up to heaven and to the brightness
of Jove's presence.

BOOK XIV

Agamemnon proposes that the Achaeans should sail home, and
is rebuked by Ulysses--Juno beguiles Jupiter--Hector is
wounded.

NESTOR was sitting over his wine, but the cry of battle did not escape
him, and he said to the son of Aesculapius, "What, noble Machaon, is
the meaning of all this? The shouts of men fighting by our ships grow
stronger and stronger; stay here, therefore, and sit over your wine,
while fair Hecamede heats you a bath and washes the clotted blood from
off you. I will go at once to the look-out station and see what it is
all about."

As he spoke he took up the shield of his son Thrasymedes that was lying
in his tent, all gleaming with bronze, for Thrasymedes had taken his
father's shield; he grasped his redoubtable bronze-shod spear, and as
soon as he was outside saw the disastrous rout of the Achaeans who, now
that their wall was overthrown, were flying pell-mell before the
Trojans. As when there is a heavy swell upon the sea, but the waves are
dumb--they keep their eyes on the watch for the quarter whence the
fierce winds may spring upon them, but they stay where they are and set
neither this way nor that, till some particular wind sweeps down from
heaven to determine them--even so did the old man ponder whether to
make for the crowd of Danaans, or go in search of Agamemnon. In the end
he deemed it best to go to the son of Atreus; but meanwhile the hosts
were fighting and killing one another, and the hard bronze rattled on
their bodies, as they thrust at one another with their swords and
spears.

The wounded kings, the son of Tydeus, Ulysses, and Agamemnon son of
Atreus, fell in with Nestor as they were coming up from their
ships--for theirs were drawn up some way from where the fighting was
going on, being on the shore itself inasmuch as they had been beached
first, while the wall had been built behind the hindermost. The stretch
of the shore, wide though it was, did not afford room for all the
ships, and the host was cramped for space, therefore they had placed
the ships in rows one behind the other, and had filled the whole
opening of the bay between the two points that formed it. The kings,
leaning on their spears, were coming out to survey the fight, being in
great anxiety, and when old Nestor met them they were filled with
dismay. Then King Agamemnon said to him, "Nestor son of Neleus, honour
to the Achaean name