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he. will yet fulfil it hereafter, and they shall pay dearly with their
lives and with their wives and children. The day will surely come
when mighty Ilius shall be laid low, with Priam and Priam's people,
when the son of Saturn from his high throne shall overshadow them
with his awful aegis in punishment of their present treachery. This
shall surely be; but how, Menelaus, shall I mourn you, if it be your
lot now to die? I should return to Argos as a by-­‐word, for the Achaeans
will at once go home. We shall leave Priam and the Trojans the glory
of still keeping Helen, and the earth will rot your bones as you lie
here at Troy with your purpose not fulfilled. Then shall some braggart
Trojan leap upon your tomb and say, 'Ever thus may Agamemnon wreak
his vengeance; he brought his army in vain; he is gone home to his
own land with empty ships, and has left Menelaus behind him.' Thus
will one of them say, and may the earth then swallow me."
But Menelaus reassured him and said, "Take heart, and do not alarm
the people; the arrow has not struck me in a mortal part, for my outer
belt of burnished metal first stayed it, and under this my cuirass
and the belt of mail which the bronze-­‐smiths made me."
And Agamemnon answered, "I trust, dear Menelaus, that it may be even
so, but the surgeon shall examine your wound and lay herbs upon it
to relieve your pain."
He then said to Talthybius, "Talthybius, tell Machaon, son to the
great physician, Aesculapius, to come and see Menelaus immediately.
Some Trojan or Lycian archer has wounded him with an arrow to our
dismay, and to his own great glory."