Matheson Collection > Togail na Tebe

THE THEBAID
with his great-spirited people, came through a speckled gate
named Hypsistae. Figures of frogs were thereon. The great-
spirited soldier Menoeceus also came through the strong door,
Dircaeae. Forms of bittern were thereon. It was no mean thing,
indeed, which the rising of that host resembled as they left the
city, to wit, the sound and subdued thunder of the green-surfaced
sea, so that it shakes and convulses the wide globe with the
storm of the billows as they roll over the strands of the earth.
As to the Greeks, however, they arose tardily and weakly unto
the battle that day, and there the people of Amphiaraus gathered
round Thiodamas, son of Melampus, so that he was one of the
seven Greek kings that day in the battle. Then each of those
kings ordered his champions and chiefs into his presence to fight
and do battle for them. Sad indeed it was for Greeks and
Thebans, when that day came ; for companies of them were
left without their officers, tribes without chiefs, towns without
yeomen, fair helms without heroes, arms without bearers, and
chariots without charioteers because of their engaging in the
fierce and strong battle that day.
There was steadfastly and ever on the move the cruel and
mighty Mars, to wit, the god of war, with a very sharp hard
spear in his hand, from which used to drip and flow profuse
streams of blood from point to haft presaging the death and
doom of the heroes of each of the two armies. And he hurried
and urged roughly and angrily those active veterans unto one
another and unto the fighting, so that he restored none of those
to the confines or to the city whence he had come. A convulsion
of boiling rage filled them, so that the hands of the hero-folk
were ready with heroic swords of war and with long well-casting
spears for joy at the conflict.
Nay, hardly was it the battle-soldiers that were reckless, for
it were much to relate the onrush and haste of the savage horses
as they violently shook the chariots and jingled the bridle-pieces,
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