“Son of Laertes, nobly born and sage Ulysses, will ye, entering your good ships, Return in flight to your own land and leave Glory to Priam, and to Ilium’s sons The Argive Helen, for whose sake have died So many Greeks upon the Trojan strand, Far from the land they loved? Go thou at once And seek the Argive warriors and restrain With thy persuasive words the impatient men, Nor let them launch their well-appointed ships.”

She spake; Ulysses knew the heavenly voice, And hastened back, and as he ran cast by His cloak. Eurybates of Ithaca, The herald, caught it as he followed him. And now before Atrides, king of men, The warrior stood, and from his hand received The ancestral sceptre, old, but undecayed; And bearing this, he went among the ships Which brought the Achaian army, mailed in brass; And whomsoe’er he met upon his way, Monarch or eminent among the host, He stopped him, and addressed him blandly, thus:⁠—