cubine, that she might loathe the old man. Her I obeyed, and did so; but my father immediately perceiving it, uttered many execrations, and invoked the hateful Erinnys, that no dear son, sprung from me, should ever be placed upon his knees; and the gods ratified his execrations, both infernal Jove and dread Proserpine. Then my soul within my mind could no longer endure that I should sojourn in the palace while my father was enraged. My friends, indeed, and relations, being much about me, detained me there within the halls, entreating [me to stay]. Many fat sheep and stamping-footed, crooked-horned oxen they slaughtered; many swine abounding in fat were stretched out to be roasted in the flame of Vulcan, and much of the old man's wine was drunk out of earthen vessels. Nine nights did they sleep around me: while, taking it in turns, they kept watch; nor was the fire ever extinguished, one in the portico of the well-fenced hall, and another in the vestibule, before the chamber-doors. But when at length the tenth shady night had come upon me, then indeed I rushed forth, having burst the skillfully-joined doors of the apartment, and I easily overleaped the fence of the hall, escaping the notice of the watchmen and the female domestics. Afterward I fled thence through spacious Hellas, and came to fertile Phthia, the mother of sheep, to king Peleus; who kindly received me, and loved me even as a father loves his only son, born in his old age[1] to ample possessions. He made me opulent, and bestowed upon me much people, and I inhabited the extreme shores of Phthia, ruling over the Dolopians. Thee too, O godlike Achilles, have I rendered what thou art,[2] loving thee from my soul; since thou wouldst not go with another to the feast, nor take food in the mansion, until I, placing thee upon my knees, satisfied thee with viands, previously carving them, and supplied thee with wine. Often hast thou wetted the tunic upon my breast, ejecting the wine in infant peevishness.[3] Thus have I borne very many things from thee, and
- ↑ See, however, Buttm. Lexil. p. 510, sqq. who considers that τηλύγετος simply means "tenderly beloved; only that it is a more forcible expression for this idea, as is evident from the bad sense in which the word is used at Il. v. 470, where the meaning of a child spoiled by the love of its parents is evident."
- ↑ i. e., I reared thee to thy present age. Lit. "I made thee so great."
- ↑ If any one should despise these natural details as trifling and beneath
