Let him look to you, Ulysses, and to
the other princes to save his ships from burning. He has done much
without me already. He has built a wall; he has dug a trench deep and
wide all round it, and he has planted it within with stakes; but even
so he stays not the murderous might of Hector. So long as I fought the
Achaeans Hector suffered not the battle range far from the city walls;
he would come to the Scaean gates and to the oak tree, but no further.
Once he stayed to meet me and hardly did he escape my onset: now,
however, since I am in no mood to fight him, I will to-morrow offer
sacrifice to Jove and to all the gods; I will draw my ships into the
water and then victual them duly; to-morrow morning, if you care to
look, you will see my ships on the Hellespont, and my men rowing out to
sea with might and main. If great Neptune vouchsafes me a fair passage,
in three days I shall be in Phthia. I have much there that I left
behind me when I came here to my sorrow, and I shall bring back still
further store of gold, of red copper, of fair women, and of iron, my
share of the spoils that we have taken; but one prize, he who gave has
insolently taken away. Tell him all as I now bid you, and tell him in
public that the Achaeans may hate him and beware of him should he think
that he can yet dupe others for his effrontery never fails him.

"As for me, hound that he is, he dares not look me in the face. I will
take no counsel with him, and will undertake nothing in common with
him. He has wronged me and deceived me enough, he shall not cozen me
further; let him go his own way, for Jove has robbed him of his reason.
I loathe his presents, and for himself care not one straw. He may offer
me ten or even twenty times what he has now done, nay--not though it be
all that he has in the world, both now or ever shall have; he may
promise me the wealth of Orchomenus or of Egyptian Thebes, which is the
richest city in the whole world, for it has a hundred gates through
each of which two hundred men may drive at once with their chariots and
horses; he may offer me gifts as the sands of the sea or the dust of
the plain in multitude, but even so he shall not move me till I have
been revenged in full for the bitter wrong he has done me. I will not
marry his daughter; she may be fair as Venus, and skilful as Minerva,
but I will have none of her: let another take her, who may be a good
match for her and who rules a larger kingdom. If the gods sp