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On his head Agamemnon set a helmet, with a peak before and behind,
and four plumes of horse-­‐hair that nodded menacingly above it; then
he grasped two redoubtable bronze-­‐shod spears, and the gleam of his
armour shot from him as a flame into the firmament, while Juno and
Minerva thundered in honour of the king of rich Mycene.
Every man now left his horses in charge of his charioteer to hold
them in readiness by the trench, while he went into battle on foot
clad in full armour, and a mighty uproar rose on high into the dawning.
The chiefs were armed and at the trench before the horses got there,
but these came up presently. The son of Saturn sent a portent of evil
sound about their host, and the dew fell red with blood, for he was
about to send many a brave man hurrying down to Hades.
The Trojans, on the other side upon the rising slope of the plain,
were gathered round great Hector, noble Polydamas, Aeneas who was
honoured by the Trojans like an immortal, and the three sons of Antenor,
Polybus, Agenor, and young Acamas beauteous as a god. Hector's round
shield showed in the front rank, and as some baneful star that shines
for a moment through a rent in the clouds and is again hidden beneath
them; even so was Hector now seen in the front ranks and now again
in the hindermost, and his bronze armour gleamed like the lightning
of aegis-­‐bearing Jove.
And now as a band of reapers mow swathes of wheat or barley upon a
rich man's land, and the sheaves fall thick before them, even so did
the Trojans and Achaeans fall upon one another; they were in no mood
for yielding but fought like wolves, and neither side got the better