Dialogues of the Dead (26.2)

ACHILLES

But in those days, son of Nestor, I still had no experience of this place, and, not knowing which

existence was preferable, I preferred that miserable empty shadow of glory to life itself; but now I realise that glory is useless, however much men above hymn its praises, that among the dead all have but equal honour, and neither the beauty nor the strength we had remain with us, but we lie buried in the same darkness, all of us quite alike, and no better one than the other, and I am neither feared by the Trojan dead nor respected by the Greeks, but there is complete equality of speech and one dead man is like another, “be he mean or be he great”. [*] That’s why I’m distressed and annoyed at not being a thrall alive on earth.