or the cowardice of your men—inept in battle.“
And King Agamemnon took his lead, saluting:
“Again, old man, you outfight the Argives in debate!
Father Zeus, Athena, Apollo, if only I had ten men
like Nestor to plan with me among Achaea’s armies—
then we could topple Priam’s citadel in a day,
throttle it in our hands and gut Troy to nothing.
But Cronus’ son, Zeus with his shield of storm
insists on embroiling me in painful struggles,
futile wars of words ...
Imagine—I and Achilles, wrangling over a girl,
battling man-to-man. And I, I was the first
to let my anger flare. Ah if the two of us
could ever think as one, Troy could delay
her day of death no longer, not one moment.
Go now, take your meal—the sooner to bring on war.
Quickly—let each fighter sharpen his spear well,
balance his shield well, feed his horses well
with plenty of grain to build their racing speed—
each man look well to his chariot’s running order,
nerve himself for combat now, so all day long
we can last out the grueling duels of Ares!
No breathing space, no letup, not a moment, not
till the night comes on to part the fighters’ fury!
Now sweat will soak the shield-strap round your chest,
your fist gripping the spear will ache with tensing,
now the lather will drench your war-team’s flanks,
hauling your sturdy chariot.
But any man I catch,
trying to skulk behind his long beaked ships,
hanging back from battle—he is finished.
No way for him to escape the dogs and birds!“
So he commanded
and the armies gave a deep resounding roar like waves
crashing against a cliff when the South Wind whips it,
bearing down, some craggy headland jutting out to sea—
the waves will never leave it in peace, thrashed by gales
that hit from every quarter, breakers left and right.
The troops sprang up, scattered back to the ships,
lit fires beside their tents and took their meal.
Each sacrificed to one or another deathless god,
each man praying to flee death and the grind of war.
But the lord of men Agamemnon sacrificed a fat rich ox,
five years old, to the son of mighty Cronus, Zeus,
and called the chiefs of all the Argive forces:
Nestor first and foremost, then King Idomeneus,
the Great and Little Ajax, Tydeus’ son Diomedes
and Odysseus sixth, a mastermind like Zeus.
The lord of the war cry Menelaus came uncalled,
he knew at heart what weighed his brother down.
They stood in a ring around the ox, took up barley
and then, rising among them, King Agamemnon
raised his voice in prayer: “Zeus, Zeus,
god of greatness, god of glory, lord god
of the dark clouds who lives in the bright sky,
don’t let the sun go down or the night descend on us!
Not till I hurl the smoke-black halls of Priam headlong—
torch his gates to blazing rubble—rip the tunic of Hector
and slash his heroic chest to ribbons with my bronze—
and a ruck of comrades round him, groveling facedown,
gnaw their own earth!”
And so Agamemnon prayed
but the son of Cronus would not bring his prayer to pass,
not yet ... the Father accepted the sacrifices, true,
but doubled the weight of thankless, ruthless war. ,
Once the men had prayed and flung the barley,
first they lifted back the heads of the victims,
slit their throats, skinned them and carved away
the meat from the thighbones and wrapped them in fat,
a double fold sliced clean and topped with strips of flesh.
And they burned these on a cleft stick, peeled and dry,
spitted the vitals, held them over Hephaestus’ flames
and once they’d charred the thighs and tasted the organs
they cut the rest into pieces, pierced them with spits,
roasted them to a turn and pulled them off the fire.
The work done, the feast laid out, they ate well
and no man’s hunger lacked a share of the banquet.
When they had put aside desire for food and drink,
Nestor the noble old horseman spoke out first:
“Marshal Atrides, lord of men Agamemnon,
no more trading speeches now. No more delay,
putting off the work the god puts in our hands.
Come, let the heralds cry out to all contingents,
full battle-armor, muster the men along the ships.
Now down we go, united—review them as we pass.
Down through the vast encampment of Achaea,
the faster to rouse the slashing god of warl”
Agamemnon the lord of men did not resist.
He commanded heralds to cry out loud and clear
and summon the long-haired Achaean troops to battle.
Their cries rang out. The battalions gathered quickly.
The warlords dear to the gods and flanking Agamemnon
strode on ahead, marshaling men-at-arms in files,
and down their ranks the fiery-eyed Athena bore
her awesome shield of storm, ageless, deathless—
a hundred golden tassels, all of them braided tight
and each worth a hundred oxen, float along the front.
Her shield of lightning dazzling, swirling around her,
headlong on Athena swept through the Argive armies,
driving soldiers harder, lashing the fighting-fury
in each Achaean’s heart—no stopping them now,
mad for war and struggle. Now, suddenly,
battle thrilled them more than the journey home,
than sailing hollow ships to their dear native land.
As ravening fire rips through big stands of timber
high on a mountain ridge and the blaze flares miles away,
so from the marching troops the blaze of bronze armor,
splendid and superhuman, flared across the earth,
flashing into the air to hit the skies.
Armies gathering now
as the huge flocks on flocks of winging birds, geese or cranes
or swans with their long lancing necks—circling Asian marshes
round the Cayster outflow, wheeling in all directions,
glorying in their wings—keep on landing, advancing,
wave on shrieking wave and the tidal flats resound.
So tribe on tribe, pouring out of the ships and shelters,
marched across the Scamander plain and the earth shook,
tremendous thunder from under trampling men and horses
drawing into position down the Scamander meadow flats
breaking into flower—men by the thousands, numberless
as the leaves and spears that flower forth in spring.