milk cheese into it with a
bronze grater, threw in a handful of white barley-meal, and having thus
prepared the mess she bade them drink it. When they had done so and had
thus quenched their thirst, they fell talking with one another, and at
this moment Patroclus appeared at the door.

When the old man saw him he sprang from his seat, seized his hand, led
him into the tent, and bade him take his place among them; but
Patroclus stood where he was and said, "Noble sir, I may not stay, you
cannot persuade me to come in; he that sent me is not one to be trifled
with, and he bade me ask who the wounded man was whom you were bearing
away from the field. I can now see for myself that he is Machaon,
shepherd of his people. I must go back and tell Achilles. You, sir,
know what a terrible man he is, and how ready to blame even where no
blame should lie."

And Nestor answered, "Why should Achilles care to know how many of the
Achaeans may be wounded? He recks not of the dismay that reigns in our
host; our most valiant chieftains lie disabled, brave Diomed, son of
Tydeus, is wounded; so are Ulysses and Agamemnon; Eurypylus has been
hit with an arrow in the thigh, and I have just been bringing this man
from the field--he too wounded with an arrow. Nevertheless, Achilles,
so valiant though he be, cares not and knows no ruth. Will he wait till
the ships, do what we may, are in a blaze, and we perish one upon the
other? As for me, I have no strength nor stay in me any longer; would
that I were still young and strong as in the days when there was a
fight between us and the men of Elis about some cattle-raiding. I then
killed Itymoneus, the valiant son of Hypeirochus, a dweller in Elis, as
I was driving in the spoil; he was hit by a dart thrown by my hand
while fighting in the front rank in defence of his cows, so he fell and
the country people around him were in great fear. We drove off a vast
quantity of booty from the plain, fifty herds of cattle and as many
flocks of sheep; fifty droves also of pigs, and as many wide-spreading
flocks of goats. Of horses, moreover, we seized a hundred and fifty,
all of them mares, and many had foals running with them. All these did
we drive by night to Pylus, the city of Neleus, taking them within the
city; and the heart of Neleus was glad in that I had taken so much,
though it was the first time I had ever been in the field. At daybreak
the heralds went round crying that all in Elis to whom there w