ace to face, therefore I
will go and her saying shall not be in vain. If it be my fate to die at
the ships of the Achaeans even so would I have it; let Achilles slay
me, if I may but first have taken my son in my arms and mourned him to
my heart's comforting."

So saying he lifted the lids of his chests, and took out twelve goodly
vestments. He took also twelve cloaks of single fold, twelve rugs,
twelve fair mantles, and an equal number of shirts. He weighed out ten
talents of gold, and brought moreover two burnished tripods, four
cauldrons, and a very beautiful cup which the Thracians had given him
when he had gone to them on an embassy; it was very precious, but he
grudged not even this, so eager was he to ransom the body of his son.
Then he chased all the Trojans from the court and rebuked them with
words of anger. "Out," he cried, "shame and disgrace to me that you
are. Have you no grief in your own homes that you are come to plague me
here? Is it a small thing, think you, that the son of Saturn has sent
this sorrow upon me, to lose the bravest of my sons? Nay, you shall
prove it in person, for now he is gone the Achaeans will have easier
work in killing you. As for me, let me go down within the house of
Hades, ere mine eyes behold the sacking and wasting of the city."

He drove the men away with his staff, and they went forth as the old
man sped them. Then he called to his sons, upbraiding Helenus, Paris,
noble Agathon, Pammon, Antiphonus, Polites of the loud battle-cry,
Deiphobus, Hippothous, and Dius. These nine did the old man call near
him. "Come to me at once," he cried, "worthless sons who do me shame;
would that you had all been killed at the ships rather than Hector.
Miserable man that I am, I have had the bravest sons in all Troy--noble
Nestor, Troilus the dauntless charioteer, and Hector who was a god
among men, so that one would have thought he was son to an
immortal--yet there is not one of them left. Mars has slain them and
those of whom I am ashamed are alone left me. Liars, and light of foot,
heroes of the dance, robbers of lambs and kids from your own people,
why do you not get a waggon ready for me at once, and put all these
things upon it that I may set out on my way?"

Thus did he speak, and they feared the rebuke of their father. They
brought out a strong mule-waggon, newly made, and set the body of the
waggon fast on its bed. They took the mule-yoke from the peg on which
it hung, a yoke of b