r he felt how disgraceful it was to run away. At last
he threw down his mantle, which his herald Eurybates of Ithaca, a
round-shouldered, brown, curly-haired man, picked up, and he ran to find
Agamemnon, and took his sceptre, a gold-studded staff, like a marshal's
baton, and he gently told the chiefs whom he met that they were doing a
shameful thing; but he drove the common soldiers back to the place of
meeting with the sceptre. They all returned, puzzled and chattering, but
one lame, bandy-legged, bald, round-shouldered, impudent fellow, named
Thersites, jumped up and made an insolent speech, insulting the princes,
and advising the army to run away. Then Ulysses took him and beat him
till the blood came, and he sat down, wiping away his tears, and looking
so foolish that the whole army laughed at him, and cheered Ulysses when
he and Nestor bade them arm and fight. Agamemnon still believed a good
deal in his dream, and prayed that he might take Troy that very day, and
kill Hector. Thus Ulysses alone saved the army from a cowardly retreat;
but for him the ships would have been launched in an hour. But the
Greeks armed and advanced in full force, all except Achilles and his
friend Patroclus with their two or three thousand men. The Trojans also
took heart, knowing that Achilles would not fight, and the armies
approached each other. Paris himself, with two spears and a bow, and
without armour, walked into the space between the hosts, and challenged
any Greek prince to single combat. Menelaus, whose wife Paris had
carried away, was as glad as a hungry lion when he finds a stag or a
goat, and leaped in armour from his chariot, but Paris turned and slunk
away, like a man when he meets a great serpent on a narrow path in the
hills. Then Hector rebuked Paris for his cowardice, and Paris was
ashamed and offered to end the war by fighting Menelaus. If he himself
fell, the Trojans must give up Helen and all her jewels; if Menelaus
fell, the Greeks were to return without fair Helen. The Greeks accepted
this plan, and both sides disarmed themselves to look on at the fight in
comfort, and they meant to take the most solemn oaths to keep peace till
the combat was lost and won, and the quarrel settled. Hector sent into
Troy for two lambs, which were to be sacrificed when the oaths were
taken.

In the meantime Helen of the fair hands was at home working at a great
purple tapestry on which she embroidered the battles of the Greeks and
Tr