Phoebus made the Achaeans' labor vain and drove terror among them. They fled by the ships and called to one another and to the gods, lifting hands in prayer. Nestor especially prayed to Zeus, reminding him of the thigh-bones burned in hope of homecoming. Do not let the Trojans destroy them utterly by the ships.
Zeus heard and thundered loudly. The Trojans took the thunder as a sign for them and pressed harder.
As a great wave driven by wind leaps over a ship's side and the sailors tremble, so the Trojans came over the wall. They drove their horses through, and the Achaeans fought from the ships with long pikes kept there for sea battle, jointed and tipped with bronze.
Patroclus was still in Eurypylos's shelter, easing him with words and laying medicines on the wound.
When he heard the shouting and saw the Trojans over the wall and the Achaeans in rout, he struck his thighs and cried that he could not stay longer, though Eurypylos still needed him. He would go to Achilles and urge him; perhaps a friend's persuasion would be good.
He left Eurypylos with the attendants and ran. The battle at the ships grew more desperate.
The Achaeans could not push the Trojans back from the fleet, and the Trojans could not yet break the Achaean line and set fire to the hulls. They fought close around the first ship as carpenters' measuring line runs straight along timber.
Hector tried to seize the stern of a seafaring ship that had brought Protesilaos to Troy and never carried him home. Around that ship Achaeans and Trojans cut one another down hand to hand, no longer waiting for arrows or javelins but fighting with axes, hatchets, great swords, and double-pointed spears.
Many fine swords with dark hilts fell from hands and shoulders of fighting men, and the black earth ran with blood. Hector gripped the stern ornament and would not let go.
He called for fire and urged the Trojans to come all together with a shout. Zeus, he said, had given them a day worth all the rest: to take the ships that had come against the gods' will and brought them misery.