applied it to
the string: but him, on the other hand, near the shoulder, where the
collar-bone separates the neck and breast, and it is a particularly
fatal spot, there, as he was drawing back [the bow], the active warrior
Hector[281] with a rugged stone struck him earnestly rushing against
him. He broke his bowstring, and his hand was numbed at the wrist-joint.
Falling on his knees he stood, and the bow dropped from his hands. But
Ajax did not neglect his fallen brother; for running up, he protected
him, and stretched his shield before him. Afterwards his two dear
companions, Mecistheus, son of Echius, and noble Alastor, coming up,
carried him, groaning heavily, to the hollow ships.

[Footnote 281: See Buttm. Lexil. p. 64.]

But again did Olympian Jove rouse the strength of the Trojans; and they
drove back the Greeks straight to the deep foss. But Hector went in the
van, looking grim through ferocity; as when some dog, relying on his
swift feet, seizes from the rear a wild boar or lion on the haunch and
buttocks, and marks him as he turns: so Hector hung on the rear of the
long-haired Greeks, always slaying the hindmost: and they fled. But when
they flying had passed through the stakes and the foss, and many were
subdued beneath the hands of the Trojans, they, on the one hand,
remaining at the ships were restrained, and having exhorted one another,
and raised their hands to all the gods, they prayed each with a loud
voice. But, on the other hand, Hector, having the eyes of a Gorgon, or
of man-slaughtering Mars, drove round his beauteous-maned steeds in all
directions.

But them [the Greeks] white-armed goddess Juno having beheld, pitied
them, and thus straightway to Minerva addressed winged words:

"Alas! daughter of aegis-bearing Jove, shall we no longer be anxious
about the perishing Greeks, although in extremity;--who now, indeed,
fulfilling evil fate, are perishing by the violence of one man? for
Hector, the son of Priam, rages, no longer to be endured, and already
has he done many evils."

But her the azure-eyed goddess Minerva in turn addressed: "And beyond
doubt this warrior would have lost his vigour and his life, destroyed by
the hands of the Greeks in his fatherland, were it not that this my sire
rages with no sound mind; cruel, ever unjust, a counteractor of my
efforts. Nor does he remember aught of my services, that I have very
often preserved his son, when oppressed by the labours of Eurystheus. H