His hot will for their temperate law: all which he never shall
Persuade at my hands. If the gods have given him the great style
Of ablest soldier, made they that his license to revile
Men with vile language?” Thetis’ son prevented him, and said:
“Fearful and vile I might be thought, if the exactions laid
By all means on me I should bear. Others command to this,
Thou shalt not me; or if thou dost, far my free spirit is
From serving thy command.”
The translation by William Cullen Bryant, book 1, page 13, line 22, reads:
To him the sovereign Agamemnon said: