Achilles is reconciled with Agamemnon, puts on the armour which

      Vulcan had made him, and goes out to fight.



      Now when Dawn in robe of saffron was hasting from the streams of

      Oceanus, to bring light to mortals and immortals, Thetis reached

      the ships with the armour that the god had given her. She found

      her son fallen about the body of Patroclus and weeping bitterly.

      Many also of his followers were weeping round him, but when the

      goddess came among them she clasped his hand in her own, saying,

      “My son, grieve as we may we must let this man lie, for it is by

      heaven’s will that he has fallen; now, therefore, accept from

      Vulcan this rich and goodly armour, which no man has ever yet

      borne upon his shoulders.”



      As she spoke she set the armour before Achilles, and it rang out

      bravely as she did so. The Myrmidons were struck with awe, and

      none dared look full at it, for they were afraid; but Achilles

      was roused to still greater fury, and his eyes gleamed with a

      fierce light, for he was glad when he handled the splendid

      present which the god had made him. Then, as soon as he had

      satisfied himself with looking at it, he said to his mother,

      “Mother, the god has given me armour, meet handiwork for an

      immortal and such as no-one living could have fashioned; I will

      now arm, but I much fear that flies will settle upon the son of

      Menoetius and breed worms about his wounds, so that his body, now

      he is dead, will be disfigured and the flesh will rot.”



      Silver-footed Thetis answered, “My son, be not disquieted about

      this matter. I will find means to protect him from the swarms of

      noisome flies that prey on the bodies of men who have been killed

      in battle. He may lie for a whole year, and his flesh shall still

      be as sound as ever, or even sounder. Call, therefore, the

      Achaean heroes in assembly; unsay your anger against Agamemnon;

      arm at once, and fight with might and main.”



      As she spoke she put strength and courage into his heart, and she

      then dropped ambrosia and red nectar into the wounds of

      Patroclus, that his body might suffer no change.



      Then Achilles went out upon the sea-shore, and with a loud cry

      called on the Achaean heroes. On this even those who as yet had

      stayed always at the ships, the pilots and helmsmen, and even the

      stewards who were about the ships and served out rations, all

      came to the place of assembly because Achilles had shown himself

      after having held aloof so long from fighting. Two sons of Mars,

      Ulysses and the son of Tydeus, came limping, for their wounds

      still pained them; nevertheless they came, and took their seats

      in the front row of the assembly. Last of all came Agamemnon,

      king of men, he too wounded, for Coon son of Antenor had struck

      him with a spear in battle.



      When the Achaeans were got together Achilles rose and said, “Son

      of Atreus, surely it would have been better alike for both you

      and me, when we two were in such high anger about Briseis, surely

      it would have been better, had Diana’s arrow slain her at the

      ships on the day when I took her after having sacked Lyrnessus.

      For so, many an Achaean the less would have bitten dust before

      the foe in the days of my anger. It has been well for Hector and

      the Trojans, but the Achaeans will long indeed remember our

      quarrel. Now, however, let it be, for it is over. If we have been

      angry, necessity has schooled our anger. I put it from me: I dare

      not nurse it for ever; therefore, bid the Achaeans arm forthwith

      that I may go out against the Trojans, and learn whether they

      will be in a mind to sleep by the ships or no. Glad, I ween, will

      he be to rest his knees who may fly my spear when I wield it.”



      Thus did he speak, and the Achaeans rejoiced in that he had put

      away his anger.



      Then Agamemnon spoke, rising in his place, and not going into the

      middle of the assembly. “Danaan heroes,” said he, “servants of

      Mars, it is well to listen when a man stands up to speak, and it

      is not seemly to interrupt him, or it will go hard even with a

      practised speaker. Who can either hear or speak in an uproar?

      Even the finest orator will be disconcerted by it. I will expound

      to the son of Peleus, and do you other Achaeans heed me and mark

      me well. Often have the Achaeans spoken to me of this matter and

      upbraided me, but it was not I that did it: Jove, and Fate, and

      Erinys that walks in darkness struck me mad when we were

      assembled on the day that I took from Achilles the meed that had

      been awarded to him. What could I do? All things are in the hand

      of heaven, and Folly, eldest of Jove’s daughters, shuts men’s

      eyes to their destruction. She walks delicately, not on the solid

      earth, but hovers over the heads of men to make them stumble or

      to ensnare them.



      “Time was when she fooled Jove himself, who they say is greatest

      whether of gods or men; for Juno, woman though she was, beguiled

      him on the day when Alcmena was to bring forth mighty Hercules in

      the fair city of Thebes. He told it out among the gods saying,

      ‘Hear me, all gods and goddesses, that I may speak even as I am

      minded; this day shall an Ilithuia, helper of women who are in

      labour, bring a man child into the world who shall be lord over

      all that dwell about him who are of my blood and lineage.’ Then

      said Juno all crafty and full of guile, ‘You will play false, and

      will not hold to your word. Swear me, O Olympian, swear me a

      great oath, that he who shall this day fall between the feet of a

      woman, shall be lord over all that dwell about him who are of

      your blood and lineage.’



      “Thus she spoke, and Jove suspected her not, but swore the great

      oath, to his much ruing thereafter. For Juno darted down from the

      high summit of Olympus, and went in haste to Achaean Argos where

      she knew that the noble wife of Sthenelus son of Perseus then

      was. She being with child and in her seventh month, Juno brought

      the child to birth though there was a month still wanting, but

      she stayed the offspring of Alcmena, and kept back the Ilithuiae.

      Then she went to tell Jove the son of Saturn, and said, ‘Father

      Jove, lord of the lightning—I have a word for your ear. There is

      a fine child born this day, Eurystheus, son to Sthenelus the son

      of Perseus; he is of your lineage; it is well, therefore, that he

      should reign over the Argives.’



      “On this Jove was stung to the very quick, and in his rage he

      caught Folly by the hair, and swore a great oath that never

      should she again invade starry heaven and Olympus, for she was

      the bane of all. Then he whirled her round with a twist of his

      hand, and flung her down from heaven so that she fell on to the

      fields of mortal men; and he was ever angry with her when he saw

      his son groaning under the cruel labours that Eurystheus laid

      upon him. Even so did I grieve when mighty Hector was killing the

      Argives at their ships, and all the time I kept thinking of Folly

      who had so baned me. I was blind, and Jove robbed me of my

      reason; I will now make atonement, and will add much treasure by

      way of amends. Go, therefore, into battle, you and your people

      with you. I will give you all that Ulysses offered you yesterday

      in your tents: or if it so please you, wait, though you would

      fain fight at once, and my squires shall bring the gifts from my

      ship, that you may see whether what I give you is enough.”



      And Achilles answered, “Son of Atreus, king of men Agamemnon, you

      can give such gifts as you think proper, or you can withhold

      them: it is in your own hands. Let us now set battle in array; it

      is not well to tarry talking about trifles, for there is a deed

      which is as yet to do. Achilles shall again be seen fighting

      among the foremost, and laying low the ranks of the Trojans: bear

      this in mind each one of you when he is fighting.”



      Then Ulysses said, “Achilles, godlike and brave, send not the

      Achaeans thus against Ilius to fight the Trojans fasting, for the

      battle will be no brief one, when it is once begun, and heaven

      has filled both sides with fury; bid them first take food both

      bread and wine by the ships, for in this there is strength and

      stay. No man can do battle the livelong day to the going down of

      the sun if he is without food; however much he may want to fight

      his strength will fail him before he knows it; hunger and thirst

      will find him out, and his limbs will grow weary under him. But a

      man can fight all day if he is full fed with meat and wine; his

      heart beats high, and his strength will stay till he has routed

      all his foes; therefore, send the people away and bid them

      prepare their meal; King Agamemnon will bring out the gifts in

      presence of the assembly, that all may see them and you may be

      satisfied. Moreover let him swear an oath before the Argives that

      he has never gone up into the couch of Briseis, nor been with her

      after the manner of men and women; and do you, too, show yourself

      of a gracious mind; let Agamemnon entertain you in his tents with

      a feast of reconciliation, that so you may have had your dues in

      full. As for you, son of Atreus, treat people more righteously in

      future; it is no disgrace even to a king that he should make

      amends if he was wrong in the first instance.”



      And King Agamemnon answered, “Son of Laertes, your words please

      me well, for throughout you have spoken wisely. I will swear as

      you would have me do; I do so of my own free will, neither shall

      I take the name of heaven in vain. Let, then, Achilles wait,

      though he would fain fight at once, and do you others wait also,

      till the gifts come from my tent and we ratify the oath with

      sacrifice. Thus, then, do I charge you: take some noble young

      Achaeans with you, and bring from my tents the gifts that I

      promised yesterday to Achilles, and bring the women also;

      furthermore let Talthybius find me a boar from those that are

      with the host, and make it ready for sacrifice to Jove and to the

      sun.”



      Then said Achilles, “Son of Atreus, king of men Agamemnon, see to

      these matters at some other season, when there is breathing time

      and when I am calmer. Would you have men eat while the bodies of

      those whom Hector son of Priam slew are still lying mangled upon

      the plain? Let the sons of the Achaeans, say I, fight fasting and

      without food, till we have avenged them; afterwards at the going

      down of the sun let them eat their fill. As for me, Patroclus is

      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 war’s 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 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 and take vengeance on him who shall

      swear falsely, that I have laid no hand upon the girl Briseis,

      neither to take her to my bed nor otherwise, but that she has

      remained in my tents inviolate. If I swear falsely may heaven

      visit me with all the penalties which it metes out to those who

      perjure themselves.”



      He cut the boar’s throat as he spoke, whereon Talthybius whirled

      it round his head, and flung it into the wide sea to feed the

      fishes. Then Achilles also rose and said to the Argives, “Father

      Jove, of a truth you blind men’s eyes and bane them. The son of

      Atreus had not else stirred me to so fierce an anger, nor so

      stubbornly taken Briseis from me against my will. Surely Jove

      must have counselled the destruction of many an Argive. Go, now,

      and take your food that we may begin fighting.”



      On this he broke up the assembly, and every man went back to his

      own ship. The Myrmidons attended to the presents and took them

      away to the ship of Achilles. They placed them in his tents,

      while the stable-men drove the horses in among the others.



      Briseis, fair as Venus, when she saw the mangled body of

      Patroclus, flung herself upon it and cried aloud, tearing her

      breast, her neck, and her lovely face with both her hands.

      Beautiful as a goddess she wept and said, “Patroclus, dearest

      friend, when I went hence I left you living; I return, O prince,

      to find you dead; thus do fresh sorrows multiply upon me one

      after the other. I saw him to whom my father and mother married

      me, cut down before our city, and my three own dear brothers

      perished with him on the self-same day; but you, Patroclus, even

      when Achilles slew my husband and sacked the city of noble Mynes,

      told me that I was not to weep, for you said you would make

      Achilles marry me, and take me back with him to Phthia, we should

      have a wedding feast among the Myrmidons. You were always kind to

      me and I shall never cease to grieve for you.”



      She wept as she spoke, and the women joined in her lament-making

      as though their tears were for Patroclus, but in truth each was

      weeping for her own sorrows. The elders of the Achaeans gathered

      round Achilles and prayed him to take food, but he groaned and

      would not do so. “I pray you,” said he, “if any comrade will hear

      me, bid me neither eat nor drink, for I am in great heaviness,

      and will stay fasting even to the going down of the sun.”



      On this he sent the other princes away, save only the two sons of

      Atreus and Ulysses, Nestor, Idomeneus, and the knight Phoenix,

      who stayed behind and tried to comfort him in the bitterness of

      his sorrow: but he would not be comforted till he should have

      flung himself into the jaws of battle, and he fetched sigh on

      sigh, thinking ever of Patroclus. Then he said—



      “Hapless and dearest comrade, you it was who would get a good

      dinner ready for me at once and without delay when the Achaeans

      were hasting to fight the Trojans; now, therefore, though I have

      meat and drink in my tents, yet will I fast for sorrow. Grief

      greater than this I could not know, not even though I were to

      hear of the death of my father, who is now in Phthia weeping for

      the loss of me his son, who am here fighting the Trojans in a

      strange land for the accursed sake of Helen, nor yet though I

      should hear that my son is no more—he who is being brought up in

      Scyros—if indeed Neoptolemus is still living. Till now I made

      sure that I alone was to fall here at Troy away from Argos, while

      you were to return to Phthia, bring back my son with you in your

      own ship, and show him all my property, my bondsmen, and the

      greatness of my house—for Peleus must surely be either dead, or

      what little life remains to him is oppressed alike with the

      infirmities of age and ever present fear lest he should hear the

      sad tidings of my death.”



      He wept as he spoke, and the elders sighed in concert as each

      thought on what he had left at home behind him. The son of Saturn

      looked down with pity upon them, and said presently to Minerva,

      “My child, you have quite deserted your hero; is he then gone so

      clean out of your recollection? There he sits by the ships all

      desolate for the loss of his dear comrade, and though the others

      are gone to their dinner he will neither eat nor drink. Go then

      and drop nectar and ambrosia into his breast, that he may know no

      hunger.”



      With these words he urged Minerva, who was already of the same

      mind. She darted down from heaven into the air like some falcon

      sailing on his broad wings and screaming. Meanwhile the Achaeans

      were arming throughout the host, and when Minerva had dropped

      nectar and ambrosia into Achilles so that no cruel hunger should

      cause his limbs to fail him, she went back to the house of her

      mighty father. Thick as the chill snow-flakes shed from the hand

      of Jove and borne on the keen blasts of the north wind, even so

      thick did the gleaming helmets, the bossed shields, the strongly

      plated breastplates, and the ashen spears stream from the ships.

      The sheen pierced the sky, the whole land was radiant with their

      flashing armour, and the sound of the tramp of their treading

      rose from under their feet. In the midst of them all Achilles put

      on his armour; he gnashed his teeth, his eyes gleamed like fire,

      for his grief was greater than he could bear. Thus, then, full of

      fury against the Trojans, did he don the gift of the god, the

      armour that Vulcan had made him.



      First he put on the goodly greaves fitted with ancle-clasps, and

      next he did on the breastplate about his chest. He slung the

      silver-studded sword of bronze about his shoulders, and then took

      up the shield so great and strong that shone afar with a

      splendour as of the moon. As the light seen by sailors from out

      at sea, when men have lit a fire in their homestead high up among

      the mountains, but the sailors are carried out to sea by wind and

      storm far from the haven where they would be—even so did the

      gleam of Achilles’ wondrous shield strike up into the heavens. He

      lifted the redoubtable helmet, and set it upon his head, from

      whence it shone like a star, and the golden plumes which Vulcan

      had set thick about the ridge of the helmet, waved all around it.

      Then Achilles made trial of himself in his armour to see whether

      it fitted him, so that his limbs could play freely under it, and

      it seemed to buoy him up as though it had been wings.



      He also drew his father’s spear out of the spear-stand, a spear

      so great and heavy and strong that none of the Achaeans save only

      Achilles had strength to wield it; this was the spear of Pelian

      ash from the topmost ridges of Mt. Pelion, which Chiron had once

      given to Peleus, fraught with the death of heroes. Automedon and

      Alcimus busied themselves with the harnessing of his horses; they

      made the bands fast about them, and put the bit in their mouths,

      drawing the reins back towards the chariot. Automedon, whip in

      hand, sprang up behind the horses, and after him Achilles mounted

      in full armour, resplendent as the sun-god Hyperion. Then with a

      loud voice he chided with his father’s horses saying, “Xanthus

      and Balius, famed offspring of Podarge—this time when we have

      done fighting be sure and bring your driver safely back to the

      host of the Achaeans, and do not leave him dead on the plain as

      you did Patroclus.”



      Then fleet Xanthus answered under the yoke—for white-armed Juno

      had endowed him with human speech—and he bowed his head till his

      mane touched the ground as it hung down from under the yoke-band.

      “Dread Achilles,” said he, “we will indeed save you now, but the

      day of your death is near, and the blame will not be ours, for it

      will be heaven and stern fate that will destroy you. Neither was

      it through any sloth or slackness on our part that the Trojans

      stripped Patroclus of his armour; it was the mighty god whom

      lovely Leto bore that slew him as he fought among the foremost,

      and vouchsafed a triumph to Hector. We two can fly as swiftly as

      Zephyrus who they say is fleetest of all winds; nevertheless it

      is your doom to fall by the hand of a man and of a god.”



      When he had thus said the Erinyes stayed his speech, and Achilles

      answered him in great sadness, saying, “Why, O Xanthus, do you

      thus foretell my death? You need not do so, for I well know that

      I am to fall here, far from my dear father and mother; none the

      more, however, shall I stay my hand till I have given the Trojans

      their fill of fighting.”



      So saying, with a loud cry he drove his horses to the front.