Pelasgi. The Lysians and proud Mysians, with the Phrygians and
Meonians, have their place on the side towards Thymbra; but why ask
about all this? If you want to find your way into the host of the
Trojans, there are the Thracians, who have lately come here and lie
apart from the others at the far end of the camp; and they have Rhesus
son of Eioneus for their king. His horses are the finest and strongest
that I have ever seen, they are whiter than snow and fleeter than any
wind that blows. His chariot is bedight with silver and gold, and he
has brought his marvellous golden armour, of the rarest
workmanship--too splendid for any mortal man to carry, and meet only
for the gods. Now, therefore, take me to the ships or bind me securely
here, until you come back and have proved my words whether they be
false or true."

Diomed looked sternly at him and answered, "Think not, Dolon, for all
the good information you have given us, that you shall escape now you
are in our hands, for if we ransom you or let you go, you will come
some second time to the ships of the Achaeans either as a spy or as an
open enemy, but if I kill you and an end of you, you will give no more
trouble."

On this Dolon would have caught him by the beard to beseech him
further, but Diomed struck him in the middle of his neck with his sword
and cut through both sinews so that his head fell rolling in the dust
while he was yet speaking. They took the ferret-skin cap from his head,
and also the wolf-skin, the bow, and his long spear. Ulysses hung them
up aloft in honour of Minerva the goddess of plunder, and prayed
saying, "Accept these, goddess, for we give them to you in preference
to all the gods in Olympus: therefore speed us still further towards
the horses and sleeping-ground of the Thracians."

With these words he took the spoils and set them upon a tamarisk tree,
and they marked the place by pulling up reeds and gathering boughs of
tamarisk that they might not miss it as they came back through the
flying hours of darkness. The two then went onwards amid the fallen
armour and the blood, and came presently to the company of Thracian
soldiers, who were sleeping, tired out with their day's toil; their
goodly armour was lying on the ground beside them all orderly in three
rows, and each man had his yoke of horses beside him. Rhesus was
sleeping in the middle, and hard by him his horses were made fast to
the topmost rim of his chariot. Ulysses from some w