battle in array by the banks of the river, and the hosts aimed their
bronze-shod spears at one another. With them were Strife and Riot, and
fell Fate who was dragging three men after her, one with a fresh wound,
and the other unwounded, while the third was dead, and she was dragging
him along by his heel: and her robe was bedrabbled in men's blood. They
went in and out with one another and fought as though they were living
people haling away one another's dead.

He wrought also a fair fallow field, large and thrice ploughed already.
Many men were working at the plough within it, turning their oxen to
and fro, furrow after furrow. Each time that they turned on reaching
the headland a man would come up to them and give them a cup of wine,
and they would go back to their furrows looking forward to the time
when they should again reach the headland. The part that they had
ploughed was dark behind them, so that the field, though it was of
gold, still looked as if it were being ploughed--very curious to behold.

He wrought also a field of harvest corn, and the reapers were reaping
with sharp sickles in their hands. Swathe after swathe fell to the
ground in a straight line behind them, and the binders bound them in
bands of twisted straw. There were three binders, and behind them there
were boys who gathered the cut corn in armfuls and kept on bringing
them to be bound: among them all the owner of the land stood by in
silence and was glad. The servants were getting a meal ready under an
oak, for they had sacrificed a great ox, and were busy cutting him up,
while the women were making a porridge of much white barley for the
labourers' dinner.

He wrought also a vineyard, golden and fair to see, and the vines were
loaded with grapes. The bunches overhead were black, but the vines were
trained on poles of silver. He ran a ditch of dark metal all round it,
and fenced it with a fence of tin; there was only one path to it, and
by this the vintagers went when they would gather the vintage. Youths
and maidens all blithe and full of glee, carried the luscious fruit in
plaited baskets; and with them there went a boy who made sweet music
with his lyre, and sang the Linos-song with his clear boyish voice.

He wrought also a herd of horned cattle. He made the cows of gold and
tin, and they lowed as they came full speed out of the yards to go and
feed among the waving reeds that grow by the banks of the river. Along
with the cattle there