armour and go, we must
make all haste together if we may be of any use, though we are only
two. Even cowards gain courage from companionship, and we two can hold
our own with the bravest."

Therewith the god went back into the thick of the fight, and Idomeneus
when he had reached his tent donned his armour, grasped his two spears,
and sallied forth. As the lightning which the son of Saturn brandishes
from bright Olympus when he would show a sign to mortals, and its gleam
flashes far and wide--even so did his armour gleam about him as he ran.
Meriones his sturdy squire met him while he was still near his tent
(for he was going to fetch his spear) and Idomeneus said:

"Meriones, fleet son of Molus, best of comrades, why have you left the
field? Are you wounded, and is the point of the weapon hurting you? or
have you been sent to fetch me? I want no fetching; I had far rather
fight than stay in my tent."

"Idomeneus," answered Meriones, "I come for a spear, if I can find one
in my tent; I have broken the one I had, in throwing it at the shield
of Deiphobus."

And Idomeneus captain of the Cretans answered, "You will find one
spear, or twenty if you so please, standing up against the end wall of
my tent. I have taken them from Trojans whom I have killed, for I am
not one to keep my enemy at arm's length; therefore I have spears,
bossed shields, helmets, and burnished corslets."

Then Meriones said, "I too in my tent and at my ship have spoils taken
from the Trojans, but they are not at hand. I have been at all times
valorous, and wherever there has been hard fighting have held my own
among the foremost. There may be those among the Achaeans who do not
know how I fight, but you know it well enough yourself."

Idomeneus answered, "I know you for a brave man: you need not tell me.
If the best men at the ships were being chosen to go on an ambush--and
there is nothing like this for showing what a man is made of; it comes
out then who is cowardly and who brave; the coward will change colour
at every touch and turn; he is full of fears, and keeps shifting his
weight first on one knee and then on the other; his heart beats fast as
he thinks of death, and one can hear the chattering of his teeth;
whereas the brave man will not change colour nor be frightened on
finding himself in ambush, but is all the time longing to go into
action--if the best men were being chosen for such a service, no one
could make light of your courag