Achilles (Mythological character); Epic poetry, Greek -- Translations into English; Trojan War
and among them followed fleet-footed Achilles, shedding hot tears, for
his true comrade he saw lying on the bier, mangled by the keen bronze.
Him sent he forth with chariot and horses unto the battle, but home
again welcomed never more.
Then Hera the ox-eyed queen sent down the unwearying Sun to be gone
unwillingly unto the streams of Ocean. So the Sun set, and the noble
Achaians made pause from the stress of battle and the hazardous war.
But the Achaians all night made moan in lamentation for Patroklos. And
first of them in the loud lamentation was the son of Peleus, laying
upon the breast of his comrade his man-slaying hands and moaning very
sore, even as a deep-bearded lion whose whelps some stag-hunter hath
snatched away out of a deep wood; and the lion coming afterward
grieveth and through many glens he rangeth on the track of the
footsteps of the man, if anywhere he might find him, for most bitter
anger seizeth him;—thus Achilles moaning heavily spake among the
Myrmidons: “Ay me, vain verily was the word I uttered on that day when
I cheered the hero Menoitios in his halls and said that I would bring
back to Opoeis his son in glory from the sack of Ilios with the share
of spoil that should fall unto him. Not all the purposes of men doth
Zeus accomplish for them. It is appointed that both of us redden the
same earth with our blood here in Troy-land, for neither shall the old
knight Peleus welcome me back home within his halls, nor my mother
Thetis, but even here shall earth keep hold on me. Yet now, O
Patroklos, since I follow thee under earth, I will not hold thy funeral
till I have brought hither the armour and the head of Hector, thy
high-hearted slayer, and before thy pyre I will cut the throats of
twelve noble sons of the men of Troy, for mine anger thou art slain.
Till then beside the beaked ships shalt thou lie as thou art, and
around thee deep-bosomed women, Trojan and Dardanian, shall mourn thee
weeping night and day, even they whom we toiled to win by our strength
and, our long spears when we sacked rich cities of mortal men.”
Thus spake noble Achilles, and bade his comrades set a great tripod on
the fire, that with all speed they might wash from Patroklos the bloody
gore. So they set a tripod of ablution on the burning fire, and poured
therein water and took wood and kindled it beneath; and the fire
wrapped the belly of the tripod, and the water grew hot. And when the
water boiled in the bright bronze, then washed they him and anointed
with olive oil, and filled his wounds with fresh ointment, and laid him
on a bier and covered him with soft cloth from head to foot, and
thereover a white robe. Then all night around Achilles fleet of foot
the Myrmidons made lament and moan for Patroklos.
Meanwhile Zeus spake unto Hera his sister and wife: “Thou hast
accomplished this, O Hera, ox-eyed queen, thou hast aroused Achilles
fleet of foot. Verily of thine own children must the flowing-haired
Achaians be.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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