Shook and threw his lance; which struck through Paris' shield, And with the strength he gave to it, it made the curets yield, His coat of mail, his breast; yet he prevented sable death. This taint he followed with his sword, drawn from a silver sheath, Which lifting high, he struck his helm full where the plume did stand, On which it piecemeal brake, and fell from his unhappy hand ... "Lo, now my lance hath missed his end, my sword in shivers flew, And he 'scapes all." With this again he rushed upon his guest, And caught him by the horse-hair plume that dangled on his crest, With thought to drag him to the Greeks; which he had surely done, And so, besides the victory, had wondrous glory won. But Cyprian Venus brake the string; and so the victor's palm Was, for so full a man at arms, only an empty helm. That then he swung about his head, and cast among his friends, Who scrambled and took it up with shouts. Again then he intends To force the life-blood of his foe, and ran on him amain, With shaken jav'lin; when the queen that lovers love, again Attended and now ravish'd him from that encounter quite, With ease, and wondrous suddenly; for she, a goddess, might. She hid him in a cloud of gold, and never made him known Till in his chamber fresh and sweet she gently set him down. Thereupon the truce was treacherously broken by Pandarus, who, incited by Minerva, wounded Menelaus with an arrow; and the armies closed with each other. Great deeds were done by Diomedes on the Greek side. But Hector had gone back to Troy to rouse Paris; on the walls his wife Andromache saw him.