the violence of their sounding breath The billows heaved. They swept the fertile fields Of Troas, and descended on the pyre, And mightily it blazed with fearful roar. All night they howled and tossed the flames. All night Stood swift Achilles, holding in his hand A double beaker; from a golden jar He dipped the wine, and poured it forth, and steeped The earth around, and called upon the soul Of his unhappy friend. As one laments A newly married son upon whose corse The flames are feeding, and whose death has made His parents wretched, so did Peleus’ son, Burning the body of his comrade, mourn, As round the pyre he moved with frequent sighs.
Now when the star that ushers in the day Appeared, and after it the morning, clad In saffron robes, had overspread the sea, The pyre sank wasted, and the flames arose No longer, and the Winds, departing, flew Homeward across the Thracian sea, which tossed And roared with swollen billows as they went. And now Pelides from the pyre apart Weary lay down, and gentle slumber soon Came stealing over him. Meantime the Greeks Gathered round Agamemnon, and the stir And bustle of their coming woke the chief, Who sat upright and thus addressed his friends:—
“Atrides, and all ye who lead the hosts Of Greece! Our task is, first to quench the pyre With dark red wine where’er the flames have spread, And next to gather, with discerning care, The bones of Menoetiades. And these May well be known; for in the middle space He lay, and round about him, and apart Upon the border, were the rest consumed— The bodies of the captives and the steeds. Be his enclosed within a golden vase, And wrapped around with caul, a double fold, Till I too pass into the realm of Death. And be a tomb not over-spacious reared, But of becoming size, which afterward Ye whom we leave behind in our good ships, When we are gone, will build more broad and high.”
So spake the swift Pelides, and the chiefs Complied; and first they quenched with dark red wine The pyre, where’er the flames had spread,