hem, and had refreshed them, they
went into the baths and washed themselves. After they had so done and
had anointed themselves with oil, they sat down to table, and drawing
from a full mixing-bowl, made a drink-offering of wine to Minerva.

BOOK XI

In the forenoon the fight is equal, but Agamemnon turns the
fortune of the day towards the Achaeans until he gets
wounded and leaves the field--Hector then drives everything
before him till he is wounded by Diomed--Paris wounds
Diomed--Ulysses, Nestor, and Idomeneus perform prodigies
of valour--Machaon is wounded--Nestor drives him off in
his chariot--Achilles sees the pair driving towards the camp
and sends Patroclus to ask who it is that is wounded--This
is the beginning of evil for Patroclus--Nestor makes a long
speech.

AND now as Dawn rose from her couch beside Tithonus, harbinger of light
alike to mortals and immortals, Jove sent fierce Discord with the
ensign of war in her hands to the ships of the Achaeans. She took her
stand by the huge black hull of Ulysses' ship which was middlemost of
all, so that her voice might carry farthest on either side, on the one
hand towards the tents of Ajax son of Telamon, and on the other towards
those of Achilles--for these two heroes, well-assured of their own
strength, had valorously drawn up their ships at the two ends of the
line. There she took her stand, and raised a cry both loud and shrill
that filled the Achaeans with courage, giving them heart to fight
resolutely and with all their might, so that they had rather stay there
and do battle than go home in their ships.

The son of Atreus shouted aloud and bade the Argives gird themselves
for battle while he put on his armour. First he girded his goodly
greaves about his legs, making them fast with ankle-clasps of silver;
and about his chest he set the breastplate which Cinyras had once given
him as a guest-gift. It had been noised abroad as far as Cyprus that
the Achaeans were about to sail for Troy, and therefore he gave it to
the king. It had ten courses of dark cyanus, twelve of gold, and ten of
tin. There were serpents of cyanus that reared themselves up towards
the neck, three upon either side, like the rainbows which the son of
Saturn has set in heaven as a sign to mortal men. About his shoulders
he threw his sword, studded with bosses of gold; and the scabbard was
of silver with a chain of gold wherewith to hang it. He took moreover
the ric