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208 be seated. But Patroclus, on the other side, declined, and uttered [this] reply:

"No seat [for me], O Jove-nurtured sage, nor wilt thou persuade me. Revered and irascible is he who sent me forth to inquire who this man is whom thou leadest wounded; but even I myself know, for I perceive Machaon the shepherd of the people. Now, however, in order to deliver my message, I will return again an embassador to Achilles; for well dost thou know, O Jove-nurtured sage, what a terrible man he is; soon would he blame even the blameless."

But him the Gerenian knight Nestor then answered: "But why indeed does Achilles thus compassionate the sons of the Greeks, as many as have been wounded with weapons? Nor knows he how great sorrow hath arisen throughout the army; for the bravest lie in the ships, smitten in the distant or the close fight. Stricken is brave Diomede, the son of Tydeus, and wounded is spear-renowned Ulysses, as well as Agamemnon. Eurypylus also has been wounded in the thigh with an arrow; and this other have I lately brought from battle, smitten with an arrow from the bowstring: yet Achilles, being brave, regards not the Greeks, nor pities them. Does he wait until the swift ships near the sea, contrary to the will of the Greeks, be consumed with the hostile fire, and we ourselves be slain one after the other? For my strength is not as it formerly was in my active members. Would that I were thus young, and my might was firm, as when a contest took place between the Eleans and us, about the driving away some oxen, when, driving away in reprisal, I slew Itymoneus, the valiant son of Hipeirochus, who dwelt in Elis: for he, defending his cattle, was smitten among the first by a javelin from my hand, and there fell; and his rustic troops fled on every side. And we drove from the plain a very great booty, fifty droves of oxen, as many flocks of sheep, as many herds of swine, and as many broad herds of goats, one hundred and fifty yellow steeds, all mares, and beneath many there were colts. And these we drove within Neleian Pylus, at night toward the city; but Neleus was delighted in his mind, because many things had fallen to my lot going as a young man to the war. But with the appearing morn,