Agamemnon rose in his place and did not go into the middle. He asked the Danaans to listen in order, for no speaker could be heard in uproar. He would answer the son of Peleus, and the rest should mark him.
Often the Achaeans had blamed him, he said, but it was not he alone who had done it. Zeus and Fate and Erinys that walks in darkness had cast fierce Folly into his mind in the assembly on the day he took Achilles's prize. Folly blinds all; she has delicate feet and does not touch the ground, but walks over men's heads and harms them.
Even Zeus once was fooled by her, when Hera tricked him about the birth of Heracles and made Eurystheus lord instead. Zeus in rage seized Folly by the hair and flung her from heaven to the fields of men, swearing she should never return to Olympus. So Agamemnon too had been blinded when Hector was killing Argives at the ships.
Since he had been mad and Zeus had taken his wits, he was ready to make amends and give endless gifts. Let Achilles rise to war and urge the rest. Agamemnon would bring all he had promised the day before — gold, tripods, horses, women — and sweeten them further if Achilles wished.
Achilles answered that Agamemnon might give the gifts or withhold them; that was in his hands. Now set the battle in array. It was no time to linger talking. Achilles would be seen again among the foremost, cutting down Trojan ranks — let each man remember that when he fought.
Then Odysseus spoke. Do not send the Achaeans against Ilios fasting, he said. Once battle begins and the gods fill both sides with fury, the day will be long. Bid them take bread and wine by the ships first; in that is strength. No man fights from dawn to sundown without food; hunger finds him and his limbs fail. A man who has eaten can fight all day with a steadfast heart.
Tell the men to go to their meal, Odysseus said. As for the gifts, let Agamemnon bring them into the open so all may see, and let him swear before the Argives that he never went into Briseis's bed. Achilles should take the gifts with a gentle heart and sit to a feast in the king's shelter, so nothing be left unpaid between them.
Agamemnon said the counsel pleased him. He would swear freely and not take heaven's name in vain. Let Achilles wait, though he burned to fight, until the gifts came from the tent and the oath was sealed with sacrifice. He charged Odysseus to take young Achaeans and fetch what he had promised, and the women also, and told Talthybius to find a boar for Zeus and the Sun.
Achilles groaned that they should see to gifts another time, when there was breath and his heart was quieter. Would they eat while the bodies Hector had mangled still lay on the plain? Let the Achaeans fight fasting until they had vengeance; at sundown they could feast. Patroclus lay dead in his tent, hacked, feet toward the door, and comrades mourning — he could think of nothing else.
Odysseus answered that in battle Achilles was far the better man, but in counsel he himself was older and wiser. Men soon have their fill of fighting; when Zeus weighs the harvest, the straw may outweigh the grain. The Achaeans cannot mourn the dead with their bellies. Day by day men fall thick; when should anyone rest if tears alone ruled? Bury the dead with a hard heart after weeping for a day; those who survive must remember food and drink, so they may fight on with tireless bronze.