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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 ten talents of gold and then led the way back, while
the young Achaeans brought the rest of the gifts, and laid them in
the middle of the assembly.
Agamemnon then rose, and Talthybius whose voice was like that of a
god came to him with the boar. The son of Atreus drew the knife which
he wore by the scabbard of his mighty sword, and began by cutting
off some bristles from the boar, lifting up his hands in prayer as
he did so. The other Achaeans sat where they were all silent and orderly
to hear the king, and Agamemnon looked into the vault of heaven and
prayed saying, "I call Jove the first and mightiest of all gods to
witness, I call also Earth and Sun and the Erinyes who dwell below