So warr’d both armies on the ensanguined shore, While the black vessels smoked with human gore. Meantime Patroclus to Achilles flies; The streaming tears fall copious from his eyes. Not faster, trickling to the plains below, From the tall rock the sable waters flow. Divine Pelides, with compassion moved. Thus spoke, indulgent, to his best beloved:[243] “Patroclus, say, what grief thy bosom bears, That flows so fast in these unmanly tears? No girl, no infant whom the mother keeps From her loved breast, with fonder passion weeps; Not more the mother’s soul, that infant warms, Clung to her knees, and reaching at her arms, Than thou hast mine! Oh tell me, to what end Thy melting sorrows thus pursue thy friend? “Griev’st thou for me, or for my martial band? Or come sad tidings from our native land? Our fathers live (our first, most tender care), Thy good Menoetius breathes the vital air, And hoary Peleus yet extends his days; Pleased in their age to hear their children’s praise. Or may some meaner cause thy pity claim? Perhaps yon relics of the Grecian name, Doom’d in their ships to sink by fire and sword, And pay the forfeit of their haughty lord? Whate’er the cause, reveal thy secret care, And speak those sorrows which a friend would share.” A sigh that instant from his bosom broke, Another follow’d, and Patroclus spoke: “Let Greece at length with pity touch thy breast, Thyself a Greek; and, once, of Greeks the best! Lo! every chief that might her fate prevent, Lies pierced with wounds, and bleeding in his tent: Eurypylus, Tydides, Atreus’ son, And wise Ulysses, at the navy groan, More for their country’s wounds than for their own. Their pain soft arts of pharmacy can ease, Thy breast alone no lenitives appease. May never rage like thine my soul enslave, O great in vain! unprofitably brave! Thy country slighted in her last distress, What friend, what man, from thee shall hope redress? No—men unborn, and ages yet behind, Shall curse that fierce, that unforgiving mind. “O man unpitying! if of man thy race; But sure thou spring’st not from a soft embrace, Nor ever amorous hero caused thy birth, Nor ever tender goddess brought thee forth: Some rugged rock’s hard entrails gave thee form, And raging seas produced thee in a storm, A soul well suiting that tempestuous kind, So rough thy manners, so untamed thy mind.