But Menelaus said:
‘Be of good courage. The wound is not deep, for my glistering belt in front and my kirtle of mail beneath stayed the deadly arrow.’
Then did they send for a skilled physician. And he, when he was come, drew forth the arrow, and sucked the blood and spread healing drugs upon the wound.
While the physician tended Menelaus, throughout the Greek host went Agamemnon.
‘To arms!’ he said to his men. ‘The men of Troy have broken the oath of peace that they took, and for us it is to punish them. No helper of liars is Zeus, and so shall they fall before us and their flesh be given to the vultures for their food!’
All those of his men that he found preparing eagerly for the battle, he praised. But to those that he found shrinking from battle he gave angry words, whether they were common soldiers or great chiefs.
To Diomedes he came at last.
‘Dost thou hold back from battle, Diomedes?’ he cried. ‘Such was not thy father’s way. Ever in battle was he the first. But his son is not a fighter such as he, though in speech he may be more skilled.’
No answer did Diomedes make, for he reverenced Agamemnon the king.
But a comrade who stood by him cried out in anger at the injustice of his words.