Odyssey 8.79 · Book 8, lines 79–82
The oracle at Pytho
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ὣς γάρ οἱ χρείων μυθήσατο Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων Πυθοῖ ἐν ἠγαθέῃ, ὅθʼ ὑπέρβη λάινον οὐδὸν χρησόμενος· τότε γάρ ῥα κυλίνδετο πήματος ἀρχὴ Τρωσί τε καὶ Δαναοῖσι Διὸς μεγάλου διὰ βουλάς.
For so Phoebus Apollo had foretold to him, prophesying at holy Pytho, when he stepped over the stone threshold to consult the oracle; for then the beginning of woe was rolling upon Trojans and Danaans, through the will of great Zeus.
Word by word
The setting
The song explains why Agamemnon was glad: an oracle. Apollo at Delphi (Pytho) had once foretold to him that a quarrel among the Greeks would mark the start of their troubles — the will of Zeus already turning toward the doom of Troy.
A note on this passage
The song fills in its own background. Apollo had prophesied to Agamemnon at holy Pytho, when the king crossed the stone threshold of the oracle, that such a strife would come — and so, hearing Odysseus and Achilles quarrel, he thought the sign fulfilled. Meanwhile the beginning of woe was already rolling toward Trojans and Greeks alike, by the will of great Zeus.
The lines set a human misreading against a divine plan. Agamemnon takes the quarrel as the promised sign and is glad, but the poem tells us the real machinery: the 'beginning of woe' rolling forward is Zeus's, not the quarrel's. Delphi's word was true and the king still misread it — the oracle grants knowledge without granting sense, and the great suffering comes down through the will of Zeus, as the whole tradition says it must.
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