pointed out to them, laid him down; and immediately heaped on abundant wood for him. Then again swift-footed Achilles remembered another thing. Standing apart from the pile, he cut off his yellow hair, which he had nurtured, blooming, for the river Sperchius;[1] and, moaning, he spoke, looking upon the dark sea:
"In vain, O Sperchius, did my father Peleus vow to thee, that I, returning to my dear native land, should there cut off my hair for thee, and offer a sacred hecatomb; and besides, that I would in the same place sacrifice fifty male sheep at the fountains, where are a grove and fragrant altar to thee. Thus the old man spake, but thou hast not fulfilled his will. And now, since I return not to my dear fatherland, I will give my hair to the hero Patroclus, to be borne (with him)." Thus saying, he placed his hair in the hands of his dear companion; and excited among them all a longing for weeping. And the light of the sun had certainly set upon them, mourning, had not Achilles, standing beside, straightway addressed Agamemnon:
"O son of Atreus (for to thy words the people of the Greeks most especially hearken), it is possible to satiate one's self even with weeping;[2] but now do thou dismiss them from the pile, and order them to prepare supper. We, to whom the corpse is chiefly a care, will labor concerning these things; but let the chiefs remain with us."
But when the king of men, Agamemnon, heard this, he immediately dispersed the people among the equal ships; but the mourners remained there, and heaped up the wood. They formed a pile[3] a hundred feet this way and that, and laid the body upon the summit of the pile, grieving at heart.
- ↑ On this custom, cf. Schol. Hesiod. Theog. 348: Ἁπόλλωνι καὶ ποταμοῖς οἱ νέοι ἀπέτεμον τὰς κόμας, διὰ τὸ αὐξησεως καὶ ἀνατροφῆς αἰτίους εἶναι. See Lindenbrog on Censorin. de Die Nat. i. p. 6, and Blomf. on Æsch. Choeph. s. init., with my own note. Statius, Achill. i. 628, "Quærisne meos, Sperchie, natatus. Promissasque comas?" Cf. Pausan. i. 43, 4; Philostrat. Her. xi.
- ↑ See Buttm. Lesil. p. 25. "Achilles speaks of the expediency of terminating the lamentations of the army at large, and leaving what remains to be performed in honor of the deceased to his more particular friends."—Kennedy.
- ↑ In illustration of the following rites, cf. Virg. Æn. iii. 62; v. 96; vi. 215; x. 517; xi. 80, 197, sqq.; and the notes of Stephens on Saxo Grammat. p. 92.
