"At last is Hector stretch'd upon the plain, Who fear'd no vengeance for Patroclus slain: Then, prince! you should have fear'd what now you feel; Achilles absent was Achilles still: Yet a short space the great avenger stayed, Then low in dust thy strength and glory laid. Peaceful he sleeps, with all our rites adorn'd, Forever honor'd, and forever mourn'd: While cast to all the rage of hostile power, Thee birds shall mangle, and the dogs' devour." Then Hector, fainting at the approach of death: By thy own soul! by those who gave thee breath! By all the sacred prevalence of prayer; Oh, leave me not for Grecian dogs to tear! The common rites of sepulture bestow, To soothe a father's and a mother's woe: Yet their large gifts procure an urn at least, And Hector's ashes in his county rest." "No, wretch accursed!" relentless he replies (Flames, as he spoke, shot flashing from his eyes); "Not those who gave me breath should bid me spare, For all the sacred prevalence of prayer, Would I myself the bloody banquet join! So--to the dogs that carcase I resign. Should Troy, to bribe me, bring forth all her store, And giving thousands, offer thousands more; Should Dardan Priam, and his weeping dame, Drain their whole realm to buy one funeral flame: Their Hector on the pile they should not see. Nor rob the vultures of one limb of thee." Then thus the chief his dying accents drew: "Thy rage, implacable! too well I knew: The Furies* that relentless breast have steel'd, And cursed thee with a heart that cannot yield. Yet think, a day will come, when fate's decree And angry gods shall wreak this wrong on thee; Phoebus and Paris shall avenge my fate, And stretch thee here before the Scaean gate." *[Footnote: The Furies were three hideous sisters who sometimes drove people mad with rage and remorse.] He ceased. The Fates suppress'd his laboring breath, And his eyes stiffen'd at the hand of death; To the dark realm the spirit wings its way (The manly body left a load of clay), And plaintive glides along the dreary coast, A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost! Achilles, musing as he roll'd his eyes O'er the dead hero, thus unheard, replies. "Die thou the first! When Jove and heaven ordain, I follow thee."--He said, and stripp'd the slain. Then forcing backward from the gaping wound The reeking javelin, cast it on the ground. The thronging Greeks behold with wondering eyes His manly beauty and superior size; While some, ignobler, the great dead deface With wounds ungenerous, or with taunts disgrace. "How changed that Hector, who like Jove of late Sent lightning on our fleets, and scatter'd fate!"