“O friend! what sorrows dost thou bring to mind!

Shall I the long, laborious scene review,

And open all the wounds of Greece anew?

What toils by sea! where dark in quest of prey

Dauntless we roved; Achilles led the way;

What toils by land! where mix’d in fatal fight

Such numbers fell, such heroes sunk to night;

There Ajax great, Achilles there the brave,

There wise Patroclus, fill an early grave:

There, too, my son—ah, once my best delight

Once swift of foot, and terrible in fight;

In whom stern courage with soft virtue join’d

A faultless body and a blameless mind;

Antilochus—What more can I relate?

How trace the tedious series of our fate?

Not added years on years my task could close,

The long historian of my country’s woes;

Back to thy native islands might’st thou sail,

And leave half-heard the melancholy tale.

Nine painful years on that detested shore;

What stratagems we form’d, what toils we bore!

Still labouring on, till scarce at last we found

Great Jove propitious, and our conquest crown’d.

Far o’er the rest thy mighty father shined,

In wit, in prudence, and in force of mind.

Art thou the son of that illustrious sire?

With joy I grasp thee, and with love admire.

So like your voices, and your words so wise,

Who finds thee younger must consult his eyes.

Thy sire and I were one; nor varied aught

In public sentence, or in private thought;

Alike to council or the assembly came,

With equal souls, and sentiments the same.

But when (by wisdom won) proud Ilion burn’d,

And in their ships the conquering Greeks return’d,

’Twas God’s high will the victors to divide,

And turn the event, confounding human pride;

Some he destroy’d, some scatter’d as the dust

(Not all were prudent, and not all were just).

Then Discord, sent by Pallas from above,

Stern daughter of the great avenger Jove,

The brother-kings inspired with fell debate;

Who call’d to council all the Achaian state,