Eagle and Fawn

On this wise spake they, one to the other; and now was all the space that the moat of the wall enclosed on the side of the ships filled alike with chariots and shield-bearing men huddled together: and huddled they were by Hector, Priam's son, the peer of swift Ares, now that Zeus vouchsafed him glory. And now would he have burned the shapely ships with blazing fire, had not queenly Hera put it in Agamemnon's mind himself to bestir him, and speedily rouse on the Achaeans. So he went his way along the huts and ships of the Achaeans, bearing his great purple cloak in his stout hand, and took his stand by Odysseus' black ship, huge of hull, that was in the midst so that a shout could reach to either end, both to the huts of Aias, son of Telamon, and to those of Achilles; for these had drawn up their shapely ships at the furthermost ends, trusting in their valour and in the strength of their hands. There uttered he a piercing shout, calling aloud to the Danaans: "Fie, ye Argives, base things of shame fair in semblance only. Whither are gone our boastings, when forsooth we declared that we were bravest, the boasts that when ye were in Lemnos ye uttered vaingloriously as ye ate abundant flesh of straight-horned kine and drank bowls brim full of wine, saying that each man would stand to face in battle an hundred, aye, two hundred Trojans! whereas now can we match not even one, this Hector, that soon will burn our ships with blazing fire. Father Zeus, was there ever ere now one among mighty kings whose soul thou didst blind with blindness such as this, and rob him of great glory? Yet of a surety do I deem that never in my benched ship did I pass by fair altar of thine on my ill-starred way hither, but upon all I burned the fat and the thighs of bulls, in my eagerness to lay waste well-walled Troy. Nay, Zeus, this desire fulfill thou me: ourselves at least do thou suffer to flee and escape, and permit not the Achaeans thus to be vanquished by the Trojans."

So spake he, and the Father had pity on him as he wept, and vouchsafed him that his folk should be saved and not perish. Forthwith he sent an eagle, surest of omens among winged birds, holding in his talons a fawn, the young of a swift hind. Beside the fair altar of Zeus he let fall the fawn, even where the Achaeans were wont to offer sacrifice to Zeus from whom all omens come. So they, when they saw that it was from Zeus that the bird was come, leapt the more upon the Trojans and bethought them of battle.

Then might no man of the Danaans, for all they were so many, vaunt that he before the son of Tydeus guided his swift horses to drive them forth across the trench and to fight man to man; nay he was first by far to slay a mailed warrior of the Trojans, even Agelaus, Phradraon's son. He in sooth had turned his horses to flee, but as he wheeled about Diomedes fixed his spear in his back between the shoulders, and drave it through his breast; so he fell from out the car, and upon him his armour clanged.

And after him came the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus, and after them the Aiantes, clothed in furious valour, and after them Idomeneus and Idomeneus' comrade, Meriones, peer of Enyalius, slayer of men, and after them Eurypylus, the glorious son of Euaemon; and Teucer came as the ninth, stretching his back-bent bow, and took his stand beneath the shield of Aias, son of Telamon. Then would Aias move his shield aside from over him, and the warrior would spy his chance; and when he had shot his bolt and had smitten one in the throng, then would that man fall where he was and give up his life, and Teucer would hie him back, and as a child beneath his mother, so betake him for shelter to Aias; and Aias would ever hide him with his shining shield.


- Homer, The Iliad, Book 8