Note 289 — Chapter XXI · GRECIAN EPIC.—HOMERIC POEMS.

Observe, for example, the following passages:—

1. Achilles, standing on the prow of his ship, sees the general army of Greeks undergoing defeat by the Trojans, and also sees Nestor conveying in his chariot a wounded warrior from the field. He sends Patroclus to find out who the wounded man is: in calling forth Patroclus, he says (xi. 607),—

Heyne, in his comment, asks the question, not unnaturally, “Pœnituerat igitur asperitatis erga priorem legationem, an homo arrogans expectaverat alteram ad se missam iri?” I answer, neither one nor the other: the words imply that he had received no embassy at all. He is still the same Achilles who in the first book paced alone by the seashore, devouring his own soul under a sense of bitter affront, and praying to Thetis to aid his revenge: this revenge is now about to be realized, and he hails its approach with delight. But if we admit the embassy of the ninth book to intervene, the passage becomes a glaring inconsistency for that which Achilles anticipates as future, and even yet as contingent, had actually occurred on the previous evening; the Greeks had supplicated at his feet,—they had proclaimed their intolerable need,—and he had spurned them. The Scholiast, in his explanation of these lines, after giving the plain meaning, that “Achilles shows what he has long been desiring, to see the Greeks in a state of supplication to him,”—seems to recollect that this is in contradiction to the ninth book, and tries to remove the contradiction, by saying “that he had been previously mollified by conversation with Phœnix,”—ἤδη δὲ προμαλαχθεὶς ἦν ἐκ τῶν Φοίνικος λόγων,—a supposition neither countenanced by anything in the poet, nor sufficient to remove the difficulty.

2. The speech of Poseidôn (xiii. 115) to encourage the dispirited Grecian heroes, in which, after having admitted the injury done to Achilles by Agamemnôn, he recommends an effort to heal the sore, and intimates “that the minds of good men admit of this healing process,” (Ἀλλ᾽ ἀκεώμεθα θᾶσσον· ἀκεσταί τε φρένες ἐσθλῶν,) is certainly not very consistent with the supposition that this attempt to heal had been made in the best possible way, and that Achilles had manifested a mind implacable in the extreme on the evening before,—while the mind of Agamemnôn was already brought to proclaimed humiliation, and needed no farther healing.

3. And what shall we say to the language of Achilles and Patroclus, at the beginning of the sixteenth book, just at the moment when the danger has reached its maximum, and when Achilles is about to send forth his friend?

Neither Nestor, when he invokes and instructs Patroclus as intercessor with Achilles (xi. 654-790), nor Patroclus himself, though in the extreme of anxiety to work upon the mind of Achilles, and reproaching him with hardness of heart,—ever bring to remembrance the ample atonement which had been tendered to him; while Achilles himself repeats the original ground of quarrel, the wrong offered to him in taking away Brisêis, continuing the language of the first book; then, without the least allusion to the atonement and restitution since tendered, he yields to his friend’s proposition, just like a man whose wrong remained unredressed, but who was, nevertheless, forced to take arms by necessity (xvi. 60-63):—

I agree with the Scholiast and Heyne in interpreting ἔφην γε as equivalent to διενοήθην,—not as referring to any express antecedent declaration.

Again, farther on in the same speech, “The Trojans (Achilles says) now press boldly forward upon the ships, for they no longer see the blaze of my helmet: but if Agamemnôn were favorably disposed towards me, they would presently run away and fill the ditches with their dead bodies” (71):—

Now here again, if we take our start from the first book, omitting the ninth, the sentiment is perfectly just. But assume the ninth book, and it becomes false and misplaced; for Agamemnôn is then a prostrate and repentant man, not merely “favorably disposed” towards Achilles, but offering to pay any price for the purpose of appeasing him.

4. Again, a few lines farther, in the same speech, Achilles permits Patroclus to go forth, in consideration of the extreme peril of the fleet, but restricts him simply to avert this peril and do nothing more: “Obey my words, so that you may procure for me honor and glory from the body of Greeks, and that they may send back to me the damsel, giving me ample presents besides: when you have driven the Trojans from the ships, come back again”:—

How are we to reconcile this with the ninth book, where Achilles declares that he does not care for being honored by the Greeks, ix. 604? In the mouth of the affronted Achilles, of the first book, such words are apt enough: he will grant succor, but only to the extent necessary for the emergency, and in such a way as to insure redress for his own wrong,—which redress he has no reason as yet to conclude that Agamemnôn is willing to grant. But the ninth book has actually tendered to him everything which he here demands, and even more (the daughter of Agamemnôn in marriage, without the price usually paid for a bride, etc.): Brisêis, whom now he is so anxious to repossess, was then offered in restitution, and he disdained the offer. Mr. Knight, in fact, strikes out these lines as spurious; partly, because they contradict the ninth book, where Achilles has actually rejected what he here thirsts for (“Dona cum puellâ jam antea oblata aspernatus erat,”)—partly because he thinks that they express a sentiment unworthy of Achilles; in which latter criticism I do not concur.

5. We proceed a little farther to the address of Patroclus to the Myrmidons, as he is conducting them forth to the battle: “Fight bravely, Myrmidons, that we may bring honor to Achilles; and that the wide-ruling Agamemnôn may know the mad folly which he committed, when he dishonored the bravest of the Greeks.”

To impress this knowledge upon Agamemnôn was no longer necessary. The ninth book records his humiliating confession of it, accompanied by atonement and reparation. To teach him the lesson a second time, is to break the bruised reed,—to slay the slain. But leave out the ninth book, and the motive is the natural one,—both for Patroclus to offer, and for the Myrmidons to obey: Achilles still remains a dishonored man, and to humble the rival who has dishonored him is the first of all objects, as well with his friends as with himself.

6. Lastly, the time comes when Achilles, in deep anguish for the death of Patroclus, looks back with aversion and repentance to the past. To what point should we expect that his repentance would naturally turn? Not to his primary quarrel with Agamemnôn, in which he had been undeniably wronged,—but to the scene in the ninth book, where the maximum of atonement for the previous wrong is tendered to him and scornfully rejected. Yet when we turn to xviii. 108, and xix. 55, 68, 270, we find him reverting to the primitive quarrel in the first book, just as if it had been the last incident in his relations with Agamemnôn: moreover, Agamemnôn (xix. 86), in his speech of reconciliation, treats the past just in the same way,—deplores his original insanity in wronging Achilles.

7. When we look to the prayers of Achilles and Thetis, addressed to Zeus in the first book, we find that the consummation prayed for is,—honor to Achilles,—redress for the wrong offered to him,—victory to the Trojans until Agamemnôn and the Greeks shall be made bitterly sensible of the wrong which they have done to their bravest warrior (i. 409-509). Now this consummation is brought about in the ninth book. Achilles can get no more, nor does he ultimately get more, either in the way of redress to himself or remorseful humiliation of Agamemnôn, than what is here tendered. The defeat which the Greeks suffer in the battle of the eighth book (Κόλος Μάχη) has brought about the consummation. The subsequent and much more destructive defeats which they undergo are thus causeless: yet Zeus is represented as inflicting them reluctantly, and only because they are necessary to honor Achilles (xiii. 350; xv. 75, 235, 598; compare also viii. 372 and 475).

If we reflect upon the constitution of the poem, we shall see that the fundamental sequence of ideas in it is, a series of misfortunes to the Greeks, brought on by Zeus for the special purpose of procuring atonement to Achilles and bringing humiliation on Agamemnôn: the introduction of Patroclus superadds new motives of the utmost interest, but it is most harmoniously worked into the fundamental sequence. Now the intrusion of the ninth book breaks up the scheme of the poem by disuniting the sequence: Agamemnôn is on his knees before Achilles, entreating pardon and proffering reparation, yet the calamities of the Greeks become more and more dreadful. The atonement of the ninth book comes at the wrong time and in the wrong manner.

There are four passages (and only four, so far as I am aware) in which the embassy of the ninth book is alluded to in the subsequent books: one in xviii. 444-456, which was expunged as spurious by Aristarchus (see the Scholia and Knight’s commentary, ad loc.); and three others in the following book, wherein the gifts previously tendered by Odysseus as the envoy of Agamemnôn are noticed as identical with the gifts actually given in the nineteenth book. I feel persuaded that these passages (vv. 140-141, 192-195, and 243) are specially inserted for the purpose of establishing a connection between the ninth book and the nineteenth. The four lines (192-195) are decidedly better away: the first two lines (140-141) are noway necessary; while the word χθιζὸς (which occurs in both passages) is only rendered admissible by being stretched to mean nudius tertius (Heyne, ad loc.).

I will only farther remark with respect to the ninth book, that the speech of Agamemnôn (17-28), the theme for the rebuke of Diomêdês and the obscure commonplace of Nestor, is taken verbatim from his speech in the second book, in which place the proposition, of leaving the place and flying, is made, not seriously, but as a stratagem (ii. 110, 118, 140).

The length of this note can only be excused by its direct bearing upon the structure of the Iliad. To show that the books from the eleventh downwards are composed by a poet who has no knowledge of the ninth book, is, in my judgment, a very important point of evidence in aiding us to understand what the original Achillêis was. The books from the second to the seventh inclusive are insertions into the Achillêis, and lie apart from its plot, but do not violently contradict it, except in regard to the agora of the gods at the beginning of the fourth book, and the almost mortal wound of Sarpêdon in his battle with Tlepolemus. But the ninth book overthrows the fundamental scheme of the poem.