the hunchback writhes and howls under the blows, the fickle feelings of the Greeks break forth in peals of laughter. "Of the many good things Ulysses has done, this last," they swear, "is the best of all."
Then, prompted still by the goddess of Wisdom, Ulysses harangues the reassembled troops. He reminds them of their plighted oath of service to Agamemnon, of the encouraging oracles of heaven, of the disgrace of returning home from an unaccomplished errand. With the art of a true orator, he sympathises with their late feelings—it is bitter for them all, indeed, to waste so many years on a foreign shore, far from home, and wife, and children; but bitterest of all would it be
"Long to remain, and bootless to return."
The venerable Nestor speaks to the same effect; and
Agamemnon himself closes the debate with a call to
immediate battle. It is a right royal speech, far more worthy of a true "king of men" than his former philip-pics—moderate in his allusion to Achilles, spirited in his appeal to his warriors.
"Come but new friendship, and our feud destroy,
Then from the evil that is fixed and sealed
Not one day's respite shall be left to Troy—
But now to dinner, ere we take the field;
Let each his spear whet, and prepare his shield,
Feed well the horses, and each chariot test,
That we may fight it out till one side yield,
Fight in sound harness, and not think of rest,
Till the black night decide it as to Zeus seems best.
"Then shall the horses in their foam be wet,
While forward in the glittering car they strain;
Then shall the straps of the broad buckler sweat
Round many a breast there battling in the plain;
