, did he heap ten plentiful talents;
Twain were the tripods he chose, twice twain the magnificent platters;
Lastly, a goblet of price, which the chieftains of Thracia tender'd
When he on embassy journey'd: a great gift, yet did the old man
Grudge not to pluck from his store even this, for his spirit impell'd him
Eager to ransom his son: But the people who look'd on his treasure
Them did he chase from the gate, and with bitter reproaches pursued
them:--
"Graceless and worthless, begone! in your homes is there nothing to weep
for,
That ye in mine will harass me--or lacks it, to fill your contentment,
That the Olympian god has assign'd to me this tribulation--
Loss of a son without peer? But yourselves shall partake my affliction;
Easier far will it be for the pitiless sword of the Argives,
Now he is dead, to make havoc of you. For myself, ere I witness
Ilion storm'd in their wrath, and the fulness of her desolation,
Oh, may the Destiny yield me to enter the dwelling of Hades!"

Speaking, he smote with his staff, and they fled from the wrath of the
old man;
But, when they all had disperst, he upbraided his sons and rebuked them;
Deiphobus and Alexander, Hippothoeus, generous Dius,
Came at the call of the king, with Antiphonus, Helenus, Pammon,
Agathon, noble of port, and Polites, good at the war-shout:--
These were the nine that he urged and admonish'd with bitter
reproaches:--
"Hasten ye, profitless children and vile! if ye all had been slaughter'd,
Fair were the tidings to me, were but Hector in place of ye skaithless!
O, evil-destinied me! that had sons upon sons to sustain me,
None to compare in the land, and not one that had worth is remaining!
Mentor the gallant and goodly, and Troeilus prompt with the war-team;
Hector, a god among men--he, too, who in nothing resembled
Death-doom'd man's generation, but imaged the seed of Immortals--
Battle hath reft me of these:--but the shames of my house are in safety;
Jesters and singers enow, and enow that can dance on the feast-day;
Scourges and pests of the realm; bold spoilers of kids and of lambkins!
Will ye bestir ye at length, and make ready the wain and the coffer,
Piling in all that ye see, and delay me no more from my journey?"

So did he speak; but the sons, apprehending the wrath of their father,
Speedfully dragg'd to the portal the mule-wain easily-rolling,
New-built, fair to b