e his gifts,
and himself I value not a hair.[310] Not if he were to give me ten and
twenty times as many gifts as he now has, and if others were to be added
from any other quarter; nor as many as arrive at Orchomenos, or
Egyptian Thebes,[311] where numerous possessions are laid up in the
mansions, and where are one hundred gates,[312] from each of which rush
out two hundred men with horses and chariots. Nor if he were to give me
as many as are the sands and dust, not even thus shall Agamemnon ow
persuade my mind, until he indemnify me for all his mind-grieving
insult. But I will not wed the daughter of Agamemnon, the son of Atreus,
not if she were fit to contend in beauty with golden Venus, or were
equal in accomplishments to azure-eyed Minerva; not even thus will I wed
her. Let him then select another of the Greeks who may suit him, and who
is more the king; for if the gods preserve me, and I reach home, then
will Peleus himself hereafter bestow upon me a lady in marriage. There
are many Grecian women throughout Hellas and Phthia, daughters of
chieftains who defend the cities. Whomsoever of these I may choose, I
will make my beloved wife; and there my generous soul very much desires
that I, wedding a betrothed spouse, a fit partner of my bed, should
enjoy the possessions which aged Peleus hath acquired. For not worth my
life are all the [treasures] which they say the well-inhabited city
Ilium possessed, whilst formerly at peace, before the sons of the Greeks
arrived; nor all which the stony threshold of the archer Phoebus Apollo
contains within it, in rocky Pytho.[313] By plunder, oxen and fat sheep
are to be pro-cured, tripods are to be procured, and the yellow heads of
steeds; but the life of man cannot be obtained nor seized, so as to
return again, when once it has passed the enclosure of the teeth. For my
goddess mother, silver-footed Thetis, declares that double destinies
lead me on to the end of death. If, on the one hand, remaining here, I
wage war around the city of the Trojans, return is lost to me, but my
glory will be immortal; but if, on the other hand, I return home to my
dear fatherland, my excellent glory is lost, but my life will be
lasting, nor will the end of death speedily seize upon me. And to others
also would I give advice to sail home, for ye will not find an end of
lofty Ilium; for far-sounding Jove hath stretched over it his hand, and
the people have taken courage. But do ye, departing, bear back