Epic Summer: The Iliad, post 2

So Agamemnon receives the dream from Zeus that tells him to fight the Trojans NOW NOW NOW and he is going to do that but first...decides to test his men by telling them he got a dream saying they should go home?  (This is the WORST plan.  I don't know what is going on in Agamemnon's brain.)

His men, being sane and wanting less spears in their gullets, are all about this and start heading for the ships. But Hera notices and tells Athena that maybe she should do something (do it yourself, Hera!) and Athena goes down and mentions to Odysseus that maybe this journey home is a cowardly and unwise move. (Odysseus hadn't been packing up, he'd been sitting in contemplation or something.)

So Odysseus goes among the men and says "HEY GUYS.  GET BACK TO WORK, IDIOTS!" and they agree that being cowardly isn't the way to be, plus there was that prophecy about how they'd be fighting there for 9 years, and in the 10th they'd win.  "It's only been 9 months, guys.  Seriously," says Odysseus.  (Paraphrase.)

Then it's time to get ready for battle, which means it's time to give a listing of who all is there.  There are a LOT OF PEOPLE THERE.  I was listening to names and places for twenty minutes or more.  Takeaways:  There are two guys named Ajax, one of whom is the BEST FIGHTER after Achilles (who is still sitting this one out), and the other one of whom is not.  So sucks to be that guy.  There may or may not be two places with the appellation "Haunt of the doves."  I hope there ARE two because I like to imagine the competing tourist industries.  Like the Original Crab Shacks at the beach or Original Pizza places in New York. 

Now everyone's ready, and we head over to Troy where they're also getting ready for battle.  They name off some of those guys (still a lot, but way less) and Iris speaks to Priam telling him to give a better pep talk to the men.  They head out to get ready and are all ready to fight when Paris (kidnapper of Helen) challenges anyone to a fight for the right to keep Helen.  Menelaus, Helen's husband, says "HELL YES!" at which point Paris backs down a little, but Hector (best fighter of the Trojans, son of King Priam) says "Dude, don't be a wuss.  I wish you'd never been born! You ruin everything!" and Paris pulls it together and decides that he'll fight like he said he would.

They get King Priam to agree to the terms (and tell the Greeks to stop throwing rocks at the Trojans) and also let Helen watch.  Helen, by the way, has been sitting in her room embroidering cloth with scenes of the battles to be fought for her.  Isn't that nice?

There are also some sacrifices of lambs during all of this.

In case you're wondering, this is all the end of book 2 and part of book 3.