Classic Poem

Then with stern looks in answer spoke,
Achilles famed for speed;
" Oh wretch in insolence attired!
Oh spirit bent on greed!
Why should the Greeks thy words obey?
Why should they journeys take?
And stoutly, against warlike men,
Do battle for thy sake?

Not through the spear-arm'd sons of Troy,
Came I to fight and slay;
They wronged not me, they drove no steer,
No steed of mine away;
In the fertile fields of Phthia
They spoiled no fruits, I ween,
For many are the shadowy cliffs,
And loud the sea between.

Abandoned wretch! we followed thee,
We came to please thy heart;
Honouring thy brother, and thyself,
All shameless as thou art:
Yet though we only came to Troy
In answer to that call;
Ye never waste a thought on us,
Or care for us at all.

Nay more, thou threatenest me, that thou,
Thyself wilt seize my spoil,
That which the children of the Greeks
Gave after all my toil:
And yet my prize ne'er equals thine,
Whene'er the Greeks destroy,
And plunder of the wealth it holds,
Some peopled town of Troy.

The burden of the raging war
Falls on these hands of mine;
But when the time of sharing comes,
Far larger gifts are thine:
And I retire to my ships,
When wearied in the fight,
With some trifle, which I love, because
It is my own by right.

But now to Phthia I return,
'Tis the best course for me,
Once more, with all my curved ships,
To cross the sounding sea:
No longer stay I here, when thus
Dishonoured by thyself,
That thou mayest fatten on the spoil,
And drain the land of pelf.