“Do not deceive yourself with wit,” he answer’d, “god-like man, Though your good name may colour it; ’tis not your swift foot can Outrun me here; nor shall the gloss, set on it with the God, Persuade me to my wrong. Wouldst thou maintain in sure abode Thine own prise, and slight me of mine? Resolve this: if our friends, As fits in equity my worth, will right me with amends, So rest it; otherwise, myself will enter personally On thy prise, that of Ithacus, or Ajax, for supply; Let him on whom I enter rage. But come, we’ll order these Hereafter, and in other place. Now put to sacred seas Our black sail; in it rowers put, in it fit sacrifice; And to these I will make ascend my so much envied prise, Bright-cheek’d Chryseis. For conduct of all which, we must choose A chief out of our counsellors. Thy service we must use, Idomenëus; Ajax, thine; or thine, wise Ithacus; Or thine, thou terriblest of men, thou son of Peleüs, Which fittest were, that thou might’st see these holy acts perform’d For which thy cunning zeal so pleads; and he, whose bow thus storm’d For our offences, may be calm’d.” Achilles, with a frown, Thus answer’d: “O thou impudent! of no good but thine own Ever respectful, but of that with all craft covetous, With what heart can a man attempt a service dangerous, Or at thy voice be spirited to fly upon a foe, Thy mind thus wretched? For myself, I was not injur’d so By any Trojan, that my pow’rs should bid them any blows; In nothing bear they blame of me; Phthia, whose bosom flows With corn and people, never felt impair of her increase By their invasion; hills enow, and far-resounding seas, Pour out their shades and deeps between; but thee, thou frontless man, We follow, and thy triumphs make with bonfires of our bane; Thine, and thy brother’s, vengeance sought, thou dog’s eyes, of this Troy By our expos’d lives; whose deserts thou neither dost employ With honour nor with care. And now, thou threat’st to force from me The fruit of my sweat, which the Greeks gave all; and though it be, Compar’d with thy part, then snatch’d up, nothing; nor ever is At any sack’d town; but of fight, the fetcher in of this, My hands have most share; in whose toils when I have emptied me Of all my forces, my amends in liberality, Though it be little, I accept, and turn pleas’d to my tent; And yet that little thou esteem’st too great a continent In thy incontinent avarice. For Phthia therefore now My course is; since ’tis better far, than here t’ endure that thou Should’st still be ravishing my right, draw my whole treasure dry, And add dishonour.” He replied: “If thy heart serve thee, fly; Stay not for my cause; others here will aid and honour me; If not, yet Jove I know is sure; that counsellor is he That I depend on. As for thee, of all our Jove-kept kings Thou still art most my enemy; strifes, battles, bloody things, Make thy blood-feasts still. But if strength, that these moods build upon, Flow in thy nerves, God gave thee it; and so ’tis not thine own,