to Greece; but, if the soldiers took him at his word, the other chiefs
were to stop them. This was a foolish plan, for the soldiers were
wearying for beautiful Greece, and their homes, and wives and children.
Therefore, when Agamemnon did as he had said, the whole army rose, like
the sea under the west wind, and, with a shout, they rushed to the ships,
while the dust blew in clouds from under their feet. Then they began to
launch their ships, and it seems that the princes were carried away in
the rush, and were as eager as the rest to go home.

But Ulysses only stood in sorrow and anger beside his ship, and never put
hand to it, for he felt how disgraceful it was to run away. At last he
threw down his mantle, which his herald Eurybates of Ithaca, a
round-shouldered, brown, curly-haired man, picked up, and he ran to find
Agamemnon, and took his sceptre, a gold-studded staff, like a marshal's
baton, and he gently told the chiefs whom he met that they were doing a
shameful thing; but he drove the common soldiers back to the place of
meeting with the sceptre. They all returned, puzzled and chattering, but
one lame, bandy-legged, bald, round-shouldered, impudent fellow, named
Thersites, jumped up and made an insolent speech, insulting the princes,
and advising the army to run away. Then Ulysses took him and beat him
till the blood came, and he sat down, wiping away his tears, and looking
so foolish that the whole army laughed at him, and cheered Ulysses when
he and Nestor bade them arm and fight. Agamemnon still believed a good
deal in his dream, and prayed that he might take Troy that very day, and
kill Hector. Thus Ulysses alone saved the army from a cowardly retreat;
but for him the ships would have been launched in an hour. But the
Greeks armed and advanced in full force, all except Achilles and his
friend Patroclus with their two or three thousand men. The Trojans also
took heart, knowing that Achilles would not fight, and the armies
approached each other. Paris himself, with two spears and a bow, and