The Odyssey

by Homer

On open roads they crossed the Ocean stream, went past the rock of Leucas and the gates of Helius the Sun, and skittered through the provinces of dreams, and soon arrived in fields of asphodel, the home of shadows who have been worn to weariness by life. They found Achilles’ ghost there, and Patroclus, and Ajax, the most handsome of the Greeks after unmatched Achilles. Agamemnon had just arrived to join them, in deep grief20 for his own death, and with him came the others killed by Aegisthus and his bodyguards. Achilles’ ghost spoke first. “O Agamemnon! Men used to say that out of all the heroes, Zeus, Lord of Lightning, favored you the most, because you had command of a great army in Troy where Greeks endured the pain of war. But death, which no man living can avoid, was destined to arrive at the wrong time. If only you had died at Troy and won30 the glory of your rank as a commander! All of the Greeks and allies would have built a tomb for you, and afterwards your son would have received great honor. As it is, it was your fate to die a dreadful death.”