Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
sorrow: but he would not be comforted till he should have flung
himself into the jaws of battle, and he fetched sigh on sigh, thinking
ever of Patroclus. Then he said-
“Hapless and dearest comrade, you it was who would get a good
dinner ready for me at once and without delay when the Achaeans
were hasting to fight the Trojans; now, therefore, though I have
meat and drink in my tents, yet will I fast for sorrow. Grief greater
than this I could not know, not even though I were to hear of the
death of my father, who is now in Phthia weeping for the loss of me
his son, who am here fighting the Trojans in a strange land for the
accursed sake of Helen, nor yet though I should hear that my son is
no more- he who is being brought up in Scyros- if indeed
Neoptolemus is still living. Till now I made sure that I alone was to
fall here at Troy away from Argos, while you were to return to
Phthia, bring back my son with you in your own ship, and show
him all my property, my bondsmen, and the greatness of my
house- for Peleus must surely be either dead, or what little life
remains to him is oppressed alike with the infirmities of age and
ever present fear lest he should hear the sad tidings of my death.”
He wept as he spoke, and the elders sighed in concert as each
thought on what he had left at home behind him. The son of Saturn
looked down with pity upon them, and said presently to Minerva,
“My child, you have quite deserted your hero; is he then gone so
clean out of your recollection? There he sits by the ships all
desolate for the loss of his dear comrade, and though the others are
gone to their dinner he will neither eat nor drink. Go then and drop
nectar and ambrosia into his breast, that he may know no hunger.”
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