To his high seat; the chief refused, and said:
"'Tis now no season for these kind delays;
The great Achilles with impatience stays.
To great Achilles this respect I owe;
Who asks what hero, wounded by the foe,
Was borne from combat by thy foaming steeds.
With grief I see the great Machaon bleeds.
This to report, my hasty course I bend;
Thou know'st the fiery temper of my friend."
"Can then the sons of Greece," the sage rejoined,
"Excite compassion in Achilles' mind?
Seeks he the sorrows of our host to know?
This is not half the story of our woe.
Tell him, not great Machaon bleeds alone,
Our bravest heroes in the navy groan;
Ulysses, Agamemnon, Diomed,
And stern Eurypylus, already bleed.
But ah! what flattering hopes I entertain!
Achilles heeds not, but derides our pain;
E'en till the flames consume our fleet he stays,
And waits the rising of the fatal blaze.
Chief after chief the raging foe destroys;
Calm he looks on, and every death enjoys.
Now the slow course of all-impairing time
Unstrings my nerves, and ends my manly prime;
Oh! had I still that strength my youth possessed,
When this bold arm the Epeian powers oppressed,
The bulls of Elis[1] in glad triumph led,
And stretched the great Itymonæus dead!
"Then, from my fury fled the trembling swains,
And ours was all the plunder of the plains:
Fifty white flocks, full fifty herds of swine,
As many goats, as many lowing kine:
And thrice the number of unrivalled steeds,
All teeming females, and of generous breeds.
These, as my first essay of arms, I won;
Old Neleus gloried in his conquering son.
Thus Elis forced, her long arrears restored,
And shares were parted to each Pylian lord.
The state of Pyle was sunk to last despair,
When the proud Elians first commenced the war.
For Neleus' sons Alcides' rage had slain;
Of twelve bold brothers, I alone remain;
Oppressed, we armed; and now, this conquest gained,
- ↑ Elis is the whole southern part of Peloponnesus, between Achaia and Messenia: it was originally divided into several districts or principalities, afterwards it was reduced to two—the one of the Elians, who were the same with the Epeians; the other ruled by Nestor. The city of Elis seems to be of later date than the poems.
