The Iliad: Book 10

But not the great field marshal Agamemnon—
the sweet embrace of sleep could not hold him:
his mind kept churning, seething.

Like Zeus's bolts
when the lord of bright-haired Hera flashes lightning,
threatening to loose torrential rain or pelting hail
or snow when a blizzard drifts on fields

But soon this recourse struck his mind as best:
he would go and approach the son of Neleus first
and see if Nestor could work out something with him

Agamemnon warmed with pleasure as he came up
but Menelaus lord of the war cry ventured first,
"Why arming now, my brother? To spur a volunteer
to spy on Trojan lines?..."

That's what we need now.
you and I both, and cunning tactics too.

I've never seen or heard tell of a single man
wreaking so much havoc in one day as Hector

His war-belt lay beside him, gleaming in all its fire.
The old man cinched it on whenever he'd harness up

So often he hangs back, with no heart for the work,
not that he shrinks from action, skittish or off guard—
it's just that he looks to me, waiting for me
to make the first move.

With that he slipped his tunic over his chest,
under his smooth feet he fastened supple sandals,
pinned with a brooch his crimson cape around him

But the veteran fighter lay there fast asleep,
the cured hide of a field ox spread beneath him,
a lustrous blanket stretched beneath his head.

The old charioteer moved in and woke him roughly,
dug a heel in his ribs, chiding him to his face,
"Up with you, Diomedes! What, sleep all night?..."

Trojans hold the high ground,
over the beachhead there, camped against the ships

Like sheepdogs keeping watch on flocks in folds,
a nervous, bristling watch when the dogs get wind
of a wild beast rampaging down through mountain timber

My friends, isn't there one man among us here,
so sure of himself, his soldier's nerve and pluck,
he'd infiltrate these overreaching Trojans?

Perhaps he'd seize a straggler among the foe
or catch some rumor floating along their lines.

Are they bent on holding tight by the ships, exposed?—
or heading home to Troy, now they've trounced our armies?

They'll ask that man to every feast and revel.

But King Agamemnon interceded quickly,
"Diomedes, soldier after my own heart,
pick your comrade now, whomever you want..."

Once they'd appealed to Zeus's mighty daughter,
into the black night they went like two lions
stalking through the carnage and the corpses,
through piles of armor and black pools of blood.

I'll reconnoiter the ships and gather all I can.

Soon as he got a furlong's lead ahead,
the plowing-range of a good team of mules—
faster than draft oxen dragging a bolted plow
through deep fallow ground—the two raced after

Treasures cram our house,
bronze and gold and plenty of well- wrought iron

Each man he'd stand above
and chop with the sword, the cool tactician Odysseus
grappled from behind, grabbing the fighter's heels

...a desperate rout of them rushing up to the bloodbath there
stood staring down at the grisly work the marauders did
before they made their dash for the beaked ships.

And once they reached Tydides' sturdy lodge
they tethered the horses there with well-cut reins,
hitching them by the trough where Diomedes' stallions
pawed the ground, champing their sweet barley.