Iliad

Odysseus looked fiercely at him and said, "Son of Atreus, what are you talking about? Wretch, you should have commanded some other and baser army, and not been ruler over us to whom Zeus has allotted a life of hard fighting from youth to old age, till we every one of us perish. Is it thus that you would quit the city of Troy , to win which we have suffered so much hardship? Hold your peace, lest some other of the Achaeans hear you say what no man who knows how to give good counsel, no king over so great a host as that of the Argives should ever have let fall from his lips. I despise your judgment utterly for what you have been saying. Would you, then, have us draw down our ships into the water while the battle is raging, and thus play further into the hands of the conquering Trojans? It would be ruin; the Achaeans will not go on fighting when they see the ships being drawn into the water, but will cease attacking and keep turning their eyes towards them; your counsel, therefore, Sir leader, would be our destruction."

IliadBook 14, Line 82Samuel ButlerEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 14

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