Odysseus threw off his cloak, took Agamemnon’s scepter, and went among the ships. When he met a king or honored man, he spoke gently: “Good sir, sit down and make your people sit. You do not yet know the son of Atreus’s whole purpose; now he tests us, and soon he may strike.”
When he found a common man shouting, he struck him with the scepter and ordered him to sit still. “We Achaeans cannot all be kings,” he said. “Rule by many is no good thing. Let there be one ruler, one king, the one to whom Zeus gave the scepter and judgments.”
So he mastered the army and brought them back to assembly. Only Thersites still chattered without measure — the ugliest man who came to Ilios, bandy-legged, lame in one foot, hunched at the shoulders, with a peaked head and thin hair. He loved disorderly words and abuse against kings.
Thersites railed at Agamemnon: “What do you still lack? Your shelters are full of bronze and women. Do you still need gold, or another woman? Let us go home and leave him here to digest his prizes. He dishonored Achilles, a better man than he is, and Achilles is slack for not stopping him.”
Odysseus came on him with a dark look. He told Thersites not to keep kings in his mouth, not to watch for going home, and swore that if he found him raving again he would strip him and send him weeping to the ships. Then he struck him on the back with the scepter. Thersites doubled over, a tear fell, and a bloody welt rose. The men laughed, though they were grieved, and praised Odysseus for stopping the slanderer.