Homer and His Age

en and Priam. There are other warriors taller by a head, and Odysseus was shorter than he by a head, so Agamemnon w

oth fulfil at last, and men make dear amends." But with characteristic inconsistency he discourages Menelaus by a picture of many a proud Trojan leaping on his tomb, while the host will return home-an idea constantly present to Agamemnon's mind. He is always the first to propose flight, though he will "return with shame" to Mycenae. Menelaus is of much better cheer: "Be of good courage, {blank spa

e as better at making speeches than at fighting! But Diomede made no answer, "having respect to the chiding of the revered King." He even rebukes the son of Capaneus for answeri

pt Menelaus, who has a strong sense of honour. Agamemnon restrains him, and lots are cast: the host pray that the lot may fall on Aias, Diomede, or Aga

up. We expect Agamemnon to answer as becomes him. But no! All are silent, till Diomede rises. They will not return, he says, even if Helen be restored, for even a fool knows tha

urage, and finally Agamemnon begins to call to the host to fight, but breaks down, weeps, and prays to Zeus "that we ourselves at least flee and escape;"

y," All are silent, till Diomede rises and reminds Agamemnon that "thou saidst I was no man of war, but a coward." (In Book V.; we are now in Book IX.) "Zeus gave thee the honour of the sceptre a

wall round the camp; the council met, and Nestor advised Agamemnon to approach Achilles with gentle words and gifts of atonement. Agamemnon, full of repentance, acknowledges his folly and offers enormous atonement. Heralds and thre

case plainly. "If Agamemnon brought thee not gifts, and promised thee more hereafter, ... then were I not he that should bid thee cast aside thine anger, and save the Argives...."

n the details of the customary law. We cannot easily suppose this frame o

Agamemnon take heart and fight next day, with his host arrayed "before the ships" (IX. 708). This appears t

exaggerated despondency" and ends with "hasty exultation," in consequence of a brilliant camisade, wherein Odysseus and Diomede massacre a Thracian contingent. Our point is that the

e coming defeat, that he "knew it," even when Zeus helped the Greeks. They are all to perish far from Argos. Let them drag the ships to the sea, moor them with stones, and fly, "For there is no shame in fleeing from ruin, even in the night. Better doth he fare who flees from trouble than he that is overtaken." It is now the turn of Odysseus again to save the ho

illes, anxious to fight and avenge Patroclus at once, without formalities of reconciliation, professes his desire to let bygones be bygon

eaf argues that all this part must be late, because of the allusion to the gifts offered in Book IX. But we reply, with Mr. Monro, that the Ninth Book is "almost necessary to any Achilleis." The question is, would a late editor or poet know all the details of customary law in such a case as a quarrel between Over-Lord and peer? would a feudal audience have been satisfied with a poem whic

duly and in order-the giving of the gifts and the feast of reconciliation-though the passionate Achilles himself desires to fight at once. Odysseus insists that what we may call the regular routine shall be gone through. It is tedious to the modern reader, but it is surely much more probable that a feudal poet thus gratified his peculiar audience (he looked for no other) than that a late poet, with a different kind of audience, thrust the Reconciliation in as an "after-thought." {Footnote: Leaf, Iliad, vol. ii. p. 317.}

ry to his revenge. But ours is {blank space} criticism; we must think of the poet in relation to his audience and of their demands, which

ppear to us that the later the poet the less he would have known or cared about the forms. An early society is always much interested in forms and in funerals and funeral games, so the poet indulges their taste with the last rites of Patroclus. The last view of Agamemnon is given when, at the end of the games, Achilles courteously presents him with the flowered lebes, the prize for hurling the spear, without a

the "business" of the reconciliation. They would also, in a democratic spirit, have degraded the Over-Lord into the tyrant, but throughout, however low Agamemnon may fall, the poet is guided by the knowledge that his right to rule is jure divino, that he has qualities, that his responsibilities are crushing, "I, whom among all men Zeus hath planted for ever among labours, while