Book XI

BOOK XI

AND now as Dawn rose from her couch beside Tithonus, harbinger of

light alike to mortals and immortals, Jove sent fierce Discord

with the ensign of war in her hands to the ships of the Achaeans.

She took her stand by the huge black hull of Ulysses' ship which

was middlemost of all, so that her voice might carry farthest on

either side, on the one hand towards the tents of Ajax son of

Telamon, and on the other towards those of Achilles--for these

two heroes, well-assured of their own strength, had valorously

drawn up their ships at the two ends of the line. There she took

her stand, and raised a cry both loud and shrill that filled the

Achaeans with courage, giving them heart to fight resolutely and

with all their might, so that they had rather stay there and do

battle than go home in their ships.

The son of Atreus shouted aloud and bade the Argives gird

themselves for battle while he put on his armour. First he girded

his goodly greaves about his legs, making them fast with ankle-

clasps of silver; and about his chest he set the breastplate

which Cinyras had once given him as a guest-gift. It had been

noised abroad as far as Cyprus that the Achaeans were about to

sail for Troy, and therefore he gave it to the king. It had ten

courses of dark cyanus, twelve of gold, and ten of tin. There

were serpents of cyanus that reared themselves up towards the

neck, three upon either side, like the rainbows which the son of

Saturn has set in heaven as a sign to mortal men. About his

shoulders he threw his sword, studded with bosses of gold; and

the scabbard was of silver with a chain of gold wherewith to hang

it. He took moreover the richly-dight shield that covered his

body when he was in battle--fair to see, with ten circles of

bronze running all round it. On the body of the shield there were

twenty bosses of white tin, with another of dark cyanus in the

middle: this last was made to show a Gorgon's head, fierce and

grim, with Rout and Panic on either side. The band for the arm to

go through was of silver, on which there was a writhing snake of

cyanus with three heads that sprang from a single neck, and went

in and out among one another. On his head Agamemnon set a helmet,

with a peak before and behind, and four plumes of horse-hair that

nodded menacingly above it; then he grasped two redoubtable

bronze-shod spears, and the gleam of his armour shot from him as

a flame into the firmament, while Juno and Minerva thundered in

honour of the king of rich Mycene.

Every man now left his horses in charge of his