line. And the neck he fixed to carven breast and bespangled the purple-fringed mane with yellow gold; and the mane, waving aloft on the arched neck, was sealed on the head with crested band. In two circles he set the gem-like eyes of sea-green beryl and blood-red amethyst: and in the mingling of them a double colour flashed; the eyes were red and ringed with the green gems. In the jaws he set white rows of jagged teeth, eager to champ the ends of the well-twisted bit. And he opened secret paths in the mighty mouth to preserve the tide of breath for the men in hiding, and through the nostrils flowed the life-giving air. Ears were fixed on the top of its temples, pricked up, ever ready to await the sound of the trumpet. And back and flanks he fitted together and supple backbone, and joined hip-joint to smooth hip. Unto the heels of the feet trailed the flowing tail, even as vine weighed down with twisted tassels. And the feet that moved with the dappled knees — even as if they were about to set them to the winged race, so were they eager, yet constraint bade them bide. Not without bronze were the hooves that stood below the legs, but they were bound with spirals of shining tortoise and hardly touched the ground with the strong-hoofed bronze. Also he set therein a barred door and a fashioned ladder: the one that unseen, fitted to the sides, it might carry the Achaean company of the famous horse this way and that; the other that, unfolded and firmly put together, it might be for them a path whereby to speed upward or downward. And he girt the horse about on white neck and cheeks with purple-flowered straps and coiling spirals of compelling