11 SEPTEMBER 2001

. . . Achilleus, the beloved of Zeus, and Athene
swept about his powerful shoulder the fluttering aegis;
and she, the divine among goddesses, about his head circles
a golden cloud, and kindled from it a flame far-shining.
As when a flare goes up into the high air from a city
from an island far away, with enemies fighting about it
who all day long are in the hateful division of Ares
fighting from their own city, but as the sun goes down signal
fires blaze out one after another, so that the glare goes
pulsing high for men of the neighbouring islands to see it,
in case they might come over in ships to beat off the enemy;
so from the head of Achilleus the blaze shot into the bright air.
He went from the wall and stood by the ditch . . .
There he stood, and shouted, and from her place Pallas Athene
gave cry, and drove an endless terror upon the Trojans.
As loud as comes the voice that is screamed out by a trumpte
by murderous attackers who beleaguer a city . . .

IL XVIII,203-220 [Lattimore]