me when born, has snatched me away. And to thyself also, O godlike Achilles, thy fate is to perish beneath the wall of the noble Trojans. But another thing I bid, and will command, O Achilles, if thou wilt obey, not to lay my bones apart from thine; but as we were nurtured together in thy palaces, when Menœtius led me from Opus, a little boy, to thy home, on account of a melancholy homicide, on that day when, imprudent, I slew the sou of Amphidamas, not wishing it, enraged about the dice:[1] then Peleus received me in his abode, carefully reared me, and named me thy attendant. So may the same tomb contain our bones, the golden vase which thy venerable mother gave thee."
But him swift-footed Achilles, answering, addressed:
"Why, O venerable friend, hast thou come to me, and commandest each of these things to me? Yet will I readily accomplish all these things for thee, and obey as thou commandest. But stand nearer to me, that embracing each other even for a little while, we may indulge in sad lamentation."
Thus then having spoken, he stretched out with his friendly arms, nor caught him;[2] for the spirit went gibbering[3] beneath the earth, like smoke. Then Achilles sprang up astonished, and clapped together his hands, and spoke this doleful speech:
"Alas! there is indeed then, even in the dwellings of Hades, a certain spirit and image, but there is no body[4] in it at all; for all night the spirit of miserable Patroclus stood by me, groaning and lamenting, and enjoined to me each particular, and was wonderfully like unto himself."
Thus he spoke; and excited among them all a longing for lamentation; and rosy-fingered Morn appeared to them while weeping around the miserable corpse. But king Agamemnon incited every where from the tents both mules and
- ↑ See the quaint remarks of Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living, p. 224.
- ↑ Cf. Georg. iv. 499; Æn. ii. 790, iv. 276; Lucan, iii. 34.
- ↑ See Odyss. xxiv. sub. init., where the same word is applied to the shades of the suitors of Penelope.
- ↑ By φρένες we may understand the power of using reason aud judgment, with Duport, Gnom. p. 128, and Jeremy Taylor, Holy Dying, p. 524. But ver. 100 seems to require the interpretation which I have followed; Clarke rendering it " præcordia."
