The other chiefs of the Achaeans slept through the night by the ships, but sweet sleep did not hold Agamemnon. As lightning flashes when Zeus prepares rain or hail or snow or war, so sighs rose thickly from his chest when he looked toward the Trojan plain and saw their many fires, flutes, pipes, and the murmur of men.
When he looked toward the ships, he tore his hair by the roots and groaned to Zeus. At last he wrapped a lion skin around himself, took a spear, and went to wake Nestor.
Menelaus too could not sleep; fear for the Argives lay on him, since they had crossed the sea for his sake. He put on a leopard skin, took a bronze helmet and spear, and went to rouse his brother.
Agamemnon told Menelaus to wake Aias and Idomeneus while he went to Nestor. He warned him not to be soft, and Menelaus answered that he would do it, though sometimes Agamemnon blamed him when he acted and sometimes when he waited. They parted through the camp.
Agamemnon found Nestor by his shelter with shield, spears, helmet, and shining belt beside him, the gear the old man used when he led his people. Nestor sat up, asked who walked alone by the ships in the dark, and heard the king's grief: Zeus had never hated a man as he now hated Agamemnon, and no plan had come to mind.
Nestor answered that Hector would not accomplish all he hoped if Achilles ever turned from anger.
He went with Agamemnon to wake the others. They found Odysseus, Diomedes, and the Aiantes, while guards sat awake by the ditch, holding shields and listening toward the plain like dogs around a fold when they hear a wild beast in the woods.
Nestor praised the guards and spoke especially to Thrasymedes.
Then he called the chiefs to cross the ditch and sit in open ground away from the noise of sleeping men, so they might plan. Diomedes asked why they had called him from sleep; Nestor said need drove them and asked whether anyone would dare go among the Trojans to learn their plans.