hereafter. Your sceptre of the god and your wreath shall profit you
nothing. I will not free her. She shall grow old in my house at Argos
far from her own home, busying herself with her loom and visiting my
couch; so go, and do not provoke me or it shall be the worse for you."

The old man feared him and obeyed. Not a word he spoke, but went by the
shore of the sounding sea and prayed apart to King Apollo whom lovely
Leto had borne. "Hear me," he cried, "O god of the silver bow, that
protectest Chryse and holy Cilla and rulest Tenedos with thy might,
hear me oh thou of Sminthe. If I have ever decked your temple with
garlands, or burned your thigh-bones in fat of bulls or goats, grant my
prayer, and let your arrows avenge these my tears upon the Danaans."

Thus did he pray, and Apollo heard his prayer. He came down furious
from the summits of Olympus, with his bow and his quiver upon his
shoulder, and the arrows rattled on his back with the rage that
trembled within him. He sat himself down away from the ships with a
face as dark as night, and his silver bow rang death as he shot his
arrow in the midst of them. First he smote their mules and their
hounds, but presently he aimed his shafts at the people themselves, and
all day long the pyres of the dead were burning.

For nine whole days he shot his arrows among the people, but upon the
tenth day Achilles called them in assembly--moved thereto by Juno, who
saw the Achaeans in their death-throes and had compassion upon them.
Then, when they were got together, he rose and spoke among them.

"Son of Atreus," said he, "I deem that we should now turn roving home
if we would escape destruction, for we are being cut down by war and
pestilence at once. Let us ask some priest or prophet, or some reader
of dreams (for dreams, too, are of Jove) who can tell us why Phoebus
Apollo is so angry, and say whether it is for some vow that we have
broken, or hecatomb that we have not offered, and whether he will
accept the savour of lambs and goats without blemish, so as to take
away the plague from us."

With these words he sat down, and Calchas son of Thestor, wisest of
augurs, who knew things past present and to come, rose to speak. He it
was who had guided the Achaeans with their fleet to Ilius, through the
prophesyings with which Phoebus Apollo had inspired him. With all
sincerity and goodwill he addressed them thus:--

"Achilles, loved of heaven, you bid me tell you about the an