Poem: The Horses Of Achilles

So now the horses of Aiakides, off wide of the war-ground,

Wept, since first they were ware of their charioteer overthrown there,

Cast down low in the whirl of the dust under man-slaying Hector.

Sooth, meanwhile, then did Automedon, brave son of Diores,

Oft, on the one hand, urge them with flicks of the swift whip, and oft, too,

Coax entreatingly, hurriedly; whiles did he angrily threaten.

Vainly, for these would not to the ships, to the Hellespont spacious,

Backward turn, nor be whipped to the battle among the Achaians.

Nay, as a pillar remains immovable, fixed on the tombstone,

Haply, of some dead man or it may be a woman there-under;

Even like hard stood they there attached to the glorious war-car,

Earthward bowed with their heads; and of them so lamenting incessant

Ran the hot teardrops downward on to the earth from their eyelids,

Mourning their charioteer; all their lustrous manes dusty-clotted,

Right side and left of the yoke-ring tossed, to the breadth of the yoke-bow.

Now when the issue of Kronos beheld that sorrow, his head shook

Pitying them for their grief, these words then he spake in his bosom;

“Why, ye hapless, gave we to Peleus you, to a mortal

Master; ye that are ageless both, ye both of you deathless!

Was it that ye among men most wretched should come to have heart-grief?

‘ Tis most true, than the race of these men is there wretcheder nowhere

Aught over earth's range found that is gifted with breath and has movement.”