he would lend his tongue to any base pretext, to any villainy, if thereby he could hope to compass some dishonest end.410 No, 'tis not at this that I wonder, but rather that the elder Ajax, if he was there, could endure to see it.
Ne. Ah, friend, he was no more; I should never have been thus plundered while he lived.
Ph. How sayest thou? What, is he, too, dead and gone?
Ne. Think of him as of one who sees the light no more.
Ph. Woe is me! But the son of Tydeus, and the offspring of Sisyphus that was bought by Laertes—they will not die; for they ought not to live.
Ne. Not they, be sure of it; no, they are now prospering full greatly in the Argive host.420
Ph. And what of my brave old friend, Nestor of Pylos,—is he not alive? Their mischiefs were often baffled by his wise counsels.
Ne. Aye, he has trouble now; death has taken Antilochus, the son that was at his side.
Ph. Ah me! These two, again, whom thou hast named, are men of whose death I had least wished to hear. Alas! What are we to look for, when these have died, and, here again, Odysseus lives,—when he, in their place,430 should have been numbered with the dead?
Ne. A clever wrestler he; but even clever schemes, Philoctetes, are often tripped up.
Ph. Now tell me, I pray thee, where was Patroclus in this thy need,—he whom thy father loved so well?
Ne. He, too, was dead. And to be brief, I would
