Grasping in his right hand his spear--the mighty Pelian ash, pointed with death--he went forth before the tent, where Automedon stood waiting with his car. "Now hear me, ye children of the wind!" he cried, addressing his steeds, "see that ye play me not false to-day, as when ye left Patroclus dead on the field, and came back with an empty car." Then there befell a wondrous thing; for the good steed Xanthus, drooping low his head, answered with a human voice, and spake thus unto his master: "Yea, we will carry thee safe back, most dread Achilles, when the fight is o'er. It was by no sloth or tardiness of ours that thy brave comrade met his death; that deed was wrought by the hand of Apollo, using Hector as his instrument--even as thou too shalt be cut off by a human weapon, but by no human power." So spake the immortal courser, for the first and the last time; for fate suffered it not again. And Achilles answered him, and said: "Waste not thy prophecies on me, good steed! I know my fate--death on the battlefield, far from my home: but ere that hour comes I will send many a Trojan to herald my coming among the dead." Then, shouting his dread battle-cry, he sprang into his car, and drove headlong to the front. Achilles in the Battlefield I By high permission of all-ruling Jove the gods were now free to take part in the war, and they all with one accord came down from Olympus to mingle with the fray. Only Zeus remained behind, as supreme arbiter of the final issue. All the rest took sides with the Greeks or Trojans, and five rival pairs confronted each other in the field--Poseidon found a match in Apollo, the great ally of the Trojans--Hera, who loved the Greeks like a mother, was confronted by the archer-goddess Artemis--against Athene stood Ares, whose fickle mind now inclined to the Trojans--Hermes, who favoured the Greeks, was met on the other side by Leto, the mother of Artemis and Apollo--and lastly Hephæstus and Scamander, the opposing powers of fire and water, took the field, the former for the Greeks, the latter for the Trojans. All nature was in uproar as these tremendous allies entered the scene of conflict. Earth shook, and the mountains reeled to their foundations, and the towers of Troy and the Grecian ships reeled as in an earthquake. Then trembling came upon Hades, the monarch of the dead, and leaping from his throne he cried aloud in fear, lest the earth, rent by Poseidon's trident, should disclose to mortal and immortal eyes the dank and dreary mansions of the dead, which even the gods abhor.