Lamenting bitterly. Upon thy corse They put ambrosial robes. The Muses nine Bewailed thee with sweet voices, answering Each other. Then wouldst thou have seen no one Of all the Argive host with eyes unwet, The Muses’ song so moved them. Seventeen days And nights we mourned thee—both the immortal ones And mortals. On the eighteenth day we gave Thy body to the fire, and at the pile Slew many fatling ewes, and many an ox With crooked horns. In raiment of the gods The fire consumed thee midst anointing oils And honey. Many heroes of our host In armor and in chariots, or on foot, Contended round thy funeral pyre in games, And mighty was the din. And when at length The fires of Vulcan had consumed thy flesh, We gathered up at morning thy white bones, Achilles, pouring over them pure wine And fragrant oils. Thy mother brought a vase Of gold, which Bacchus gave, she said, the work Of Vulcan the renowned, and in it now, Illustrious son of Peleus, thy white bones Are lying, and with thine are mingled those Of dead Patroclus Menoetiades. Apart we placed the ashes of thy friend Antilochus, whom thou didst honor most After the slain Patroclus. O’er all these The sacred army of the warlike Greeks Built up a tomb magnificently vast Upon a cape of the broad Hellespont, There to be seen, far off upon the deep, By those who now are born, or shall be born In future years. Thy mother, having first Prayed to the gods, appointed noble games, Within the circus, for the Achaian chiefs. Full often have I seen the funeral rites Of heroes, when the youth, their chieftain dead, Were girded for the games, and strove to win The prizes; but I most of all admired Those which the silver-footed Thetis gave To mark thy burial, who wert loved by all The immortals. So thou hast not lost by death Thy fame, Achilles, and among the tribes Of men thy glory will be ever great; But what hath it availed me to have brought The war on Ilium to an end, since Jove Doomed me to be destroyed on my return, Slain by Aegisthus and my guilty wife?”
So talked they with each other. Now approached The herald Argus-queller, bringing down The souls of suitors by Ulysses slain. Both chiefs