At Troy!

Lust for fighting and the slaughter prevent me from sleeping tonight. With the arrival of rosy-fingered dawn, we will take to the plains of Troy and win glory and honor. Diplomacy has failed. Those haughty sons of Priam have refused our offers. Event the skillful tongue of wily Odysseus, cleverest of all men, could not convince them to give back Helen. Fools! Tomorrow they will feel the battle frenzy of the Achaeans, and green fear will overcome them at the sight of our greatest warrior, Achilles. None, even brilliant Hector, can match him in the din of battle, that scion of Ares!

I pray to the gods that I may live up to the name given to me by my beloved mother and father–Protesilaos, first of men. May I be the first of the Achaeans to strike down my man and the first to gain glory on the plains of Ilium. I fear not the words of Thetis that the first man to land on Trojans shores will be the first to die. Thetis fears for the death of her son and will stop at nothing to protect him. She bluffs to prevent her eager son from fighting. Her words are of no consequence to me.