I answer’d him: ‘I was induc’d t’ invade These under-parts, most excellent of Greece, To visit wise Tiresias, for advice Of virtue to direct my voyage home To rugged Ithaca; since I could come To note in no place, where Achaia stood, And so liv’d ever, tortur’d with the blood In man’s vain veins. Thou, therefore, Thetis’ son, Hast equall’d all, that ever yet have won The bliss the earth yields, or hereafter shall. In life thy eminence was ador’d of all, Ev’n with the Gods; and now, ev’n dead, I see Thy virtues propagate thy empery To a renew’d life of command beneath; So great Achilles triumphs over death.’ This comfort of him this encounter found; ‘Urge not my death to me, nor rub that wound, I rather wish to live in earth a swain, Or serve a swain for hire, that scarce can gain Bread to sustain him, than, that life once gone, Of all the dead sway the imperial throne. But say, and of my son some comfort yield, If he goes on in first fights of the field, Or lurks for safety in the obscure rear? Or of my father if thy royal ear Hath been advertis’d, that the Phthian throne He still commands, as greatest Myrmidon? Or that the Phthian and Thessalian rage (Now feet and hands are in the hold of age) Despise his empire? Under those bright rays, In which heav’n’s fervour hurls about the days. Must I no more shine his revenger now, Such as of old the Ilion overthrow Witness’d my anger, th’ universal host Sending before me to this shady coast, In fight for Grecia. Could I now resort, (But for some small time) to my father’s court, In spirit and pow’r as then, those men should find My hands inaccessible, and of fire my mind, That durst with all the numbers they are strong Unseat his honour, and suborn his wrong.’ This pitch still flew his spirit, though so low, And this I answer’d thus: ‘I do not know Of blameless Peleus any least report, But of your son, in all the utmost sort, I can inform your care with truth, and thus: From Scyros princely Neoptolemus By fleet I convey’d to the Greeks, where he Was chief, at both parts, when our gravity Retir’d to council, and our youth to fight. In council still so fiery was Conceit In his quick apprehension of a cause, That first he ever spake, nor pass’d the laws Of any great stay, in his greatest haste. None would contend with him, that counsell’d last, Unless illustrious Nestor, he and I Would sometimes put a friendly contrary On his opinion. In our fights, the prease Of great or common, he would never cease, But far before fight ever. No man there, For force, he forcéd. He was slaughterer Of many a brave man in most dreadful fight. But one and other whom he reft of light, In Grecian succour, I can neither name, Nor give in number. The particular fame Of one man’s slaughter yet I must not pass; Eurypylus Telephides he was, That fell beneath him, and with him the falls Of such huge men went, that they show’d like whales[8] Rampir’d about him. Neoptolemus Set him so sharply, for the sumptuous