Priam called Helen kindly: come here, dear child; sit before me and see your former husband, kinsmen, and friends. You are not to blame in my eyes; the gods brought this tearful war of the Achaeans. Tell me the name of that huge Achaean so tall and kingly — others are taller by a head, but I have never seen a man so fine. Helen, grieving and ashamed, answered that she wished ugly death had pleased her when she followed his son, leaving bridal chamber, darling daughter, and companions of her age. Yet that man was Atreus’s son, wide-ruling Agamemnon, good king and strong spearman, once her brother-in-law, shameless as she was.
Priam wondered and said that when he was in Phrygia he had seen many horsemen of Otreus and Mygdon camped by Sangarius, and he had been their ally the day the Amazons came, peers of men. Yet even those were not as many as the quick-glancing Achaeans. He asked next about the shorter, broad-shouldered man moving through the ranks like a thick-fleeced ram among shining sheep. Helen named resourceful Odysseus of rugged Ithaca, who excelled in all manner of stratagems. Antenor confirmed it from the old embassy: he had entertained Odysseus and Menelaus in his own house. When they spoke before the Trojans, Menelaus spoke few clear words, being no rambler though younger. But when Odysseus rose, first seeming awkward and silent with eyes on the ground and staff held stiff, you would have said he was sullen or even foolish. Then his great voice came like winter snowflakes, and no mortal could contend with him.
Priam saw huge Aias, whose head and broad shoulders towered above the Argives. And Helen named him bulwark of the Achaeans, then Idomeneus among the Cretans looking like a god, whom Menelaus had often entertained when he came from Crete. She looked for her brothers Castor breaker of horses and Polydeuces good with the fists. She wondered whether they had not followed from lovely Lacedaemon, or whether shame and the many reproaches that were hers kept them from the fighting. She did not know life-giving earth already held them in Lacedaemon, in their own dear native land.
Priam went down to the plain with Antenor after the heralds brought lambs, wine, mixing-bowl, and golden cups. Agamemnon and Odysseus rose; heralds mixed wine and poured water over the kings’ hands. Agamemnon cut hair from the lambs and prayed to Zeus ruling from Ida, to the Sun who sees and hears all, to rivers and earth, and to the punishers below who take whoever swears falsely. If Paris killed Menelaus, he would keep Helen and the goods. And the Achaeans would go home. If Menelaus killed Paris, the Trojans must give back Helen, goods, and a penalty fitting and remembered even among men yet to be. And if Priam and his sons would not pay, Agamemnon would fight on for the penalty until he reached the end of the war.