While they tended Menelaus, the Trojans put on their armor and came forward, renewing the fight. You would not then have found Agamemnon asleep or cowardly; he left his bronze-rich chariot and panting horses with Eurymedon and went on foot through the Achaean lines. He encouraged men who pressed forward and rebuked those who hung back like frightened fawns that stand worn out when they can no longer run over the plain, with no spirit of courage in them. Argives, he cried to the shirkers — have you no shame to stand like this? Why are you dazed like this? Do you wait for the Trojans to come to the fine sterns of the ships drawn up on the shore of the gray sea, so you may see whether Zeus will hold his protecting hand over you?
He praised Idomeneus among the Cretans, fierce as a wild boar. He said that beyond all the Danaans with fast horses he honored him in war and in every other work, and at the feast when the Argive chiefs mixed the gleaming wine of the elders. Though the other long-haired Achaeans drank their portion, Idomeneus’s cup always stood full as Agamemnon’s own, to drink whenever the heart desired. Idomeneus promised he would be a sure companion as from the first, and urged him to rouse the rest, since the Trojans had broken the oaths. Death and grief would be theirs hereafter, since they were first to break faith.
Agamemnon rejoiced at the two Aiantes, who came with dense ranks like a black storm-cloud over the sea. He said no order was needed for them; if all Achaeans had such courage, Priam’s city would soon fall.
He found Nestor arranging chariots in front with horses and men, brave footmen behind to be a wall of war. And cowards in the middle so they would fight unwillingly if they must. Nestor commanded the horsemen to hold their horses and not charge wildly: let no man, trusting in horsemanship and manhood, be eager to fight the Trojans alone in front of the others, or fall back and weaken them. When a man from his own car came within reach of another’s, let him thrust with his spear; that was the better way. So the old man charged them, for he had been in many a fight.
Agamemnon wished Nestor’s knees and sure strength matched the judgment in his chest; but age, the common lot, pressed him. Nestor answered that he too would gladly be the man he was when he slew mighty Ereuthalion, but the gods would not give everything at one time. He was young then, and now age followed in turn. Yet even so he would be among the horsemen and command with counsel and words — that was the elders’ right. The young men would cast the spears, those later born who trusted in their strength.