“O son of Peleus! Thou who dost excel All other men in might and dreadful deeds⁠— For the gods aid thee ever⁠—if the son Of Saturn gives thee to destroy the race Of Trojans, drive them from me to the plain, And there perform thy terrible exploits. For now my pleasant waters, in their flow, Are choked with heaps of dead, and I no more Can pour them into the great deep, so thick The corpses clog my bed, while thou dost slay And sparest not. Now then, withhold thy hand, Prince of the people! I am horror-struck.”

Achilles the swift-footed made reply: “Be it as thou commandest, foster-child Of Jove, Scamander! Yet I shall not cease To slay these treaty-breakers till at length I shut them up within their town, and force Hector to meet me, that we may decide Which shall o’ercome the other⁠—he or I.”

He spake, and rushed upon the men of Troy, Terrible as a god, while from his bed The eddying River called to Phoebus thus:⁠—