DAVID CONSTANTINE
Nestor encourages the troops

My dears, you sound like little boys
Still pimply before they redden out
With bloodlust. Who promised then? Did not
We all with drink and a handshake
Cross our hearts and hope to die
For Agamemnon? Yapping, though we yap
Till kingdom come, will get us nowhere. Sir,
Lead them cheerfully back on to
The killing-ground and let
The one or two malingerers, the schemers
For early home-time, the impiously
Unwaiting to hear God's final word, let them
Drop dead. I personally
Believe we were given the nod and the wink
That day by Zeus. It lightened, did it not,
Righthandedly when we were boarding
Our snouted ships for Troy. Well then
For Helen's misdemeanours and your wasted years
Anticipate a just desert
Of married Trojan cunt. When we are in
And the pretty fires are burning and only toddlers
And snivelling old men encumber your knees
Remember then you thought of going home. However
If luxury to come (shitting on silks)
Will not embolden you try running and we,
Your lords, will stick you to the ships.

[after Iliad ii. 336ff]