roken my bowstring and snatched the bow from my hand,
though I strung it this selfsame morning that it might serve me for
many an arrow."

Ajax son of Telamon answered, "My good fellow, let your bow and your
arrows be, for Jove has made them useless in order to spite the
Danaans. Take your spear, lay your shield upon your shoulder, and both
fight the Trojans yourself and urge others to do so. They may be
successful for the moment but if we fight as we ought they will find it
a hard matter to take the ships."

Teucer then took his bow and put it by in his tent. He hung a shield
four hides thick about his shoulders, and on his comely head he set his
helmet well wrought with a crest of horse-hair that nodded menacingly
above it; he grasped his redoubtable bronze-shod spear, and forthwith
he was by the side of Ajax.

When Hector saw that Teucer's bow was of no more use to him, he shouted
out to the Trojans and Lycians, "Trojans, Lycians, and Dardanians good
in close fight, be men, my friends, and show your mettle here at the
ships, for I see the weapon of one of their chieftains made useless by
the hand of Jove. It is easy to see when Jove is helping people and
means to help them still further, or again when he is bringing them
down and will do nothing for them; he is now on our side, and is going
against the Argives. Therefore swarm round the ships and fight. If any
of you is struck by spear or sword and loses his life, let him die; he
dies with honour who dies fighting for his country; and he will leave
his wife and children safe behind him, with his house and allotment
unplundered if only the Achaeans can be driven back to their own land,
they and their ships."

With these words he put heart and soul into them all. Ajax on the other
side exhorted his comrades saying, "Shame on you Argives, we are now
utterly undone, unless we can save ourselves by driving the enemy from
our ships. Do you think, if Hector takes them, that you will be able to
get home by land? Can you not hear him cheering on his whole host to
fire our fleet, and bidding them remember that they are not at a dance
but in battle? Our only course is to fight them with might and main; we
had better chance it, life or death, once for all, than fight long and
without issue hemmed in at our ships by worse men than ourselves."

With these words he put life and soul into them all. Hector then killed
Schedius son of Perimedes, leader of the Phoceans, and Ajax k