BOOK THE NINTH.

ARGUMENT.

By advice of Nestor, Agamemnon sends Ulysses, Phoenix, and Ajax, to the
tent of Achilles to sue for a reconciliation. Notwithstanding the
earnest appeal of Phoenix, their errand proves fruitless.

Thus the Trojans indeed kept guard: but a mighty[290] Flight, the
companion of chill Fear, seized upon the Greeks; and all the chiefs were
afflicted with intolerable grief. And as two winds, the north and south,
which both blow from Thrace,[291] rouse the fishy deep, coming suddenly
[upon it]; but the black billows are elevated together; and they dash
much sea-weed out of the ocean; so was the mind of the Greeks distracted
within their bosoms.

[Footnote 290: "In Il. 1,2, the [Greek: thespesin phuza] of the
Achaeans is not to be explained as a supernatural flight,
occasioned by the gods. It is a great and general flight, caused
by Hector and the Trojans. For although this was approved of and
encouraged by Jupiter, yet his was only that mediate influence of
the deity without which in general nothing took place in the
Homeric battles."--Buttm. Lexil. p. 358. Cf. Coleridge, p. 160.]

[Footnote 291: Wood, p. 46, explains this from the situation of
Ionia. Heyne, however, observes, "comparatio e mente poetae
instituitur, non ex Agamemnonis persona."]

But Atrides, wounded to the heart with great sorrow, kept going round,
giving orders to the clear-voiced heralds, to summon each man by name to
an assembly, but not to call aloud; and he himself toiled among the
first. And they sat in council, grieved, and Agamemnon arose, shedding
tears, like a black-water fountain, which pours its gloomy stream from a
lofty rock. Thus he, deeply sighing, spoke words to the Greeks:

"O friends, leaders and chieftains over the Greeks, Jove, the son of
Saturn, has greatly entangled me in a grievous calamity: cruel, who once
promised me, and assented, that I should return, having destroyed
well-built Ilium. But now has he plotted an evil fraud, and orders me to
return inglorious to Argos, after I have lost much people. Thus,
doubtless, will it be agreeable to almighty Jove, who has already
overthrown the heights of many cities, and will still overthrow them,
for his power is greatest. But come, let us all obey as I advise: let us
fly with the ships to our dear fatherland, for now we shall not take
wide-wayed Troy."

Thus he