NINTH BOOK OF THE ILIAD. 1JH which he thirsts, is as yet future and contingent ; that no plenary apology has yet been tendered, nor any offer made of restoring he has no reason as yet to conclude that Agamemnon is willing to grant. But the ninth book has actually tendered to him everything which he here demands, and even more (the daughter of Agamemnon in marriage, without the price usually paid for a bride, etc.) : Briseis, 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 con- tradict the ninth book, where Achilles has actually rejected what he hero thirsts for (" Dona cum puella 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 Myrmi- dons, as he is conducting them forth to the battle : " Fight bravely, Myrmi- dons, that we may bring honor to Achilles ; and that the wide-ruling Aga- memnon may know the mad folly which he committed, when he dishonored the bravest of the Greeks." To impress this knowledge upon Agamemnon 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 hum- ble the rival who has dishonored him is the first of all objects, as well with bis 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 Agamemnon, in which he had been undeniably wronged, but to the scene in the ninth book, where the maximum of atone- ment 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 tho primitive quarrel in ihe first book, just as if it had been the last incident in his relations with Agamemnon: moreover, Agamemnon (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 Agamemnon and the Greeks shall be made bitterly sensible of the wrong which they have done to their bravest wavrior (i. 409-509). Now thi consummation is brought about in the ninth book. Achilles can get no more, nor cioes he ultimately get more, either in the way of redress to himself or remorseful humiliation of Agamemnon, than what is here tendered. The defeat which the Greeks suffer in the battle of the eighth book (KoAor Nf'xy)
