Homer, The Odyssey (ed. Samuel Butler, Based on public domain edition, revised by Timothy Power and Gregory Nagy.), Scroll 24, line 2 (search)
"Happy [olbios] son
of Peleus," answered the ghost [psukhê] of
Agamemnon, "for having died at Troy far from Argos, while the bravest
of the Trojans and the Achaeans fell round you fighting for your
body. There you lay in the whirling clouds of dust, all huge and
hugely, heedless now of your chivalry. We fought the whole of the
livelong day, nor should we ever have left off if Zeus had not sent a
gale to stay us. Then, when we had borne you to the ships out of the
fray, we laid you on your bed and cleansed your fair skin with warm
water and with ointments. The Danaans tore their hair and wept
bitterly round about you. Your mother, when she heard, came with her
immortal nymphs from out of the sea, and the sound of a great wailing
went forth over the waters so that the Achaeans quaked for fear. They
would have fled panic-stricken to their ships had not wise old Nestor
whose counsel was ever truest checked them saying, ‘Hold,
Argives, flee not sons of the Achaeans, this is his mother com
and now the imperishable seed
of spacious Libya
is shed on this island before its time.
For had he cast the seed down at home
by Hade's earthfast mouth,
after returning to sacred Tanaeus, Euphemus,
horse-ruling Poseidon's lordly son,
whom Europa, daughter of Tityos,
once bore by the banks of Cephesus,
his blood in the fourth generation after him
would have seized that vast continent
together with the Danaans;
for then will they depart from great Sparta,
from the gulf of Argos and from Mycenae.
Now, however, in the beds of alien women
he shall discover a chosen race
who, by favor of the gods,
will come to this island
and beget a man to be
lord over plains
cloaked in cloudshadow;
and one day Apollo, in his gold-filled house,
will admonish him by oracle,
when at length he enters the Pythian shrine,
to lead a host of men in ships
to the rich precinct of Zeus Ammon by the Nile."
So spoke the ranks of Media's speech,
and they crouched stockstill, in sil
