*The white arms of Andromache are around his neck. He sets his elmet on the ground, lest their babe should be frightened. Behind the embroidered curtains of his pavillion sits Achilles, in perfumed raiment, while in harness of gilt and silver the friend of his soul arrays himself to go forth to the fight. From a curiously carved chest that his mother Thetis had brought to his ship-side, the Lord of the Myrmidons takes out that mystic chalice that the lip of man had never touched, and cleanses it with brimstone, and with fresh water cools it, and having washed his hands, fills with wine its burnished hollow, and spills the thick grape-blood upon the ground in honour of Him whom at Dodona barefooted prophets worshiped, and prays to Him, and knows not that he prays in vain, and that by the hands of two knights from Troy, Panthous' son, Euphorbus, whose love-locks were looped with gold, and the Priamid, the lion-hearted, Patroklus, the comrade of comrades, must meet his doom. Phantoms, are they? Heroes of mist and mountain? Shadows in a song? No: they are real! Action! What is action? It dies at the moment of its energy. It is a base concession to fact. The world is made by the singer for the dreamer.
Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying and Other Essays, Penguin Books, 2010, p. 22.
*Vaso grego descoberta na Sicília, datado de ca. do ano 500. A cena representada é a da morte de Pátroclo às mãos de Heitor, Euforbo e Apolo.
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