FullReads

NEO.
Would that my hand might ease the wrath I feel!
Then Sparta and Mycenae should be ware
That Scyros too breeds valiant sons for war.

PHI.
Brave youth! I love thee. Tell me the great cause
Why thou inveighest against them with such heat?

NEO.
O son of Poeas, hardly shall I tell
What outrage I endured when I had come;
Yet I will speak it. When the fate of death
O’ertook Achilles–

PHI.
Out, alas! no more!
Hold, till thou first hast made me clearly know,
Is Peleus’ offspring dead?

NEO.
Alas! he is,
Slain by no mortal, felled by Phoebus’ shaft:
So men reported–

PHI.
Well, right princely was he!
And princely is he who slew him. Shall I mourn
Him first, or wait till I have heard thy tale?

NEO.
Methinks thou hast thyself enough to mourn,
Without the burden of another’s woe.

PHI.
Well spoken. Then renew thine own complaint,
And tell once more wherein they insulted thee.

NEO.
There came to fetch me, in a gallant ship,
Odysseus and the fosterer of my sire[2],
Saying, whether soothly, or in idle show,
That, since my father perished, it was known
None else but I should take Troy’s citadel.
Such words from them, my friend, thou may’st believe,
Held me not long from making voyage with speed,
Chiefly through longing for my father’s corse,
To see him yet unburied,–for I ne’er
Had seen him[3]. Then, besides, ’twas a fair cause,
If, by my going, I should vanquish Troy.
One day I had sailed, and on the second came
To sad Sigeum with wind-favoured speed,
When straightway all the host, surrounding me
As I set foot on shore, saluted me,
And swore the dead Achilles was in life,
Their eyes being witness, when they looked on me.
He lay there in his shroud: but I, unhappy,
Soon ending lamentation for the dead,
Went near to those Atridae, as to friends,
To obtain my father’s armour and all else
That had been his. And then,–alas the while,
That men should be so hard!–they spake this word:
‘Seed of Achilles, thou may’st freely take
All else thy father owned, but for those arms,
Another wields them now, Laertes’ son.’
Tears rushed into mine eyes, and in hot wrath
I straightway rose, and bitterly outspake:
‘O miscreant! What? And have ye dared to give
Mine arms to some man else, unknown to me?’
Then said Odysseus, for he chanced to be near,
‘Yea, child, and justly have they given me these.
I saved them and their master in the field.’
Then in fierce anger all at once I launched
All terms of execration at his head,
Bating no word, being maddened by the thought
That I should lose this heirloom,–and to him!
He, at this pass, though not of wrathful mood,
Stung by such utterance, made rejoinder thus:
‘Thou wast not with us here, but wrongfully
Didst bide afar. And, since thou mak’st so bold,
I tell thee, never shalt thou, as thou sayest,
Sail with these arms to Scyros.’–Thus reviled,
With such an evil echo in mine ear,
I voyage homeward, robbed of mine own right
By that vile offset of an evil tree[4].
Yet less I blame him than the men in power.
For every multitude, be it army or state,
Takes tone from those who rule it, and all taint
Of disobedience from bad counsel springs.
I have spoken. May the Atridae’s enemy
Be dear to Heaven, as he is loved by me!