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of wooing, <strong>for</strong> he promised a great thing, to wit, that he would drive<br />

the sons of the Achaeans willy nilly from Troy; old King Priam had<br />

given his consent and promised her to him, whereon he fought on the<br />

strength of the promises thus made to him. Idomeneus aimed a spear,<br />

and hit him as he came striding on. His cuirass of bronze did not<br />

protect him, and the spear stuck in his belly, so that he fell heavily<br />

to the ground. <strong>The</strong>n Idomeneus vaunted over him saying, "Othryoneus,<br />

there is no one in the world whom I shall admire more than I do you,<br />

if you indeed per<strong>for</strong>m what you have promised Priam son of Dardanus<br />

in return <strong>for</strong> his daughter. We too will make you an offer; we will<br />

give you the loveliest daughter of the son of Atreus, and will bring<br />

her from Argos <strong>for</strong> you to marry, if you will sack the goodly city<br />

of Ilius in company with ourselves; so come along with me, that we<br />

may make a covenant at the ships about the marriage, and we will not<br />

be hard upon you about gifts of wooing."<br />

With this Idomeneus began dragging him <strong>by</strong> the foot through the thick<br />

of the fight, but Asius came up to protect the body, on foot, in front<br />

of his horses which his esquire drove so close behind him that he<br />

could feel their 'breath upon his shoulder. He was longing to strike<br />

down Idomeneus, but ere he could do so Idomeneus smote him with his<br />

spear in the throat under the chin, and the bronze point went clean<br />

through it. He fell as an oak, or poplar, or pine which shipwrights<br />

have felled <strong>for</strong> ship's timber upon the mountains with whetted axes-­‐<br />

even thus did he lie full length in front of his chariot and horses,<br />

grinding his teeth and clutching at the bloodstained just. His charioteer<br />

was struck with panic and did not dare turn his horses round and escape:<br />

thereupon Antilochus hit him in the middle of his body with a spear;

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