There also was Ajax, the valiant son of Telamon, huge in body and slow in speech, but, next to Achilles, the bravest of all the host. And the other Ajax, clad in his linen corslet, and master of forty ships from Locris, moved also among the mightiest of the heroes. There, too, was Nestor, the aged king of Pylos, rich in wisdom and experience, and skilled in persuasive speech. With him was his son Antilochus, the quondam suitor of fair Helen, a warrior worthy of such a sire.
And there was Idomeneus, the stalwart chief who ruled the hundred cities of Crete, and was the sworn friend of Menelaus. And there was Philoctetes, the cunning archer, carrying the great bow which had been given him for his last sad act of friendship to his master, Heracles. And there was Diomede, of the loud war-cry, wearing the skin of a great fiery lion round his shoulders, and marshalling the warriors who had come with him from Argos, and Tiryns of the mighty walls. And there, too, among so many others of far greater worth, was Nireus of Syma, his well-oiled locks as neatly curled, and his linen as spotlessly white, as when in youth he had sued for Helen's hand in the court of old Tyndareus.
Now when the day had come for the fleet to sail, the chiefs stood upon the shore, and offered solemn sacrifices to Poseidon, and prayed the gods to prosper them in their undertaking and bring them safe again to their loved homes in Hellas. While they were burning the choicest bits of fat and flesh, behold, a strange thing happened! From a crevice in the rocks a shining serpent, with glittering cold eyes and forked tongue, came creeping silently into the sunlight. The heroes gazed upon it with wonder in their faces, for they knew that it was sent as a sign to them. Not far away stood a plane-tree, green with foliage, in which a bird had built her nest; and in the nest were nine tiny fledglings, tenderly cared for by the mother bird. Straight to this tree the serpent crept; it twined around the trunk, and stealthily climbed to the nest; it seized the helpless little ones in its fangs and devoured them; then it darted upon the distressed mother bird, and destroyed her most pitilessly. But now a gleam of lightning flashed across the sky, and a peal of thunder shook the earth and sea. When the astonished chiefs looked up again, behold, the serpent had been turned into stone.