but a cloud of infantry followed after in myriads;
and in the midst his companions bore Patroclus. They covered all the
dead body over with hair, which, cutting off,[733] they threw upon it;
but noble Achilles held his head behind, grieving, for he was sending a
blameless companion to Hades.

[Footnote 732: A most remarkable and beautiful example of the
appropriation of sound to sense. Pope has admirably imitated the
original by the following translation:--

"O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks, they go."

Cowper less successfully:--

"They measured hill and dale,
Right onward now, and now circuitous."

Cf. Milton, P.L. ii. 948:--

"So eagerly the fiend
O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies."]

[Footnote 733: So in Senec. Hippol. 1176, "Placemus umbras,
capitis exuvias cape, laceraeque frontis accipe abscissam comam."
The custom is learnedly illustrated by Bernart on Stat. Theb. vi.
195, Lomeier de Lustrat. Sec. xxv.]

But they, when they reached the place where Achilles pointed out to
them, laid him down; and immediately heaped on abundant wood for him.
Then again swift-footed Achilles remembered another thing. Standing
apart from the pile, he cut off his yellow hair, which he had nurtured,
blooming, for the river Sperchius;[734] and, moaning, he spake, looking
upon the dark sea:

[Footnote 734: On this custom, cf. Schol. Hesiod. Theog. 348:
[Greek: Apolloni kai potamois oi neoi apetemon tas komas, dia to
auxeseos kai anatrophes aitious einai]. See Lindenbrog on
Censorin. de Die Nat. i. p. 6, and Blomf. on AEsch. Choeph. s.
init., with my own note. Statius, Achill. i. 628, "Quaerisne meos,
Sperchie, natatus, Promissasque comas?" Cf. Pausan. i. 43, 4;
Philostrat. Her. xi.]

"In vain, O Sperchius, did my father Peleus vow to thee, that I,
returning to my dear native land, should there cut off my hair for thee,
and offer a sacred hecatomb; and besides, that I would in the same place
sacrifice fifty male sheep at the fountains, where are a grove and
fragrant altar to thee. Thus the old man spake, but thou hast not
fulfilled his will. And now, since I return not to my dear fatherland, I
will give my hair to the hero Patroclus, to be borne [with him]." Thus
saying, he placed his hai