any rarities, and called in his wife Hecuba, and said:

"Unhappy one, an Olympian messenger has come to me from Jove, [that I
should] ransom my dear son, going to the ships of the Greeks, and should
bear gifts to Achilles, which may melt his soul. But come, tell this to
me, what does it appear to thee in thy mind? For my strength and courage
vehemently urge me myself to go thither to the ships, into the wide army
of the Greeks."

Thus he spoke: but his spouse wept, and answered him in words:

"Ah me, where now is thy prudence gone, for which thou wast formerly
distinguished among foreigners, and among those whom thou dost govern?
Why dost thou wish to go alone to the ships of the Greeks, before the
eyes of the man who slew thy many and brave sons? Certainly an iron
heart is thine. For if this cruel and perfidious man shall take and
behold[783] thee with his eyes, he will not pity thee, nor will he at
all respect thee. But let us now lament him apart,[784] sitting in the
hall; but [let it be] as formerly to him, at his birth violent fate spun
his thread, when I brought him forth, that he should satiate the
swift-footed dogs at a distance from his own parents, with that fierce
man, the very middle of whose liver I wish that I had hold of, that,
clinging to it, I might devour it; then would the deeds done against my
son be repaid; for he did not slay him behaving as a coward, but
standing forth in defence of the Trojan men and deep-bosomed Trojan
dames, neither mindful of flight nor of receding."

[Footnote 783: A somewhat awkward inversion of the sense.]

[Footnote 784: _I.e._ without the body of Hector being at hand.]

But her again the aged, godlike Priam addressed:

"Do not detain me, desirous to go, nor be thou thyself an evil-omen bird
in my palaces; nor shalt thou persuade me. For if indeed any other of
earthly beings had ordered me, whether they be prophets, soothsayers, or
priests, we might have pronounced it a falsehood, and been the more
averse. But now since I myself have heard it from a deity, and have
beheld her face to face, I will go, nor shall this word be vain and if
it be my fate to die at the ships of the brazen-mailed Greeks, I am
willing; for Achilles will forthwith, slay me, embracing my son in my
arms, after I have taken away the desire of weeping."

He spoke; and opened the beautiful lids of the chests, and took out
thence twelve beautiful mantles, twelve single cloaks, as many
tapest