As when on a sounding beach a wave of the sea rolls one after another under the West Wind’s driving. Far out it raises its head, then breaks on land with a great roar and goes arched about the headlands and spews foam. So the Danaans’ phalanxes moved without pause into war. Each leader commanded his own; the rest went in silence, so you would not have said so great an army had a voice in its breast. All shone in worked armor. But the Trojans came with a mixed cry like sheep bleating without stopping in a rich man’s yard when they hear their lambs, for they had no single speech. Their tongues were mixed, men summoned from many lands.
Ares drove the Trojans; Athena drove the Achaeans; Terror, Fear, and Strife moved with them. Shields struck shields, spears struck spears, and the earth ran with blood. The noise was like winter torrents joining in a ravine.
Antilochus first killed Echepolus son of Thalysius in the foremost ranks, striking the projecting part of the helmet and driving the bronze into his brow through the bone. Darkness covered his eyes, and he fell like a tower. Elephenor tried to drag him away for stripping, but Agenor struck him in the side uncovered beside the shield as he bent. Then Telamonian Aias killed young Simoeisius son of Anthemion, whom his mother bore by the banks of Simoeis as she came down from Ida to see the flocks. He did not repay his dear parents for his rearing. Aias struck him in the chest beside the right nipple. He fell like a poplar cut smooth beside a marsh, which a chariot-maker fells with shining iron to bend a wheel-rim. Antiphus missed Aias but killed Leucus, Odysseus’s companion, in the groin as he dragged a corpse. Odysseus answered in anger by killing Democoon, Priam’s bastard son from Abydos, striking him through the temple.
Apollo called from Pergamus, urging the Trojans not to give way: the Argives’ skin was not stone or iron. Athena moved among the Achaeans and stirred any who slackened. Diores was crushed at the ankle by a jagged stone from Peirous, then stabbed; Thoas killed Peirous but could not strip him because Thracians pressed around. Many Trojans and Achaeans lay face down in dust beside one another.