“Here I paused, and the Phaeacians sat rapt in the shadowed hall. Arete said I was handsome and clever, and her guest, but they all shared the duty of gifts. Alcinous swore I would have full escort and more gifts at dawn, and pressed me to go on with the tale of the dead who fell at Troy.”
When Persephone had scattered the women’s souls, the shade of Agamemnon son of Atreus came, weeping, with all who died with him in Aegisthus’s house. He drank the blood and knew me. He told how Aegisthus planned his death with Clytemnestra’s help. Invited him to a feast and cut him down like an ox at the manger, and slaughtered his men around him. He heard Cassandra’s cry as Clytemnestra killed her over him, and could not lift his arms as he died.
Nothing is more dreadful than a woman who plots such things, he said. He had thought to come home welcome to his children and servants; she stamped shame on herself and on all women yet to come, even the honest ones. I said Zeus had hated the house of Atreus from the start through women’s counsels. Many of us died for Helen’s sake, and Clytemnestra had worked this on him while he was far away. He warned me not to be too open even with my own wife. Tell her part of my thought, keep part hidden. Though Penelope, he said, would not murder her husband. She was too wise.
“Agamemnon told how Aegisthus planned his death with Clytemnestra’s help — invited him to a feast and cut him down like an ox at the manger. He heard Cassandra’s cry as Clytemnestra killed her over him. He warned me not to be too open even with my own wife, though Penelope, he said, would not murder her husband.”
He asked if I had word of his son Orestes, alive somewhere in Orchomenus or sandy Pylos or with Menelaus in Sparta. I said I did not know and would not speak empty words. While we wept together the shade of Achilles came with Patroclus, Antilochus, and Aias, who in looks and form was best of the Danaans after Peleus’s peerless son. Achilles asked what hard thing I dared next, to come down among the strengthless dead. I said I sought Tiresias’s counsel for my road home; I had not yet reached Achaea and was still in misery.
“Do not speak lightly of death to me, Odysseus,” he said. “I would rather be a hired hand for a landless man who scrapes a living than be king over all the perished dead. But tell me of my son — did he follow to the war and take a front rank? And what of Peleus? Does he still hold honor among the Myrmidons, or do they slight him now that old age has him and I am not there under the sun to help?”
“‘Do not speak lightly of death to me, Odysseus,’ Achilles said. ‘I would rather be a hired hand for a landless man who scrapes a living than be king over all the perished dead.’ He asked after Peleus and Neoptolemus. I knew nothing of Peleus. But I told him of his son’s valor at Troy. And he strode off through the asphodel glad that his son was a man of renown.”