Thus saved from his peril, the stout old Cretan glared about him,
looking for another mark for his spear; and he found one in the young
Alcathous, who was married to a daughter of Anchises, and was thus
closely related to Æneas. The youthful prince, being new to the work
of war, was bewildered by the roar and tumult of the struggle which was
raging around him, and stood, overpowered by sudden panic, within close
range of the Cretan captain's lance. "Sleepest thou, pretty lad!"
shouted the grim veteran, "I will wake thee from thy slumber." And he
clove him through the breast with his spear, which stilled the last
beatings of his heart.
"Three Trojans for one Greek!" shouted Idomeneus. "Art thou content,
Deiphobus? Come hither, and I will add a fourth. It will be glory
enough for thee to die by the hand of Idomeneus, whose grandsire was
Minos, the very son of Zeus."
Deiphobus deemed it prudent to decline the challenge, and he went in
search of Æneas, to inform him of his kinsman's fall. Æneas was
loitering in the rear, for he had a grudge against Priam, which chilled
his ardour for the battle. But when he heard that Alcathous was slain
his heart burned to avenge him, and he hurried to the front, where he
was joined by Paris and a strong band of Trojans. Idomeneus, on his
part, was reinforced by the arrival of Meriones, Antilochus, and
Ascalaphus, a son of Ares, with their followers; and so the fight raged
on, and many a stout warrior went down to swell the muster-roll of
death.
There fought Helenus, the prophetic son of Priam, armed with bow and
arrows, and wielding a mighty falchion, tempered in a Thracian forge.
With one blow of that trenchant blade he shattered the helmet of a
Greek warrior, a friend of Menelaus, and laid him at his feet, stunned
and bleeding. Menelaus sprang to his friend's relief, and flung his
spear at Helenus; and at the same moment Helenus shot an arrow, which
struck the prince on the breastplate, but rebounded as beans or pulse
rebound from the winnower's shovel, while the spear of Menelaus pierced
him through the left hand, pinning it to the bow. Helenus retired,
trailing the spear after him, until a comrade drew it out, and bound up
the wounded hand with a woollen sling, which he took from his squire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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