Diomedes threw and killed Thymbraios, while Odysseus killed Molion, his godlike attendant. They left the two and drove into the front like boars turning on hounds. The Achaeans breathed again as the heroes checked the Trojan rush.
Diomedes struck two sons of Merops of Perkote, a skilled reader of dreams who had warned his sons not to go to war. They did not obey, and the doom of dark death took them. Odysseus killed Hippodamos and Hypeirochos. Zeus stretched the battle evenly for a moment, and men fell on both sides.
Diomedes then hurled at Hector and struck the helmet on his head. The bronze point did not pierce, because Apollo's gift, the three-layered helmet, held it off.
Hector sprang back into the crowd, sank to one knee, and darkness covered his eyes. Diomedes shouted that the dog had escaped death again because Apollo loved him.
While Diomedes stripped a fallen man, Paris bent his bow from beside a pillar on Ilos's tomb.
He shot Diomedes through the flat of the right foot, pinning it to the ground, and laughed from hiding. Diomedes answered that Paris was a bowman, a girl-ogler, no open fighter; if he had met him face to face with spear, the bow would not have saved him.
Odysseus stood over Diomedes while he pulled the arrow from his foot. Diomedes mounted his chariot and drove toward the ships, his heart heavy. Odysseus was left alone, for the other Argives had been driven back, and Trojans swarmed around him like dogs and strong young men around a tusked boar.
Odysseus struck Deiopites, Thoon, Ennomos, Chersidamas, Charops, and Socus. Socus wounded him through shield and corselet, tearing the flesh of his side, but Athena kept the spear from his vitals. Odysseus killed Socus as he turned and spoke over him, then shouted until Menelaus and Aias heard.
Aias came carrying his shield like a tower, and the Trojans scattered from around Odysseus. Menelaus led the wounded man by the hand from battle until his charioteer could bring up the horses. Aias then turned on the Trojans like a river in flood, killing Doryklos, Pandokos, Lysandros, Pyrasos, and Pylartes.
Hector, fighting on the left, had not yet heard Odysseus's cry; now he came as the Achaeans were being driven. Aias slowly gave ground, like a tawny lion driven from a cattle yard by men and dogs through the night, hungry but held back by spears and firebrands. So Aias retreated, turning again and again.