Book 2
the Trojans by the roll of their householders, and we by companies of ten; think further that each of our companies desired to have a Trojan householder to pour out their wine; we are so greatly more in number that full many a company would have to go without its cup-bearer.
120
But they have in the town allies from other places, and it is these that hinder me from being able to sack the rich city of Ilion. Nine of Zeus years are gone;
the timbers of our ships have rotted; their tackling is sound no longer. Our wives and little ones at home look anxiously for our coming, but the work that we came hither to do has not been done. Now, therefore, let us all do as I say:
let us sail back to our own land, for we shall not take Troy." With these words he moved the hearts of the multitude, so many of them as knew not the cunning counsel of Agamemnon. They surged to and fro like the waves
of the Ikarian Sea [pontos], when the east and south winds break from heaven's clouds to lash them; or as when the west wind sweeps over a field of grain and the ears bow beneath the blast, even so were they swayed as they flew with loud cries
towards the ships, and the dust from under their feet rose heavenward. They cheered each other on to draw the ships into the sea; they cleared the channels in front of them; they began taking away the stays from underneath them, and the welkin rang with their glad cries, so eager were they to return.
Then surely the Argives would have had a return [nostos] after a fashion that was not fated. But Hera said to Athena, "Alas, daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus, unweariable, shall the Argives flee home to their own land over the broad sea,
and leave Priam and the Trojans the glory of still keeping Helen, for whose sake so many of the Achaeans have died at Troy, far from their homes? Go about at once among the host, and speak fairly to them, man by man,
160
that they draw not their ships into the sea." Athena was not slack to do her bidding. Down she darted from the topmost summits of Olympus, and in a moment she was at the ships of the Achaeans. There she found Odysseus, peer of Zeus in counsel,
standing alone. He had not as yet laid a hand upon his ship, for he felt grief [akhos] and was sorry; so she went close up to him and said, "Odysseus, noble son of Laertes,
are you going to fling yourselves into your ships and be off home to your own land in this way? Will you leave Priam and the Trojans the glory of still keeping Helen, for whose sake so many of the Achaeans have died at Troy, far from their homes? Go about at once among the host,
and speak fairly to them, man by man, that they draw not their ships into the sea." Odysseus knew the voice as that of the goddess: he flung his cloak from him and set off to run. His squire Eurybates, a man of Ithaca, who waited on him, took charge of the cloak,
