would return home to Phthia.

"Go!" replied Agamemnon. "I detest thee and thy ways. Go back over the sea
and rule over thy Myrmidons. But since Phoebus has taken away my maid, I
will carry off thy prize, thy rosy-cheeked Briseis, that thou may'st learn
that I am indeed king."

Warned by Pallas Athene, Achilles took his hand from his sword hilt, and
contented himself with telling Agamemnon that he would see the day when he
would fret to think he had driven Achilles from the Grecian ranks.

Though the persuasive orator, Nestor, endeavored to make peace between the
chiefs, Agamemnon could not be softened. As soon as the black ship bearing
Chryseis set sail, he sent his unwilling men to where Achilles sat by his
tent, beside the barren deep, to take the fair Briseis, whom Achilles
ordered to be led forth to them. Then the long days dragged by in the tent
where the chief sat eating his heart out in idleness, while his men
engaged in athletic sports, and the rest of the Greeks fought before Troy.

Both armies, worn out with indecisive battles, gladly hailed Hector's
proposal that a combat between Paris and Menelaus should decide the war.

As the armies stood in silence, watching the preparations for the combat,
Helen, summoned by Iris, left her room in Priam's palace, where she was
weaving among her maidens, and, robed and veiled in white, and shedding
tears at the recollection of her former home and husband, went down to the
Scaean gates, where sat Priam and the men too old for war. When they saw
bright-haired Helen they whispered among themselves that it was little
wonder that men warred for her sake, so fair was she, so like unto the
deathless goddesses.