“The time has been when thou too, hapless one, Dearest of all my comrades, wouldst have spread With diligent speed before me in my tent A genial banquet, while the Greeks prepared For desperate battle with the knights of Troy. Thou liest now a mangled corse, and I, Through grief for thee, refrain from food and drink, Though they are near. No worse calamity Could light on me, not even should I hear News of my father’s death, who haply now Tenderly mourns with tears his absent son In Phthia, while upon a foreign coast I wage for hated Helen’s sake the war Against the Trojans; or were I to hear Tidings that my beloved son had died, The noble Neoptolemus, who now, If living, is in Scyros, growing up To manhood. Once the hope was in my heart That I alone should perish here at Troy, Far from the Argive pastures full of steeds, And thou return to Phthia and bring home My son from Scyros in thy ship, and show The youth my wealth, my servants, and my halls, High-roofed and spacious. For my mind misgives