Thus like the rage of fire the combat burns,[250] And now it rises, now it sinks by turns. Meanwhile, where Hellespont’s broad waters flow, Stood Nestor’s son, the messenger of woe: There sat Achilles, shaded by his sails, On hoisted yards extended to the gales; Pensive he sat; for all that fate design’d Rose in sad prospect to his boding mind. Thus to his soul he said: “Ah! what constrains The Greeks, late victors, now to quit the plains? Is this the day, which heaven so long ago Ordain’d, to sink me with the weight of woe? (So Thetis warn’d;) when by a Trojan hand The bravest of the Myrmidonian band Should lose the light! Fulfilled is that decree; Fallen is the warrior, and Patroclus he! In vain I charged him soon to quit the plain, And warn’d to shun Hectorean force in vain!”