were to be added from any other quarter; nor as many as arrive at Orchomenos, or Egyptian Thebes,[1] where numerous possessions are laid up in the mansions, and where are one hundred gates,[2] from each of which rush out two hundred men with horses and chariots. Nor if he were to give me as many as are the sands and dust, not even thus shall Agamemnon now persuade my mind, until he indemnify me for all his mind-grieving insult. But I will not wed the daughter of Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, not if she were fit to contend in beauty with golden Venus, or were equal in accomplishments to azure-eyed Minerva; not even thus will I wed her. Let him then select another of the Greeks who may suit him, and who is more the king; for if the gods preserve me, and I reach home, then will Peleus himself hereafter bestow upon me a lady in marriage. There are many Grecian women throughout Hellas and Phthia, daughters of chieftains who defend the cities. Whomsoever of these I may choose, I will make my beloved wife; and there my generous soul very much desires that I, wedding a betrothed spouse, a fit partner of my bed, should enjoy the possessions which aged Peleus hath acquired. For not worth my life are all the [treasures] which they say the well-inhabited city Ilium possessed, while formerly at peace, before the sons of the Greeks arrived; nor all which the stony threshhold of the archer Phœbus Apollo contains within it, in rocky Pytho.[3] By plunder, oxen and fat sheep are to be procured, tripods are to be procured, and the yellow heads of steeds; but the life of man can not be obtained nor seized, so as to return again, when once it has passed the inclosure of the teeth. For my goddess mother, silver-footed Thetis, declares that double destinies lead me on to the end of death. If, on the one hand, remaining here, I wage war around the city of the Trojans, return is lost to me, but my glory will be immortal;
- ↑ "Thebes was the center of Egyptian power and commerce, probably long before Memphis grew into importance, or before the Delta was made suitable to the purposes of husbandry by the cutting of canals and the raising of embankments."—Egyptian Antiquities, vol. i. p. 66.
- ↑ Although Denon (see Egypt. Antt. p. 62) regards this as an unmeaning expression, Heyne well observes: "numerus centenarius ponitur pro magno: et portis semel memoratis, multitudo hominum declaratur per numerum exeuntium."
- ↑ Cf. Müller, Dorians, vol. i. pp. 26, 268.
