not any more hold long converse here, nor for long delay the work that
god putteth in our hands; but come, let the heralds of the mail-clad
Achaians make proclamation to the folk and gather them throughout the
ships; and let us go thus in concert through the wide host of the
Achaians, that the speedier we may arouse keen war."

So spake he and Agamemnon king of men disregarded not. Straightway he
bade the clear-voiced heralds summon to battle the flowing-haired
Achaians. So those summoned and these gathered with all speed. And the
kings, the fosterlings of Zeus that were about Atreus' son, eagerly
marshalled them, and bright-eyed Athene in the midst, bearing the holy
aegis that knoweth neither age nor death, whereon wave an hundred
tassels of pure gold, all deftly woven and each one an hundred oxen
worth. Therewith she passed dazzling through the Achaian folk, urging
them forth; and in every man's heart she roused strength to battle
without ceasing and to fight. So was war made sweeter to them than to
depart in their hollow ships to their dear native land. Even as ravaging
fire kindleth a boundless forest on a mountain's peaks, and the blaze is
seen from afar, even so as they marched went the dazzling gleam from the
innumerable bronze through the sky even unto the heavens.

And as the many tribes of feathered birds, wild geese or cranes or
long-necked swans, on the Asian mead by Kaystrios' stream, fly hither
and thither joying in their plumage, and with loud cries settle ever
onwards, and the mead resounds; even so poured forth the many tribes of
warriors from ships and huts into the Skamandrian plain. And the earth
echoed terribly beneath the tread of men and horses. So stood they in
the flowery Skamandrian plain, unnumbered as are leaves and flowers in
their season. Even as the many tribes of thick flies that hover about a
herdsman's steading in the spring season, when milk drencheth the pails,