tion; so they with alacrity bore away the body, while the Ajaces behind them checked [the enemy]; as a barrier of wood, stretched straight across a plain, restrains water; which checks the furious courses even of rapid rivers, and immediately turning them, directs the streams of all into the plain; nor can they at all burst through it, though flowing with violence. So the Ajaces in the rear always repulsed the attack of the Trojans, who, however, followed along with them; but two among them in particular, Æneas, son of Anchises, and illustrious Hector. And as a cloud of starlings or jackdaws, shrilly chattering,[1] flies away when they perceive a hawk advancing, which brings death to small birds; so then from Æneas and Hector departed the son of the Greeks, loudly clamoring, and were forgetful of the fight. And much beautiful armor of the flying Greeks fell both in and about the trench; but there was no cessation from the battle.
- ↑ Or "shouting in pressage of their doom," as Heyne and Kennedy would take it, a meaning borne out by προίδωσιν. Cf. Longus. Past. ii. 12; Οἳ κωμῆται ταραχθέντες, ἐπιπήδωσιν αὐτοίς ὡσεὶ ψᾶρες, ἢ κολοιοί.
