With ease what Chief, what private man deserts,
And who performs his part.  The base, the brave,
Such disposition made, shall both appear; 440
And thou shalt also know, if heaven or we,
The Gods, or our supineness, succor Troy. 
To whom Atrides, King of men, replied. 
Old Chief!  Thou passest all Achaia’s sons
In consultation; would to Jove our Sire, 445
To Athenaean Pallas, and Apollo! 
That I had ten such coadjutors, wise
As thou art, and the royal city soon
Of Priam, with her wealth, should all be ours.[16]
But me the son of Saturn, Jove supreme 450
Himself afflicts, who in contentious broils
Involves me, and in altercation vain. 
Thence all that wordy tempest for a girl
Achilles and myself between, and I
The fierce aggressor.  Be that breach but heal’d! 455
And Troy’s reprieve thenceforth is at an end. 
Go—­take refreshment now that we may march
Forth to our enemies.  Let each whet well
His spear, brace well his shield, well feed his brisk
High-mettled horses, well survey and search 460
His chariot on all sides, that no defect
Disgrace his bright habiliments of war. 
So will we give the day from morn to eve
To dreadful battle.  Pause there shall be none
Till night divide us.  Every buckler’s thong 465
Shall sweat on the toil’d bosom, every hand
That shakes the spear shall ache, and every steed
Shall smoke that whirls the chariot o’er the plain. 
Wo then to whom I shall discover here
Loitering among the tents; let him escape 470
My vengeance if he can.  The vulture’s maw
Shall have his carcase, and the dogs his bones. 
He spake; whom all applauded with a shout
Loud as against some headland cliff the waves
Roll’d by the stormy South o’er rocks that shoot 475
Afar into the deep, which in all winds
The flood still overspreads, blow whence they may. 
Arising, forth they rush’d, among the ships
All scatter’d; smoke from every tent arose,
The host their food preparing; next, his God 480
Each man invoked (of the Immortals him
Whom he preferr’d) with sacrifice and prayer
For safe escape from danger and from death. 
But Agamemnon to Saturnian Jove
Omnipotent, an ox of the fifth year 485
Full-flesh’d devoted, and the Princes call’d
Noblest of all the Grecians to his feast. 
First, Nestor with Idomeneus the King,
Then either Ajax, and the son he call’d
Of Tydeus, with Ulysses sixth and last, 490
Jove’s peer in wisdom.  Menelaus went,
Heroic Chief! unbidden, for he knew
His brother’s mind with weight of care oppress’d. 
The ox encircling, and their hands with meal
Of consecration fill’d, the assembly stood, 495