…unbound, the words fall out, as it were, in a torrent, almost outrunning the speaker himself. ‘Closing in,’ says Xenophon, ‘they put shield to shield, were thrust against, fought, killed, were killed.’ §1
And the lines of Eurylochus: ‘We came, as you bade, through the brakes, glorious Odysseus; we saw, set in the dells, fine houses built.’ For words clipped off from one another, yet hurried no less, give the impression of a struggle which both checks the speaker and runs along with him. Such effects the poet has produced through asyndeton. §2