Around the corpse he stalk'd, this way and that,
His spear and buckler round before him held,
To all who dar'd approach him threatening death,
With fearful shouts; a rocky fragment then
Tydides lifted up, a mighty mass,
Which scarce two men could raise, as men are now:
But he, unaided, lifted it with ease.
With this he smote Aeneas near the groin,
Where the thigh bone, inserted in the hip,
Turns in the socket joint; the rugged mass
The socket crushed, and both the tendons broke,
And tore away the flesh: down on his knees,
Yet resting on his hand, the hero fell;
And o'er his eyes the shades of darkness spread.
(The Iliad, Book V., Lines 333-356.)
He said, and passing his supporting hand
Beneath his [Eurypylus'] breast, the wounded warrior led
Within the tent; th' attendant saw, and spread
The ox-hide couch; then as he lay reclined,
Patroclus, with his dagger, from the thigh
Cut out the biting shaft; and from the wound
With tepid water cleans'd the clotted blood;
Then, pounded in his hands, a root applied
Astringent, anodyne, which all his pain
Allayed; the wound was dried, and stanch'd the blood.
(The Iliad, Book XI., Lines 958-967.)
But Jove-born Helen otherwise, meantime,
Employed, into the wine of which they drank
A drug infused, antidote to the pains
Of grief and anger, a most potent charm
For ills of every name.[1] Whoe'er his wine
So medicated drinks, he shall not pour
All day the tears down his wan cheeks, although
His father and his mother both were dead,
Nor even though his brother or his son
Had fallen in battle, and before his eyes.
(Book IV. of the Odyssey, Lines 275-284.)
- ↑ Nepenthes, believed to be opium, is the word employed in the original.
