chieftains and kings, and these have them still; from me alone of
the Achaeans did he take the woman in whom I delighted--let him
keep her and sleep with her. Why, pray, must the Argives needs
fight the Trojans? What made the son of Atreus gather the host
and bring them? Was it not for the sake of Helen? Are the sons of
Atreus the only men in the world who love their wives? Any man of
common right feeling will love and cherish her who is his own, as
I this woman, with my whole heart, though she was but a fruitling
of my spear. Agamemnon has taken her from me; he has played me
false; I know him; let him tempt me no further, for he shall not
move me. Let him look to you, Ulysses, and to the other princes
to save his ships from burning. He has done much without me
already. He has built a wall; he has dug a trench deep and wide
all round it, and he has planted it within with stakes; but even
so he stays not the murderous might of Hector. So long as I
fought the Achaeans Hector suffered not the battle range far from
the city walls; he would come to the Scaean gates and to the oak
tree, but no further. Once he stayed to meet me and hardly did he
escape my onset: now, however, since I am in no mood to fight
him, I will to-morrow offer sacrifice to Jove and to all the
gods; I will draw my ships into the water and then victual them
duly; to-morrow morning, if you care to look, you will see my
ships on the Hellespont, and my men rowing out to sea with might
and main. If great Neptune vouchsafes me a fair passage, in three
days I shall be in Phthia. I have much there that I left behind
me when I came here to my sorrow, and I shall bring back still
further store of gold, of red copper, of fair women, and of iron,
my share of the spoils that we have taken; but one prize, he who
gave has insolently taken away. Tell him all as I now bid you,
and tell him in public that the Achaeans may hate him and beware
of him should he think that he can yet dupe others for his
effrontery never fails him.

"As for me, hound that he is, he dares not look me in the face.
I will take no counsel with him, and will undertake nothing in
common with him. He has wronged me and deceived me enough, he
shall not cozen me further; let him go his own way, for Jove has
robbed him of his reason. I loathe his presents, and for himself
care not one straw. He may offer me ten or even twenty times what
he has now done, nay--not though it be all that he has in the
world, both now or ever shall have; he may promise me the wealth
of Orchomenus or of Egyptian Thebes, which is the richest city in
the whole world, for it has a hundred gates through each of which
two hundred men may drive at once with their chariots and horses;
he may offer me gifts as the sands of the sea or the dust of the
plain in multitude, but even so he shall not move me till I have
been revenged in full for the bitter wrong he has done me. I will
not marry his daughter; she may be fair as Venus, and skilful as
Minerva, but I will have none of her: let another take her, who
may be a good match for her and who rules a larger kingdom. If
the gods spare me to return home, Peleus will find me a wife;
there are Achaean women in Hellas and Phthia, daughters of kings
that have cities under them; of these I can take whom I will and
marry her. Many a time was I minded when at home in Phthia to woo
and wed a woman who would make me a suitable wife, and to enjoy
the riches of my old father Peleus. My life is more to me than
all the wealth of Ilius while it was yet at peace before the
Achaeans went there, or than all the treasure that lies on the
stone floor of Apollo's temple beneath the cliffs of Pytho.
Cattle and sheep are to be had for harrying, and a man buy both
tripods and horses if he wants them, but when his life has once
left him it can neither be bought nor harried back again.

"My mother Thetis tells me that there are two ways in which I may
meet my end. If I stay here and fight, I shall not return alive
but my name will live for ever: whereas if I go home my name will
die, but it will be long ere death shall take me. To the rest of
you, then, I say, 'Go home, for you will not take Ilius.' Jove
has held his hand over her to protect her, and her people have
taken heart. Go, therefore, as in duty bound, and tell the
princes of the Achaeans the message that I have sent them; tell
them to find some other plan for the saving of their ships and
people, for so long as my displeasure lasts the one that they
have now hit upon may not be. As for Phoenix, let him sleep here
that he may sail with me in the morning if he so will. But I
will not take him by force."

They all held their peace, dismayed at the sternness with which
he had denied them, till presently the old knight Phoenix in his
great fear for the ships of the Achaeans, burst into tears and
said, "Noble Achilles, if you are now minded to return, and in
the fierceness of your anger will do nothing to save the ships
from burning, how, my son, can I remain here without you? Your
father Peleus bade me go with you when he sent you as a mere lad
from Phthia to Agamemnon. You knew nothing neither of war nor of
the arts whereby men make their mark in council, and he sent me
with you to train you in all excellence of speech and action.
Therefore, my son, I will not stay here without you--no, not
though heaven itself vouchsafe to strip my years from off me, and
make me young as I was when I first left Hellas the land of fair
women. I was then flying the anger of father Amyntor, son of
Ormenus, who was furious with me in the matter of his concubine,
of whom he was enamoured to the wronging of his wife my mother.
My mother, therefore, prayed me without ceasing to lie with the
woman myself, that so she hate my father, and in the course of
time I yielded. But my father soon came to know, and cursed me
bitterly, calling the dread Erinyes to witness. He prayed that no
son of mine might ever sit upon knees--and the gods, Jove of the
world below and awful Proserpine, fulfilled his curse. I took
counsel to kill him, but some god stayed my rashness and bade me


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