Clanless, Lawless, Homeless Is He Who Is

But You, Achilles,/ There Is Not A Man In The World More Blest Than You--/ There Never Has Been, Never Will Be One./ Time Was, When You Were Alive, We Argives/ Honored You As A God, And Now Down Here, I See/ You Lord It Over The Dead In All Your Power./ So Grieve No More At Dying, Great Achilles.’ I Reassured The Ghost, But He Broke Out Protesting,/ ‘no Winning Words About Death To Me, Shining Odysseus!/ By God, I’d Rather Slave On Earth For Another Man--/ Some Dirt-poor Tenant Farmer Who Scrapes To Keep Alive—than Rule Down Here Over All The Breathless Dead.

Strife And Confusion Joined The Fight, Along With Cruel Death, Who Seized One Wounded Man While Still Alive And Then Another Man Without A Wound, While Pulling The Feet Of One More Corpse Out From The Fight. The Clothes Death Wore Around Her Shoulders Were Dyed Red With Human Blood.

There Is Nothing More Dread And More Shameless Than A Woman Who Plans Such Deeds In Her Heart As The Foul Deed Which She Plotted When She Contrived Her Husband's Murder.

So It Is That The Gods Do Not Give All Men Gifts Of Grace - Neither Good Looks Nor Intelligence Nor Eloquence.

There Is Nothing Alive More Agonized Than Man / Of All That Breathe And Crawl Across The Earth.