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BOOK XI
THE ARGUMENT
THE THIRD BATTLE, AND THE ACTS OF AGAMEMNON
Agamemnon, having armed himself, leads the Grecians to battle; Hector prepares the Trojans to receive them; while Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva give the signals of war. Agamemnon hears all before him; and Hector is commanded by Jupiter (who sends Iris for that purpose) to decline the engagement till the king should 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) sends 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 had 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 in 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,
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, wrapped in tempests, o'er the fleet descends.
High on Ulysses' bark her horrid stand
She took, and thundered through the seas and land.
E'en Ajax and Achilles heard the sound,
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