Note 290 — Chapter XXI · GRECIAN EPIC.—HOMERIC POEMS.

Helbig (Sittl. Zustände des Heldenalters, p. 30) says, “The consciousness in the bosom of Agamemnôn that he has offered atonement to Achilles strengthens his confidence and valor,” &c. This is the idea of the critic, not of the poet. It does not occur in the Iliad, though the critic not unnaturally imagines that it must occur. Agamemnôn never says, “I was wrong in provoking Achilles, but you see I have done everything which man could do to beg his pardon.” Assuming the ninth book to be a part of the original conception, this feeling is so natural, that we could hardly fail to find it, at the beginning of the eleventh book, numbered among the motives of Agamemnôn.