heir armour. But
the Trojans, on the other side, were arming themselves through the city,
fewer in number; yet even thus, they were eager to fight in battle,
compelled by necessity, in defence of their children and their wives.
And the gates were opened wide, and the forces rushed out, both chariot
warriors and foot, and much tumult arose. But when these collecting
together came into one place, they clashed together shields and spears,
and the might of brazen-mailed men; but the bossy shields approached one
another, and much tumult arose. There at the same time were both
lamentation and boasting of men destroying and destroyed, and the earth
flowed with blood. As long as the forenoon lasted, and the sacred day
was in progress, so long did the weapons touch both, and the people
fell. But when the sun had ascended the middle heaven, then at length
did Father Jove raise the golden scales, and placed in them two
destinies of long-reposing death, [the destinies] both of the
horse-breaking Trojans and of the brazen-mailed Greeks, and holding them
in the middle, he poised them; but the fatal day of the Greeks inclined
low. The destinies of the Greeks, indeed, rested on the bounteous earth,
but those of the Trojans on the contrary were elevated to the wide
heaven.

But he himself mightily thundered from Ida, and sent his burning
lightning against the army of the Greeks: they having seen it, were
amazed, and pale fear seized them all. Then neither Idomeneus, nor
Agamemnon, nor the two Ajaces, the servants of Mars, dared to remain.
Gerenian Nestor alone, the guardian of the Greeks, remained, not
willingly, but one of his horses was disabled, which noble Alexander,
husband of fair-haired Helen, had pierced with an arrow in the top of
the forehead, where the forelocks of horses grow out of the head, and is
most fatal.[269] In torture he reared, for the arrow had entered the
brain; and he disordered the [other] horses, writhing round the brazen
barb. Whilst the old man hastening, was cutting away the side reins of
the horse with his sword, then were the swift steeds of Hector coming
through the crowd, bearing the bold charioteer Hector. And then the old
man would certainly have lost his life, if Diomede, brave in the din of
battle, had not quickly observed it; and he shouted, dreadfully
exhorting Ulysses, [thus]:

[Footnote 269: Or "opportune" viz for inflicting a fatal
wound.--Kennedy.]

"Jove-born son of Laertes, much-co