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and take vengeance on him who shall swear falsely, that I have laid
no hand upon the girl Briseis, neither to take her to my bed nor otherwise,
but that she has remained in my tents inviolate. If I swear falsely
may heaven visit me with all the penalties which it metes out to those
who perjure themselves."
He cut the boar's throat as he spoke, whereon Talthybius whirled it
round his head, and flung it into the wide sea to feed the fishes.
Then Achilles also rose and said to the Argives, "Father Jove, of
a truth you blind men's eyes and bane them. The son of Atreus had
not else stirred me to so fierce an anger, nor so stubbornly taken
Briseis from me against my will. Surely Jove must have counselled
the destruction of many an Argive. Go, now, and take your food that
we may begin fighting."
On this he broke up the assembly, and every man went back to his own
ship. The Myrmidons attended to the presents and took them away to
the ship of Achilles. They placed them in his tents, while the stable-­‐men
drove the horses in among the others.
Briseis, fair as Venus, when she saw the mangled body of Patroclus,
flung herself upon it and cried aloud, tearing her breast, her neck,
and her lovely face with both her hands. Beautiful as a goddess she
wept and said, "Patroclus, dearest friend, when I went hence I left
you living; I return, O prince, to find you dead; thus do fresh sorrows
multiply upon me one after the other. I saw him to whom my father
and mother married me, cut down before our city, and my three own
dear brothers perished with him on the self-­‐same day; but you, Patroclus,