and now, look, by god, it all comes to pass!
How shameful—and now the rest of our men-at-arms
must harbor anger against me deep inside their hearts,
just like Achilles. And they have no stomach left
to fight to the end against the warships’ sterns,”
The noble old horseman could only bear him out:
“True, too true. A disaster’s right upon us.
Not even thundering Zeus himself could turn the tide.
The rampart’s down, there, the great wall we trusted,
our impregnable shield for the ships and men themselves.
The enemy storms down on the rolling hulls nonstop,
desperate, life or death. Hard as you scan the lines,
there’s no more telling from which side we’re harried—
carnage left and right. Death-cries hit the skies!
Put heads together—what shall we do now?—
if strategy’s any use. Struggle’s clearly not.
The last thing I’d urge is to throw ourselves into battle.
How on earth can a wounded man make war?”
So the lord of men Agamemnon staged the action:
“Since they are fighting against the sterns, old friend,
and the wall we built is useless, the trench a waste
where our Argive forces took such heavy losses ... so
always hoping against hope it was indestructible,
our impregnable shield for ships and men themselves—
so it must please the Father’s overweening heart
to kill the Achaeans here, our memory blotted out
a world away from Argos! I knew it then,
even when Zeus defended us with all his might,
and I know it now, when he glorifies these Trojans—
he lifts them high as the blessed deathless gods
but ties our hands and lames our fighting spirit.
So come, follow my orders. All obey me now.
All vessels beached on the front along the shore—
haul them down and row them out on the bright sea,
ride them over the anchor-stones in the offshore swell
till the bracing godsent night comes down and then,
if the Trojans will refrain from war at night,
we haul down all the rest. No shame in running,
fleeing disaster, even in pitch darkness.
Better to flee from death than feel its grip.”
With a dark glance the shrewd tactician. Odysseus
wheeled on his commander: “What’s this, Atrides,
this talk that slips from your clenched teeth?
You are the disaster.
Would to god you commanded another army,
a ragtag crew of cowards, instead of ruling us,
the men whom Zeus decrees, from youth to old age,
must wind down our brutal wars to the bitter end
until we drop and die, down to the last man.
So this is how you’d bid farewell to Troy,
yearning to kiss her broad streets good-bye—
Troy that cost our comrades so much grief?
Quiet!
What if one of the men gets wind of your brave plan?
No one should ever let such nonsense pass his lips,
no one with any skill in fit and proper speech—
and least of all yourself, a sceptered king.
Full battalions hang on your words, Agamemnon—
look at the countless loyal fighters you command!
Now where’s your sense? You fill me with contempt—
what are you saying? With the forces poised to clash
you tell us to haul our oar-swept vessels out to sea?
Just so one more glory can crown these Trojans—
god help us, they have beaten us already—
and the scales of headlong death can drag us down.
Achaean troops will never hold the line, I tell you,
not while the long ships are being hauled to sea.
They’ll look left and right—where can they run?—
and fling their lust for battle to the winds. Then,
commander of armies, your plan will kill us all!“
At that the king of men Agamemnon backed down:
“A painful charge, Odysseus, straight to the heart.
I am hardly the man to order men, against their will,
to haul the oar-swept vessels out to sea. So now,
whoever can find a better plan, let him speak up,
young soldier or old. I would be pleased to hear him.”
And Diomedes lord of the war cry stepped forward,
“Here is your man. Right here, not far to seek.
If you’ll only hear me out and take my lead,
not glare at me in resentment, each of you,
since I am the youngest-born in all our ranks.
I too have a noble birth to boast—my father,
Tydeus, mounded over now by the earth of Thebes.
Three brave sons were bom of the loins of Portheus:
they made their homes in Pleuron and craggy Calydon,
Agrius first, then Melas, the horseman Oeneus third,
my father’s father, the bravest of them all.
There Oeneus stayed, on his own native soil,
but father wandered far, driven to live in Argos ...
by the will of Zeus, I suppose, and other deathless gods.
He married one of Adrastus’ daughters, settled down
in a fine wealthy house, with plenty of grainland
ringed with row on row of blooming orchards
and pastures full of sheep, his own herds.
And he excelled all Argives with his spear—
you must have heard the story, know it’s true.
So you cannot challenge my birth as low, cowardly,
or spurn the advice I give, if the plan is really sound.
I say go back to the fighting, wounded as we are—
we must, we have no choice. But once at the front,
hold off from the spear-play, out of range ourselves
since who of us wants to double wounds on wounds?
But we can spur the rest of them into battle,
all who had nursed some private grudge before,
kept to the rear and shunned the grueling forays.”
The others listened closely and fell in line,
moving out, and marshal Agamemnon led them on.
But the famous god of earthquakes was not blind.
No, Poseidon kept his watch and down he came
to the file of kings like an old veteran now,
he tugged at the right hand of Atreus’ son
and sent his message flying: “Agamemnon—
now, by heaven, Achilles’ murderous spirit
must be leaping in his chest, filled with joy
to behold his comrades slain and routed in their blood.
That man has got no heart in him, not a pulsebeat.
So let him die, outright—let a god wipe him out!
But with you the blessed gods are not enraged,
not through and through, Agamemnon ...
A day will come when the Trojan lords and captains
send an immense dust storm swirling down the plain—