decide. 
    So spake Idaeus, and all silent sat;
  Till at the last brave Diomede replied. 
    No.  We will none of Paris’ treasures now,
  Nor even Helen’s self.  A child may see 475
  Destruction winging swift her course to Troy. 
    He said.  The admiring Greeks with loud applause
  All praised the speech of warlike Diomede,
  And answer thus the King of men return’d. 
    Idaeus! thou hast witness’d the resolve 480
  Of the Achaian Chiefs, whose choice is mine. 
  But for the slain, I shall not envy them
  A funeral pile; the spirit fled, delay
  Suits not.  Last rites can not too soon be paid. 
  Burn them.  And let high-thundering Jove attest 485
  Himself mine oath, that war shall cease the while. 
    So saying, he to all the Gods upraised
  His sceptre, and Idaeus homeward sped
  To sacred Ilium.  The Dardanians there
  And Trojans, all assembled, his return 490
  Expected anxious.  He amid them told
  Distinct his errand, when, at once dissolved,
  The whole assembly rose, these to collect
  The scatter’d bodies, those to gather wood;
  While on the other side, the Greeks arose 495
  As sudden, and all issuing from the fleet
  Sought fuel, some, and some, the scatter’d dead. 
    Now from the gently-swelling flood profound
  The sun arising, with his earliest rays
  In his ascent to heaven smote on the fields. 500
  When Greeks and Trojans met.  Scarce could the slain
  Be clear distinguish’d, but they cleansed from each
  His clotted gore with water, and warm tears
  Distilling copious, heaved them to the wains. 
  But wailing none was heard, for such command 505
  Had Priam issued; therefore heaping high
  The bodies, silent and with sorrowing hearts
  They burn’d them, and to sacred Troy return’d. 
  The Grecians also, on the funeral pile
  The bodies heaping sad, burn’d them with fire 510
  Together, and return’d into the fleet. 
  Then, ere the peep of dawn, and while the veil
  Of night, though thinner, still o’erhung the earth,
  Achaians, chosen from the rest, the pile
  Encompass’d.  With a tomb (one tomb for all) 515
  They crown’d the spot adust, and to the tomb
  (For safety of their fleet and of themselves)
  Strong fortress added of high wall and tower,
  With solid gates affording egress thence
  Commodious to the mounted charioteer; 520
  Deep foss and broad they also dug without,
  And planted it with piles.  So toil’d the Greeks. 
    The Gods, that mighty labor, from beside
  The Thunderer’s throne with admiration view’d,
  When Neptune, shaker of the shores, began. 525
    Eternal father! is there on