With dawn Agamemnon awoke, and fear had gone out of his heart. He put on
his armour, and arrayed the chiefs on foot in front of their chariots,
and behind them came the spearmen, with the bowmen and slingers on the
wings of the army. Then a great black cloud spread over the sky, and red
was the rain that fell from it. The Trojans gathered on a height in the
plain, and Hector, shining in armour, went here and there, in front and
rear, like a star that now gleams forth and now is hidden in a cloud.

The armies rushed on each other and hewed each other down, as reapers cut
their way through a field of tall corn. Neither side gave ground, though
the helmets of the bravest Trojans might be seen deep in the ranks of the
Greeks; and the swords of the bravest Greeks rose and fell in the ranks
of the Trojans, and all the while the arrows showered like rain. But at
noon-day, when the weary woodman rests from cutting trees, and takes his
dinner in the quiet hills, the Greeks of the first line made a charge,
Agamemnon running in front of them, and he speared two Trojans, and took
their breastplates, which he laid in his chariot, and then he speared one
brother of Hector and struck another down with his sword, and killed two
more who vainly asked to be made prisoners of war. Footmen slew footmen,
and chariot men slew chariot men, and they broke into the Trojan line as
fire falls on a forest in a windy day, leaping and roaring and racing
through the trees. Many an empty chariot did the horses hurry madly
through the field, for the charioteers were lying dead, with the greedy
vultures hovering above them, flapping their wide wings. Still Agamemnon
followed and slew the hindmost Trojans, but the rest fled till they came
to the gates, and the oak tree that grew outside the gates, and there
they stopped.

But Hector held his hands from fighting, for in the meantime he was