right; in the center the great Agamemnon;
Diomed crouched on the left, the god-like rusher and tackler,
Crouched as a panther crouches, if sculptors do justice to panthers.
Crafty Ulysses played back, for none of the Trojans could pass him,
All the best Greeks were in line, but Podas Okus Achilleus,
Who though an excellent kicker stayed all day in his section.

Hector dribbled the ball, then seized it and putting his head down,
And, as a lion carries a lamb and jumps over fences--
Dodging this way and that the shepherds who wish to remonstrate--
So did the son of Priam carry the ball through the rush line,
Till he was tackled fair by the full-back, the crafty Ulysses.
Even then he carried the ball and the son of Laertes
Full five yards till they fell to the ground with a deep indentation
Where one might hide three men so that no man could see them--
Men of the present day, degenerate sons of the heroes--

Now, when Pallas Athene discovered the Greeks would be beaten,
She slid down from the steep of Olympus upon a toboggan.
Sudden she came before crafty Ulysses in guise like a maiden;
Not that she thought to fool him, but since Olympian fashion
Made the form of a woman good form for a goddess' assumption.
She then spoke to him quickly, and said, "O son of Laertes,
Seize thou the ball; I will pass it to thee and trip up the Trojan."
Her replying, slowly re-worded the son of Laertes--
"That will I do, O goddess divine, for he can outrun me."
Then when the ball was in play, she cast thick darkness around it.
Also around Ulysses she poured invisible darkness.
Under this cover, taking the ball he passed down the middle,
Silent and swift, unseen, unnoticed, unblocked, and untackled.
Meanwhile she piled the Greeks and the Trojans in conglomeration,
Much like a tangle of pine-trees where lightning has frequently fallen,
Or like a basket of lobsters and crabs which the provident housewife
Dumps on the kitchen floor and vainly endeavors to count them,
So seemed the legs and the arms and the heads of the twenty-one
players.
Sudden a shout arose, for under the crossbar, Ulysses,
Visible, sat on the ball, quietly making a touch-down;
On the tip of his nose were his thumb and fingers extended,
Curved and vibrating slow in the sign of the blameless Egyptians.
Violent language cam