Full many sorrows rankle at the core. 420
Those whom he sent each holds in ken,
But to their homes return
Armour and in the funeral urn,
Ashes instead of men.
Strophe III.
For Ares, bartering for gold
The flesh of men, the scales doth hold
In battle of the spear.
From Ilion, back to sorrowing friends,
Rich dust, fire-purified, he sends,
Wash'd with full many a tear.
No living warriors greet them, but instead
Urns filled with ashes smoothly spread. 430
Groaning, each hero's praise they tell;
How this excelled in martial strife;
And that in fields of carnage fell,
Right nobly for another's wife.
Breathing such murmurs, jealous hate
Doth on the Atridan champions wait.
Achaians, cast in fairest mould,
Ensépulchred 'neath Ilion's wall,
The foughten shore now firmly hold, 440
The hostile sod their pall.
Antistrophe III.
Direful the people's voice, to hate
Attuned, which worketh soon or late
As ban of public doom.
