"Ye cannot choose but crown with the life-blood streaming down
Achilles' grave!" they clamoured—"and, for this Kassandra's bed,
Shall any dare prefer to Achilles' prowess her—130
A concubine, a bondslave?—It shall never be!" they said.
But the vehemence of speech, each contending against each,
Was balanced, as it were, till the prater subtle-souled,
The man of honied tongue, the truckler to the throng,
Laertes' spawn, 'gan fashion the host unto his mould:
"We may not thrust aside like an outcast wretch," he cried,
"The bravest Danaan heart and the stoutest Danaan hand,
All to spare our hands the stain of the blood of bond-maid slain,
Neither suffer that a voice from the ranks of them that stand
In the presence of Hell's Queen should with scoffing bitter-keen
Cry, 'Thankless from the plains of Troy the Danaans have sped,140
Thankless unto Danaan kin whose graves are thick therein,
Who died to save their brethren—the soon -forgotten dead !'"
And Odysseus draweth near—even now shall he be here
