od, and be obedient to your comfortable ordinances. All this
will he do if you will now forgo your anger. Moreover, though you hate
both him and his gifts with all your heart, yet pity the rest of the
Achaeans who are being harassed in all their host; they will honour you
as a god, and you will earn great glory at their hands. You might even
kill Hector; he will come within your reach, for he is infatuated, and
declares that not a Danaan whom the ships have brought can hold his own
against him."

Achilles answered, "Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, I should give you
formal notice plainly and in all fixity of purpose that there be no
more of this cajoling, from whatsoever quarter it may come. Him do I
hate even as the gates of hell who says one thing while he hides
another in his heart; therefore I will say what I mean. I will be
appeased neither by Agamemnon son of Atreus nor by any other of the
Danaans, for I see that I have no thanks for all my fighting. He that
fights fares no better than he that does not; coward and hero are held
in equal honour, and death deals like measure to him who works and him
who is idle. I have taken nothing by all my hardships--with my life
ever in my hand; as a bird when she has found a morsel takes it to her
nestlings, and herself fares hardly, even so many a long night have I
been wakeful, and many a bloody battle have I waged by day against
those who were fighting for their women. With my ships I have taken
twelve cities, and eleven round about Troy have I stormed with my men
by land; I took great store of wealth from every one of them, but I
gave all up to Agamemnon son of Atreus. He stayed where he was by his
ships, yet of what came to him he gave little, and kept much himself.

"Nevertheless he did distribute some meeds of honour among the
chieftains and kings, and these have them still; from me alone of the
Achaeans did he take the woman in whom I delighted--let him keep her
and sleep with her. Why, pray, must the Argives needs fight the
Trojans? What made the son of Atreus gather the host and bring them?
Was it not for the sake of Helen? Are the sons of Atreus the only men
in the world who love their wives? Any man of common right feeling will
love and cherish her who is his own, as I this woman, with my whole
heart, though she was but a fruitling of my spear. Agamemnon has taken
her from me; he has played me false; I know him; let him tempt me no
further, for he shall not move me.