“Unhappy chiefs and princes of the Greeks! Are ye then doomed to feast with your fair limbs The famished dogs of Ilium, far away From friends and country? Tell me, child of Jove, Gallant Eurypylus, will yet the Greeks Withstand the mighty Hector, or give way And perish, overtaken by his spear?”
And thus the wise Eurypylus replied:— “Nursling of Jove, Patroclus! For the Greeks There is no help, and all at their black ships Must perish; for within them even now All those who were our bravest warriors lie, Wounded in close encounter, or from far, By Trojan hands, whose strength with every hour Becomes more terrible. Give now thine aid And take me to my ship, and cut away The arrow from my thigh, and from the part Cleanse with warm water the dark blood, and shed Soothing and healing balms upon the wound, As taught thee by Achilles, who had learned The art from Chiron, righteous in his day Beyond all other Centaurs. Now the leech Machaon lies, I think, among the tents, Wounded, and needs the aid of others’ skill, And Podalirius out upon the plain Helps stem the onset of the Trojan host.”
Then spake the valiant Menoetiades:— “O brave Eurypylus! What yet will be The end of this, and what are we to do? Even now I bear a message on my way From reverend Nestor, guardian of the Greeks, To the great warrior, Peleus’ son; and yet I must not leave thee in thine hour of need.”
He spake; and, lifting in his arms the prince, He bore him to his tent. A servant spread, Upon his entering, hides to form a couch; And there Patroclus laid him down and cut The rankling arrow from his thigh, and shed Warm water on the wound to cleanse away The purple blood, and last applied a root Of bitter flavor to assuage the smart, Bruising it first within his palms: the pangs Ceased; the wound dried; the blood no longer flowed.