So spake the valiant-hearted aweless son
Of Aeacus. But Tydeus’ son alone
Of all the Argives was with anger stirred
Against Achilles for Thersites slain,
Seeing these twain were of the self-same blood,
The one, proud Tydeus’ battle-eager son,
The other, seed of godlike Agrius:
Brother of noble Oeneus Agrius was;
And Oeneus in the Danaan land begat
Tydeus the battle-eager, son to whom
Was stalwart Diomedes. Therefore wroth
Was he for slain Thersites, yea, had raised
Against the son of Peleus vengeful hands,
Except the noblest of Aehaea’s sons
Had thronged around him, and besought him sore,
And held him back therefrom. With Peleus’ son
Also they pleaded; else those mighty twain,
The mightiest of all Argives, were at point
To close with clash of swords, so stung were they
With bitter wrath; yet hearkened they at last
To prayers of comrades, and were reconciled.
Then of their pity did the Atreid kings—
For these too at the imperial loveliness
Of Penthesileia marvelled—render up
Her body to the men of Troy, to bear
Unto the burg of Ilus far-renowned
With all her armour. For a herald came
Asking this boon for Priam; for the king
Longed with deep yearning of the heart to lay
That battle-eager maiden, with her arms,
And with her war-horse, in the great earth-mound
Of old Laomedon. And so he heaped
A high broad pyre without the city wall:
Upon the height thereof that warrior-queen
They laid, and costly treasures did they heap
Around her, all that well beseems to burn
Around a mighty queen in battle slain.
And so the Fire-god’s swift-upleaping might,
The ravening flame, consumed her. All around
The people stood on every hand, and quenched
The pyre with odorous wine. Then gathered they
The bones, and poured sweet ointment over them,
And laid them in a casket: over all
Shed they the rich fat of a heifer, chief
Among the herds that grazed on Ida’s slope.
And, as for a beloved daughter, rang
All round the Trojan men’s heart-stricken wail,
As by the stately wall they buried her
On an outstanding tower, beside the bones
Of old Laomedon, a queen beside
A king. This honour for the War-god’s sake
They rendered, and for Penthesileia’s own.
And in the plain beside her buried they
The Amazons, even all that followed her
To battle, and by Argive spears were slain.
For Atreus’ sons begrudged not these the boon
Of tear-besprinkled graves, but let their friends,
The warrior Trojans, draw their corpses forth,
Yea, and their own slain also, from amidst
The swath of darts o’er that grim harvest-field.
Wrath strikes not at the dead: pitied are foes
When life has fled, and left them foes no more.
Far off across the plain the while uprose
Smoke from the pyres whereon the Argives laid
The many heroes overthrown and slain
By Trojan hands what time the sword devoured;
And multitudinous lamentation wailed
Over the perished. But above the rest
Mourned they o’er brave Podarces, who in fight
Was no less mighty than his hero-brother
Protesilaus, he who long ago
Fell, slain of Hector: so Podarces now,
Struck down by Penthesileia’s spear, hath cast
Over all Argive hearts the pall of grief.
Wherefore apart from him they laid in clay
The common throng of slain; but over him
Toiling they heaped an earth-mound far-descried
In memory of a warrior aweless-souled.
And in a several pit withal they thrust
The niddering Thersites’ wretched corse.
Then to the ships, acclaiming Aeacus’ son,
Returned they all. But when the radiant day
Had plunged beneath the Ocean-stream, and night,
The holy, overspread the face of earth,
Then in the rich king Agamemnon’s tent
Feasted the might of Peleus’ son, and there
Sat at the feast those other mighty ones
All through the dark, till rose the dawn divine.
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