Iliad

Achilles groaned and answered, "Mother, Olympian Zeus has indeed granted me the fulfillment of my prayer, but what boots it to me, seeing that my dear comrade Patroklos has fallen - he whom I valued more than all others, and loved as dearly as my own life? I have lost him; aye, and Hektor when he had killed him stripped the wondrous armor, so glorious to behold, which the gods gave to Peleus when they laid you in the couch of a mortal man. Would that you were still dwelling among the immortal sea-nymphs, and that Peleus had taken to himself some mortal bride. For now you shall have grief [ penthos ] infinite by reason of the death of that son whom you can never welcome home- nay, I will not live nor go about among humankind unless Hektor fall by my spear, and thus pay me for having slain Patroklos son of Menoitios."

IliadBook 18, Line 78Samuel ButlerEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 18

HomerProseID iliad-iliad-butler-en-prose-18-78