Stories from the Iliad

by H. L. Havell

For all his fierce impatience, Achilles was compelled to yield. With great effort he controlled himself while the gifts were brought, and the ceremonies performed, with no circumstance of solemnity omitted, to ratify the covenant of forgiveness and reconciliation between him and Agamemnon. And so the first act in the great drama of his wrath is concluded.

II

Seven youths of princely rank, attended by a long train of bearers, were despatched to the tent of Achilles, loaded with the costly gifts of atonement from the King. With them went Briseis, thus returned to her former lord. When she saw Patroclus on the bed where he lay, she beat her breast, and, embracing the cold body, burst into a passion of weeping. "Friend of my sorrow!" she cried, "I left thee living, and I find thee dead. Woe, and more woe, is all my portion. When I came hither, an orphaned captive, bereaved of all, thou didst comfort me in my great affliction, promising, when the war was over, to make me Achilles' lawful wife. Thy gentleness and thy knightly courtesy shed balm upon my wounded spirit, and now thou art gone, and my last comfort is gone with thee."

So mourned Briseis, and all the captive ladies wept afresh when they heard her, having cause enough for tears, every one. The sound of their lamentation reached the ears of Achilles where he sat, but he remained unmoved by the tragedy of these lesser spirits, being absorbed in the sense of his own great loss. The tide of his passion had ebbed again, leaving his heart cold and desolate. His men brought him food and drink, but he repulsed them sternly, and would touch nothing. He thought of the happy past—when he and Patroclus had partaken together of many a cheerful meal—and then of the bitter present, when the sight of bread and meat filled him with loathing. He thought of his father Peleus, growing old in his solitary home, waiting in sad expectation to hear of his son's death, and of the young Neoptolemus, his own child, growing up among strangers in the island of Scyros. "Lost, lost, all lost!" he murmured; "I shall never see them again."

But the gods had not forgotten their favourite. Zeus beheld him as he sat thus stricken and forlorn, and sent Athene to inspire him with new comfort and strength. Unseen, she alighted at his side, and fed him, though he knew it not, with heavenly food, filling his heart with more than mortal vigour and courage. Meanwhile the clash of arms rang through the camp as the Greeks marched out, column after column, to battle, thick as autumnal leaves, or hovering snowflakes in winter. The air seemed on fire with the flash of myriads of spears, and the earth shook beneath the thunder of their tread.

Roused by the sound, Achilles sprang to his feet, and buckled on his corslet, and clasped the greaves to his ankles. Then he flung the sword over his shoulder, and thrust his arm through the strap of his shield, which shone like the full-orbed moon, or a beaconlight blazing afar over a stormy sea. Last of all, he lifted his mighty helmet, with its nodding, golden plume, and set it on his head. And now, being arrayed in his harness from head to foot, he raised himself to his towering height, and stretched his fleet limbs, to prove the armour; and it became unto him as wings, making him lighter and nimbler than ever before.

Grasping in his right hand his spear—the mighty Pelian ash, pointed with death—he went forth before the tent, where Automedon stood waiting with his car. "Now hear me, ye children of the wind!" he cried, addressing his steeds, "see that ye play me not false to-day, as when ye left Patroclus dead on the field, and came back with an empty car."

Then there befell a wondrous thing; for the good steed Xanthus, drooping low his head, answered with a human voice, and spake thus unto his master: "Yea, we will carry thee safe back, most dread Achilles, when the fight is o'er. It was by no sloth or tardiness of ours that thy brave comrade met his death; that deed was wrought by the hand of Apollo, using Hector as his instrument—even as thou too shalt be cut off by a human weapon, but by no human power."

So spake the immortal courser, for the first and the last time; for fate suffered it not again. And Achilles answered him, and said: "Waste not thy prophecies on me, good steed! I know my fate—death on the battlefield, far from my home: but ere that hour comes I will send many a Trojan to herald my coming among the dead."

Then, shouting his dread battle-cry, he sprang into his car, and drove headlong to the front.