Page:The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Buckley 1853).djvu/197

550—585. a person on account of them, Ajax, who excelled in form and in deeds, the other Greeks, after the blameless son of Peleus; him indeed I addressed with mild words:

O Ajax, son of blameless Telamon, art thou not about, even when dead, to forget thine anger towards me, on account of the destructive arms? for the gods made them a harm unto the Grecians. For thou, who wast such a fortress to them, didst perish; for thee, when dead, we Greeks altogether mourned, equally as for the person of Achilles, the son of Peleus; nor was any one else the cause; but Jupiter vehemently hated the army of the warrior Greeks; and he laid fate upon you. But come hither, O king, that thou mayest hear our word and speech; and subdue thy strength and haughty mind.'

"Thus I spoke; but he answered me not at all, but went to Erebus amongst the other souls of the deceased dead. There however, [although] angry, he would have spoken to me, or I to him, but my mind in my breast wished to behold the souls of the other dead.

"There then I beheld Minos, the illustrious son of Jove, having a golden sceptre, giving laws to the dead, sitting down; but the others around him, the king, pleaded their causes, sitting and standing through the wide-gated house of Pluto.

"After him I beheld vast Orion, hunting beasts at the same time, in the meadow of asphodel, which he had himself killed in the desert mountains, having an all-brazen club in his hands, for ever unbroken.

"And I beheld Tityus, the son of the very renowned earth, lying on the ground; and he lay stretched over nine acres; and two vultures sitting on each side of him were tearing his liver, diving into the caul: but he did not ward them off with his hands; for he had dragged Latona, the celebrated wife of Jove, as she was going to Pythos, through the delightful Panopeus.

"And I beheld Tantalus suffering severe griefs, standing in a lake; and it approached his chin. But he stood thirsting, and he could not get any thing to drink; for as often as the old man stooped, desiring to drink, so often the water being