Agamemnon's day

Battle resumes at dawn. Agamemnon arms himself in the most elaborate arming-scene of the poem so far — Homer slows down to describe each piece of bronze and silver — and goes into the field with the kind of fury he has not shown before. He kills man after man, driving the Trojan line back almost to the gates of Troy. Hector pulls back, on Iris's instruction, until Agamemnon falls. Then a Trojan named Coön spears Agamemnon in the arm. Agamemnon kills Coön, then has to retire from the field bleeding heavily.

Hector, freed by Agamemnon's wound, charges. The Greek line takes its second crisis. Diomedes is hit in the foot by an arrow from Paris and limps off. Odysseus is wounded in the side; he holds the line until Menelaus and Ajax arrive to drag him out. Ajax himself fights back to back with Menelaus. Eurypylus is wounded by another arrow. The Greek captains are falling, one by one, and only Ajax remains intact in the line — holding the center alone, retreating step by step.

Achilles is watching from his ship at the edge of the camp. He sees an old man go past on a chariot with a wounded warrior, and recognizes neither at the distance — it is Nestor with the wounded Machaon. He sends Patroclus to the medical tent to ask who the wounded man is. Patroclus goes. Nestor gives him the bad news about all the wounded Greeks and then, with great care, suggests a course of action: if Achilles will not return, will he at least let Patroclus borrow his armor and lead the Myrmidons, his men? Patroclus is moved. He runs back toward Achilles's tent. The chain that ends with his death has been set in motion.