580But the god who governs the waves of the sea with his trident grieves with a father's heart for his son's body turned into Phaethon's bird, and, hating savage Achilles, nurses a resentful anger beyond what is civil; and now, when the war had been waged for nearly twice five years, he addresses unshorn Smintheus with words like these: 'O dearest by far to me of my brother's sons, who with me set up the walls of Troy in vain, do you not groan at all when you see these citadels on the very point of falling? 589Or do you grieve at all for the many thousands slain defending the walls?
590Does the shade of Hector — not to go through them all — come into your mind, dragged around his own Pergamum? 592while that fierce man, bloodier than war itself, still lives, the destroyer of our work, Achilles. 594Let him give himself to me! 594I will make him feel what I can do with my triple spear; 595but since it is not granted to meet the enemy face to face, destroy him unawares with a hidden arrow!' 597He nodded, and the Delian, indulging alike his uncle's feelings and his own, veiled in a cloud, reached the Trojan line, and in the midst of the slaughter of men sees Paris scattering his arrows sparsely among undistinguished Achaeans, and, declaring himself a god: 'Why do you waste your shafts on the blood of common folk?' 602he says.
602'If you have any care for your own people, turn on the grandson of Aeacus and avenge your slain brothers!' 604He spoke, and, pointing to the son of Peleus as he laid low Trojan bodies with the sword, he turned his bow towards him and guided the sure arrows with his deadly right hand. 607This was the one thing old Priam could rejoice in after Hector: so you, Achilles, conqueror of so many, have been conquered by the cowardly abductor of a Greek wife! 610But if you were fated to fall in a woman's warfare, you would rather have fallen by the Thermodontian axe! 612Now that terror of the Phrygians, the glory and defence of the Pelasgian name, the grandson of Aeacus, a head unconquerable in war, had burned: the same god had armed him and the same was burning him; 615now he is ash, and of Achilles, so great, there remains something or other that would scarcely fill a small urn: but his glory lives, which would fill the whole world!
618This measure answers to the man, and in this the son of Peleus is equal to himself and does not feel empty Tartarus. 620His very shield too, so that you might know whose it had been, stirs up war, and arms are taken up for arms. 622The son of Tydeus does not dare to claim them, nor Ajax son of Oileus, nor the younger son of Atreus, nor the one greater in war and age, nor the others: only the son of Telamon and the son of Laertes had confidence enough for so great a prize. 626The descendant of Tantalus removed the burden and the odium from himself, and ordered the Argive leaders to sit in the middle of the camp, and passed the judgement of the dispute on to them all.