“Ο dear brother, now have I ratified a treaty which will prove thy death, exposing thee alone to fight with the Trojans for the Greeks; since the Trojans have thus wounded thee, and trampled on the faithful league. But by no means shall the league and the blood of the lambs be in vain, and the pure libations, and the right hands in which we confided. For even although Olympian Jove has not immediately brought them to pass, he will however bring them to pass at last; and at a great price have they paid the penalty, 178 to wit, with their own heads, and their wives and children. For this I know well in mind and soul. A day will be, when sacred Ilium shall perish, and Priam, and the people of ashen-speared Priam; and when Saturnian Jove, lofty-throned, dwelling in the æther, will himself shake his gloomy ægis over all, wrathful on account of this treachery. These things, indeed, shall not be unaccomplished; but to me there will be grief on thy account, O Menelaus, if thou shalt die and fulfil the fate of life; then, indeed, branded with shame, shall I return to much longed-for Argos. For quickly the Greeks will bethink themselves of their fatherland, and we shall leave Argive Helen a boast to Priam and to the Trojans, and the earth will rot thy bones lying in Troy, near to an unfinished work. And thus will some one of the haughty Trojans exclaim, leaping upon the tomb of glorious Menelaus: ‘Would that Agamemnon thus wreaked his vengeance against all, as even now he has led hither an army of the Greeks in vain, and has now returned home into his dear native land, with empty ships, having left behind him brave Menelaus.’ Thus will some one hereafter say: then may the wide earth yawn for me.” Footnote 178: (return) The past tense for the future: implying that the hour of retribution is so certain, that it may be considered already arrived. But him fair-haired Menelaus accosted, cheering him: “Have courage, nor in anywise frighten the people of the Achæans. The sharp arrow has not stuck in a vital part, but before [it reached a vital part], the variegated belt, and the girdle beneath, and the plate which brass-working men forged, warded it off.” King Agamemnon answering him replied: “Would that it were so, O beloved Menelaus; but the physician shall probe the wound, and apply remedies, which may ease thee of thy acute pains.” He spoke; and thus accosted Talthybius, the divine herald: “Talthybius, summon hither with all speed the hero Machaon, son of the blameless physician Æsculapius, that he may see martial Menelaus, the chief of the Greeks, whom some skilful archer of the Trojans, or of the Lycians, has wounded with a shaft; a glory, indeed, to him, but a grief to us.”