y,
no one was backward; but many fell, their heads besmeared with blood; of us
also you might have seen before the walls frequent divers toppling to the
ground; and they moistened the parched earth with streams of blood. But the
Arcadian, no Argive, the son of Atalanta, as some whirlwind falling on the
gates, calls out for fire and a spade, as though he would dig up the city.
But Periclymenus the son of the God of the Ocean stopped him in his raging,
hurling at his head a stone, a wagon-load, a pinnacle[40] _rent_ from the
battlement; and dashed in pieces his head with its auburn hair, and crushed
the suture of the bones, and besmeared with blood his lately blooming
cheeks; nor shall he carry back his living form to his mother, glorious in
her bow, the daughter of Maenalus. But when thy son saw this gate was in a
state of safety, he went to another, and I followed. But I see Tydeus, and
many armed with shields around him, darting with their AEtolian lances at
the highest battlements of the towers, so that our men put to flight
quitted the heights of the ramparts; but thy son, as a hunter, collects
them together again; and posted them a second time on the towers; and we
hasten on to another gate, having relieved the distress in this quarter.
But Capaneus, how can I express the measure of his rage! For he came
bearing the ranges of a long-reaching ladder, and made this high boast,
"That not even the hallowed fire of Jove should hinder him from taking the
city from its highest turrets." And these things soon as he had proclaimed,
though assailed with stones, he clambered up, having contracted his body
under his shield, climbing the slippery footing of the bars[41] of the
ladder: but when he was now mounting the battlements of the walls Jupiter
strikes him with his thunder; and the earth resounded, insomuch that all
trembled; and his limbs were hurled, as it were by a sling, from the ladder
separately from one another, his hair to heaven, and his blood to the
ground, and his limbs, like the whirling of Ixion on his wheel, were
carried round; and his scorched body falls to the earth. But when Adrastus
saw that Jove was hostile to his army, he stationed the host of the Argives
without the trench. But ours on the contrary, when they saw the auspicious
sign from Jove, drove out their chariots, horsemen and heavy-armed, and
rushing into the midst of the Argive arms engaged in fight: and there were
all the sorts of misery together: