ans to receive them, while Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva
give the signals of war. Agamemnon bears all before him and Hector is
commanded by Jupiter (who sends Iris for that purpose) to decline the
engagement, till the king shall be wounded and retire from the field. He
then makes a great slaughter of the enemy. Ulysses and Diomed put a stop
to him for a time but the latter, being wounded by Paris, is obliged to
desert his companion, who is encompassed by the Trojans, wounded, and in
the utmost danger, till Menelaus and Ajax rescue him. Hector comes against
Ajax, but that hero alone opposes multitudes, and rallies the Greeks. In
the meantime Machaon, in the other wing of the army, is pierced with an
arrow by Paris, and carried from the fight in Nestor's chariot. Achilles
(who overlooked the action from his ship) sent Patroclus to inquire which
of the Greeks was wounded in that manner; Nestor entertains him in his
tent with an account of the accidents of the day, and a long recital of
some former wars which he remembered, tending to put Patroclus upon
persuading Achilles to fight for his countrymen, or at least to permit him
to do it, clad in Achilles' armour. Patroclus, on his return, meets
Eurypylus also wounded, and assists him in that distress.

This book opens with the eight and-twentieth day of the poem, and the same
day, with its various actions and adventures is extended through the
twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and
part of the eighteenth books. The scene lies in the field near the
monument of Ilus.

The saffron morn, with early blushes spread,(219)
Now rose refulgent from Tithonus' bed;
With new-born day to gladden mortal sight,
And gild the courts of heaven with sacred light:
When baleful Eris, sent by Jove's command,
The torch of discord blazing in her hand,
Through the red skies her bloody sign extends,
And, wrapt in tempests, o'er the fleet descends.
High on Ulysses' bark her horrid stand
She took, and thunder'd through the seas and land.

Even Ajax and Achilles heard the sound,
Whose ships, remote, the guarded navy bound,
Thence the black fury through the Grecian throng
With horror sounds the loud Orthian song:
The navy shakes, and at the dire alarms
Each bosom boils, each warrior starts to arms.
No more they sigh, inglorious to return,
But breathe revenge, and for the combat burn.

[Illustration: THE DESCENT OF D