with others and take her - which will press him harder." He charged them straightly further and dismissed them, whereon they went their way sorrowfully by the seaside, till they came to the tents and ships of the Myrmidons. They found Achilles sitting by his tent and his ships,
and ill-pleased he was when he beheld them. They stood fearfully and reverently before him, and never a word did they speak, but he knew them and said, "Welcome, heralds, messengers of gods and men;
draw near; my quarrel is not with you but with Agamemnon who has sent you for the girl Briseis. Therefore, Patroklos, bring her and give her to them, but let them be witnesses by the blessed gods, by mortal men,
and by the fierceness of Agamemnon's anger, that if ever again there be need of me to save the people from ruin, they shall seek and they shall not find. Agamemnon is mad with rage and knows not how to look before and after that the Achaeans may fight by their ships in safety."
Patroklos did as his dear comrade had bidden him. He brought Briseis from the tent and gave her over to the heralds, who took her with them to the ships of the Achaeans - and the woman was loath to go. Then Achilles went all alone
by the side of the hoar sea [pontos], weeping and looking out upon the boundless waste of waters. He raised his hands in prayer to his immortal mother, "Mother," he cried, "you bore me doomed to live but for a brief season; surely Zeus, who thunders from Olympus, might have given honor [timê] in return. It is not so.
Agamemnon, son of Atreus, has done me dishonor, and has robbed me of my prize by force." As he spoke he wept aloud, and his mother heard him where she was sitting in the depths of the sea hard by the Old One, her father. Forthwith she rose as it were a gray mist out of the waves,
