Achilles the swift-footed answered thus:— “Illustrious Ajax, son of Telamon, Prince of the people! All that thou hast said, I well perceive, is prompted by thy heart. Mine swells with indignation when I think How King Atrides mid the assembled Greeks Heaped insults on me, as if I had been A wretched vagabond. But go ye now And bear my message. I shall never think Of bloody war till noble Hector, son Of Priam, slaughtering in his way the Greeks, Shall reach the galleys of the Myrmidons, To lay the fleet in flames. But when he comes To my own tent and galley, he, I think, Though eager for the combat, will desist.”
He spake. Each raised a double cup and poured Libations to the gods; they then returned Beside the fleet. Ulysses led the way.
Patroclus bade the attendant men and maids Strew with all speed a soft and ample bed For Phoenix. They obeyed, and spread the couch With skins of sheep, dyed coverlets, and sheets Of lawn; and there the old man lay to wait The glorious morn. Meantime Achilles slept Within the tent’s recess, and by him lay Phorbas’s daughter, whom he carried off From Lesbos—Diomede, rosy-cheeked. Upon the other side Patroclus lay, With slender-waisted Iphis by his side, Given by the great Achilles when he took Scyros the