be it, great-hearted Trojans, as I proclaim; the counsel that now is sound, let that stand spoken; further will I proclaim at dawn amid the horse-taming men of Troy. I pray with good hope to Zeus and all the gods, to drive from hence these dogs borne onward by the fates, them that the fates bear on in the black ships. Howbeit for the night will we guard our own selves, and at morn by daybreak, arrayed in our armour, let us awake keen battle at the hollow ships. I will know whether Tydeus’ son stalwart Diomedes shall thrust me from the ships back to the wall, or I shall lay him low with my spear and bear away his gory spoils. Tomorrow shall he prove his valour, whether he can abide the onslaught of my spear. But he amid the foremost, I ween, shall lie stricken, and many comrades round about their lord at the rising of tomorrow’s sun. Would that I were immortal and ageless all my days and honoured like as Athene is honoured and Apollo, so surely as this day bringeth the Argives ill.” So Hector made harangue, and the Trojans clamoured applause. And they loosed their sweating steeds from the yoke, and tethered them with thongs, each man beside his chariot; and from the city they brought kine and goodly sheep with speed, and provided them with honey-hearted wine and corn from their houses, and gathered much wood withal; and sacrificed to the immortals unblemished hecatombs. And from the plain the winds bare into heaven the sweet savour. But the blessed gods regaled not themselves nor would they aught thereof; for sore was holy Ilios hated of them, and Priam and the folk of Priam of the good ashen spear. But these with high hopes sate them all night along the highways of the battle, and their watchfires burned in multitude. Even as when in heaven the stars about the bright moon shine clear to see, when the air is windless, and all the peaks appear and the tall headlands and glades, and from heaven breaketh open the infinite air, and all stars are seen, and the shepherd’s heart is glad; even in like multitude between the ships and the streams of Xanthos appeared the watchfires that the Trojans kindled in front of Ilios. A thousand fires burned in the plain and by the side of each sate fifty in the gleam of blazing fire. And the horses champed white barley and spelt, and standing by their chariots waited for the throned Dawn. BOOK IX. How Agamemnon sent an embassage to Achilles, beseeching him to be appeased; and how Achilles denied him. Thus kept the Trojans watch; but the Achaians were holden of heaven-sent panic, handmaid of palsying fear, and all their best were stricken to the heart with grief intolerable. Like as two winds stir up the main, the home of fishes, even the north wind and the west wind that blow from Thrace, coming suddenly; and the dark billow straightway lifteth up its crest and casteth much tangle out along the sea; even so was the Achaians’ spirit troubled in their breast.