But when Hector saw the artillery of Teukros harmed, he cried, with a mighty shout, to the Trojans and Lykians: “Trojans, and Lykians, and Dardanians that love close fight, play the man, my friends, and be mindful of impetuous valour, here by the hollow ships, for I have seen with mine eyes, how the artillery of the bravest warrior was harmed by Zeus. And most easily discerned is the aid of Zeus to men both to whomso he gives the meed of the greater honour and whom he would minish and hath no will to aid, as even now he minisheth the strength of the Argives, but us he aideth. But fight in your firm companies at the ships, and whosoever of you be smitten by dart or blow and meeteth death and fate, so let him die. Lo, it is no dishonourable thing for him to fall fighting for his country, but his wife and his children after him are safe, and his house unharmed, and his lot of land, if but the Achaians fare with their ships to their dear native land.” So spake he and aroused the might and the spirit of every man. But Aias again, on the other side, called unto his comrades: “Shame on you, Argives: now is one thing sure, either that we must perish utterly, or be saved and drive the peril from the ships. Think ye that if Hector of the glancing helm take the ships, ye will come by dry land each to his own country? Hear ye not Hector exhorting all the host, so eager, verily, is he to burn the ships? Truly he bids not men to the dance but to battle. And for us there is no better counsel nor device, but to put forth our hands and all our might in close combat. Better it were to risk life or death, once for all, than long to be straitened in the dread stress of battle, thus vainly by the ships, at the hands of worse men than we be.”