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trifled with, and he bade me ask who the wounded man was whom you<br />

were bearing away from the field. I can now see <strong>for</strong> myself that he<br />

is Machaon shepherd of his people. I must go back and tell Achilles.<br />

You, sir, know what a terrible man he is, and how ready to blame even<br />

where no blame should lie."<br />

And Nestor answered, "Why should Achilles care to know how many of<br />

the Achaeans may be wounded? He recks not of the dismay that reigns<br />

in our host; our most valiant chieftains lie disabled, brave Diomed<br />

son of Tydeus is wounded; so are Ulysses and Agamemnon; Eurypylus<br />

has been hit with an arrow in the thigh, and I have just been bringing<br />

this man from the field-­‐ he too wounded-­‐ with an arrow; nevertheless<br />

Achilles, so valiant though he be, cares not and knows no ruth. Will<br />

he wait till the ships, do what we may, are in a blaze, and we perish<br />

one upon the other? As <strong>for</strong> me, I have no strength nor stay in me any<br />

longer; would that I Were still young and strong as in the days when<br />

there was a fight between us and the men of Elis about some cattle-­‐raiding.<br />

I then killed Itymoneus the valiant son of Hypeirochus a dweller in<br />

Elis, as I was driving in the spoil; he was hit <strong>by</strong> a dart thrown my<br />

hand while fighting in the front rank in defence of his cows, so he<br />

fell and the country people around him were in great fear. We drove<br />

off a vast quantity of booty from the plain, fifty herds of cattle<br />

and as many flocks of sheep; fifty droves also of pigs, and as many<br />

wide-­‐spreading flocks of goats. Of horses moreover we seized a hundred<br />

and fifty, all of them mares, and many had foals running with them.<br />

All these did we drive <strong>by</strong> night to Pylus the city of Neleus, taking<br />

them within the city; and the heart of Neleus was glad in that I had<br />

taken so much, though it was the first time I had ever been in the

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