Homer, Iliad (Orange Street).pdf

Homer’s Iliad
Aeneas sprang from his chariot armed with shield and spear,
fearing lest the Achaeans should carry off the body. He bestrode it
as a lion in the pride of strength, with shield and on spear before
him and a cry of battle on his lips resolute to kill the first that
should dare face him. But the son of Tydeus caught up a mighty
stone, so huge and great that as men now are it would take two to
lift it; nevertheless he bore it aloft with ease unaided, and with this
he struck Aeneas on the groin where the hip turns in the joint that is
called the “cup-bone.” The stone crushed this joint, and broke both
the sinews, while its jagged edges tore away all the flesh. The hero
fell on his knees, and propped himself with his hand resting on the
ground till the darkness of night fell upon his eyes. And now
Aeneas, king of men, would have perished then and there, had not
his mother, Jove’s daughter Venus, who had conceived him by
Anchises when he was herding cattle, been quick to mark, and
thrown her two white arms about the body of her dear son. She
protected him by covering him with a fold of her own fair garment,
lest some Danaan should drive a spear into his breast and kill him.
Thus, then, did she bear her dear son out of the fight. But the son of
Capaneus was not unmindful of the orders that Diomed had given
him. He made his own horses fast, away from the hurly-burly, by
binding the reins to the rim of the chariot. Then he sprang upon
Aeneas’s horses and drove them from the Trojan to the Achaean
ranks. When he had so done he gave them over to his chosen
comrade Deipylus, whom he valued above all others as the one
who was most like-minded with himself, to take them on to the
ships. He then remounted his own chariot, seized the reins, and
drove with all speed in search of the son of Tydeus.
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