He said, and from the wall a buckler took, Well-wrought, with brass resplendent, which his son, Brave Thrasymedes, in the tent had left, While with his father’s shield himself was girt; A sturdy spear too, tipp’d with brass, he took: Without the tent he stood; and there his eyes A woful sight beheld; the Greeks in flight, The haughty Trojans pressing on their rout Confus’d; the Greeks’ protecting wall o’erthrown. As heaves the darkling sea with silent swell, Expectant of the boist’rous gale’s approach; Nor onward either way is pour’d its flood, Until it feel th’ impelling blast from Heav’n; So stood th’ old man, his mind perplex’d with doubt, To mingle in the throng, or counsel seek Of mighty Agamemnon, Atreus’ son. Thus as he mused, the better course appear’d, To seek Atrides; fiercely fought the rest With mutual slaughter; loud their armour rang With thrusts of swords and double-pointed spears. There Nestor met, advancing from the ships, The Heav’n-born Kings, Ulysses, Diomed, And Agamemnon, son of Atreus, all By wounds disabled; for the ships were beach’d Upon the shore, beside the hoary sea, Far from the battle; higher, tow’rd the plain The foremost had been drawn, and with a wall Their sterns surrounded; for the spacious beach Could not contain them, and in narrow bounds Were pent their multitudes; so high on land They drew, and rang’d them side by side, and fill’d, Within the headlands, all the wide-mouth’d bay. Thus they, their steps supporting on their spears, Together came, spectators of the fight; Deep sorrow fill’d their breasts; them Nestor met, The fear increasing, which their souls possess’d. To whom the monarch Agamemnon thus: “O Nestor, son of Neleus, pride of Greece, Why com’st thou here, and leav’st the battle-field? Greatly I fear that noble Hector now His menace will fulfil, who made his boast Before th’ assembled Trojans, that to Troy He never would return, until our ships The flames had master’d, and ourselves the sword. Such was his threat, and now he makes it good. Heav’n! can it be that I of other Greeks, As of Achilles, have incurr’d the wrath, Who thence refuse to battle for the ships?” To whom Gerenian Nestor thus replied: “Such are indeed our prospects; Jove on high Could to our fortunes give no diff’rent turn. The wall is raz’d, wherein our trust we plac’d To guard, impregnable, ourselves and ships; And now around the ships their war they wage, Unceasing, unabated; none might tell By closest scrutiny, which way are driv’n The routed Greeks, so intermix’d they fall Promiscuous; and the cry ascends to Heav’n. But come, discuss we what may best be done, If judgment aught may profit us; ourselves To mingle in the fray I counsel not; It were not well for wounded men to fight.”