“With him died a storyThat will not be retold:How, forsaking glory,Achilles grows oldWhile Hector dusts his trophiesBehind high walls- For in his unsung strophesTroy never falls”

“After so many years even the fire of passion dies, and with it what was believed the light of the truth. Who of us is able to say now whether Hector or Achilles was right, Agamemnon or Priam, when they fought over the beauty of a woman who is now dust and ashes?”

“And overpowered by memoryBoth men gave way to grief. Priam wept freelyFor man - killing Hector, throbbing, crouchingBefore Achilles' feet as Achilles wept himself,Now for his father, now for Patroclus once againAnd their sobbing rose and fell throughout the house.”

“PatriotismBreathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, 'This is my own, my native land!' Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd As home his footsteps he hath turn'dFrom wandering on a foreign strand? If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no Minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung,Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.”

“In battle though his hands grow clever, and you'd think him whole, until the din fades, the dying fall, and Maical wanders the fields weeping.”

“But you see, Crumb, it is hard to give up what you have worked at since you were a boy. There were some Italian visitors once, they were cheering us on, Brandon and myself, and they thought that Achilles and Hector had come back to life. So they said.'But which is which? One dragged through the dust by the other ...The king says, 'You turn your boy out beautifully. No nobleman could do more.''I don't want him to be Achilles,' he says, 'I only want him not to be flattened.”