bridle inlaid with ivory and silver-flashing bronze. And when he had wrought all the warlike horse, he set a well-spoked wheel under each of its feet that when dragged over the plain it might be obedient to the rein, and not travel a difficult path under stress of hands.
So the horse flashed with terror and great beauty, wide and high; not even Ares, lord of horsesa, would have refused to drive it, had he found it alive. And a great wall was driven about it, lest any of the Achaeans should behold it beforehand and fire the snare revealed. And beside the ship of Agamemnon from Mycenae the kings of the Achaeans gathered to council, avoiding the din and tumult of the stirring hosts. Then impetuous Athena took the likeness of a clear-voiced herald and stood by Odysseus to counsel him, daubing a manâs voice with honeyed nectar. And, revolving his mind in godlike counsels, at first he stood like a man of empty witsb fixing on the ground the gaze of his unturning eye; but suddenly he opened his lips and delivered him of everflowing speech and thundered terribly, and poured, as from an airy spring, a great torrent of honey-dropping snow.
ãO friends, now is the secret ambush prepared, by human hands but by the counsels of Athena. Do ye which have most trust in the might of your hands, heartily follow me with valiant mind and enduring soul; for it is not seemly that we should
a (Susan note Grk), an unusual title for Ares. Cf. (Susan note Grk) Hes. Sc. 441.
b Iliad iii. 216 Antenor says, ãWhen Odysseus of many wiles arose, he would stand and look downward, fixing his eyes upon the ground, and his staff he moved neither back nor fore, but held it steadfast; thou wouldst have deemed him simply sulky and silly. But when he uttered his great voice from his breast, and words like snowflakes in winter, then could no other mortal vie with Odysseus.ä