So shall I reach (if Ocean’s mighty God450 Prosper my passage) Phthia the deep-soil’d On the third day. I have possessions there, Which hither roaming in an evil hour I left abundant. I shall also hence Convey much treasure, gold and burnish’d brass,455 And glittering steel, and women passing fair My portion of the spoils. But he, your King, The prize he gave, himself resumed, And taunted at me. Tell him my reply, And tell it him aloud, that other Greeks460 May indignation feel like me, if arm’d Always in impudence, he seek to wrong Them also. Let him not henceforth presume, Canine and hard in aspect though he be, To look me in the face. I will not share465 His counsels, neither will I aid his works. Let it suffice him, that he wrong’d me once, Deceived me once, henceforth his glozing arts Are lost on me. But let him rot in peace Crazed as he is, and by the stroke of Jove470 Infatuate. I detest his gifts, and him So honor as the thing which most I scorn. And would he give me twenty times the worth Of this his offer, all the treasured heaps Which he possesses, or shall yet possess,475 All that Orchomenos within her walls, And all that opulent Egyptian Thebes Receives, the city with a hundred gates, Whence twenty thousand chariots rush to war, And would he give me riches as the sands,480 And as the dust of earth, no gifts from him Should soothe me, till my soul were first avenged For all the offensive license of his tongue. I will not wed the daughter of your Chief, Of Agamemnon. Could she vie in charms485 With golden Venus, had she all the skill Of blue-eyed Pallas, even so endow’d She were no bride for me. No. He may choose From the Achaians some superior Prince, One more her equal. Peleus, if the Gods490 Preserve me, and I safe arrive at home, Himself, ere long, shall mate me with a bride. In Hellas and in Phthia may be found Fair damsels many, daughters of the Chiefs Who guard our cities; I may choose of them,495 And make the loveliest of them all my own. There, in my country, it hath ever been My dearest purpose, wedded to a wife Of rank convenient, to enjoy in peace Such wealth as ancient Peleus hath acquired.500 For life, in my account, surpasses far In value all the treasures which report Ascribed to populous Ilium, ere the Greeks Arrived, and while the city yet had peace; Those also which Apollo’s marble shrine505 In rocky Pytho boasts. Fat flocks and beeves May be by force obtain’d, tripods and steeds Are bought or won, but if the breath of man Once overpass its bounds, no force arrests Or may constrain the unbodied spirit back.510 Me, as my silver-footed mother speaks Thetis, a twofold consummation waits. If still with battle I encompass Troy, I win immortal glory, but all hope Renounce of my return. If I return515 To my beloved country, I renounce The illustrious meed of glory, but obtain Secure and long immunity from death. And truly I would recommend to all To voyage homeward, for the fall as yet520