Thus Hector harangued them; but the Trojans applauded aloud. And they loosed from the yoke their sweating steeds, and bound them with halters, each to his own chariot. Quickly they brought from the city oxen and fat sheep: and they brought sweet wine, and bread from their homes, and also collected many fagots. But the winds raised the savour from the plain to heaven. But they, greatly elated, sat all night in the ranks of war, and many fires blazed for them. As when in heaven the stars appear very conspicuous 289 around the lucid moon, when the æther is wont to be without a breeze, and all the pointed rocks and lofty summits and groves appear, but in heaven the immense æther is disclosed, and all the stars are seen, and the shepherd rejoices in his soul. Thus did many fires of the Trojans kindling them appear before Ilium, between the ships and the streams of Xanthus. A thousand fires blazed in the plain, and by each sat fifty men, at the light of the blazing fire. But their steeds eating white barley and oats, standing by the chariots, awaited beautiful-throned Aurora. Footnote 289: (return) Cf. Æsch. Ag. 6: Λαμπρούς δυνάστας, ἐμπρεποντας αίθέρι. BOOK THE NINTH. ARGUMENT. By advice of Nestor, Agamemnon sends Ulysses, Phœnix, and Ajax, to the tent of Achilles to sue for a reconciliation. Notwithstanding the earnest appeal of Phœnix, 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: (return) “In Il. 1,2, the θεσπεσίη φυζα of the Achæans 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: (return) Wood, p. 46, explains this from the situation of Ionia. Heyne, however, observes, “comparatio e mente poetæ 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: