They mounted and drove full speed at Diomedes. Pandarus hurled first, striking Diomedes’s shield and reaching the corselet, then boasted again that he had hit him. Diomedes answered that he had missed, and that before they finished one of them would glut tough-shielded Ares with his blood.
Diomedes threw. Athena guided the spear through Pandarus’s nose beside the eye, cutting through white teeth and the root of his tongue; the bronze came out under the chin. He fell from the chariot, and his armor rang about him.
Aeneas leapt down over the corpse with shield and spear like a lion. Diomedes lifted a huge stone no two men of later days could carry and struck Aeneas on the hip, crushing the joint and tendons. Aeneas fell to his knees, darkness covering his eyes.
Aphrodite wrapped her white arms around her son and covered him with her shining robe. Diomedes chased her, knowing she was no war-goddess, and wounded her soft hand at the wrist. Ichor, the blood of the immortals, flowed. She cried out and dropped Aeneas, but Apollo caught him in dark cloud.