In best soils, grew and flourishéd; and when his spirit did want Employment for his youth and strength, I sent him with a fleet To fight at Ilion; from whence his fate-confinéd feet Pass all my deity to retire. The court of his high birth, The glorious court of Peleüs, must entertain his worth Never hereafter. All the life he hath to live with me Must waste in sorrows. And this son I now am bent to see, Being now afflicted with some grief not usually grave, Whose knowledge and recure I seek.” This said, she left her cave, Which all left with her; swimming forth, the green waves, as they sworn, Cleft with their bosoms, curl’d, and gave quick way to Troy. Being come, They all ascended, two and two, and trod the honour’d shore, Till where the fleet of Myrmidons, drawn up in heaps, it bore. There stay’d they at Achilles’ ship; and there did Thetis lay Her fair hand on her son’s curl’d head, sigh’d, wept, and bade him say What grief drew from his eyes those tears? “Conceal it not,” said she, “Till this hour thy uplifted hands have all things granted thee. The Greeks, all thrust up at their sterns, have pour’d out tears enow, And in them seen how much they miss remission of thy vow.” He said, “’Tis true, Olympius hath done me all that grace, But what joy have I of it all, when thus thrusts in the place Loss of my whole self in my friend? Whom, when his foe had slain, He spoil’d of those profanéd arms, that Peleus did obtain From heav’n’s high Pow’rs, solemnizing thy sacred nuptial bands, As th’ only present of them all, and fitted well their hands, Being lovely, radiant, marvellous. O would to heav’n thy throne, With these fair Deities of the sea, thou still hadst sat upon, And Peleus had a mortal wife; since by his means is done So much wrong to thy grievéd mind, my death being set so soon, And never suff’ring my return to grace of Peleus’ court! Nor do I wish it; nor to live in any man’s resort, But only that the crying blood, for vengeance of my friend Mangled by Hector, may be still’d; his foe’s death paying his end.” She, weeping, said: “That hour is near, and thy death’s hour then nigh; Which, in thy wish serv’d of thy foe, succeedeth instantly.” “And instantly it shall succeed,” he answer’d “since my fate Allow’d not to my will a pow’r to rescue, ere the date Of his late slaughter, my true friend. Far from his friends he died, Whose wrong therein my eyes had light and right to see denied. Yet now I neither light myself, nor have so spent my light, That either this friend or the rest (in numbers infinite Slaughter’d by Hector) I can help, nor grace with wish’d repair To our dear country, but breathe here unprofitable air, And only live a load to earth with all my strength, though none Of all the Grecians equal it. In counsel many a one Is my superior; what I have, no grace gets; what I want Disgraceth all. How then too soon can hastiest death supplant My fate-curst life? Her instrument to my indignity