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Dawn comes and Agamemnon, shamed into action, arms himself and leads the charge. For a time he is magnificent a king redeemed, driving through the Trojan lines, killing man after man, proving he can be the warrior he failed to be as a leader. But Homer does not let pride go unpunished. Coon strikes him, and the king of kings withdraws, wounded, back to his ships. And with his exit the tide turns. Hector surges forward like a fire through dry grass, and one by one the great Greek fighters fall Diomedes pierced, Odysseus isolated and surrounded, Eurypylus cut down. The battlefield empties of heroes until there is almost no one left standing. From his tent, Achilles sees the smoke, the rout, the dying and sends Patroclus to learn what Nestor knows. It is a small thing, a errand of curiosity, and it is the beginning of everything. The seed of grief is planted here, in this quiet sending, this single act of concern. Achilles does not know it yet, but the war has already begun to reach for the thing he loves most.
