Book II

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Hector promptly obeyed the command of the goddess. Dismissing the council, he and the other chiefs at once placed themselves at the head of their troops and marched forth through the gates into the plain.

VII. THE COMBAT BETWEEN MENELAUS AND PARIS.

The two great armies, now in battle array on the plain before the city walls, began to advance towards each other. The Trojans moved along with great clatter, which Homer compares to the noise of flocks of cranes:

The Trojan host moved on With shouts and clang of arms, as when the cry Of cranes is in the air, that, flying south From winter and its mighty breadth of rain, Wing their way over ocean.

BRYANT, _Iliad_,