poured them on his head, and defiled his comely countenance; but the dark ashes every where adhered to his rich[1] tunic. But he, mighty, lay extended at great length in the dust, and tearing he disordered his hair with his hands. The handmaids, whom Achilles and Patroclus had taken, grieved in their souls, shrieked aloud, and ran out of the door round warlike Achilles; and all smote their breasts with their hands,[2] and the limbs of each were relaxed. Antilochus, on the other side, lamented, shedding tears, holding the hands of Achilles; (and he kept groaning within his generous heart), for he feared lest he should cut his throat with his sword. Then he moaned dreadfully, and his venerable mother heard him, sitting in the depths of the sea, beside her aged father, and immediately lamented: and all the goddesses assembled around her, as many Nereïdes as were at the bottom of the sea. There were Glauce, Thaleia, and Cymodoce, Nesæa, Spio, Thoa, and large-eyed Halia, Cymothoë, Actæa, and Limnorea, Melita, Iæra, Amphithoë, and Agave, Doto, Proto, Pherusa, and Dynamene, Dexamene, Amphinome, and Callianira, Doris, Panope, and distinguished Galatea, Nemertes, Apseudes, and Callianassa. There were also Clymene, Ianira, and Ianassa, Mæra, Orithya, and fair-haired Amathea, and other Nereïdes which were in the depths of the sea. But the resplendent cave was full of them, and all at once they beat their breasts; but Thetis began the lamentation:
"Hear, sister Nereïdes, that hearing ye may all well know what griefs are in my mind. Woe is me wretched! woe is me who have in an evil hour brought forth the bravest [of men], I who, after having borne a son, blameless and valiant, the chief of heroes, and he grew up[3] like a young tree:
- ↑ So νεκτάρεον ἑανόν, iii. 385.—Heyne.
- ↑ In illustration of this custom of mourners, cf. Virg. Æn. i. 484:
"Crinibus Iliades passis, peplumque ferebant
Suppliciter tristes, et tunsæ pectora palmis."Ovid, Fast. iv. 454: "Et feriunt mœstæ pectora nuda manus." Silius xii. 528. Petronius, ciii. p. 509, ed. Burm.: "Sparsis prosequi crinibus, aut nudatum pectus plangere;" cxv.: "Percussi semel iterumque pectus." See Westerhov. on Ter. Hec. ii. 3, 49; Northmore on Tryphiodor. 34; and Blomf. on Æsch. Choeph. 27.
- ↑ Ἀνεδραμον is used in the same way by Herodot. vii. 156, viii. 55; Theocrit. xvii. 29. It corresponds to our English phrase "to run up."
