The bloody Hector stretch'd before thy feet.Īnd twelve sad victims, of the Trojan line, Hear, and rejoice on Pluto's dreary coast 'All hail, Patroclus! let thy honour'd ghost On his dead friend's cold breast, and thus he said: His slaughtering hands, yet red with blood, he laid Melts their strong hearts, and bids their eyes to flow.īut chief, Pelides: thick–succeeding sighsīurst from his heart, and torrents from his eyes: Tears bathe their arms, and tears the sands bedew.įor such a warrior Thetis aids their woe, (Achilles first) their coursers round the dead Īnd thrice their sorrows and laments renew The troops obey'd and thrice in order led Some rites remain, to glut our rage of grief.' Release your smoking coursers from the car Įre yet from rest or food we seek relief, 'Not yet, my brave companions of the war, These yet assembled great Achilles holds,Īnd the stern purpose of his mind unfolds:

The Grecians seek their ships, and clear the strand, Lies on broad Hellespont's resounding shore. The body soil'd with dust, and black with gore, Through the sad city mourn'd her hero slain. Thus humbled in the dust, the pensive train The night following, the ghost of Patroclus appears to Achilles: the one–and–thirtieth day is employed in felling the timber for the pile: the two–and–thirtieth in burning it and the three–and–thirtieth in the games. Achilles institutes the funeral games: the chariot–race, the fight of the caestus, the wrestling, the foot–race, the single combat, the discus, the shooting with arrows, the darting the javelin: the various descriptions of which, and the various success of the several antagonists, make the greatest part of the book. When the pile has burned all night, they gather the bones, place them in an urn of gold, and raise the tomb. He pays libations to the Winds, which (at the instance of Iris) rise, and raise the flames. Achilles sacrifices several animals, and lastly twelve Trojan captives, at the pile then sets fire to it. The funeral procession, and the offering their hair to the dead. After the funeral feast he retires to the sea–shore, where, falling asleep, the ghost of his friend appears to him, and demands the rites of burial the next morning the soldiers are sent with mules and waggons to fetch wood for the pyre. You should visit Browse Happy and update your internet browser today!Īchilles and the Myrmidons do honours to the body of Patroclus.

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Human chariot races