_Ach._ Fear! By the gods: take up thy beard again, And thy mock dotage shield thee. _Ul._ Nay, Achilles; If I spake wrong I will recall the word. _Ach._ Thou didst unutterably lie. Recall it. _Ul._ Wilt thou then sail to Aulis in my ship? _Ach._ I can sail thither and not sail with thee. _Ul._ But wilt thou come? _Ach._ I answer not to thee Because thou questionest me: but since I know What will be, and hear thee in ignorance Slander fair names, I tell thee that Achilles Will come to Aulis. _Ul._ Wherefore now so long 1095 Hast thou denied thyself to thy renown? _Ach._ Thou saidst for fear; nor hast recalled the word. _Ul._ ’Twas first thy taunt which drew my mind from me: But, if it wrong thee, I recall the word. _Ach._ I think thou hast judged me by thyself, Ulysses. When thou wast summoned to the war,—who wert Not free to choose as I, but bound by oath To Menelaus to help him,—what didst thou? Why thou didst feign; and looking for disguise Thy wit persuaded thee that they who knew thee Would never deem that thou wouldst willingly Make mock of that: so thou didst put on madness, Babbling and scrabbling even before thy friends: And hadst been slavering on thy native rocks Unto this day, had not one fellow there 1110 Lightly unravelled thee, and in the furrow, Which thou with dumb delusion, morn and eve, Didst plough in the sea sand (that was thy trick), He placed thy new-born babe. That thou brok’st down Then in thine acting, that thou drav’st not on The share thro’ thine own flesh, is the best praise I have to give thee. _Ul._ Distinguish! if I feigned, ’Twas that I had a child and wife, whose ties Of tenderness I am not ashamed to own. _Ach._ I say thou wentest not unto this war 1120 But by compulsion, thou, that chargest me With fear. ’Tis thou that art the stay-at-home, Not I; my heart was ever for the war, And ’gainst my will I have been withheld: that thou Mistakest in this my duty for my leaning, Is more impeachment of thy boasted wits, Than was thy empty husbandry. Are not The Argive chiefs more subject, one and all, To this reproach of fear? Why need they me A boy of sixteen years to lead them on? 1130 Did they lack ships or men, what are my people In number? who am I in strength? what rank Have I in Hellas? Where’s the burly Ajax? Where is the son of Herakles? and Nestor The aged? Teucer and Idomeneus? Menestheus, Menelaus? and not least Where’s Diomede? _Dio._ (_coming forward_). By chance he’s here.