The Greeks gave an unmeasur’d shout; which back the ships repaid With terrible echoes, in applause of that persuasion Divine Ulysses us’d; which yet held no comparison With Nestor’s next speech, which was this: “O shameful thing! Ye talk Like children all, that know not war. In what air’s region walk Our oaths, and cov’nants? Now, I see the fit respects of men Are vanish’d quite; our right hands giv’n, our faiths, our counsels vain, Our sacrifice with wine, all fled in that profanéd flame We made to bind all; for thus still we vain persuasions frame, And strive to work our end with words, not joining stratagemes And hands together, though, thus long, the pow’r of our extremes Hath urg’d us to them. Atreus’ son, firm as at first hour stand! Make good thy purpose; talk no more in councils, but command In active field. Let two or three, that by themselves advise, Faint in their crowning; they are such as are not truly wise; They will for Argos, ere they knew if that which Jove hath said Be false or true. I tell them all, that high Jove bow’d his head, As first we went aboard our fleet, for sign we should confer These Trojans their due fate and death; almighty Jupiter All that day darting forth his flames, in an unmeasur’d light, On our right hand. Let therefore none once dream of coward flight, Till (for his own) some wife of Troy he sleeps withal, the rape Of Helen wreaking, and our sighs enforc’d for her escape. If any yet dare dote on home, let his dishonour’d haste His black and well-built bark but touch, that (as he first disgrac’d His country’s spirit) fate, and death, may first his spirit let go. But be thou wise, king, do not trust thyself, but others. Know I will not use an abject word. See all thy men array’d In tribes and nations, that tribes tribes, nations may nations, aid. Which doing, thou shalt know what chiefs, what soldiers, play the men, And what the cowards; for they all will fight in sev’ral then, Easy for note. And then shalt thou, if thou destroy’st not Troy, Know if the prophecy’s defect, or men thou dost employ In their approv’d arts want in war, or lack of that brave heat Fit for the vent’rous spirits of Greece, was cause to thy defeat.” To this the king of men replied: “O father, all the sons Of Greece thou conquer’st in the strife of consultations. I would to Jove, Athenia, and Phœbus, I could make, Of all, but ten such counsellors; then instantly would shake King Priam’s city, by our hands laid hold on and laid waste. But Jove hath order’d I should grieve, and to that end hath cast My life into debates past end. Myself, and Thetis’ son, Like girls, in words fought for a girl, and I th’ offence begun. But if we ever talk as friends, Troy’s thus deferréd fall Shall never vex us more one hour. Come then, to victuals all, That strong Mars all may bring to field. Each man his lance’s steel See sharpen’d well, his shield well lin’d, his horses meated well, His chariot carefully made strong, that these affairs of death