“I seem to know already, my father, that I am not of the blood royal,” he said, with his speech falling thick; “I begin to feel that I shall never be admitted into that most high company that holds festival with Zeus. I am the craven-hearted one, my father; for such as me there is no place in the great world out of doors.”
The boy laid his tired eyes to the wood of the table with a gesture of despair.
“Courage, beloved one,” said his father, laying his hands about his shoulders with a woman’s tenderness. “Every strong soul now in Hades had its moment of repining. These mighty ones were often in tears.”
No words, however, would bring consolation to the boy.
“There is no place in the great world out of doors for the craven-hearted,” he would say continually at this time.
Upon the evening of the last day of the fourth week his father proposed to him that he should spare a frame that by now seemed no more than a reed.
“I think I must tell you, Achilles,” he said, “that our little room is in no immediate danger of being taken from us. I have been thinking that perhaps it were better that you rested from your too-great labours for a while.”
“No, no, my father,” said the boy almost fiercely for one of such strange gentleness, “I was fearing that you would speak to me thus.”
“Other labours might be found for you,” said his father; “labours, my noble Achilles, more consonant to your quality.”
“No, no, my father,” said the boy, “I would not have you speak thus to a flesh that is frail with its weakness. And pray mock me with the name of Achilles no more.”