the-song-books.yossr

Chapter Seventeen
BUT FIRST, TO AULIS. AULIS, A JUTTING FINGER OF LAND with enough
shoreline to beach all our ships at once. Agamemnon had wanted his mightyy
force assembled in a single place before it sailed. A syymbol perhaps: the
visible power of Greece Offended.
After five dayys churning through the rough waters of the Euboean coast,
we came around the last hitch of the winding straight, and Aulis was there.
It appeared all at once, as if a veil had been yyanked off: shoreline thick with
vessels in everyy size and color and shape, its beach covered in a shifting
carpet of thousands upon thousands of men. Beyyond them the canvas tops
of tents stretched out to the horizon, bright pennants marking the kings’
pavilions. Our men strove at their oars, guiding us towards the last emptyy
place on the crowded shore—big enough for our whole fleet. Anchors
dropped from fiftyy sterns.
Horns blew. The Myyrmidons from the other ships were alreadyy wading
ashore. Theyy stood now at the water’s edge, surrounding us, white tunics
billowing. At a signal we could not see theyy began to chant their prince’s
name, twentyy-five hundred men speaking as one. A-chil-les! All along the
shore, heads turned—Spartans, Argives, Myycenaeans, and all the rest. The
news went rippling through them, passing one to another. Achilles is here.
As the sailors lowered the gangwayy we watched them gather, kings and
conscripts both. I could not see the princelyy faces from the distance, but I
recognized the pennants that their squires carried before them: the yyellow
banner of Odyysseus, the blue of Diomedes, and then the brightest, the
biggest—a lion on purple, the syymbol of Agamemnon and Myycenae.
Achilles looked to me, drew in a breath; the screaming crowd at Phthia
was nothing compared to this. But he was readyy. I saw it in the wayy he
lifted his chest, in the fierce green of his eyyes. He walked to the gangwayy
and stood at its top. The Myyrmidons kept up their shouts, and theyy were not
alone now; others in the crowd had joined them. A broad-chested
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