What follows is a general commentary on these verses; what follows after that is an anchor comment on Nestor’s entanglement and the poetics of evocation.
Seeing the lightning sent by Zeus, I.08.076, the Achaean chieftains are now thunderstruck with fear, I.08.076–077. Mentioned by name at I.08.078–079 as those chieftains who now retreat in terror are Idomeneus, Agamemnon, and the two Ajaxes. Only Nestor, it is said, does not retreat, though not because he does not want to: he simply cannot retreat because his chariot has been immobilized, I.08.080-086. The trace horse of Nestor’s chariot team of three horses has been shot dead by Paris and has fallen down violently to the ground, I.08.080-086. The old hero, drawing his sword, is now struggling to cut himself loose from the parēoriai ‘traces’ that were connected to the fallen horse and that have now entangled the chariot team, I.08.087–088. This trace horse, not named, is analogous to the trace horse of Achilles, named Pedasos, who is killed at a much later point in the Iliad, in a scene of chariot fighting that takes place at I.16.466–476. In that scene, a spear throw by Sarpedon in the course of his chariot fight with Patroklos hits Pedasos instead of Patroklos, I.16.466–468. At I.16.471 and at I.16.474, the narrative there refers to Pedasos explicitly as the parēoros ‘trace horse’ of a three-horse chariot team. As a trace horse, Pedasos is not attached to the yoke that attaches the other two horses to the chariot. This distinction is made clear at a slightly earlier moment, I.16.145–154, leading up to the chariot fight. At this moment, the premier chariot driver of Achilles, Automedon, is harnessing for Patroklos the war chariot of Achilles. On this chariot, Automedon and Patroklos will be riding off together as chariot rider and chariot fighter respectively. At this slightly earlier moment, we see that there are two immortal horses of Achilles, Xanthos and Balios, who are attached to the yoke of the chariot, I.16.148–149, while the mortal trace horse Pedasos is simply connected to the parēoriai ‘traces’, I.16.152. At this same moment, I.16.153, a significant detail is added about Pedasos: this horse had been captured once upon a time by Achilles when that hero killed the horse’s former owner, who was Eëtion the father of Andromache. Then, at I.16.466–469, when Pedasos is killed by the spear-throw of Sarpedon and falls violently to the ground, the traces of this trace horse get entangled in the reins connected to the other two horses, I.16.470–471, and Automedon the chariot driver must free himself from the entanglement by drawing his sword and cutting the traces, thus severing the ties to the dead trace horse, Ι.16.472–475. Having noted what will happen in this future action, we now return to the present, I.08.087–088: so, what happens to Nestor as he struggles to cut himself loose from his entanglement? Well, meanwhile, the old hero’s predicament has been spotted by Hector, who is now driving his own chariot at high speed toward Nestor, I.08.088–090, intending to attack him before Nestor can disentangle himself from his disabled chariot. As Hector charges ahead, he is holding on to the reins of his own chariot horses, since he is described at I.08.090 as the hēni-okhos ‘chariot driver’ for the moment, or, to translate the word more literally, as ‘the one who holds on to the reins’. For the moment, then, it is the chariot fighter Hector and not his chariot driver who is here taking the initative of attempting a high-speed attack on Nestor. Hector is thus taking over here from his own chariot driver. As we are about to see, this driver is a hero named Eniopeus, who at this precise moment must be standing next to Hector on the platform of the speeding chariot—but not driving the vehicle himself. This detail about Hector as the momentary chariot driver helps explain what happens later on. Eventually, Hector’s driver Eniopeus will be killed while apparently still standing on the chariot platform: it will happen at I.08.119–124, where Diomedes throws his spear at Hector but hits Eniopeus instead, who dies instantly and falls out of the chariot. In that context, we will see that Eniopeus is now and only now described explicitly as the hēni-okhos ‘chariot driver’, I.08.119. There is an irony here. If Eniopeus and not Hector had been driving the chariot when Diomedes threw his spear, it could have been Hector who got hit and killed. Having noted once again what will happen in the future action, we now return to the present. The Master Narrator goes on to say at I.08.090 that the entanglement of the old hero Nestor would surely have resulted in his death at the hands of Hector—had it not been for the intervention of the young hero Diomedes, I.08.091. Urging Nestor to leave behind his disabled chariot, Diomedes offers him an invitation: let the two heroes ride together on the new chariot of Diomedes and let them now counterattack Hector, I.08.092–112. And let the two theraponte ‘attendants’ meanwhile take away the horses and the chariot of Nestor, taking them back to a zone of safety, I.08.109. The old hero agrees to the invitation, I.08.112. So, the two ‘attendants’ now proceed to take away the chariot team of Nestor, I.08.113, and these two figures are identified here as Sthenelos, chariot driver of Diomedes, and Eurymedon, chariot driver of Nestor, I.08.114. Meanwhile the old hero Nestor joins Diomedes, mounting the platform of the young hero’s chariot. And then he even takes the reins of the chariot of Diomedes in hand and drives the chariot himself, I.08.116–117. So, for the moment, Nestor takes over from Sthenelos as the designated charioteer of Diomedes.