Roused by the sound, Achilles sprang to his feet, and buckled on his corslet, and clasped the greaves to his ankles. Then he flung the sword over his shoulder, and thrust his arm through the strap of his shield, which shone like the full-orbed moon, or a beaconlight blazing afar over a stormy sea. Last of all, he lifted his mighty helmet, with its nodding, golden plume, and set it on his head. And now, being arrayed in his harness from head to foot, he raised himself to his towering height, and stretched his fleet limbs, to prove the armour; and it became unto him as wings, making him lighter and nimbler than ever before.
Grasping in his right hand his spear--the mighty Pelian ash, pointed with death--he went forth before the tent, where Automedon stood waiting with his car. "Now hear me, ye children of the wind!" he cried, addressing his steeds, "see that ye play me not false to-day, as when ye left Patroclus dead on the field, and came back with an empty car."
Then there befell a wondrous thing; for the good steed Xanthus, drooping low his head, answered with a human voice, and spake thus unto his master: "Yea, we will carry thee safe back, most dread Achilles, when the fight is o'er. It was by no sloth or tardiness of ours that thy brave comrade met his death; that deed was wrought by the hand of Apollo, using Hector as his instrument--even as thou too shalt be cut off by a human weapon, but by no human power."
So spake the immortal courser, for the first and the last time; for fate suffered it not again. And Achilles answered him, and said: "Waste not thy prophecies on me, good steed! I know my fate--death on the battlefield, far from my home: but ere that hour comes I will send many a Trojan to herald my coming among the dead."
Then, shouting his dread battle-cry, he sprang into his car, and drove headlong to the front.
By high permission of all-ruling Jove the gods were now free to take part in the war, and they all with one accord came down from Olympus to mingle with the fray. Only Zeus remained behind, as supreme arbiter of the final issue. All the rest took sides with the Greeks or Trojans, and five rival pairs confronted each other in the field--Poseidon found a match in Apollo, the great ally of the Trojans--Hera, who loved the Greeks like a mother, was confronted by the archer-goddess Artemis--against Athene stood Ares, whose fickle mind now inclined to the Trojans--Hermes, who favoured the Greeks, was met on the other side by Leto, the mother of Artemis and Apollo--and lastly Hephæstus and Scamander, the opposing powers of fire and water, took the field, the former for the Greeks, the latter for the Trojans.