as for his
“Sage counsel in cumber.”
He can clothe this counsel, too, in winning words. The stream of eloquence that flowed from his lips, says the poet, was “sweeter than honey.” He gently reproves both disputants for their unseemly strife—a shame to the Greeks, a triumph to the enemy. His words ring like the lament of David over the suicide of Saul—“Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice.”
"Alas, deep sorrow on our land doth fall!
Yet shall on Priam and his sons alight
Hope, and a great joy on the Trojans all,
Hearing ye waste in bitter feud your might,
Ye twain, our best in counsel and in fight.” (W.)
He proceeds to tell them something of his own long experience, by way of claim on their attention—with something also, as critics have noticed, of an old man’s garrulity. But the reader, it should be remembered, really wants to know something about him, even if the Greeks may have been supposed to have heard his story before.
"In times past
I lived with men—and they despised me not—
Abler in counsel, greater than yourselves.
Such men I never saw and ne’er shall see,
As Pirithous and Dryas, wise and brave,
And Theseus, Œgeus’ more than mortal son.
The mightiest they among the sons of men,
The mightiest they, and of the forest beasts
Strove with the mightiest, and their rage subdued.
With them I played my part; with them, not one
Would dare to fight of mortals now on earth.
Yet they my counsels heard, my voice obeyed;
And hear ye also—for my words are wise.” (D.)
