Stalked here and there, and in his hand a huge great bead-hook held, Twelve cubits long, and full of iron. And then again there grew A bitter conflict at the fleet. You would have said none drew A weary breath, nor ever did, they laid so freshly on. It seemed that even Ajax would be overborne. But Patroclus, the loved friend of Achilles, saw this destruction coming upon the Greeks, and he earnestly besought Achilles, if he would not be moved to sally forth to the rescue himself, to suffer him to go out against the Trojans, bearing the arms of Achilles and leading his Myrmidons into the fray. Which leave Achilles granted him. FOOTNOTES: [F] Of the personality of Homer, the maker of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," those great epic poems which were the common heritage of all Greeks, we have no knowledge. Tradition pictures him as blind and old. Seven cities claimed to be his birthplace. Probably he lived in the ninth century B.C., since the particular stages of social life which he portrays probably belong to that era. Beyond this, all is conjecture. The poems were not written down till a later date, when their authorship was already a matter of tradition; and when what we may call the canon of the text of the epics was laid down in the sixth century B.C., it may be readily supposed that they were not in the exact form which the master-poet himself had given them. Hence the ingenuity of the modern commentator has endeavoured to resolve Homer into an indefinite number of ballad-mongers, whose ballads were edited into their existing unity. On the whole, this view may be called Teutonic. Of the "Iliad," it suffices to say that it relates events immediately preceding the fall of Troy, at the close of the tenth year of the siege undertaken by the Greeks on account of the abduction of Helen from Menelaus by Paris. Of Chapman's translation we shall speak in the introduction to the "Odyssey." _III_.--_Of Patroclus, and the Rousing of Achilles_ Bearing the armour of Achilles, save the spear which none other could wield, Patroclus sped forth, leading the Myrmidons. And when ye see upon a mountain bred A den of wolves about whose hearts unmeasured strengths are fed, New come from currie of a stag, their jaws all blood-besmeared, And when from some black-water fount they all together herd, There having plentifully lapped with thin and thrust-out tongues The top and clearest of the spring, go, belching from their lungs The clottered gore, look dreadfully, and entertain no dread, Their bellies gaunt, all taken up with being so rawly fed; Then say that such in strength and look, were great Achilles' men Now ordered for the dreadful fight.