it seems that he had not the heart to fight against women, for his name
is not mentioned in this day's battle. So the two lines clashed, and the
plain of Troy ran red with blood, for Penthesilea slew Molios, and
Persinoos, and Eilissos, and Antiphates, and Lernos high of heart, and
Hippalmos of the loud warcry, and Haemonides, and strong Elasippus, while
her maidens Derinoe and Clonie slew each a chief of the Greeks. But
Clonie fell beneath the spear of Podarkes, whose hand Penthesilea cut off
with the sword, while Idomeneus speared the Amazon Bremousa, and Meriones
of Crete slew Evadre, and Diomede killed Alcibie and Derimacheia in close
fight with the sword, so the company of the Twelve were thinned, the
bodyguard of Penthesilea.

The Trojans and Greeks kept slaying each other, but Penthesilea avenged
her maidens, driving the ranks of Greece as a lioness drives the cattle
on the hills, for they could not stand before her. Then she shouted,
"Dogs! to-day shall you pay for the sorrows of Priam! Where is Diomede,
where is Achilles, where is Aias, that, men say, are your bravest? Will
none of them stand before my spear?" Then she charged again, at the head
of the Household of Priam, brothers and kinsmen of Hector, and where they
came the Greeks fell like yellow leaves before the wind of autumn. The
white horse that Penthesilea rode, a gift from the wife of the North
Wind, flashed like lightning through a dark cloud among the companies of
the Greeks, and the chariots that followed the charge of the Amazon
rocked as they swept over the bodies of the slain. Then the old Trojans,
watching from the walls, cried: "This is no mortal maiden but a Goddess,
and to-day she will burn the ships of the Greeks, and they will all
perish in Troyland, and see Greece never more again."

Now it so was that Aias and Achilles had not heard the din and the cry of
war, for both had gone to weep over the great new grave of Patroclus.