now?" he cried. "Surely thy huts are full of the
spoils we have brought to thee each time we have taken a town. What
more dost thou want? Soft fools, women, not men, are ye Greeks, else
would ye return home now with the ships, and leave this fellow here in
Troyland gorging himself on the spoils for which he himself hath never
fought. To brave Achilles hath he done dishonor, a far better man than
he!"

Straight to the side of Thersites came the goodly Odysseus.

"Hold thy peace," he sternly said. "Plainly I tell thee that if ever
again I find thee raving as thou hast raved now, I myself will strip
off thy mantle and tunic, with shameful blows beat thee out of the
assembly, and send thee back weeping to the ships."

So spake Odysseus, and with his scepter smote Thersites on his back
and shoulders. And Thersites bowed down, and big tears fell from his
eyes, and a bloody weal from the golden scepter stood up from his
back. Amazed he sat down, and in pain and amazement he wiped away a
tear. The others, though they were sorry, laughed at his bewilderment.

"Many are the good deeds of Odysseus," said they, "but never did he do
a better deed than when he stopped the tongue of this prating railer."

Then spake Odysseus, scepter in hand.

"Surely it is the wish of the Greeks to make thee the most despised of
all kings, great Agamemnon," he said, "for like young children or
mourning women do they wail that they must go home. Nine years have
we stayed in this land, and small wonder is it that we long for our
homes again. Yet shameful would it be to wait so long and to return
with empty hands. Be of good heart, my friends, and wait a little, for
surely Troy shall be ours. Do ye forget, on the day that we set sail
for Troyland, the mighty portent that we saw? As we offered sacrifices
to the gods beneath a fair plane-tree whence flowed clear water, a
snake, blood-red on the back and dreadful to look upon, glided from
beneath the altar and darted to the tree. On the tree's topmost bough
was a sparrow's nest, and in it eight tender nestlings, over which the
mother bird spread her wings. Pitifully did the little ones cheep as
the snake swallowed them all, and pitifully cried the mother as she
fluttered over her nestlings. But of her, too, did the snake lay hold,
coiling himself round her and crushing her life out. Then did the god
who sent this sign show us that a sign from the gods in truth it was,
for he turned the snake into st