering, for the prey, 880
  But oft as, turning sudden, the stout brawn
  Faces them, scatter’d on all sides escape;
  The Trojans so, thick thronging in the rear,
  Ceaseless with falchions and spears double-edged
  Annoy’d them sore, but oft as in retreat 885
  The dauntless heroes, the Ajaces turn’d
  To face them, deadly wan grew every cheek,
  And not a Trojan dared with onset rude
  Molest them more in conflict for the dead. 
    Thus they, laborious, forth from battle bore 890
  Patroclus to the fleet, tempestuous war
  Their steps attending, rapid as the flames
  Which, kindled suddenly, some city waste;
  Consumed amid the blaze house after house
  Sinks, and the wind, meantime, roars through the fire; 895
  So them a deafening tumult as they went
  Pursued, of horses and of men spear-arm’d. 
  And as two mules with strength for toil endued,
  Draw through rough ways down from the distant hills
  Huge timber, beam or mast; sweating they go, 900
  And overlabor’d to faint weariness;
  So they the body bore, while, turning oft,
  The Ajaces check’d the Trojans.  As a mound
  Planted with trees and stretch’d athwart the mead
  Repels an overflow; the torrents loud 905
  Baffling, it sends them far away to float
  The level land, nor can they with the force
  Of all their waters burst a passage through;
  So the Ajaces, constant, in the rear
  Repress’d the Trojans; but the Trojans them 910
  Attended still, of whom AEneas most
  Troubled them, and the glorious Chief of Troy. 
  They as a cloud of starlings or of daws
  Fly screaming shrill, warn’d timely of the kite
  Or hawk, devourers of the smaller kinds, 915
  So they shrill-clamoring toward the fleet,
  Hasted before AEneas and the might
  Of Hector, nor the battle heeded more. 
  Much radiant armor round about the foss
  Fell of the flying Grecians, or within 920
  Lay scatter’d, and no pause of war they found.

THE ILIAD.

BOOK XVIII.

ARGUMENT OF THE EIGHTEENTH BOOK.

Achilles, by command of Juno, shows himself to the Trojans, who fly at his appearance; Vulcan, at the insistence of Thetis, forges for him a suit of armor.

BOOK XVIII.

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Project Gutenberg
The Iliad of Homer from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.