"I came to inquire of Teiresias," answered Odysseus, "concerning my return to Ithaca. All my life I am a bondslave to toil and woe; but thou, Achilles, wast happy in thy life, honoured as a god by all the sons of Hellas; and now thou art happy, even in death, for honour waits on thy footsteps still." "Tell me not of comfort in death," replied Achilles. "Rather would I breathe the air of heaven, yea, though I were thrall to a man of little substance, than reign as king over all the shades of the dead. But give me some news of my son, Neoptolemus. Came he to fight with the Trojans after I was gone, and did he acquit him well? And knowest thou aught of my father, Peleus? Lives he still in honour and comfort among my people, or has he been driven into beggary by violent men, now that he is old and I am not near to aid him? Oh, for an hour of life, with such might as was mine when I fought in the van for Greece? Then should they pay a bitter reckoning, whosoever they be that wrong him and keep him from his own." "Of Peleus," answered Odysseus, "I have heard nothing, but of thy son, Neoptolemus, I can tell thee much, for I myself brought him from Scyros to fight in Helen's cause, and thereafter my eye was ever upon him, to mark how he bore himself. In council none could vie with him, save only Nestor and myself; ne'er saw I so rare a wit in so young a head. And when the Greeks were arrayed in battle against the Trojans he was never seen to hang back, but fought ever in the van among the foremost champions, like a mighty man of war. Nor was it only in the clamour and heat of war that he proved his mettle; for in that perilous hour when we lay ambushed in the wooden horse, when the stoutest hearts among us quailed, he never changed colour, but sat fingering his spear and sword, waiting for the signal to go forth to the assault. And after we had sacked the lofty towers of Troy he received a goodly portion of the spoil, and a special prize of honour, and so departed, untouched by point or blade, to his father's house." When he heard these brave tidings of his son, Achilles rejoiced in spirit, and strode with lofty gait along the plain of asphodel.