The Iliad, Book I, [A Friend Consigned to Death]
"Sleeping so? Thou hast forgotten me, Akhilleus. Never was I uncared for in life but am in death. Accord me burial in all haste: let me pass the gates of Death. Shades that are images of used-up men motion me away, will not receive me among their hosts beyond the river. I wander about the wide gates and the hall of Death. Give me your hand. I sorrow. When thou shalt have allotted me my fire I will not fare here from the dark again. As living men we'll no more sit apart from our companions, making plans. The day of wrath appointed for me at my birth engulfed and took me down. Thou too, Akhilleus, face iron destiny, godlike as thou art, to die under the wall of highborn Trojans. One more message, one behest, I leave thee: not to inter my bones apart from thine but close together, as we grew together, in thy family's hall. Menoitios from Opoeis had brought me, under a cloud, a boy still, on the day I killed the son of Lord Amphídamas--though I wished it not-- in childish anger over a game of dice. Pêleus, master of horse, adopted me and reared me kindly, naming me your squire. So may the same urn hide our bones, the one of gold your gracious mother gave."
Credit
Lines 80-106 from "A Friend Consigned to Death" in The Iliad by Homer, translated by Robert Fitzgerald. Translation copyright © 1974 by Robert Fitzgerald. Copyright © 2004 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved.
Date Published
01/01/1974