All save Agamemnon wished to accept the ransom and set Chryseis free, but he was wroth with the priest and roughly bade him begone.
‘Let me not find thee, old man,’ he cried, ‘amid the ships, whether tarrying now or returning again hereafter, lest the sacred staff of the god avail thee naught. And thy daughter will I not set free. But depart, provoke me not, that thou mayest the rather go in peace.’
Then Chryseis was angry with Agamemnon, while for his daughter’s sake he wept.
Down by the ‘shore of the loud-sounding sea’ he walked, praying to Apollo, ‘Hear me, god of the silver bow. If ever I built a temple gracious in thine eyes, or if ever I burnt to thee fat flesh ... of bulls or goats, fulfil thou this my desire; let the Greeks pay by thine arrows for my tears.’
Apollo heard the cry of the priest, and swift was his answer. For he hastened to the tents of the Greeks, bearing upon his shoulders his silver bow, and he sped arrows of death into the camp.
Dogs, mules, men, all fell before the arrows of the angry god. The bodies of the dead were burned on great piles of wood, and the smoke rose black toward the sky.
For nine days the clanging of the silver bow was heard. Then Achilles called the hosts of the Greeks together, and before them all he spoke thus to Agamemnon: ‘Let us go home, Son of Atreus,’ he said, ‘rather than perish, as we surely shall do if we remain here. Else let us ask a priest why Apollo treats us thus harshly.’
But it was easy to tell why Apollo was angry, and Calchas, a seer, answered Achilles in plain-spoken words. ‘The wrath of the god is upon us,’ he said, ‘for the sake of the priest whom Agamemnon spurned, refusing to accept the ransom of his daughter. Let Chryseis be sent back to her father, and for sacrifice also a hundred beasts, that the anger of the god may be pacified.’
Deep was the wrath of Agamemnon as he listened to the words of Calchas.
‘Thou seer of evil,’ he cried, his eyes aflame with anger, ‘never yet hast thou told me the thing that is pleasant. Yet that the hosts of our army perish not, I will send the maiden back. But in her place will I take Briseis the Fair-cheeked, whom Achilles has in his tent.’