Book 5
The two Ajaxes, Odysseus and Diomedes, cheered the Danaans on, fearless of the fury and onset of the Trojans. They stood as still as clouds which the son of Kronos has spread upon the mountain tops when there is no air and fierce Boreas sleeps with the other boisterous winds whose shrill blasts scatter the clouds in all directions - even so did the Danaans stand firm and unflinching against the Trojans. The son of Atreus went about among them and exhorted them. "My friends," said he, "quit yourselves like brave men, and shun dishonor in one another's eyes amid the stress of battle. They that shun dishonor more often live than get killed, but they that flee save neither life nor name [kleos]."
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As he spoke he hurled his spear and hit one of those who were in the front rank, the comrade of Aeneas, Deikoön son of Pergasus, whom the Trojans held in no less honor than the sons of Priam, for he was ever quick to place himself among the foremost. The spear of King Agamemnon struck his shield and went right through it, for the shield stayed it not. It drove through his belt into the lower part of his belly, and his armor rang rattling round him as he fell heavily to the ground.
Then Aeneas killed two champions of the Danaans, Crethon and Orsilokhos. Their father was a rich man who lived in the strong city of Phere and was descended from the river Alpheus, whose broad stream flows through the land of the Pylians. The river begat Orsilokhos, who ruled over many people and was father to Diokles, who in his turn begat twin sons, Crethon and Orsilokhos, well skilled in all the arts of war. These, when they grew up, went to Ilion with the Argive fleet in honor [timê] of Menelaos and Agamemnon sons of Atreus, and there they both of them reached the final outcome [telos]. As two lions whom their dam has reared in the depths of some mountain forest to plunder homesteads and carry off sheep and cattle till they get killed by the hand of man, so were these two vanquished by Aeneas, and fell like high pine-trees to the ground.
Brave Menelaos pitied them in their fall, and made his way to the front, clad in gleaming bronze and brandishing his spear, for Ares egged him on to do so with intent that he should be killed by Aeneas; but Antilokhos the son of Nestor saw him and sprang forward, fearing that the king might come to harm and thus bring all their labor [ponos] to nothing; when, therefore Aeneas and Menelaos were setting their hands and spears against one another eager to do battle, Antilokhos placed himself by the side of Menelaos.
Aeneas, bold though he was, drew back on seeing the two heroes side by side in front of him, so they drew the bodies of Crethon and Orsilokhos to the ranks of the Achaeans and committed the two poor men into the hands of their comrades. They then turned back and fought in the front ranks.
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