Page:The Story of the Iliad.djvu/262

224 CHAPTER XX.

THE MAKING OF THE ARMS. in the camp of the Greeks they mourned for Patroclus. And Achilles stood among his Myrmidons and said:— "Vain was the promise that I made to Menœtius that I would bring back his son with his portion of the spoils of Troy. But Zeus fulfils not the thoughts of man. For he lies dead, nor shall I return to the house of Peleus, my father, for I, too, must die in this land. But thee, O Patroclus, I will not bury till I bring hither the head and the arms of Hector, and twelve men of Troy to slay at thy funeral pile."

So they washed the body of Patroclus and anointed it, putting ointment nine years old into the wounds, and laid it on a bed, and covered it with a linen cloth from the head to the feet, and laid a white robe over it. All night the Myrmidons mourned for Patroclus dead; and Zeus spake to Hera, saying:—