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and our own escape from death amid the battle-­‐cries of the Trojans?"
Ajax answered, "Menelaus, you have said well: do you, then, and Meriones
stoop down, raise the body, and bear it out of the fray, while we
two behind you keep off Hector and the Trojans, one in heart as in
name, and long used to fighting side by side with one another."
On this Menelaus and Meriones took the dead man in their arms and
lifted him high aloft with a great effort. The Trojan host raised
a hue and cry behind them when they saw the Achaeans bearing the body
away, and flew after them like hounds attacking a wounded boar at
the loo of a band of young huntsmen. For a while the hounds fly at
him as though they would tear him in pieces, but now and again he
turns on them in a fury, scaring and scattering them in all directions-­‐
even so did the Trojans for a while charge in a body, striking with
sword and with spears pointed ai both the ends, but when the two Ajaxes
faced them and stood at bay, they would turn pale and no man dared
press on to fight further about the dead.
In this wise did the two heroes strain every nerve to bear the body
to the ships out of the fight. The battle raged round them like fierce
flames that when once kindled spread like wildfire over a city, and
the houses fall in the glare of its burning-­‐ even such was the roar
and tramp of men and horses that pursued them as they bore Patroclus
from the field. Or as mules that put forth all their strength to draw
some beam or great piece of ship's timber down a rough mountain-­‐track,
and they pant and sweat as they, go even so did Menelaus and pant
and sweat as they bore the body of Patroclus. Behind them the two