that they draw not their ships into the sea." Athena was not slack to do her bidding. Down she darted from the topmost summits of Olympus, and in a moment she was at the ships of the Achaeans. There she found Odysseus, peer of Zeus in counsel,
standing alone. He had not as yet laid a hand upon his ship, for he felt grief [akhos] and was sorry; so she went close up to him and said, "Odysseus, noble son of Laertes,
are you going to fling yourselves into your ships and be off home to your own land in this way? Will you leave Priam and the Trojans the glory of still keeping Helen, for whose sake so many of the Achaeans have died at Troy, far from their homes? Go about at once among the host,
and speak fairly to them, man by man, that they draw not their ships into the sea." Odysseus knew the voice as that of the goddess: he flung his cloak from him and set off to run. His squire Eurybates, a man of Ithaca, who waited on him, took charge of the cloak,
whereon Odysseus went straight up to Agamemnon and received from him his ancestral, imperishable staff. With this he went about among the ships of the Achaeans. Whenever he met a king or chieftain, he stood by him and spoke him fairly.
"Sir," said he, "this flight is cowardly and unworthy. Stand to your post, and bid your people also keep their places. You do not yet know the full mind [noos] of Agamemnon; he was sounding us, and ere long will visit the Achaeans with his displeasure. We were not all of us at the council to hear what he then said;
see to it lest he be angry and do us a mischief; for the timê of kings is great, and the hand of Zeus is with them." But when he came across some man from some locale [dêmos] who was making a noise, he struck him with his staff and rebuked him, saying,
