Agamemnon, having armed himself, leads the Grecians to battle; Hector
prepares the Trojans to receive them, while Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva
give the signals of war. Agamemnon bears all before him and Hector is
commanded by Jupiter (who sends Iris for that purpose) to decline the
engagement, till the king shall be wounded and retire from the field.
He then makes a great slaughter of the enemy. Ulysses and Diomed put a
stop to him for a time but the latter, being wounded by Paris, is
obliged to desert his companion, who is encompassed by the Trojans,
wounded, and in the utmost danger, till Menelaus and Ajax rescue him.
Hector comes against Ajax, but that hero alone opposes multitudes, and
rallies the Greeks. In the meantime Machaon, in the other wing of the
army, is pierced with an arrow by Paris, and carried from the fight in
Nestor's chariot. Achilles (who overlooked the action from his ship)
sent Patroclus to inquire which of the Greeks was wounded in that
manner; Nestor entertains him in his tent with an account of the
accidents of the day, and a long recital of some former wars which he
remembered, tending to put Patroclus upon persuading Achilles to fight
for his countrymen, or at least to permit him to do it, clad in
Achilles' armour. Patroclus, on his return, meets Eurypylus also
wounded, and assists him in that distress.
This book opens with the eight and-twentieth day of the poem, and the
same day, with its various actions and adventures is extended through
the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth,
and part of the eighteenth books. The scene lies in the field near the
monument of Ilus.