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[400] But against him came Aias and Teucer at the one moment: Teucer smote him with an arrow on the gleaming baldric of his sheltering shield about his breast, but Zeus warded off the fates from his own son that he should not be laid low at the ships' sterns; and Aias leapt upon him and thrust against his shield, but the spear-point [405] passed not through, howbeit he made him reel in his onset. So he gave ground a little space from the battlement, yet withdrew not wholly, for his spirit hoped to win him glory. And he wheeled about, and called to the godlike Lycians:“Ye Lycians, wherefore are ye thus slack in furious valour? [410] Hard is it for me, how mighty so ever I be, alone to breach the wall, and make a path to the ships. Nay, have at them with me; the more men the better work.” So spake he; and they, seized with fear of the rebuke of their king, pressed on the more around about their counsellor and king, [415] and the Argives over against them made strong their battalions within the wall; and before them was set a mighty work. For neither could the mighty Lycians break the wall of the Danaans, and make a path to the ships, nor ever could the Danaan spearmen thrust back the Lycians [420] from the walI, when once they had drawn nigh thereto. But as two men with measuring-rods in hand strive about the landmark-stones in a common field, and in a narrow space contend each for his equal share; even so did the battlements hold these apart, and over them [425] they smote the bull's-hide bucklers about one another's breasts, the round shields and fluttering targets. And many were wounded in the flesh by thrusts of the pitiless bronze, both whensoever any turned and his back was left bare, as they fought, and many clean through the very shield. [430] Yea, everywhere the walls and battlements were spattered with blood of men from both sides, from Trojans and Achaeams alike. Howbeit even so they could not put the Achaeans to rout, but they held their ground, as a careful woman that laboureth with her hands at spinning, holdeth the balance and raiseth the weight and the wool in either scale, making them equal, [435] that she may win a meagre wage for her children; so evenly was strained their war and battle, until Zeus vouchsafed the glory of victory to Hector, son of Priam, that was first to leap within the wall of the Achaeans he uttered a piercing shout, calling aloud to the Trojans: [440] “Rouse you horse-taming Trojans, break the wall of the Argives, and fling among the ships wondrous-blazing fire.”

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  • Commentary references to this page (4):
    • W. Walter Merry, James Riddell, D. B. Monro, Commentary on the Odyssey (1886), 1.64
    • W. Walter Merry, James Riddell, D. B. Monro, Commentary on the Odyssey (1886), 8.361
    • Walter Leaf, Commentary on the Iliad (1900), 10.224
    • Walter Leaf, Commentary on the Iliad (1900), 3.211
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