Verse
Iliad
Book 22, Line 416 by Samuel Butler (English)
"Let be, my friends," he cried, "and for all your sorrow, suffer me to go single-handed to the ships of the Achaeans. Let me beseech this cruel and terrible man, if maybe he will respect the feeling of his fellow-men, and have compassion on my old age. His own father is even such another as myself - Peleus, who bred him and reared him to - be the bane of us Trojans, and of myself more than of all others. Many a son of mine has he slain in the flower of his youth, and yet, grieve for these as I may, I do so for one - Hektor - more than for them all, and the bitterness of my sorrow [ akhos ] will bring me down to the house of Hades. Would that he had died in my arms, for so both his ill-starred mother who bore him, and myself, should have had the comfort of weeping and mourning over him."
IliadBook 22, Line 416Samuel ButlerEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 22
HomerProseID iliad-iliad-butler-en-prose-22-416