To whom Achilles, swift of foot, replied: “Haughtiest of men, and greediest of the prey! How shall our valiant Greeks for thee seek out Some other spoil? no common fund have we Of hoarded treasures; what our arms have won From captur’d towns, has been already shar’d, Nor can we now resume th’ apportion’d spoil. Restore the maid, obedient to the God! And if Heav’n will that we the strong-built walls Of Troy should raze, our warriors will to thee A threefold, fourfold recompense assign.” To whom the monarch Agamemnon thus: “Think not, Achilles, valiant though thou art In fight, and godlike, to defraud me thus; Thou shalt not so persuade me, nor o’erreach. Think’st thou to keep thy portion of the spoil, While I with empty hands sit humbly down? The bright-ey’d girl thou bidd’st me to restore; If then the valiant Greeks for me seek out Some other spoil, some compensation just, ’Tis well: if not, I with my own right hand Will from some other chief, from thee perchance, Or Ajax, or Ulysses, wrest his prey; And woe to him, on whomsoe’er I call! But this for future counsel we remit: Haste we then now our dark-ribb’d bark to launch, Muster a fitting crew, and place on board The sacred hecatomb; then last embark The fair Chryseis; and in chief command Let some one of our councillors be plac’d, Ajax, Ulysses, or Idomeneus, Or thou, the most ambitious of them all, That so our rites may soothe the angry God.” To whom Achilles thus with scornful glance; “Oh, cloth’d in shamelessness! oh, sordid soul! How canst thou hope that any Greek for thee Will brave the toils of travel or of war? Well dost thou know that ’t was no feud of mine With Troy’s brave sons that brought me here in arms; They never did me wrong; they never drove My cattle, or my horses; never sought In Phthia’s fertile, life-sustaining fields To waste the crops; for wide between us lay The shadowy mountains and the roaring sea. With thee, O void of shame! with thee we sail’d, For Menelaus and for thee, ingrate, Glory and fame on Trojan crests to win. All this hast thou forgotten, or despis’d; And threat’nest now to wrest from me the prize I labour’d hard to win, and Greeks bestow’d. Nor does my portion ever equal thine, When on some populous town our troops have made Successful war; in the contentious fight The larger portion of the toil is mine; But when the day of distribution comes, Thine is the richest spoil; while I, forsooth, Must be too well content to bear on board Some paltry prize for all my warlike toil. To Phthia now I go; so better far, To steer my homeward course, and leave thee here But little like, I deem, dishonouring me, To fill thy coffers with the spoils of war.”