Book 12
and valor, all that thrilling night: and even
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the strength of enemies whom they had met
and overcome. What else could they admit
or think of, while the great Achilles spoke
or listened to them? But especially
the recent victory over Cygnus held
them ardent. Wonderful it seemed to them
that such a youth could be composed of flesh
not penetrable by the sharpest spear;
of flesh which blunted even hardened steel,
and never could be wounded. All the Greeks,
and even Achilles wondered at the thought.
Then Nestor said to them: “During your time,
Cygnus has been the only man you knew
who could despise all weapons and whose flesh
could not be pierced by thrust of sword or spear.
But long ago I saw another man
able to bear unharmed a thousand strokes,
Caeneus of Thessaly, Caeneus who lived
upon Mt. Othrys. He was famed in war
yet, strange to say, by birth he was a woman!”
Then all expressed the greatest wonderment,
and begged to hear the story of his life.
Achilles cried, “O eloquent old man!
The wisdom of our age! All of us wish
to hear, who was this Caeneus? Why was he
changed to the other sex? in what campaigns,
and in what wars was he so known to you?
Who conquered him, if any ever did?”
The aged man replied to them with care:—
“Although my great age is a harm to me,
and many actions of my early days
escape my memory; yet, most of them
are well remembered. Nothing of old days,
amid so many deeds of war and peace,
can be more firmly fixed upon my mind
than the strange story I shall tell of him.
“If long extent of years made anyone
a witness of most wonderful events
and many, truly I may say to you
