NESTOR Why is it then that he has not emerged from his tent? His corps is the largest left to our army, but they shelter in the center like women. Their hearts are gone without their leader.
PODALIRIUS Their leader’s heart is gone without his brother Menelaus.
TEUCER (The master archer, half brother and dearest friend to the murdered Big Ajax.)
Then Achilles was right ten months ago when he confronted Agamemnon in all our sight and told the great king he has the heart of a fawn. (Spits into the sand.)
EUMELUS (Son of Admetus and Alcestis, commander of the Thessalians from Phereae. Often referred to by the missing Achilles and Odysseus as “lord of men.”)
And where is the accuser Achilles? The coward stayed behind at the base of Mount Olympos rather than face his death here with his comrades. The fleet-footed mankiller turned out also to have the heart—and hooves—of a fawn.
MENESTHIUS
(The huge captain of the Myrmidons, a former lieutenant of Achilles’.)
I’ll kill any man who says that about the son of Peleus. He would never abandon us of his own free will. We all saw and heard the goddess Athena tell Achilles that he had been enchanted by Aphrodite’s spell.
EUMELUS Enchanted by Amazon pussy, you mean.
(Menesthius steps toward Eumelus and begins to draw his sword.)
NESTOR
(Stepping between them.)
Enough! Aren’t the Trojans killing us quickly enough, or do we need to add to our own slaughter? Eumelus, step back! Menesthius, sheath your sword!
PODALIRIUS (Speaking as the Achaean’s last healer now, not as Agamemnon’s personal doctor.)
PODALIRIUS (cont.)
What’s killing us is the disease. Another two hundred dead, especially among the Epeans who are defending the riverbank to the south.
POLYXINUS
(Son of Agasthenes, co-commander of the Epeans.)
This is true, Lord Nestor. At least two hundred dead and another thousand too sick to fight.
DRESEUS
(Captain of the Epeans, just raised to the rank of commander.)
Half my men did not respond to muster this morning, Lord Nestor.
PODALIRIUS And it’s spreading.
AMPHION
(Another recently promoted captain of the Epeans.)
It’s Phoebus Apollo’s Silver Bow striking us down, just as it was ten months ago when the god-spread disease had corpse fires burning every night. It’s what led to the first falling-out between Achilles and Agamemnon—it’s what led to all our woes.
PODALIRIUS
Oh, fuck Phoebus Apollo and his Silver Bow. The gods—including Zeus—did their worst to us and now they’re gone, and only they know if they’re coming back. Personally, I don’t care if they do or don’t. These deaths, this disease, didn’t come from Apollo’s Silver Bow—I think it comes from the foul water the men are drinking. We’re drinking our own piss and sitting in our own excrement here. My father, Asclepius, had this theory of origins of disease in contaminated water and…
NESTOR
Learned Podalirius, we will rejoice to hear your father’s theory of disease at another time. Right now I need to know if we can hold off the Trojans today and what, if anything, my captains advise us to do.
ECHEPOLUS
(Son of Anchises)
We should surrender.
THRASYMEDES (Nestor’s son who had fought so valiantly the day before. His wounds are bandaged and bound up, but he appears to be suffering from them more today than in the heat of yesterday’s long fight.)
Surrender, my ass! Who is in our circle of Argives that so cowers from fear that he suggests craven surrender? Surrender to me, son of Anchises, and I’ll put you out of your misery as quickly as the Trojans certainly will.
ECHEPOLUS
Hector is an honorable man. King Priam used to be an honorable man, and may well still be. I traveled with Odysseus to Troy when the Ithacan came to reason with Priam, to try to get Helen back through talk to avoid this war, and both Priam and Hector were reasonable, honorable men. Hector will hear our surrender.
THRASYMEDES
That was eleven years and a hundred thousand souls sent down to Hades ago, you fool. You saw the extent of Hector’s mercy when Ajax the Great begged and pleaded for his life, his long shield hammered into tin, snot and tears rolling down our hero’s face. Hector severed his spine and hacked out his heart. His men probably won’t be so merciful to you.
NESTOR
I know there has been talk of surrender. But Thrasymedes is correct—too much blood has been spilled on this Trojan soil to hold out any hope for mercy. We would have given the citizens of Ilium none, would we, had we but breached their walls to more success three weeks ago—or ten years ago? All of you here know that we would have killed every man old enough or young enough to lift a sword or bow, slaughtered their old men for spawning our enemies, raped their women, carried all their surviving women and children into a life of slavery, and put the torch to their city and their temples. But the gods… or the Fates… whoever is deciding the outcome of this war, have turned against us. We cannot expect from the Trojans, who suffered our invasion and our ten years of siege, more mercy than we would have granted them. No, tell your men, if you hear these murmurings, that it is madness to surrender. Better to die on your feet than on your knees.
IDOMENEUS Better to not die at all. Is there no plan to save ourselves?
ALASTOR
(Teucer’s commander)
The ships are burned. The food is running out, but we will all be dead of thirst before we starve. Disease claims more every hour.
MENESTHIUS
My Myrmidons want to break out—fight our way through the Trojan lines and make for the south—to Mount Ida and the heavy forests there.
NESTOR
(nodding)
Your Myrmidons are not the only ones thinking about breaking out and escaping, brave Menesthius. But your Myrmidons cannot do it alone. None of our tribes or groups can. The Trojan lines stretch back for miles and their allies’ lines go deeper. They expect us to try to break out. They’re probably wondering why we haven’t tried it before this. You know the iron laws of combat with sword, shield, and spear, Menesthius—all Myrmidons and Achaeans know it—for every man who falls in shield-to-shield combat, a hundred are slaughtered while fleeing. We have no working chariots left—Hector’s chiefs have hundreds. They’ll run us down and slaughter us like sheep before we cross the dried bed of the River Scamander.
DRESEUS So we stay? And die here today or tomorrow on the beach next to the charred timbers of our great black ships?
ANTILOCHUS
(Nestor’s other son)
No. Surrender is out of the question for any man here with balls, and defense of this position will be untenable in a few hours—it may be untenable during the next attack—but I say we all try to break out at the same time. We have thirty thousand fighting men left—more than twenty thousand well enough to fight and run. Four out of five of us may fall, verily—be slaughtered like sheep before we reach the concealing forests of Mount Ida—but at those odds, four or five thousand of us will survive. Half that number may even survive the searches of the forest for us which the Trojans and their allies will carry out, like royalty pursuing a stag, and half that remaining number may find their way off this goddamned continent and cross the wine-dark seas to home. Those odds are good enough for me.
THRASYMEDES And for me.
TEUCER
Any odds are better than the certainty of our bones bleaching on this fucking goddamned motherfucking shit-eating piss-drinking beach.
NESTOR Was that a vote for breaking out, son of Telemon?
TEUCER You’re fucking goddamned right it was, Lord Nestor.
NESTOR Noble Epeus, you’ve had no voice in this council yet. What do you think?