Page 459 - the-iliad

to my loved native land I should cut off this lock and offer
you a holy hecatomb; fifty she-goats was I to sacrifice to you
there at your springs, where is your grove and your altar
fragrant with burnt-offerings. Thus did my father vow, but
you have not fulfilled his prayer; now, therefore, that I shall
see my home no more, I give this lock as a keepsake to the
hero Patroclus.’
As he spoke he placed the lock in the hands of his dear
comrade, and all who stood by were filled with yearning
and lamentation. The sun would have gone down upon their
mourning had not Achilles presently said to Agamemnon,
‘Son of Atreus, for it is to you that the people will give ear,
there is a time to mourn and a time to cease from mourn-
ing; bid the people now leave the pyre and set about getting
their dinners: we, to whom the dead is dearest, will see to
what is wanted here, and let the other princes also stay by
me.’
When King Agamemnon heard this he dismissed the
people to their ships, but those who were about the dead
heaped up wood and built a pyre a hundred feet this way
and that; then they laid the dead all sorrowfully upon the
top of it. They flayed and dressed many fat sheep and oxen
before the pyre, and Achilles took fat from all of them and
wrapped the body therein from head to foot, heaping the
flayed carcases all round it. Against the bier he leaned two-
handled jars of honey and unguents; four proud horses did
he then cast upon the pyre, groaning the while he did so.
The dead hero had had house-dogs; two of them did Achil-
les slay and threw upon the pyre; he also put twelve brave

The Iliad