Odysseus Speaks With Agamemnon

ODYSSEUS SPEAKS WITH AGAMEMNON


"Agamemnon, will you heed?  It cannot fall by force!
Great Troy will stand against all tides:  Against Achilles, yet she bides!
We must another course!"
"Then tell me, King of Ithaca, tell me if you will?
Pray tell me how I need not spend the lives of all my loyal men
to bring this city ill?

Priam has offended me in his Great Citadel!
For years he keeps my brothers' wife inside those walls, and offers strife,
for which, I offer Hell!
I am King of Mycenae, indeed, of all of Greece!
I'll have his heart, or have his head, it will not matter once he's dead,
and then his land I'll fleece!"

"Will you 'fleece' it with the blood now mixed within the sand?
Think you that you can win the spoils there, because your blood now boils
so, to burn this land?
More than men are striving here to have the final say.
The Gods Themselves strive o'er this plain, and 'tis no man alive and sane
can work where Gods will play!

We must choose another course to win the Trojan Plain..
Else every battle we have fought these ten long years will be for naught,
and every death in vain!
I will get you Priam's throne, but grant me first a stay.
For God's Wills must I scrutinize if there be hope to gain the prize
and with it, win the day!"

Agamemnon, King of Kings, does long regard his friend.
His heart prefers to charge and fight and end it all this very night,
and bring this war to end!
Peering in these cunning eyes he cannot solve the maze.
Odysseus' eyes are clear.  The high king knows there's more to hear,
and simply says:  "Two days.

Two days only will I bide, my sly and twisted friend.
For two days will I pace these shores, attending on this plan of yours
to bring me Priam's end!
Mark you though this final point 'ere more you waste my breath:
If you should bring me naught to face but misty trails 'pon which to race,
you may instead find death!"