unto wolves of jagged teeth, which in a stormy night, lusting for blood, go to attack unshepherded flocks and waste the labour of the herdsmen. There, though they were but two, they engaged foemen beyond numbering. And a new battle arose, as these attacked and those from a chamber overhead hurled stones and arrows which bring speedy death. Yet even so, fencing their giant heads with helmets unbreakable and encircling themselves with shields, they leapt into the great house. And Odysseus drave and slaughtered the crowd that opposed him, even as wild beasts affrighted. And the son of Atreus on the other hand pursued Deiphobus who skulked away, and overtook and smote him in the midst of the belly and poured forth his liver and slippery guts. So he lay there and forgot his chivalry. And with Menelaus followed, trembling, his spear-won spouse, now rejoicing in the end of dire woes, and now ashamed, and then again, though late, as in a dream, secretly groaning, she remembered her dear fatherland. But Neoptolemus, scion of Aeacus, slew beside the altar of Zeus of the Court-yard the aged king out-worn with woe. He put from him such pity as his father had shown, and hearkened not to his prayers, nor had compassion when he looked on his hair grey even as the hair of Peleus: the hair at which of old Achilles softened his heart and, despite his grievous anger, spared the old man.a Hard of heart! verily a like fate was destined afterward to come to him by the altar of truthful Apollo, when, as he sought to
a Hom. Il. xxiv. 515 ff.