Book IX

The Embassy to Achilles: Agamemnon's gifts, three speeches, and three refusals — each smaller than the last.

Translator’s note on Book 9

Book 9 is the poem's hinge and its greatest sustained writing: the offer that should end the wrath, and the answer that reveals the wrath has outgrown its cause. The book's architecture is a series of descents. The gift-catalogue is spoken three times — by Agamemnon with its poison pill ("let him yield to me by as much as I am more kingly," 158-161), by Odysseus verbatim but with the poison silently cut (note 20), and back through Achilles' contempt. And Achilles' three answers step downward: to Odysseus, "tomorrow I sail"; to Phoenix, "at dawn we will decide"; to Ajax, "I fight when Hector reaches my own ships" — which is, of course, exactly what he will do. Odysseus then reports only the first answer (note 41), and Diomedes closes the book with the truest sentence in it: he will fight "whenever the heart in his chest commands him, and the god rouses him."

All three curated disputes for this book are handled in place. The dual verbs of 182-198 (disputed #5) are translated as duals — "the two of them went" — with the crux laid out in note 15. The "gates of Hades" lines (312-313, disputed #6) and their contested referent are note 21. And the famous four lines in which Phoenix contemplated killing his father (458-461, disputed #7) are physically absent from this project's Greek text, as from the printed Monro-Allen vulgate — the numbering jumps 457 to 462 — athetized by Aristarchus for their content and preserved only through Plutarch; the translation reproduces the gap, and note 32 supplies the missing lines so the reader loses nothing but the illusion that the text was ever whole.

Watch also: Achilles heard singing "the fames of men" — the poem's only image of epic performed, by its own hero, on a lyre looted from Andromache's city (note 16); the demolition of the honor-economy at 318-321; the two fates and "imperishable fame" (410-416); the Litai allegory (note 34); and the Meleager paradigm, at whose center sleeps a wife named Cleopatra — Patroclus's name reversed — while Patroclus sits listening (note 35). Register notes: 18-25 reuse the Book 2 English verbatim, now spoken in earnest; ἄττα "old father" joins the vocatives; δμῳαί "slave-women" appears twice more under the policy.

1So the Trojans kept their watches. But the Achaeans

were held by unearthly Panic, the companion of icy Rout,¹

and all their best were stricken with grief past bearing.

As two winds stir up the sea where the fish swarm,

5the North Wind and the West Wind, blowing out of Thrace,

arriving suddenly: and all at once the dark wave

crests, and heaps the seaweed out along the tide-line:

so the heart was torn in the chests of the Achaeans.

And Atreus' son, stricken to the heart with great grief,

10went to and fro, bidding the clear-voiced heralds

summon every man by name to assembly,

but not to shout; and he himself worked among the first.

So they sat in assembly, dejected; and Agamemnon

stood up, letting fall tears like a spring of dark water²

15that pours its black stream down a goat-proof cliff.

So, groaning heavily, he spoke his words to the Argives:

"Friends, leaders and lords of the Argives,

Zeus, Cronos' great son, has bound me fast in heavy blindness —³

the hard god: he promised me once, he bowed his head,

20that I should sack well-walled Ilion before returning;

now he has planned a cruel deceit, and orders me

back to Argos in disgrace, with half my people lost.

Such, it seems, must be the pleasure of overmastering Zeus,

who has undone the crowns of many cities

25and will undo more yet: his power is the greatest.

Come then — as I say it, let us all obey:

let us flee with the ships to our dear fatherland.

We shall not take wide-wayed Troy now."

So he spoke, and they all went still in silence.

30A long while the sons of the Achaeans sat mute, dejected;

and at long last Diomedes, good at the war-cry, spoke:

"Son of Atreus, it is you I will fight first — your folly —⁴

where it is right, lord: in assembly. And do not be angered.

My courage you insulted once before the Danaans:

35you called me unwarlike, without strength. And all this

the Argives know, the young men and the old.

To you the son of crooked-counseled Cronos gave by halves:

with the scepter he gave you honor beyond all men,

but courage he did not give you — and that is the greatest power.

40Strange man — do you really suppose the sons of the Achaeans

are as unwarlike and strengthless as you say?

If your own heart is set on going home,

go: the way lies open, and your ships stand by the sea,

the great fleet that followed you from Mycenae.

45But the other long-haired Achaeans will stay

until we sack Troy. And if they too —

well, let them flee with their ships to their dear fatherland;

the two of us, Sthenelus and I, will fight on until we find

the appointed end of Ilion: for we came here with the god."

50So he spoke, and all the sons of the Achaeans shouted,

marveling at the word of Diomedes, breaker of horses.

And the horseman Nestor stood up and spoke among them:

"Tydeus' son, in war you are strong beyond others,

and in counsel you are best of all your age-mates.

55Not a man of all the Achaeans will fault your word

or speak against it. But you have not reached the end of words.

You are young indeed — you could be my own son,

the latest-born; and yet you speak good sense

to the kings of the Argives, for you have spoken rightly.

60Come then, I — who claim to be older than you —

will speak out and go through everything; and no one

will slight my word, not even the lord Agamemnon.

Clanless, lawless, hearthless: that is the man⁵

who is in love with war among his own people — the horror of it.

65But for now, let us yield to black night

and make our supper ready. Let the sentries

post themselves along the dug ditch outside the wall —

that is my charge to the young men. And then,

son of Atreus, you lead: for you are most the king.

70Give the elders a feast: it becomes you; it is no disgrace.⁶

Your huts are full of wine, which the Achaeans' ships

bring over the wide sea from Thrace daily;

all hosting is yours to give: you are king over many.

With many gathered, you will heed the man who counsels

75the best counsel; and sorely do all the Achaeans need

good counsel and shrewd — with the enemy this close to the ships,

burning their fires past counting. Who could rejoice at that?

This night will break the army, or will save it."

So he spoke, and they listened well to him and obeyed.

80Out went the sentries in their armor, mustered

around Nestor's son Thrasymedes, shepherd of the people,

around Ascalaphus and Ialmenus, sons of Ares,

around Meriones, and Aphareus, and Deïpyrus,

and around Creon's son, brilliant Lycomedes.

85Seven were the captains of the sentries, and with each went

a hundred young men carrying their long spears;

and they went and took post between the ditch and wall,

and there lit fires, and each man set about his supper.

And Atreus' son led the gathered elders of the Achaeans

90to his hut, and set before them a feast to fill the heart;

and they put out their hands to the good things lying ready.

And when they had put away desire for eating and drinking,

the old man first of all began to weave his counsel —

Nestor, whose plan had shown itself best before as well.

95With good will toward them he spoke and addressed them:

"Most glorious son of Atreus, lord of men Agamemnon,

with you I will end, and with you begin: because you are

lord of many peoples, and Zeus has put into your hands⁷

the scepter and the ordinances, to take counsel for them.

100Therefore you above all must speak a word and listen,

and act for another too, whenever his heart bids a man

speak for the good: whatever he begins will hang on you.

And I will say how it seems to me to be best.

No other man will think a better thought than this —

105the thought I think, and thought long since and still,

from that day, Zeus-born, when you went and took the girl

Briseis out of the hut of Achilles in his anger —

in no way by our judgment. I myself

argued long against it; but you, yielding

110to your great-hearted spirit, dishonored the best of men,

a man the immortals honor: for you took and keep his prize.

Even now — even late — let us consider how to make amends

and win him over with soothing gifts and with honeyed words."

Then answered him the lord of men Agamemnon:

115"Old man, that was no false telling of my blindness.⁸

Blinded I was — I do not deny it myself. Worth many

hosts of men is the man whom Zeus loves in his heart:

as now he has honored this man, and broken the Achaean host.

But since I was blinded, and followed my wretched heart,

120I am willing to make amends, and to give ransom past counting.

Before you all I will name the glorious gifts:⁹

seven tripods untouched by fire, ten talents of gold,

twenty gleaming cauldrons, and twelve horses,

strong-built, prize-winners, who have taken races with their speed.

125No man who owned all they have won for me

would be poor in goods, or lacking in precious gold —

all the prizes those single-hoofed horses have carried home.

And I will give seven women skilled in blameless work,

women of Lesbos — the ones I chose when he himself

130took well-built Lesbos, who in beauty outdid the tribes of women.

These I will give; and among them will be the one I took away:

the daughter of Briseus. And I will swear the great oath besides:

I never went up into her bed, I never lay with her,¹⁰

as is the way of human kind, of men and women.

135All this shall be his at once. And if hereafter

the gods grant us to sack the great city of Priam,

let him heap his ship with gold and bronze

when he comes in, when we Achaeans divide the spoil,

and let him choose out twenty Trojan women for himself,

140the loveliest there are after Argive Helen.

And if we come home to Achaean Argos, udder of the plowland,

he can be my son-in-law: I will honor him the equal of Orestes,

my late-born boy, reared in high plenty.

I have three daughters in my strong-built hall,

145Chrysothemis, Laodice, and Iphianassa:¹¹

of these let him lead the one he chooses, without bride-price,

to the house of Peleus; and I will add wedding-gifts

in plenty — more than any man yet gave with his daughter.

And I will give him seven well-peopled citadels:

150Cardamyle, and Enope, and grassy Hire,

sacred Pherae, and Antheia of the deep meadows,

beautiful Aipeia, and Pedasus of the vines —¹²

all near the sea, on the edge of sandy Pylos,

and in them live men rich in flocks and rich in cattle,

155who will honor him like a god with their gifts

and render him, under his scepter, their shining dues.

All this I will accomplish for him, if he leaves off his anger.

Let him be broken. Hades is the one unappeasable,¹³

the untamable — and for that, of all gods, mortals hate him most.

160And let him yield place to me, by as much as I am more kingly,

by as much as I claim to be the elder-born."

Then answered him the Gerenian horseman Nestor:

"Most glorious son of Atreus, lord of men Agamemnon,

the gifts you offer lord Achilles now — no man could scorn them.

165Come then, let us send chosen men, to go

with all speed to the hut of Peleus' son Achilles —

or come: those my eye falls on, let them consent.

Phoenix first, dear to Zeus — let him lead;¹⁴

and then great Ajax, and brilliant Odysseus;

170and of the heralds, Odius and Eurybates go with them.

Now bring water for our hands, and call the holy silence,

that we may pray to Zeus, Cronos' son, for his pity."

So he spoke, and the word he spoke was pleasing to them all.

At once the heralds poured water over their hands,

175the young men filled the mixing-bowls brim-high with drink

and served all, pouring first drops in each cup for the god;

and when they had poured, and drunk what their hearts would,

they set out from the hut of Atreus' son Agamemnon.

And the Gerenian horseman Nestor charged them well,

180with a look at each in turn, at Odysseus above all:

try hard to win over the blameless son of Peleus.

So the two of them went along the shore of the loud-roaring sea,¹⁵

praying hard to the holder and shaker of the earth

that they might easily bend the great mind of Aeacus' grandson;

185and the two came to the huts and the ships of the Myrmidons.

They found him delighting his heart with the clear-toned lyre,

beautiful, richly worked, with a crossbar of silver on it,

which he had taken from the spoils when he wrecked Eëtion's city:

with this he was pleasuring his heart, and singing the fames of men.¹⁶

190And Patroclus alone sat facing him, in silence,

waiting for Aeacus' grandson to leave off singing.

So the two of them came forward, brilliant Odysseus leading,

and stood before him; and Achilles sprang up amazed,

lyre still in hand, leaving the seat where he had sat;

195and Patroclus likewise rose when he saw the men.

And greeting the two of them, swift-footed Achilles said:

"Welcome! Truly dear men have come — the need must be great —

you who even in my anger are dearest to me of the Achaeans."¹⁷

So speaking, brilliant Achilles led them forward

200and seated them on chairs with coverings of purple,

and quickly said to Patroclus, who stood near:

"Set out a bigger mixing-bowl, son of Menoetius;

mix the wine stronger; and make ready a cup for each man:¹⁷

for the men beneath my roof are the men I love best."

205So he spoke, and Patroclus obeyed his dear companion.

He threw down a great chopping-block in the light of the fire

and laid on it the chine of a sheep and of a fat goat,

and the back of a great hog, rich with lard.

Automedon held them for him, and brilliant Achilles carved,

210and sliced the meat with skill, and threaded it on spits;

and the son of Menoetius, a man like a god, built up the fire.

And when the fire had burned down and the flame died,

he leveled the embers and stretched the spits above them,

and sprinkled the holy salt, resting the spits on their stones.

215And when he had roasted it all and heaped it on platters,

Patroclus took bread and set it out on the table

in beautiful baskets, and Achilles served the meat.

He himself sat down facing godlike Odysseus

against the far wall, and told his companion Patroclus

220to sacrifice to the gods; and he threw the offerings in the fire.

And they put out their hands to the good things lying ready.

And when they had put away desire for eating and drinking,

Ajax nodded to Phoenix. But brilliant Odysseus caught it,

and filling a cup with wine he pledged Achilles:

225"Your health, Achilles! Of the fair-shared feast we have no lack,

whether in the hut of Agamemnon, Atreus' son,

or here and now: plenty to fill the heart

is set before us. But the works of the lovely feast are not

our business now. We are looking at grief too great, Zeus-nurtured;

230we are afraid. It stands in doubt whether we save

the well-benched ships or lose them — unless you clothe yourself in valor.

For close to the ships and the wall they have made their camp,

the high-hearted Trojans and their far-famed allies,

with fires past counting through their host; and they say

235nothing will hold them now from falling on the black ships.

And Zeus, Cronos' son, shows them signs on the right,

flashing his lightning; and Hector, glorying in his strength,

rages terribly, trusting in Zeus, and gives way to nothing,

neither man nor god: the strong madness has entered him.

240He prays for the brilliant Dawn to show herself quickly,

for he vows he will hew off the ships' stern-horns,

burn the hulls themselves with ravening fire, and cut down

the Achaeans beside them, dazed in the smoke.

This is the fear my heart dreads terribly — that the gods

245may make his threats good, and it prove our portion

to die at Troy, far from horse-pasturing Argos.

Up, then! — if you mean, even at this late hour, to save

the wearied sons of the Achaeans from the Trojan onslaught.

It will be your own grief later; and there is no finding

250a cure for harm once done. Far sooner, then:

think how to ward the evil day from the Danaans.

Dear friend — surely your father Peleus charged you¹⁹

the day he sent you out of Phthia to Agamemnon:

'My child, the victory Athena and Hera

255will give, if they choose; but the great-hearted spirit —

rein that in in your own chest. Friendliness is better.

Break off strife, the deviser of evil, so the Argives

may honor you the more, the young men and the old.'

So the old man charged you; and you forget. Yet even now

260stop; let go the anger that grieves the heart. Agamemnon

offers you worthy gifts, if you leave off your anger.

Come, listen to me, and I will count out for you

all the gifts Agamemnon promised in his huts:²⁰

seven tripods untouched by fire, ten talents of gold,

265twenty gleaming cauldrons, and twelve horses,

strong-built, prize-winners, who have taken races with their speed.

No man who owned all they have won

would be poor in goods, or lacking in precious gold —

all the prizes Agamemnon's horses have carried home.

270And he will give seven women skilled in blameless work,

women of Lesbos — the ones he chose when you yourself

took well-built Lesbos, who in beauty outdid the tribes of women.

These he will give; and among them will be the one he took away:

the daughter of Briseus. And he will swear the great oath besides:

275he never went up into her bed, he never lay with her,

as is the way, lord, of men and women.

All this shall be yours at once. And if hereafter

the gods grant us to sack the great city of Priam,

you may heap your ship with gold and bronze

280when you come in, when we Achaeans divide the spoil,

and choose out twenty Trojan women for yourself,

the loveliest there are after Argive Helen.

And if we come home to Achaean Argos, udder of the plowland,

you can be his son-in-law: he will honor you the equal of Orestes,

285his late-born boy, reared in high plenty.

He has three daughters in his strong-built hall,

Chrysothemis, Laodice, and Iphianassa:

of these you may lead the one you choose, without bride-price,

to the house of Peleus; and he will add wedding-gifts

290in plenty — more than any man yet gave with his daughter.

And he will give you seven well-peopled citadels:

Cardamyle, and Enope, and grassy Hire,

sacred Pherae, and Antheia of the deep meadows,

beautiful Aipeia, and Pedasus of the vines —

295all near the sea, on the edge of sandy Pylos,

and in them live men rich in flocks and rich in cattle,

who will honor you like a god with their gifts

and render you, under your scepter, their shining dues.

All this he will accomplish for you, if you leave off your anger.

300But if Atreus' son is grown too hateful to your heart,

he and his gifts together — then pity all the rest,

the Achaeans of every rank, worn down through the camp, who will honor you

like a god. Truly, you would win great glory in their eyes:

for now you might take Hector's very self — he would come

305in close to you in his deadly madness, since he says no man

is his equal of all the Danaans the ships brought here."

Answering him spoke swift-footed Achilles:

"Zeus-sprung son of Laertes, Odysseus of many devices:

I must speak my word to you outright, without mercy —

310exactly as I think it, and as it will be accomplished —

so you will not sit by me and coo at me, one after another.

For hateful to me as the gates of Hades is the man²¹

who hides one thing in his mind and says another.

So I will speak it as it seems to me best.

315Neither Atreus' son Agamemnon will persuade me, I think,

nor the other Danaans — since there was no thanks, it seems,

for battling the enemy without respite, forever.

The portion is equal for the man who hangs back and the man who fights hard;²²

in one honor stand the coward and the brave;

320death comes alike to the do-nothing and the man of many deeds.

And nothing is laid up for me because I suffered

the pains of it, forever staking my life in the fighting.

As a bird carries to her unfledged chicks²³

every morsel she takes, and it goes hard with herself,

325so I have lain awake through many an unsleeping night

and fought through bloody days of battle,

contending with men for the sake of their women.

Twelve cities of men I have sacked from my ships,²⁴

and eleven by land, I tell you, across deep-soiled Troy:

330from all of them I took out treasure, much and good,

and brought it all and gave it to Agamemnon,

Atreus' son — who waited behind by the swift ships,

took it in, doled out a little, and kept the most.

What he gave the chief men and the kings as prizes

335stands untouched with them; from me alone of the Achaeans

he took — and he keeps my bed-dear wife. Let him lie beside her²⁵

and take his pleasure! But why must the Argives make war

on the Trojans? Why did Atreus' son gather an army

and lead it here? Was it not for lovely-haired Helen?

340Are the sons of Atreus alone among mortal men

the ones who love their wives? — since any man who is good

and sensible loves his own and cares for her,

as I loved that one from my heart, spear-won though she was.

Now, since he took my prize out of my hands and cheated me,

345let him not try me: I know him too well. He will not persuade me.

No, Odysseus — with you and the other kings

let him think how to beat the enemy fire from the ships.

Truly he has labored greatly with me gone:

he has even built a wall, and driven a ditch along it,

350wide and great, and planted stakes within it —

and even so he cannot hold the strength of man-slaughtering

Hector! While I was fighting among the Achaeans,

Hector had no wish to raise battle away from his wall;

he came only as far as the Scaean Gates and the oak.²⁶

355There once he stood up to me alone — and barely escaped my charge.

But now, since I have no wish to fight brilliant Hector,

tomorrow I will sacrifice to Zeus and all the gods,

load my ships well, and drag them down to the sea —

and you will see, if you care to, if such things interest you,

360my ships at earliest light sailing the Hellespont

where the fish swarm, and in them men rowing with a will;

and if the famed earth-shaker grants fair passage,

on the third day I should reach deep-soiled Phthia.

I have great possessions there, left when I made my luckless

365journey here; and more from here — gold, red bronze,

fair-belted women, grey iron — I will carry home,

all that fell to me by lot. But my prize — the man who gave it,

the lord Agamemnon, Atreus' son, in his insolence

took it back. Tell him all of it, just as I charge you,

370openly — so the other Achaeans too may be angry,

if he hopes to cheat some other Danaan yet,

clothed as he always is in shamelessness. And yet —

dog though he is — he would not dare look me in the face.

I will not join him in counsel, and not in action:

375he cheated me outright, he wronged me. Never again

will he trick me with words. Once is enough. Let him go

to ruin at his ease: Zeus the counselor has taken his wits.

His gifts are hateful to me; I count him at a hair's worth.²⁷

Not if he gave me ten times as much, and twenty times,

380all he has now and more from elsewhere besides;

not all the revenue of Orchomenus, or of Thebes —

Egyptian Thebes, where the houses hold the greatest treasures,

the city of a hundred gates, and through each gate

two hundred men drive out with horses and chariots;

385not if he gave me gifts as many as the sand and dust —

not even so would Agamemnon persuade my heart

until he has paid me back all the outrage that galls it.

And the daughter of Agamemnon, Atreus' son — I will not

marry her: not if she rivaled golden Aphrodite in beauty

390and matched the works of grey-eyed Athena.

Not even so will I marry her. Let him choose another Achaean,

one who suits him — someone more kingly than I.

For if the gods preserve me, and I come home,

Peleus himself will find me a wife.²⁸

395There are Achaean girls enough through Hellas and through Phthia,

daughters of chieftains, men who guard their citadels:

of these I will make whichever one I choose my own dear wife.

There — that is where my proud heart kept urging me:

to take a wedded wife, a fitting bride,

400and enjoy the possessions old Peleus won.

For not worth my life is all they say was stored²⁹

in Ilion, that well-peopled citadel,

before, in peacetime, before the sons of the Achaeans came —

nor all the stone threshold of the Archer holds within it,

405Phoebus Apollo's, in rocky Pytho.

Cattle can be lifted, and fat sheep;

tripods can be won, and the tawny heads of horses:

but a man's life cannot be lifted back, cannot be caught,

once it has crossed the fence of his teeth.

410For my mother tells me — Thetis, the goddess of the silver feet —³⁰

that two fates carry me toward the end of death:

if I stay here and fight around the Trojans' city,

my homecoming is lost — but my fame will be imperishable;

and if I come home to my dear fatherland,

415my noble fame is lost — but my life will be long,

and the end of death will not be quick to find me.

And to the rest of you I would give this counsel:

sail home — since you will never now reach the end

of steep Ilion: wide-seeing Zeus has held

420his hand over her, and her people have taken heart.

So go; and carry my message to the chief men

of the Achaeans — that is the honor-portion of the old —

so they may devise in their minds some better plan

to save the ships, and the Achaean host

425beside the hollow ships: since this one — this they thought of —

will not serve, while my anger stands. But Phoenix —

let him stay and sleep here with us,

so he may follow in my ships to our dear fatherland

tomorrow, if he wishes. I will not take him by force."

430So he spoke, and they all went still in silence,

marveling at his word: he had refused with great power.

At long last the old horseman Phoenix spoke,³¹

bursting into tears, in terrible fear for the ships:

"If it is homecoming you now ponder, shining Achilles,

435and you will not lift ruinous fire from the swift ships

at all, because anger has fallen on your heart —

how then could I be left here without you, dear child,

alone? It was to you the old horseman Peleus sent me

the day he sent you out of Phthia to Agamemnon,

440a child still, knowing nothing yet of leveling war,

nothing of assemblies, where men become preeminent.

For that he sent me: to teach you all these things —

to be a speaker of words, and a doer of deeds.

After all that, dear child, I would not choose to be left

445without you — no, not if a god himself should promise

to scrape old age from me and set me young again,

as I was when I first left Hellas of the beautiful women,

fleeing a quarrel with my father, Amyntor, Ormenus' son.³²

He was enraged with me over his lovely-haired concubine:

450he loved her, and dishonored his own wife,

my mother; and my mother begged me endlessly by my knees

to lie with the concubine first, so she would loathe the old man.

I obeyed her, and did it. And my father, guessing at once,

cursed me long and hard, and called up the hateful Erinyes:

455that never should a dear son born of me

be set upon his knees. And the gods fulfilled his curses —

Zeus of the world below, and dread Persephone.

[Lines 458-461 are absent from the printed text; see note 32.]

Then the heart in my chest could no longer be held at all

to linger in the halls of my angry father.

Kinsmen and cousins in plenty, gathered around me,

465held me there in the halls with their begging:

many a fat sheep and rolling-gaited crook-horned ox

they slaughtered; many a hog rich in lard

was stretched to singe across the flame of Hephaestus,

and much of the old man's wine was drunk from the jars.

470Nine nights together they kept their watch around me;

they took the guard in turns, and the fires never died —

one under the colonnade of the strong-fenced court,

one in the porch, before my bedchamber doors.

But when the tenth dark night came on me,

475then I burst the close-fitted doors of my chamber

and got out, and vaulted the courtyard fence

lightly, unseen by the watchmen and the slave-women.

Then I fled far away through Hellas of the wide spaces

and came to deep-soiled Phthia, mother of flocks,

480to lord Peleus. And he received me with a ready heart,

and loved me as a father loves his son,

his only son, late-born, heir to great possessions;

and he made me rich, and gave me a numerous people:

I lived at the edge of Phthia, ruling the Dolopes.

485And I made you what you are, Achilles like the gods,³³

loving you from my heart: you would not go with another

to the feast, or eat in the halls,

until I had sat you on my knees and cut

the first bit of meat for you, and held the wine to your lips.

490Many a time you soaked the tunic on my chest,

spitting up wine in your troublesome babyhood.

So I suffered much for you, and toiled much,

minding always that the gods would bring no child of mine

to birth; no — I made you my child, godlike Achilles,

495so that someday you might ward unseemly ruin from me.

Achilles — break your great spirit. It does not become you

to keep a pitiless heart. Even the gods themselves can bend,

and theirs is the greater excellence, honor, and strength:

with burnt offerings and gentle vows,

500with libation and savor, men turn even them

by their prayers, when a man has transgressed and gone wrong.

For Prayers, too, are daughters of great Zeus —³⁴

lame, and wrinkled, and eyes turned aside,

who make it their care to follow after Blindness.

505But Blindness is strong and sound of foot, and far outruns them

all, and gets in first over all the earth

tripping mankind; and they come healing after.

Now the man who respects the daughters of Zeus when they approach,

him they greatly bless, and hear him when he prays;

510but when a man denies them and stiffly refuses,

they go to Zeus, Cronos' son, and pray

that Blindness go with that man, till he trips, and pays in full.

So you too, Achilles — grant the daughters of Zeus

their due of honor, which bends the will of others, and good men too.

515If Atreus' son were not bringing gifts, and naming more

to come — if he raged on furiously still —

I would not be the one to tell you: throw your wrath away

and defend the Argives, however much they need it.

But now he gives much at once, and has promised more hereafter,

520and has sent out the best men to entreat you,

chosen through the Achaean host, the men who are dearest

to you yourself of the Argives. Do not shame their words

or their coming; till now, no one could blame your anger.

So it was with the men before us too — the fames we hear of,

525heroes of old, when furious anger came on one of them:

they could be won by gifts, and won over by words.

I remember this deed of old — no new thing —

how it was; and I will tell it among you, friends, all of you.

The Curetes were fighting, and the battle-biding Aetolians,³⁵

530around the city of Calydon, and killing one another —

the Aetolians in defense of lovely Calydon,

the Curetes raging to sack it in war.

For golden-throned Artemis had raised that evil among them,

in anger that Oeneus brought no harvest-offering

535from his orchard slope: the other gods feasted on hecatombs,

and to her alone, great Zeus's daughter, he offered nothing —

he forgot, or he did not think of it: a great blindness of heart.

Enraged, the child of Zeus who showers arrows

roused against him a wild boar, white-tusked ravager,

540who did great damage, haunting Oeneus' orchard land,

tearing up tall trees and hurling them to the ground,

roots and all, apple-blossom and all.

Him the son of Oeneus killed — Meleager —

when he had gathered huntsmen out of many cities,

545and hounds: for the boar was not brought down by few men,

so huge he was; and he set many on the pyre of grief.

But around the carcass the goddess raised a great clamor and battle-cry,

over the boar's head and the bristling hide,

between the Curetes and the great-hearted Aetolians.

550Now as long as Meleager dear to Ares fought,

so long it went hard with the Curetes; they could not

hold their ground outside the wall, though they were many.

But when anger entered Meleager — anger that swells

in the chests of others too, even the close-thinking —

555enraged at his own mother Althaea, he lay idle

beside his wedded wife, beautiful Cleopatra,

daughter of Marpessa of the beautiful ankles, Euenus' child,

and of Idas, strongest of men on the earth

in his time — who even lifted his bow against the lord

560Phoebus Apollo, for the sake of his lovely-ankled bride.

Her, in those days, in their halls her father and lady mother

called by the name Alcyone — halcyon — because

her own mother, with the mourning halcyon's fate upon her,

wept when Phoebus Apollo the worker-from-afar snatched her away.

565By her Meleager lay, digesting his heart-paining anger,

enraged at his mother's curses: for she prayed the gods

against him, in her grief for a brother's killing —

over and over she beat the earth that feeds so many with her hands,

calling on Hades and dread Persephone,

570crouched on her knees, her bosom wet with tears,

to give her son death; and out of Erebus an Erinys

who walks in mist heard her, with her unappeasable heart.

Soon the din of the enemy rose around the gates, the thud

of towers battered; and the Aetolian elders begged him,

575sending the gods' chosen priests:

come out and defend us — and they promised a great gift:

where the plain of lovely Calydon was fattest,

there they bade him choose a beautiful precinct,

fifty fields broad, half of it vineyard,

580half open plowland, cut from the plain.

And the old horseman Oeneus begged him over and over,

standing at the threshold of his high-roofed chamber,

shaking the bolted doors, entreating his son;

over and over his sisters and his lady mother

585begged him — he refused the more — and his companions,

the truest and dearest of them all:

but not even so could they move the heart in his chest —

until the chamber itself was under thick bombardment, and the Curetes

were scaling the towers and firing the great city.

590Then at last his fair-belted wife begged Meleager,

wailing, and counted out for him all

the griefs that come to people whose city is taken:

the men killed, the town burned down to ash,

the children led away by strangers, and the deep-belted women.

595And his heart was stirred as he heard those terrible things:

he went out, and clothed his body in shining armor.

So he beat the evil day back from the Aetolians,

yielding to his own heart. And they no longer made good

the gifts, the many gracious gifts; yet he warded off the evil all the same.

600But you — do not think that way in your heart; do not let a god

turn you that way, dear boy. It would be worse

to defend the ships already burning. While there are gifts,

come: the Achaeans will honor you like a god.

But if without gifts you enter man-destroying war,

605you will not be honored the same, though you beat the war away."

Answering him spoke swift-footed Achilles:

"Phoenix, old father, aged one, Zeus-nurtured: I have no need³⁶

of that honor. I judge that I am honored by the portion of Zeus,

which will keep me here by the beaked ships as long as breath

610stays in my chest and my knees have their spring.

And I will tell you another thing — put it away in your heart:

do not blur my heart with weeping and grieving

to gratify the hero son of Atreus. You must not

love him, or my love for you may turn to hatred.

615It is right for you to wound the man who wounds me.

Be king equally with me; take half my honor.

These men will carry the message; you stay here and sleep

in a soft bed; and with the showing of Dawn

we will decide whether to go to our own country, or to stay."

620He spoke, and with his brows signed silently to Patroclus

to spread a thick bed for Phoenix, so the others

might think the sooner of leaving the hut. And Ajax,

Telamon's godlike son, spoke his word among them:

"Zeus-sprung son of Laertes, Odysseus of many devices —³⁷

625let us go. I do not think the end of this errand

will be reached by this road. We must report the word,

unwelcome as it is, to the Danaans with all speed —

they sit waiting for it now. But Achilles

has made the great-hearted spirit in his chest a savage thing —

630the hard man! — and cares nothing for the love of his companions,

the love we honored him with by the ships beyond all others.

Pitiless! And yet a man accepts blood-price

even from his brother's killer, even for his own dead son;

and the killer stays in his own country, having paid the great price,

635and the kinsman's heart and proud spirit are held in check

once he has taken the price. But you — the gods have set

in your chest an anger unending, and evil, over a girl —

one girl! — while we now offer you seven, far the best,

and much else besides. Put a gracious spirit in you;

640respect your own roof: we are under it,

out of the whole Danaan host; and beyond all others we have longed

to be nearest to you and dearest of all the Achaeans."

Answering him spoke swift-footed Achilles:

"Ajax, Zeus-sprung son of Telamon, marshal of the people:

645everything you have said is very nearly after my own heart.

But my heart swells with rage whenever I remember

those things — how Atreus' son treated me like dirt among the Argives,³⁸

as if I were some vagrant without honor.

But you two go, and carry back my message:

650I will not think of bloody war again

until brilliant Hector, war-minded Priam's son,

comes killing Argives right up to the huts and ships

of the Myrmidons, and blackens the ships with fire.

At my hut, though — at my black ship — I think

655Hector will be stopped, for all his hunger for battle."

So he spoke; and each of them took a two-handled cup,

poured the libation, and went back along the ships, Odysseus leading.

And Patroclus told his companions and the slave-women

to spread a thick bed for Phoenix with all speed;

660and they obeyed, and spread the bed as he commanded —

fleeces, a rug, and a fine flare of linen.

There the old man lay down, and waited for brilliant Dawn.

And Achilles slept in the innermost corner of the strong-built hut,

and beside him lay a woman he had brought from Lesbos:³⁹

665Phorbas's daughter, fair-cheeked Diomede.

And Patroclus lay down on the other side, and by him too

lay fair-belted Iphis, whom brilliant Achilles gave him

when he took steep Scyros, Enyeus' citadel.

Now when the envoys were back in the huts of Atreus' son,

670the sons of the Achaeans, springing up on every side,

pledged them with golden cups, and pressed their questions;

and the lord of men Agamemnon asked first:

"Come, tell me, Odysseus of the many tales, great glory of the Achaeans:

is he willing to beat the enemy fire from the ships,

675or did he refuse — does anger still hold that great-hearted spirit?"

Then answered him much-enduring brilliant Odysseus:

"Most glorious son of Atreus, lord of men Agamemnon:

that man has no will to quench his anger — he is filled

fuller yet with fury; he refuses you, and your gifts.

680He bids you take counsel yourself, among the Argives,

how you may save the ships and the Achaean host;

and he himself threatens, with the showing of Dawn,⁴⁰

to drag his well-benched, well-curved ships to the sea.

And he said he would counsel the others too

685to sail for home — since you will never now reach the end

of steep Ilion: wide-seeing Zeus has held

his hand over her, and her people have taken heart.

So he spoke. And here are these to confirm it, who went with me:

Ajax, and the two heralds, wise men both.

690But old Phoenix has laid himself down there — as Achilles bade —

so he may follow in the ships to his dear fatherland

tomorrow, if he wishes; he will not take him by force."

So he spoke, and they all went still in silence,

marveling at his word: he had spoken with great power.

695A long while the sons of the Achaeans sat mute, dejected;

and at long last Diomedes, good at the war-cry, spoke:

"Most glorious son of Atreus, lord of men Agamemnon:⁴¹

would you had never begged the blameless son of Peleus,

offering gifts past counting. He is proud at the best of times,

700and now you have driven him deeper into pride by far.

No — let us leave him be: whether he goes

or stays; he will fight again whenever

the heart in his chest commands him, and the god rouses him.

Come then — as I say it, let us all obey:

705sleep now, when you have taken your hearts' content

of bread and wine — for in them are fury and valor;

and when the beautiful rosy-fingered Dawn appears,

marshal the men and the horses quickly before the ships,

urging them on — and fight yourself among the first."

710So he spoke, and all the kings approved,

marveling at the word of Diomedes, breaker of horses.

Then they poured libation, and went each man to his hut,

and there they lay down, and took the gift of sleep.

Notes

1 lines 1–8 — Panic (Φύζα) "companion of icy Rout" — the war-demons of 4.440 gain another member; and the two-winds simile makes the army's heart a sea worked by opposed gales: the book's whole subject — a mind torn two ways — announced in weather. ↩

2 lines 14–15 — Agamemnon weeps "like a spring of dark water" pouring down a cliff — the exact simile that will describe Patroclus weeping for the dying Achaeans at 16.3-4. The poem opens its two great turning-points, the embassy and the Patrocleia, with the same tears. (Echo note; English will repeat verbatim there.) ↩

3 lines 17–28 — Agamemnon repeats his own test-speech of 2.110-118 and 139-141 word for word (the English repeats the Book 2 rendering) — but this time he means it. The counterfeit despair of Book 2 has become real, and no Odysseus rises to stop the flight: only Diomedes. ↩

4 lines 32–49 — Diomedes' answer — the payoff planted at 4.401-402, where he took Agamemnon's insult in silence "where it is right" now claims the assembly's license: "it is you I will fight first — your folly." The scepter/courage antithesis (37-39) dismantles Agamemnon's authority with surgical courtesy. Aristarchus athetized 44. ↩

5 lines 63–64 — "Clanless, lawless, hearthless is the man who is in love with war among his own people" — Nestor's anathema on civil strife, the most quoted political sentence in the poem after 2.204; the triple alpha-privative (ἀφρήτωρ ἀθέμιστος ἀνέστιος) strips the stasis-lover of every circle of belonging. ↩

6 lines 70–72 — Wine-ships from Thrace "daily" — with 7.467-475 (Lemnos), the poem's second glimpse of the supply-economy behind the war. ↩

7 lines 97–99 — "Zeus has put into your hands the scepter and the ordinances" — Odysseus's crowd-control theology of 2.205-206, now recited to the king as obligation rather than of him as privilege: with the scepter comes the duty to listen. ↩

8 lines 115–120 — "Blinded I was — I do not deny it" (ἀασάμην): Agamemnon at last speaks the ἄτη-word of 1.412 and 2.111 in the first person. A line quoted by Athenaeus adds after 119: "or maddened with wine, or the gods themselves harmed me" (apparatus, Line 119) — an ancient plus-verse softening the confession that the vulgate leaves bare. His fullest self-exculpation waits for 19.86-138. ↩

9 lines 121–157 — The catalogue of gifts: seven tripods, ten talents, twenty cauldrons, twelve racehorses, seven women of Lesbos, Briseis with an oath, and on the far side of victory a ship's hold of treasure, twenty Trojan women, a royal marriage "without bride-price" (146 — the suitor's payment waived and reversed: Agamemnon dowers the groom), and seven cities. It is a king's ransom — and every item denominates honor in exactly the currency Achilles is about to declare bankrupt. ↩

10 lines 132–134 — The oath that he never touched Briseis — offered unprompted, and revealing what the quarrel's language of "prizes" had buried: that this is also about a woman's bed, and that Agamemnon knows it. He will swear it publicly at 19.258-265. ↩

11 lines 144–145 — Chrysothemis, Laodice, Iphianassa: no Electra, and an Iphianassa alive and marriageable in the war's tenth year — the Iliad appears not to know (or pointedly ignores) the sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis. The tragedians' house of Atreus is not yet this poem's. ↩

12 lines 149–156 — The seven cities stand on the Messenian coast, "on the edge of sandy Pylos" — inside Nestor's sphere, not Agamemnon's: ancient critics already asked by what right he gives them away. Royal gift-geography is aspirational; the point is the scale. ↩

13 lines 158–161 — The poison pill: "Let him be broken (δμηθήτω)... and let him yield place to me, by as much as I am more kingly." The gift-list ends by re-enacting the original offense — the gifts are to purchase not reconciliation but submission. Odysseus will cut these lines in the retelling (note [20]). ↩

14 lines 168–170 — The envoys: Phoenix — Achilles' own tutor, somehow present in Agamemnon's council — to lead; then Ajax and Odysseus, with two heralds (this Odius is not the Halizone captain of 2.856). The oddity of Phoenix's presence and the dual verbs that follow (note [15]) have fed two centuries of analysis about whether his role was a later expansion. The poem's own logic is plain: it sends Achilles' three loves — his teacher, his bluntest peer, and the army's best voice. ↩

15 lines 182–198 — The famous duals (disputed_lines.md #5): "the two of them went... the two came... greeting the two of them" — the Greek uses strict dual verbs for a party of three envoys plus two heralds. Ancient solutions (Aristarchus: the duals cover only the two principals; others: Phoenix went ahead) and modern ones (an older two-man embassy, with Phoenix stitched in later; or the heralds as the pair) all leave a seam showing. The translation renders every dual visibly as "the two," per project policy, so the crux is present in English rather than smoothed away. ↩

16 lines 186–191 — Achilles singing "the fames of men" (κλέα ἀνδρῶν) to a lyre taken at the sack of Eëtion's Thebe — Andromache's city (6.414-428). The poem's only scene of epic performed shows its greatest hero as the singer, and his instrument as spoil of the very raid whose griefs thread the poem; while Patroclus waits, silent, for his turn in the song. What Achilles sings, he is choosing between at 410-416. ↩

17 lines 197–198, 202–220 — "You who even in my anger are dearest to me" — the greeting concedes at once what the answers will struggle to unsay. The hosting is done by the heroes' own hands (Patroclus mixing "stronger" wine, Achilles carving) — the full feast type-scene performed personally: the quarrel is with one man, not with fellowship. ↩

19 lines 252–259 — Odysseus quotes Peleus's parting advice verbatim — "rein in the great-hearted spirit... break off strife" — the absent-father motif (cf. 7.124-128) turned into an instrument of persuasion. Whether Odysseus actually heard it (he was there, 11.765-790 implies) or reconstructs what fathers say, it is the speech's shrewdest stroke — and its failure measures how far Achilles now stands from Phthia's ethics. ↩

20 lines 264–299 — The relay: Odysseus repeats the catalogue word for word (the English repeats it too, person-shifted, per policy) — and stops at 299. The poison lines (158-161, "let him yield to me...") are silently omitted, and in their place he pivots to pity for the army and the bait of Hector's nearness (300-306). The poem's masterclass in diplomatic editing: fidelity as technique, suppression as tact. Achilles' "hateful as the gates of Hades" answer suggests he smells the redaction anyway. ↩

21 lines 308–314 — "Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is the man who hides one thing in his mind and says another" (disputed_lines.md #6): the referent is contested — a warning aimed at Odysseus the professional speaker standing before him, or at the absent Agamemnon, the actual hider-and-sayer of the quarrel? The translation keeps the generalizing third person that lets both targets stand. Plato quotes the passage (Hippias Minor 365a) in just this connection — Achilles the plain speaker against Odysseus the polytropic. ↩

22 lines 318–321 — "The portion is equal for the man who hangs back and the man who fights hard; in one honor stand the coward and the brave; death comes alike..." — the sentence that unmakes the poem's social contract. If timē no longer tracks merit, the whole exchange-economy of prizes, and the war built on it, loses its reason. This is the radical center of the book: not a bigger price demanded, but the currency refused. ↩

23 lines 323–327 — Achilles as mother-bird, carrying every morsel to unfledged chicks "and it goes hard with herself" — the fighter's self-image as feeder and nurturer, gender-crossed; the tenderest simile any warrior applies to himself in the poem. ↩

24 lines 328–336 — Twelve cities by sea, eleven by land: the sack-list that stocked the poem's backstory (Thebe, Lyrnessus, Lesbos, Scyros...) — all carried to Agamemnon, "who waited behind by the swift ships." The distribution-economy described from the point of view of its producer. ↩

25 lines 336–343 — "He keeps my bed-dear wife (ἄλοχον θυμαρέα)... as I loved that one from my heart, spear-won though she was." Achilles calls Briseis by the word for wedded wife, and answers the whole war's premise with a question — "are the sons of Atreus alone among mortal men the ones who love their wives?" The captive "prize" of Book 1 is re-described as a loved woman; Briseis's own voice, confirming, comes at 19.287-300. ↩

26 lines 354–355 — "only as far as the Scaean Gates and the oak" — the landmark of 7.22 and 6.237; Achilles' memory of a Hector who would not fight in the open is the exact inverse of the Hector of Book 8, and both are true in their seasons of divine favor. ↩

27 lines 378–387 — "I count him at a hair's worth" (ἐν καρὸς αἴσῃ) — and the great refusal-crescendo: ten times, twenty times the gifts; the wealth of Orchomenus; "Egyptian Thebes, the city of a hundred gates" (the Iliad's only mention of Egypt); gifts like sand and dust. Not until "he has paid me back all the outrage" — a price no catalogue can denominate. ↩

28 lines 388–400 — The marriage refused: "Peleus himself will find me a wife." Against Agamemnon's dynastic offer Achilles sets an ordinary happiness — a local bride, his father's goods — spoken by the one man in the poem who knows (410-416) he will never have it. ↩

29 lines 401–409 — "Not worth my life (ψυχῆς ἀντάξιον)": cattle can be raided, tripods won, "but a man's life cannot be lifted back... once it has crossed the fence of his teeth." The formula for guarded speech (4.350) turned into the body's last gate — words return, breath does not. This is the poem's deepest sentence against its own heroic premise, and the Odyssey's Achilles in the underworld will say it again in other words. ↩

30 lines 410–416 — The two fates: stay and win "imperishable fame" (κλέος ἄφθιτον — the oldest phrase of Indo-European praise-poetry, cognate formulas in the Vedas), or go home to long, fameless life. Only Achilles receives destiny as a menu; and the poem that preserves his fame is itself the content of the first option — the choice is between existing in epic and existing. Zenodotus omitted and Aristarchus athetized 416. ↩

31 lines 432–445 — Phoenix: guardian of Achilles' boyhood, teacher of the heroic double curriculum — "a speaker of words, and a doer of deeds" (443) — the poem's one-line definition of the complete man, spoken by the man who taught it to its greatest exemplar. ↩

32 lines 447–461 — Phoenix's own story: his father's concubine, his mother's plea, the old man's curse of childlessness sworn to the Erinyes and ratified by "Zeus of the world below" (Hades) "and dread Persephone." At this point the vulgate — and this project's Greek text — omits four lines (458-461), and the numbering jumps: preserved only by Plutarch (How to Study Poetry 26f), they read, in translation: "Then I planned in my heart to cut him down with the sharp bronze; but some immortal checked my anger, putting in my heart the people's talk and the many reproaches of men, that I might not be called a father-killer among the Achaeans." Aristarchus athetized them for their shocking content (disputed_lines.md #7), and the printed tradition dropped them so thoroughly that editors since Wolf (1785) have had to reinsert them from Plutarch (apparatus, Line 457). The translation reproduces the transmitted gap; the suppressed confession — Phoenix nearly a parricide, saved by fear of what men would say — is the darkest mirror the poem holds up to anger mastered. ↩

33 lines 485–495 — Phoenix nursing the baby Achilles — cutting his meat, holding the wine, the tunic soaked "in your troublesome babyhood": the war's most terrifying fighter recalled as a spitting infant, by the childless man who made him his child. The plea's authority is this memory, and its failure is measured by it. ↩

34 lines 502–514 — The Litai — the Prayers: daughters of Zeus, "lame, and wrinkled, and eyes turned aside," limping forever after swift, strong Blindness (Ἄτη) to heal what she wrecks; scorn them, and they ask Zeus to send Atē against the scorner. The poem's only sustained allegory, and its moral crux: within the fiction, Achilles' refusal of these suppliants files the request that his own ruin follow — as it does, through Patroclus. The ἄτη-thread (1.412, 2.111, 9.115, 19.91-136 where Agamemnon tells Atē's own myth) runs straight through this passage. ↩

35 lines 524–599 — The Meleager paradigm — the poem in miniature, told to its own hero: Artemis slighted (the same forgotten-sacrifice motif, with the ἄτη-verb at 537), the boar, the wrath, the hero idle beside his wife while his city burns; the ladder of suppliants — priests and elders with a gift of land, father at the threshold, sisters, mother, dearest companions — all refused; then the wife, Cleopatra, with her catalogue of a sacked city's griefs; he yields, fights, saves them — "and they no longer made good the gifts." Every rung maps onto Achilles' own night (elders-with-gifts = Odysseus; father-figure = Phoenix; companions = Ajax), and the poem's audience can finish the map: the beloved whose plea will finally move Achilles is the one sitting silent in this very hut — and Meleager's wife bears the name Cleopatra, "famed of her fathers," Patroclus's name with its elements reversed. The onomastic mirror was noticed in antiquity and remains the most elegant argument in Homer. (The Marpessa-Idas digression, 557-564 — a mortal who drew his bow on Apollo for love, and a wife nicknamed Halcyon for her mother's mourning — folds yet another tale of defiance and grief inside the paradigm.) Phoenix's warning lands askew: Meleager's lesson as told is "yield before it is too late for gifts," but its buried lesson is "the wife's plea — the Cleopatra — comes last, and works." Book 16 is that plea. ↩

36 lines 606–619 — To Phoenix, the first softening: "I am honored by the portion of Zeus" (the replacement for the army's failed timē); "be king equally with me; take half my honor"; and the schedule slips — from "tomorrow I sail" (357-363) to "at dawn we will decide whether to go or stay." ἄττα, "old father" — the nursery word — enters the register in the same breath as the threat to hate whomever Phoenix loves. ↩

37 lines 624–642 — Ajax, to Odysseus, about Achilles, in front of him — the bluntest speech in the poem: a man takes blood-price (ποινή) even for a murdered brother or son, and the killer walks his own country; Achilles is implacable "over a girl — one girl! — while we offer seven." The argument from composition for homicide is the strongest yet — it names the going rate for the unpayable — and its miss is the most revealing: the wrong is no longer priced in girls at all. Then the master-stroke of the plain man: "respect your own roof: we are under it" — the xenia-claim, which is the one Achilles grants. ↩

38 lines 643–655 — The third answer, to Ajax: "everything you have said is very nearly after my own heart" — and the line that started it all restated raw: he treated me "as if I were some vagrant without honor (ἀτίμητον μετανάστην)." Then the third position: not sailing, not deciding at dawn, but — I fight when Hector reaches the ships of the Myrmidons. Refusal has become a timetable; the plot of Books 11-16 is Achilles' own sentence coming true at his hut, where Hector is indeed stopped — by Patroclus's death. ↩

39 lines 658–668 — The beds: Phoenix's made by the slave-women; Achilles with Diomede of Lesbos, Patroclus with Iphis, taken at Scyros — the sack-list of 328-329 embodied in the hut's sleeping arrangements; each concubine a city. The embassy departs one man lighter: Phoenix stays, the first crack in Achilles' isolation. ↩

40 lines 673–692 — The report: to "Odysseus of the many tales" (πολύαινος — new epithet, register), Odysseus repeats Achilles' first answer verbatim (682-687 = 417-420, English likewise) — and reports nothing of the second or third: not "at dawn we decide," not "when Hector reaches my ships." The editor of the offer (note [20]) now edits the refusal, presenting the council with the starkest version — whether as rigor, or despair, or policy is the reader's to judge. Aristarchus athetized 688-692, Zenodotus 692. ↩

41 lines 693–709 — Diomedes closes the book he opened: "would you had never begged him... he will fight again whenever the heart in his chest commands him, and the god rouses him" — the truest prophecy in the book, and the completion of the arc from the silent young man of 4.401 to the voice the kings applaud into the night. Eat, sleep, fight at dawn: the war goes on without its best man, which is exactly what Books 10-15 now show. ↩