Them, or their navy.” Thus expounds the augur this ostent, Whose depth he knows, and these should fear. Hector, with count’nance bent, Thus answer’d him: “Polydamas, your depth in augury I like not, and know passing well thou dost not satisfy Thyself in this opinion; or if thou think’st it true, Thy thoughts the Gods blind, to advise, and urge that as our due, That breaks our duties, and to Jove, whose vow and sign to me Is pass’d directly for our speed; yet light-wing’d birds must be, By thy advice, our oracles, whose feathers little stay My serious actions. What care I, if this, or th’ other, way Their wild wings sway them; if the right, on which the sun doth rise, Or, to the left hand, where he sets? ’Tis Jove’s high counsel flys With those wings that shall bear up us; Jove’s, that both earth and heav’n, Both men and Gods, sustains and rules. One augury is giv’n To order all men, best of all; Fight for thy country’s right. But why fear’st thou our further charge? For though the dang’rous fight Strew all men here about the fleet, yet thou need’st never fear To bear their fates; thy wary heart will never trust thee where An enemy’s look is; and yet fight, for, if thou dar’st abstain, Or whisper into any ear an abstinence so vain As thou advisest, never fear that any foe shall take Thy life from thee, for ’tis this lance.” This said, all forwards make, Himself the first; yet before him exulting Clamour flew, And thunder-loving Jupiter from lofty Ida blew A storm that usher’d their assault, and made them charge like him. It drave directly on the fleet a dust so fierce and dim That it amaz’d the Grecians, but was a grace divine To Hector and his following troops, who wholly did incline To him, being now in grace with Jove, and so put boldly on To raze the rampire; in whose height they fiercely set upon The parapets, and pull’d them down, raz’d ev’ry foremost fight, And all the buttresses of stone, that held their tow’rs upright, They tore away with crows of iron, and hop’d to ruin all. The Greeks yet stood, and still repair’d the fore-fights of their wall With hides of oxen, and from thence, they pour’d down stones in show’rs Upon the underminer’s heads. Within the foremost tow’rs Both the Ajaces had command, who answer’d ev’ry part, Th’ assaulters, and their soldiers, repress’d, and put in heart; Repairing valour as their wall; spake some fair, some reprov’d, Whoever made not good his place; and thus they all sorts mov’d: “O countrymen, now need in aid would have excess be spent, The excellent must be admir’d, the meanest excellent, The worst do well. In changing war all should not be alike, Nor any idle; which to know fits all, lest Hector strike Your minds with frights, as ears with threats. Forward be all your hands, Urge one another. This doubt down, that now betwixt us stands, Jove will go with us to their walls.” To this effect aloud Spake both the princes; and as high, with this, th’ expulsion flow’d.