The Horses of Achilles
ILIAD, B. XVII. V. 426
SO now the horses of Aiakides, off wide of the war-ground,Wept, since first they were ware of their charioteer overthrown there,Cast down low in the whirl of the dust under man-slaying Hector.Sooth, meanwhile, then did Automedon, brave son of Diores,Oft, on the one hand, urge them with flicks of the swift whip, andoft, too,Coax entreatingly, hurriedly; whiles did he angrily threaten.Vainly, for these would not to the ships, to the Hellespont spacious,Backward turn, nor be whipped to the battle among the Achaians.Nay, as a pillar remains immovable, fixed on the tombstone,Haply, of some dead man or it may be a woman there-under;Even like hard stood they there attached to the glorious war-car,Earthward bowed with their heads; and of them so lamenting incessantRan the hot teardrops downward on to the earth from their eyelids,Mourning their charioteer; all their lustrous manes dusty-clotted,Right side and left of the yoke-ring tossed, to the breadth of theyoke-bow.Now when the issue of Kronos beheld that sorrow, his head shookPitying them for their grief, these words then he spake in his bosom;“Why, ye hapless, gave we to Peleus you, to a mortalMaster; ye that are ageless both, ye both of you deathless!Was it that ye among men most wretched should come to haveheart-grief?’Tis most true, than the race of these men is there wretcheder nowhereAught over earth’s range found that is gifted with breath and hasmovement.”