These lines use the same formulas as Iliad 9.672–673, although there it is Agamemnon (instead of Nestor) asking Odysseus what Achilles’ answer was to the embassy’s request that he return to battle. As we discussed in our essay “Interpreting Iliad 10,” a singer could have composed these two episodes paratactically (with both episodes occurring during the course of the same night), as they appear in our Iliad, or they may have been performance alternatives of each other. The contrast between them is that while the embassy fails, Nestor treats this return as a resounding success, regardless of the insistence of some modern critics that Diomedes and Odysseus have not fulfilled their mission (see 10.406–411 for our discussion of whether Odysseus gets the information that Nestor suggested for the spying mission). Petegorsky (1982:175–254) argues that the Doloneia responds directly to the embassy’s failure, and especially to Achilles’ challenge that the Achaeans find some better mētis (Iliad 9.423).