Helen would be restored to them, and they would
all sail home.

TROJAN VICTORIES

The war might now have ended, but an evil and foolish thought came to
Pandarus, a prince of Ida, who fought for the Trojans. He chose to shoot
an arrow at Menelaus, contrary to the sworn vows of peace, and the arrow
pierced the breastplate of Menelaus through the place where the clasped
plates meet, and drew his blood. Then Agamemnon, who loved his brother
dearly, began to lament, saying that if he died, the army would all go
home and Trojans would dance on the grave of Menelaus. "Do not alarm all
our army," said Menelaus, "the arrow has done me little harm;" and so it
proved, for the surgeon easily drew the arrow out of the wound.

Then Agamemnon hastened here and there, bidding the Greeks arm and attack
the Trojans, who would certainly be defeated, for they had broken the
oaths of peace. But with his usual insolence he chose to accuse Ulysses
and Diomede of cowardice, though Diomede was as brave as any man, and
Ulysses had just prevented the whole army from launching their ships and
going home. Ulysses answered him with spirit, but Diomede said nothing
at the moment; later he spoke his mind. He leaped from his chariot, and
all the chiefs leaped down and advanced in line, the chariots following
them, while the spearmen and bowmen followed the chariots. The Trojan
army advanced, all shouting in their different languages, but the Greeks
came on silently. Then the two front lines clashed, shield against
shield, and the noise was like the roaring of many flooded torrents among
the hills. When a man fell he who had slain him tried to strip off his
armour, and his friends fought over his body to save the dead from this
dishonour.

Ulysses fought above a wounded friend, and drove his spear through head
and helmet of a Trojan prince, and everywhere men were falling beneath
spears and arrows and heavy stones which the warriors threw. Here
Menelaus speared the man who built the ships with which Paris had sailed
to Greece; and the dust rose like a cloud, and a mist went up from the
fighting men, while Diomede stormed across the plain like a river in
flood, leaving dead bodies behind him as the river leaves boughs of trees
and grass to mark its course. Pandarus wounded Diomede with an arrow,
but Diomede slew him, and the Trojans were being driven in flight, when
Sarpedon and Hector turned and hurled themselves on the Greeks; an