ar,
Stock without master, wasting year by year;
Youth past, age creeping on, friends, brothers, sons
Lost in the void, gone where no respite runs
For sorrow, but the darkness covers all--
What name should we bequeath our sons but thrall,
Or what beside a name, who let go by
Ilios the rich for others' usury?
And have the blessed Gods no say in this?
Think you they be won over by a kiss--
Here the Queen, she, the unwearied aid
Of all our striving, Pallas the war-maid?
Have they not vowed, and will ye scant their hate,
Havoc on Ilios from gate to gate,
And for her towers abasement to the dust?
Behold, O King, lust shall be paid with lust,
And treachery with treachery, and for blood
Blood shall be shed. Therefore let loose the flood
Of our pent passion; break her gates in, raze
The walls of her, cumber her pleasant ways
With dead men; set on havoc, sate with spoil
Men ravening; get corn and wine and oil,
Women to clasp in love, gold, silken things,
Harness of flashing bronze, swords, meed of kings,
Chariots and horses swifter than the wind
Which, coursing Ida, leaves ruin behind
Of snapt tall trees: not faster shall they fall
Than Trojan spears once we are on the wall.
So only shall ye close this agelong strife,
Nor by redemption of a too fair wife,
Now smiling, now averse, now hot, now cold,
O Menelaus, may the tale be told!
Nay, but by slaying of Achilles' slayer,
By the betrayal of the bed-betrayer,
By not withholding from the spoils of war
Men freeborn, nor from them that beaten are
Their rueful wages. Ilios must fall."
He said, and sat, and heard the acclaim of all,
Save of the sons of Atreus, who sat glum,
One flusht, one white as parchment, and both dumb;
One raging to be contraried, one torn
By those two passions wherewith he was born,
The lust for body's ease and lust of gain.
Then slow he rose, Mykenai's king of men,
Gentle his voice to hear. "Laertes' son,"
He said, but 'twas Nestor he looked upon,
The wise old man who sat beside his chair,
Mild now who once, a lion, kept his lair
Untoucht of any, or if e'er he left it,
Left it for prey, and held that when he reft it
From foe, or over friend made stronger claim:
"Laertes' son," the king said, "all men's fame
Reports thee just and fertile in