"Thou art reft from me, dear child, and cureless pain Hast left to me! Oh that upon my face The veiling earth had fallen, ere I saw Thy bitter doom! No pang more terrible Hath ever stabbed mine heart no, not that hour Of exile, when I fled from fatherland And noble parents, fleeing Hellas through, Till Peleus welcomed me with gifts, and lord Of his Dolopians made me. In his arms Thee through his halls one day he bare, and set Upon my knees, and bade me foster thee, His babe, with all love, as mine own dear child:
I hearkened to him: blithely didst thou cling About mine heart, and, babbling wordless speech, Didst call me `father' oft, and didst bedew My breast and tunic with thy baby lips.
Ofttimes with soul that laughed for glee I held Thee in mine arms; for mine heart whispered me `This fosterling through life shall care for thee, Staff of thine age shall be.' And that mine hope Was for a little while fulfilled; but now Thou hast vanished into darkness, and to me Is left long heart-ache wild with all regret.
Ah, might my sorrow slay me, ere the tale To noble Peleus come! When on his ears Falleth the heavy tidings, he shall weep And wail without surcease. Most piteous grief We twain for thy sake shall inherit aye, Thy sire and I, who, ere our day of doom, Mourning shall go down to the grave for thee -- Ay, better this than life unholpen of thee!"
So moaned his ever-swelling tide of grief.
And Atreus' son beside him mourned and wept With heart on fire with inly smouldering pain:
"Thou hast perished, chiefest of the Danaan men, Hast perished, and hast left the Achaean host Fenceless! Now thou art fallen, are they left An easier prey to foes. Thou hast given joy To Trojans by thy fall, who dreaded thee As sheep a lion. These with eager hearts Even to the ships will bring the battle now.
Zeus, Father, thou too with deceitful words Beguilest mortals! Thou didst promise me That Priam's burg should be destroyed; but now That promise given dost thou not fulfil, But thou didst cheat mine heart: I shall not win The war's goal, now Achilles is no more."
So did he cry heart-anguished. Mourned all round Wails multitudinous for Peleus' son:
The dark ships echoed back the voice of grief, And sighed and sobbed the immeasurable air.
And as when long sea-rollers, onward driven By a great wind, heave up far out at sea, And strandward sweep with terrible rush, and aye Headland and beach with shattered spray are scourged, And roar unceasing; so a dread sound rose Of moaning of the Danaans round the corse, Ceaselessly wailing Peleus' aweless son.
And on their mourning soon black night had come, But spake unto Atreides Neleus' son, Nestor, whose own heart bare its load of grief Remembering his own son Antilochus:
"O mighty Agamemnon, sceptre-lord Of Argives, from wide-shrilling lamentation Refrain we for this day. None shall withhold Hereafter these from all their heart's desire Of weeping and lamenting many days.
But now go to, from aweless Aeacus' son Wash we the foul blood-gouts, and lay we him Upon a couch: unseemly it is to shame The dead by leaving them untended long."
So counselled Neleus' son, the passing-wise.
Then hasted he his men, and bade them set Caldrons of cold spring-water o'er the flames, And wash the corse, and clothe in vesture fair, Sea-purple, which his mother gave her son At his first sailing against Troy. With speed They did their lord's command: with loving care, All service meetly rendered, on a couch Laid they the mighty fallen, Peleus' son.
The Trito-born, the passing-wise, beheld And pitied him, and showered upon his head Ambrosia, which hath virtue aye to keep Taintless, men say, the flesh of warriors slain.
Like softly-breathing sleeper dewy-fresh She made him: over that dead face she drew A stern frown, even as when he lay, with wrath Darkening his grim face, clasping his slain friend Patroclus; and she made his frame to be More massive, like a war-god to behold.
And wonder seized the Argives, as they thronged And saw the image of a living man, Where all the stately length of Peleus' son Lay on the couch, and seemed as though he slept.
Around him all the woeful captive-maids, Whom he had taken for a prey, what time He had ravaged hallowed Lemnos, and had scaled The towered crags of Thebes, Eetion's town, Wailed, as they stood and rent their fair young flesh, And smote their breasts, and from their hearts bemoaned That lord of gentleness and courtesy, Who honoured even the daughters of his foes.
And stricken most of all with heart-sick pain Briseis, hero Achilles' couchmate, bowed Over the dead, and tore her fair young flesh With ruthless fingers, shrieking: her soft breast Was ridged with gory weals, so cruelly She smote it thou hadst said that crimson blood Had dripped on milk. Yet, in her griefs despite, Her winsome loveliness shone out, and grace Hung like a veil about her, as she wailed:
"Woe for this grief passing all griefs beside!
Never on me came anguish like to this Not when my brethren died, my fatherland Was wasted -- like this anguish for thy death!
Thou wast my day, my sunlight, my sweet life, Mine hope of good, my strong defence from harm, Dearer than all my beauty -- yea, more dear Than my lost parents! Thou wast all in all To me, thou only, captive though I be.
Thou tookest from me every bondmaid's task And like a wife didst hold me. Ah, but now Me shall some new Achaean master bear To fertile Sparta, or to thirsty Argos.
The bitter cup of thraldom shall I drain, Severed, ah me, from thee! Oh that the earth Had veiled my dead face ere I saw thy doom!"
So for slain Peleus' son did she lament With woeful handmaids and heart-anguished Greeks, Mourning a king, a husband. Never dried Her tears were: ever to the earth they streamed Like sunless water trickling from a rock While rime and snow yet mantle o'er the earth Above it; yet the frost melts down before The east-wind and the flame-shafts of the sun.
