Hector rejoiced, stepped between the armies, and held the Trojan ranks back with his spear. The Achaeans shot at him until Agamemnon ordered them to stop. Hector announced Paris’s offer: Trojans and Achaeans should lay their armor on the fruitful earth while Paris and Menelaus fought alone for the woman and her goods. Menelaus of the great war-cry answered that his heart had suffered most; Achaeans and Trojans should at last be parted. Whichever man death and fate had marked should die, and the peoples be parted. He called for lambs for Earth and Sun and another for Zeus, and for Priam himself to cut the oaths, because his sons were arrogant and faithless. Young men’s minds were forever flighty; an old man looked forward and back, so the best came out for both sides.
Menelaus called for lambs for Earth and Sun and another for Zeus, and for Priam himself to cut the oaths, because his sons were arrogant and faithless. Both sides rejoiced, hoping for rest from war. They drew back horses, stepped from chariots, and laid their arms on the ground.
Hector sent heralds for lambs and Priam; Agamemnon sent Talthybius for a lamb from the ships. Iris went to Helen in the likeness of Laodice, loveliest of Priam’s daughters. And found her weaving a purple web of double fold, working into it the battles Trojans and Achaeans suffered for her sake under Ares. Iris told her the armies now sat quiet on the plain, and Paris and Menelaus would fight for her; she would be called dear wife of whichever won. Longing for her former husband, city, and parents came over Helen.
Helen covered herself in bright veils and went weeping to the Scaean gates with her attendants Aethra daughter of Pittheus and ox-eyed Clymene. Priam and the elders sat there — Panthous, Thymoetes, Lampus, Clytius, Hiketaon, Ucalegon, and Antenor — too old for war but clear-voiced like cicadas that sit in a wood. Seeing Helen, they said softly that no blame lay on Trojans and Achaeans for suffering over such a woman, so terribly like the deathless goddesses. Still, let her go home in the ships and not remain a grief for them and their children after them.