Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
lying dead in my tent, all hacked and hewn, with his feet to the
door, and his comrades are mourning round him. Therefore I can
take thought of nothing save only slaughter and blood and the
rattle in the throat of the dying.”
Ulysses answered, “Achilles, son of Peleus, mightiest of all the
Achaeans, in battle you are better than I, and that more than a little,
but in counsel I am much before you, for I am older and of greater
knowledge. Therefore be patient under my words. Fighting is a
thing of which men soon surfeit, and when Jove, who is wars
steward, weighs the upshot, it may well prove that the straw which
our sickles have reaped is far heavier than the grain. It may not be
that the Achaeans should mourn the dead with their bellies; day by
day men fall thick and threefold continually; when should we have
respite from our sorrow? Let us mourn our dead for a day and
bury them out of sight and mind, but let those of us who are left eat
and drink that we may arm and fight our foes more fiercely. In that
hour let no man hold back, waiting for a second summons; such
summons shall bode ill for him who is found lagging behind at our
ships; let us rather sally as one man and loose the fury of war upon
the Trojans.”
When he had thus spoken he took with him the sons of Nestor,
with Meges son of Phyleus, Thoas, Meriones, Lycomedes son of
Creontes, and Melanippus, and went to the tent of Agamemnon son
of Atreus. The word was not sooner said than the deed was done:
they brought out the seven tripods which Agamemnon had
promised, with the twenty metal cauldrons and the twelve horses;
they also brought the women skilled in useful arts, seven in
number, with Briseis, which made eight. Ulysses weighed out the
383