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Summary
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The Achaeans are beaten, and Agamemnon proposes to sail away. Nestor tells him that he must first reconcile with Achilles, and Agamemnon offers Briseis, treasure, cities, and a marriage alliance.
Odysseus, Aias, and Phoenix find Achilles singing to the lyre. He feasts them but rejects the offer: he says that the Achaeans have never fought for him, that Agamemnon has taken his prize, and that he will not trade his life for gifts. Phoenix tells the story of Meleager, but Achilles does not yield.
Opening lines
Thus kept the Trojans watch, but the Achaeans were holden of wondrous Panic, the handmaid of numbing fear and with grief intolerable were all the noblest stricken. — Homer, Iliad IX.1ff., trans. A. T. Murray (Loeb; Perseus Digital Library, CC BY-SA 4.0).
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