From mortal sight he vanished into cloud, And cloaked with mist a baleful shaft he shot Which leapt to Achilles' ankle: sudden pangs With mortal sickness made his whole heart faint. He reeled, and like a tower he fell, that falls Smit by a whirlwind when an earthquake cleaves A chasm for rushing blasts from underground; So fell the goodly form of Aeacus' son. He glared, a murderous glance, to right, to left, [Upon the Trojans, and a terrible threat] Shouted, a threat that could not be fulfilled: "Who shot at me a stealthy-smiting shaft? Let him but dare to meet me face to face! So shall his blood and all his bowels gush out About my spear, and he be hellward sped! I know that none can meet me man to man And quell in fight--of earth-born heroes none, Though such an one should bear within his breast A heart unquailing, and have thews of brass. But dastards still in stealthy ambush lurk For lives of heroes. Let him face me then!-- Ay! though he be a God whose anger burns Against the Danaans! Yea, mine heart forebodes That this my smiter was Apollo, cloaked In deadly darkness. So in days gone by My mother told me how that by his shafts I was to die before the Scaean Gates A piteous death. Her words were not vain words." Then with unflinching hands from out the wound Incurable he drew the deadly shaft In agonized pain. Forth gushed the blood; his heart Waxed faint beneath the shadow of coming doom. Then in indignant wrath he hurled from him The arrow: a sudden gust of wind swept by, And caught it up, and, even as he trod Zeus' threshold, to Apollo gave it back; For it beseemed not that a shaft divine, Sped forth by an Immortal, should be lost. He unto high Olympus swiftly came, To the great gathering of immortal Gods, Where all assembled watched the war of men, These longing for the Trojans' triumph, those For Danaan victory; so with diverse wills Watched they the strife, the slayers and the slain.