'Tis not for knaves to beard their betters: once Thou didst provoke Odysseus' steadfast soul, Babbling with venomous tongue a thousand gibes, And didst escape with life; but thou hast found The son of Peleus not so patient-souled, Who with one only buffet from his hand Unkennels thy dog's soul! A bitter doom Hath swallowed thee: by thine own rascalry Thy life is sped. Hence from Achaean men, And mouth out thy revilings midst the dead!"
So spake the valiant-hearted aweless son Of Aeacus. But Tydeus' son alone Of all the Argives was with anger stirred Against Achilles for Thersites slain, Seeing these twain were of the self-same blood, The one, proud Tydeus' battle-eager son, The other, seed of godlike Agrius:
Brother of noble Oeneus Agrius was;
And Oeneus in the Danaan land begat Tydeus the battle-eager, son to whom Was stalwart Diomedes. Therefore wroth Was he for slain Thersites, yea, had raised Against the son of Peleus vengeful hands, Exeept the noblest of Aehaea's sons Had thronged around him, and besought him sore, And held him back therefrom. With Peleus' son Also they pleaded; else those mighty twain, The mightiest of all Argives, were at point To close with clash of swords, so stung were they With bitter wrath; yet hearkened they at last To prayers of comrades, and were reconciled.
Then of their pity did the Atreid kings -- For these too at the imperial loveliness Of Penthesileia marvelled -- render up Her body to the men of Troy, to bear Unto the burg of Ilus far-renowned With all her armour. For a herald came Asking this boon for Priam; for the king Longed with deep yearning of the heart to lay That battle-eager maiden, with her arms, And with her war-horse, in the great earth-mound Of old Laomedon. And so he heaped A high broad pyre without the city wall:
Upon the height thereof that warrior-queen They laid, and costly treasures did they heap Around her, all that well beseems to burn Around a mighty queen in battle slain.
And so the Fire-god's swift-upleaping might, The ravening flame, consumed her. All around The people stood on every hand, and quenched The pyre with odorous wine. Then gathered they The bones, and poured sweet ointment over them, And laid them in a casket: over all Shed they the rich fat of a heifer, chief Among the herds that grazed on Ida's slope.
And, as for a beloved daughter, rang All round the Trojan men's heart-stricken wail, As by the stately wall they buried her On an outstanding tower, beside the bones Of old Laomedon, a queen beside A king. This honour for the War-god's sake They rendered, and for Penthesileia's own.
And in the plain beside her buried they The Amazons, even all that followed her To battle, and by Argive spears were slain.
For Atreus' sons begrudged not these the boon Of tear-besprinkled graves, but let their friends, The warrior Trojans, draw their corpses forth, Yea, and their own slain also, from amidst The swath of darts o'er that grim harvest-field.
Wrath strikes not at the dead: pitied are foes When life has fled, and left them foes no more.
Far off across the plain the while uprose Smoke from the pyres whereon the Argives laid The many heroes overthrown and slain By Trojan hands what time the sword devoured;
And multitudinous lamentation wailed Over the perished. But above the rest Mourned they o'er brave Podarces, who in fight Was no less mighty than his hero-brother Protesilaus, he who long ago Fell, slain of Hector: so Podarces now, Struck down by Penthesileia's spear, hath cast Over all Argive hearts the pall of grief.
Wherefore apart from him they laid in clay The common throng of slain; but over him Toiling they heaped an earth-mound far-descried In memory of a warrior aweless-souled.
And in a several pit withal they thrust The niddering Thersites' wretched corse.
Then to the ships, acclaiming Aeacus' son, Returned they all. But when the radiant day Had plunged beneath the Ocean-stream, and night, The holy, overspread the face of earth, Then in the rich king Agamemnon's tent Feasted the might of Peleus' son, and there Sat at the feast those other mighty ones All through the dark, till rose the dawn divine.
