Thus as he spoke, Patroclus backward stepp’d, Shrinking before the Far-destroyer’s wrath. Still Hector kept before the Scaean gates His coursers; doubtful, if again to dare The battle-throng, or summon all the host To seek the friendly shelter of the wall. Thus as he mus’d, beside him Phoebus stood, In likeness of a warrior stout and brave, Brother of Hecuba, the uncle thence Of noble Hector, Asius, Dymas’ son; Who dwelt in Phrygia, by Saugarius’ stream; His form assuming, thus Apollo spoke: “Hector, why shrink’st thou from the battle thus? It ill beseems thee! Would to Heav’n that I So far thy greater were, as thou art mine; Then sorely shouldst thou rue this abstinence. But, forward thou! against Patroclus urge Thy fiery steeds, so haply by his death Apollo thee with endless fame may crown.” This said, the God rejoin’d the strife of men; And noble Hector bade Cebriones Drive ’mid the fight his car; before him mov’d Apollo, scatt’ring terror ’mid the Greeks, And lustre adding to the arms of Troy. All others Hector pass’d unnotic’d by, Nor stay’d to slay; Patroclus was the mark At which his coursers’ clatt’ring hoofs he drove. On th’ other side, Patroclus from his car Leap’d to the ground: his left hand held his spear; And in the right a pond’rous mass he bore Of rugged stone, that fill’d his ample grasp: The stone he hurl’d; not far it miss’d its mark, Nor bootless flew; but Hector’s charioteer It struck, Cebriones, a bastard son Of royal Priam, as the reins he held. Full on his temples fell the jagged mass, Drove both his eyebrows in, and crush’d the bone; Before him in the dust his eyeballs fell; And, like a diver, from the well-wrought car Headlong he plung’d; and life forsook his limbs. O’er whom Patroclus thus with bitter jest: “Heav’n! what agility! how deftly thrown That somersault! if only in the sea Such feats he wrought, with him might few compete, Diving for oysters, if with such a plunge He left his boat, how rough soe’er the waves, As from his car he plunges to the ground: Troy can, it seems, accomplish’d tumblers boast.” Thus saying, on Cebriones he sprang, As springs a lion, through the breast transfix’d, In act the sheepfold to despoil, and dies The victim of his courage; so didst thou Upon Cebriones, Patroclus, spring. Down from his car too Hector leap’d to earth. So, o’er Cebriones, oppos’d they stood; As on the mountain, o’er a slaughter’d stag, Both hunger-pinch’d, two lions fiercely fight, So o’er Cebriones two mighty chiefs, Menoetius’ son and noble Hector, strove, Each in the other bent to plunge his spear. The head, with grasp unyielding, Hector held; Patroclus seiz’d the foot; and, crowding round, Trojans and Greeks in stubborn conflict clos’d.