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for these two heroes, well assured of their own strength, had valorously drawn up their ships at the two ends of the line. From this spot then, with a voice that could be heard afar, he shouted to the Danaans, saying, "Argives, shame
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on you cowardly creatures, brave in semblance only; where are now our vaunts that we should prove victorious - the vaunts we made so vaingloriously in Lemnos, when we ate the flesh of horned cattle and filled our mixing-bowls to the brim? You vowed that you would each of you stand against a hundred or two hundred men, and now you prove no match even for one- for Hektor, who will be ere long setting our ships in a blaze. Father Zeus, did you ever before cause the ruin [atê] of a great king to such an extent and rob him so utterly of his greatness? yet, when to my sorrow I was coming hither, I never let my ship pass your altars without offering the fat and thigh-bones of heifers upon every one of them, so eager was I to sack the city of Troy. Vouchsafe me then this prayer- suffer us to escape at any rate with our lives, and let not the Achaeans be so utterly vanquished by the Trojans."
Thus did he pray, and father Zeus pitying his tears granted him that his people should live, not die; forthwith he sent them an eagle, most unfailingly portentous of all birds, with a young fawn in its talons; the eagle dropped the fawn by the altar on which the Achaeans sacrificed to Zeus the lord of omens; When, therefore, the people saw that the bird had come from Zeus, they sprang more fiercely upon the Trojans and fought more boldly.
There was no man of all the many Danaans who could then boast that he had driven his horses over the trench and gone forth to fight sooner than the son of Tydeus; long before any one else could do so he slew an armed warrior of the Trojans, Agelaos the son of Phradmon. He had turned his horses in flight, but the spear struck him in the back midway between his shoulders and went right through his chest, and his armor rang rattling round him as he fell forward from his chariot.
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After him came Agamemnon and Menelaos, sons of Atreus, the two Ajaxes clothed in valor as with a garment, Idomeneus and his companion in arms Meriones, peer of murderous Ares, and Eurypylos the brave son of Euaemon. Ninth came Teucer with his bow, and took his place under cover of the shield of Ajax son of Telamon. When Ajax lifted his shield Teucer would peer round, and when he had hit any one in the throng, the man would fall dead; then Teucer would hie back to Ajax as a child to its mother, and again duck down under his shield.
