Epic quote from Diomed in the Iliad

Then Paris, with a laugh, Sprang from his ambush, shouting boastfully:-

"Lo, thou art smitten! Not in vain my shaft

Has flown; and would that it had pierced thy groin And slain thee! Then the Trojans had obtained Reprieve from slaughter,-they who dread thee now

As bleating goats a lion." Undismayed, The valiant Diomed made answer thus:-

"Archer and railer! proud of thy smart bow, And ogler of the women! wouldst thou make

Trial of valor hand to hand with me,

Thy bow should not avail thee, nor thy sheaf Of many arrows. Thou dost idly boast That thou hast hit my foot. I heed it not.

It is as if a woman or a child

Had struck me. Lightly falls the weapon-stroke Of an unwarlike weakling. 'Tis not so With me, for when one feels my weapon's touch,

It passes through him, and he dies; his wife Tears with her hands her cheeks; his little ones Are orphans; earth is crimsoned with his blood;

And flocking round his carcass in decay, More numerous than women, are the birds."

• Iliad Book 10 book 11