Thrust from a beetling cliff-brow by the winds
And torrent rains, or lightning-lance of Zeus,
Leaps like a wild beast, and the mountain-glens
Fling back their crashing echoes as it rolls
In mad speed on, as with resistless swoop
Of bound on bound it rushes down, until
It cometh to the levels of the plain,
And there perforce its stormy flight is stayed;

So Ares, battle-eager Son of Zeus,
Was stayed, how loth soe'er; for all the Gods
To the Ruler of the Blessed needs must yield,
Seeing he sits high-throned above them all,
Clothed in his might unspeakable. Yet still
Many a wild thought surged through Ares' soul,
Urging him now to dread the terrible threat
Of Cronos' wrathful Son, and to return
Heavenward, and now to reck not of his Sire,
But with Achilles' blood to stain those hands,
The battle-tireless. At the last his heart
Remembered how that many and many a son
Of Zeus himself in many a war had died,
Nor in their fall had Zeus availed them aught.
Therefore he turned him from the Argives -- else,
Down smitten by the blasting thunderbolt,
With Titans in the nether gloom he had lain,
Who dared defy the eternal will of Zeus.

Then did the warrior sons of Argos strip
With eager haste from corpses strown all round