Metin
The beauteous captive to himself he kept;Her name was Astynome and her father's Chryses. He was Apollo's priest; and the god, to revenge the insult offered him in the person of his priest, sent a plague among the Greeks for Agamemnon ravishing her, which was not taken off until that king of kings restored the young lady to her father by Calchus's advice. The story is described at large in the first book of Homer's Iliad, as is also the rape of Briseis, Achilles' mistress, who was so disgusted at Agamemnon for taking her from him, that he refused to fight, and kept himself close in his tent; until hearing his friend Patroclus, to whom he had lent his arms, was killed, he returned to the battle and slew Hector.
495
Her father fondly for his daughter wept.
Why dost thou grieve, old sot? thy daughter's blest!
A royal whore. But, to assuage the pest,
When with his mistress he was forced to part,
The prudent prince ne'er laid the loss to heart.
500
Achilles keeps as fair a lass as she,
Their form, their very names, almost agree.
"Let him," said he "resign her by consent,
Or he shall feel my kingly power's extent;
If to my subjects this shall give offence,
505
The name of monarch is a vain pretence.
Rather than reign and have my love confin'd,
My throne shall to Thersites be resign'd."Thersites was the ugliest among the Greeks, and a great talker, of whom Homer speaks in his second Iliad; he was one-eyed, hunch-backed, and lame. Juvenal in his eighth satire adds, he was also bald.
He said: and, for a charming mistress lost,
Repair'd his sufferings at another's cost.
510
Do you this royal precedent pursue,
And quench your former passions by a new.
If you're a stranger to the sex, enquire
Where you may find a mistress to admire.
