Thus fighting for this well-built ship; Patroclus all that space Stood by his friend, preparing words to win the Greeks his grace, With pow’r of uncontainéd tears; and, like a fountain pour’d In black streams from a lofty rock, the Greeks so plagu’d deplor’d. Achilles, ruthful for his tears, said: “Wherefore weeps my friend So like a girl, who, though she sees her mother cannot tend Her childish humours, hangs on her, and would be taken up, Still viewing her with tear-drown’d eyes, when she hath made her stoop, To nothing liker I can shape thy so unseemly tears. What causeth them? Hath any ill solicited thine ears Befall’n my Myrmidons? Or news from lovéd Phthia brought, Told only thee, lest I should grieve, and therefore thus hath wrought On thy kind spirit? Actor’s son, the good Menœtius, Thy father, lives, and Peleus, mine, great son of Æacus, Amongst his Myrmidons; whose deaths, in duty we should mourn, Or is it what the Greeks sustain, that doth thy stomach turn, On whom, for their injustice’ sake, plagues are so justly laid? Speak, man, let both know either’s heart.” Patroclus, sighing, said: “O Peleus’ son, thou strongest Greek by all degrees that lives, Still be not angry, our sad state such cause of pity gives, Our greatest Greeks lie at their ships sore wounded; Ithacus, King Agamemnon, Diomed, and good Eurypylus; But these much-med’cine-knowing men, physicians, can recure, Thou yet unmed’cinable still, though thy wound all endure, Heav’n bless my bosom from such wrath as thou sooth’st as thy bliss, Unprofitably virtuous. How shall our progenies, Born in thine age, enjoy thine aid, when these friends, in thy flow’r, Thou leav’st to such unworthy death? O idle, cruel pow’r! Great Peleus never did beget, nor Thetis bring forth thee, Thou from the blue sea, and her rocks, deriv’st thy pedigree, What so declines thee? If thy mind shuns any augury, Related by thy mother-queen from heav’n’s foreseeing eye, And therefore thou forsak’st thy friends, let me go ease their moans With those brave relics of our host, thy mighty Myrmidons, That I may bring to field more light to conquest than hath been. To which end grace me with thine arms, since, any shadow seen Of thy resemblance, all the pow’r of perjur’d Troy will fly, And our so-tiréd friend’s will breathe; our fresh-set-on supply Will eas’ly drive their wearied off.” Thus, foolish man, he sued For his sure death; of all whose speech Achilles first renew’d The last part thus: “O worthy friend, what have thy speeches been? I shun the fight for oracles, or what my mother queen Hath told from Jove? I take no care, nor note of one such thing! But this fit anger stings me still, that the insulting king Should from his equal take his right, since he exceeds in pow’r. This, still his wrong, is still my grief: He took my paramour That all men gave, and whom I won by virtue of my spear, That, for her, overturn’d a town. This rape he made of her, And used me like a fugitive, an inmate in a town,