[119]. Iliad, xix. 400-403 (Way’s trans.).
[120]. Ib. xix. 408-17 (Way’s trans.).
But here the Erinyes, guardians of the natural order, interposed, and Xanthus’s brief burst of eloquence was brought to a close. The arrested prophecy, however, was only too intelligible; it could not deter, but it exasperated; and provoked the ensuing fiery rejoinder—a ‘passionate outcry of a soul in pain,’ if ever there was one—
Xanthus, why bodest thou death unto me? Thou needest not so.
Myself well know my weird, in death to be here laid low,
Far-off from my dear loved sire, from the mother that bare me afar;
Yet cease will I not till I give to the Trojans surfeit of war.
He spake, and with shouts sped onward the thunder-foot steeds of his car.[[121]]
[121]. Iliad, xix. 420-24 (Way’s trans.).
The aged Peleus was, indeed, destined to leave unredeemed his vow of flinging to the stream of the Spercheus the yellow locks of his safely-returned son; they were laid instead on the pyre of Patroclus. Nor was their wearer ever to revisit the forest fastnesses of Pelion, where he had learned from Chiron to draw the bow and cull healing herbs; yet of the short time allotted to him for vengeance not a moment should be lost.