And Achilles himself having lifted up, placed it in the couch, And along with him his attendants raised it up into the beautifully-polish'd car. "Be not angry with me, Patroclus, if perchance thou mayst hear, He said, and to his tent return'd the illustrious Achilles, And sat down on his splendidly-Dædalian reclining-chair, from which he had uprisen, From the opposite wall, and to Priam these words address'd : "Ransom-restored hath been thy son to thee, old man, as thou did'st wish; In the couch he lies, and, along with the day-spring, Thou thyself shalt behold and carry him away: but now let us be mindful of supper. For even the beautiful-hair'd Niobe was mindful of food, Although even her twelve children were cut off in the house, Six daughters truly, and six blooming sons; Them Apollo slew from (by means of) his silver bow, Being enraged at Niobe; the former, Diana that-delights-in-arrows (slew), Because she (Niobe) had compared herself with the beautiful-cheek'd Latona, For she said that she had brought forth two, while she herself had produced many. But they (Apollo and Diana) though two destroy'd them all, For-nine-days lay they in their slaughter (blood), nor was there one To bury them; for Jove had made the people stone. Them, however, on the tenth day did the gods of heaven bury: Yet even she was mindful of food, when weary of weeping. And now somewhere among the rocks, among the sheep-frequented (solitary) mountains, In Sipylus, where they say is the cradle of the goddess— Nymphs, who move-vigorously (dance) around (on the banks) of the Achelous, There, although of stone, does she digest* her sorrows, from (inflicted by) the gods. But come, illustrious old man, let us concern ourselves About food, and afterwards mayst thou weep for thy beloved son, When you have carried him to Troy; much-wept-for shall he be by thee." Slew, (which) his companions flay'd, and prepared skilfully and gracefully, And roasted it circumspectly, and drew all off (the spits). But Automedon having taken bread, portion'd it out on the table In beautiful baskets, and Achilles portion'd out the flesh. They stretch'd forth their hands to the good cheer† (now) ready and served up. After they had removed the desire of food and drink, Then indeed did the Dardanian Priam gaze-with-admiration on Achilles, How large, and what kind he was, (his stature and beauty ;) for he seem'd in presence like the gods: And Achilles gazed with admiration on the Dardanian Priam, Contemplating his benevolent countenance, and listening to his words! But when they were satisfied with beholding one another, The god-like aged Priam first address'd him : "Send-me-to-repose, Jove-nourish'd-one, that now Lull'd in sweet sleep we may be recruited; For never have my eyes under my eyelids closed, From the time when, under thy hands, my son lost his life, But ever I groan, and ten thousand woes digest, In the enclosures of my court, rolling myself in the dust: But now have I fed upon food, and the dark wine Have I sent (poured) down my throat: for never before had I fed." He said: but Achilles gave orders to his companions and bondswomen To prepare a bed beneath the portico, and beautiful bedclothes Of purple to onlay, and thereupon coverlets to place, And soft fleeces to put on, to be drawn over from above. They went forth from the house, having in their hands each a torch, Kndsa Téors-Shakspeare's "chewing the cud of sweet and bitter memory." tvia, lit. profitable things. And immediately they made up two couches-with-sedulous haste, When the swift-footed Achilles, false-fear-infusing* into him, thus addressed him; "Sleep thou without, beloved old man, lest any one of the Greeks As a consulter should come here, for such continually Are sitting by me deliberating in council, as the manner is: Of these, if any one should see thee through the swift dark night, Forthwith will he tell it to Agamemnon, the shepherd of the people, And peradventure a procrastination of the ransoming of the corse may take place. But come now, tell me this, and truly tell me, How many-days art-thou anxious-for to bury the illustrious Hector, Since so long will I myself be at rest, and restrain the people." Him the venerable god-like Priam then addressed : "If me thou wish to celebrate funeral rites to the illustrious Hector, By so doing, a grateful-favour wilt thou confer on me, Achilles. Thou knowest that we are shut up in the city, and from afar must wood Be brought from the city, and much panic-struck are the Trojans. For nine days him shall we bewail in the house, But on the tenth day would we bury him, and let the people have the funeral banquet : On the eleventh day would we erect a mound upon him, And on the twelfth will we renew the war, if it must needs be so." Him then addressed the swift-footed, god-like Achilles : "It shall be so, venerable Priam, since thus thou wishest it: The war, for as long as thou orderest, will I restrain." Thus having spoken, the old man's right hand at the wrist He grasped, that he might not in any respect be alarmed in mind, This was, perhaps, the boldest attempt ever undertaken and achieved in one single scene by any poet. We do not except even the wonderful works of Shakspeare, who "exhausted worlds, and then imagined new," or of Milton, who not only brought together angels and us conversing in Paradise, but ventured even on more transcendent strains. The heart of Homer could not rest till he had reconciled the Destroyer and the Bereaved. Such was the nobility of his nature, and such the congenial grandeur of his genius, that he felt a high and holy duty imposed on him by the Muse, of which he was the Voice, to conquer and overcome all mortal horror, repulsion, and repugnance in the hearts of his heroes, and to vindicate in them the laws that bind together the brotherhood of the human race. His triumph is perfect in that reconciliation. Throughout the whole interview the flow of feeling is strong" as a mountain river" that issues in power from its very source; with many magni ficent breaks and many majestic flow it pursues its way; and ends tran quilly in the wide wide sea, unde the hush of night, "when all the star of heaven are on its breast." We beheld a stormy morning-an a day of storms-nor knew how to hope for termination of the tempest But we find ourselves "at dewy to fall of the night" in the midst of pro foundest peace. All passion has ra ved itself away; no sound is heard in the Tent but the murmurs of the mid night sea; and Achilles and Priam like princes at peace, are asleep be neath the reed-roof of the pine-pil lared edifice, while their tutelar gods inspire into their souls undis turbing dreams. Out in the oper air, before the porch, and beneatl the pity of the stars, laid thereon by the heroic hands that slew the hero and decently composed his limbs a last, and covered with fair vesture lies on the car of Priam the ran somed body of Hector. From all dis figurement and decay Apollo hac saved it with his golden shield; no 'EringToulav-wounding by sarcastic raillery-must here mean, falsum timorem incutere cupiens-τὸ κερτομεν ου τραχότητα ἔχον ὑβριστικὴν, ἤ ὀνειδιστικὴν, αλλ' εισήγησιν φόβου sudes not a contumelious or sarcastic roughness, but an exhibition of pretended fear, says Eustathius on this passage. Heyne, however, translates it," Subridendo et quasi leniter jocando.” will Hecuba and Andromache need to regard with horror in their grief the face of the Defender. ΜΗΝΙΝ ἄειδε, Θεὰ, Πηληϊάδεω Αχιλήος. That great line has been developed-out of it has grown the Iliad. "Like some tall palm the stately fabric rose. Yet have there been critics, and those, too, of some "mark and likelihood," who have been unable to construe My-to understand the meaning of WRATH. They forget, too, that it was the Wrath of Achilles. They have complained of Homer, that he has inspired his hero with two Wrathsone-of which Agamemnon was the object-of the other, Hector. O the blind breasts of mortals! There was but one Wrath-but it was " wide and general as the casing air,"-in its atmosphere Achilles breathed-it was the plague and Apollo sent it -it broke not out in boils and blains and blotches on the face of Achilles -for nothing could change the beautiful but into the terrible-but it bathed his eyes in fire, and discoloured to them all the green earth with blood. Wrath is a demon-and its name is Legion-for there are many; and the devils are like gods. The passion of Achilles-who was the Incarnation of the Will-hewed down, on all the high places, woods for fuel to burn on its own altar, a perpetual oblation and sacrifice, flaming day and night, to Revenge. Achilles had a noble understandingno Greek among them all had farger Discourse of Reason. But he appealed to another power in his being, on his mighty wrong; and a response came to him, more sacred even than of conscience," Relent not till Greece is trodden in the dust by Troy." ΜΗΝΙΝ ἄειδε, Θεὰ, Πηληϊάδεω ̓Αχιλῆος. It is a miserable mistake to think that Achilles was at any time, except just at the very first burst on Sustaining that injurious insult, wrathful with Agamemnon. The King of Men was the cause-but the effect flashed over his whole life. Never before had his heart conceived the possibility of insult to him the goddess-born. He had « taken the start of this majestic world," and allegiance in all eyes looked acknowledgment of the divine right of him whom na ture had made and crowned a monarch of her own. In his superior presence the wisdom of Ulysses was mute-the strength of Ajax lost all its praise-dim was the fire of Diomed-and the grey head of Nestor shone with joy when he did it reverence. Thersites' self dared no scurrile jest within hearing of the son of Thetis. At the uplifting of his peaceful hand, the Myrmidons were meek as lambs-another wave-and away went the herd of wolves to lap the blood of battle. And then, had he not sacked a score of cities, slain their kings, and led captive the daughters of kings, gladly to live in the delights of love-lemans all of the man who had extinguished their kindred, but who still cherished closest to his great heart his affianced bride, Briseis? She was not torn-for Agamemnon dared not violence to the Invincible-but taken from his Tent by the heralds-holy men even as the priests were holy-and Achilles in his wrath respected the servants of the laws, because the laws, he knew, are from Jove. His great soul enjoyed a religious pride (remember he was a pagan) in obedience-on that trial-to the Sire of the Gods. ΜΗΝΙΝ ἄειδε, Θεά, Πηληϊάδεω ̓Αχιλήος. The Wrath, you know, was just. And what is Revenge, but what one of the wisest of men has called it, a wild kind of Justice? Achilles sat not at the ships "nursing his Wrath to keep it warm." "No fear lest dinner cool." It was a repast of one dish, hot as if it had been baked in Erebus. It steamed up in his nostrils a bitter-sweet savour, while they dilated with the lust of that infernal food. To greatness of character is essential inflexibility of purpose; and he sat there, out of the battling in which, till then, had been his delight, a martyr to his own fury. His Wrath embraced now all the Greek army-aH Greece-and especially himself-wroth was he exceedingly with Achilles. pleased not him, nor woman either” -except Patroclus-and now and then, in dreadful dalliance of disappointed passion for another, "Man "Diomeda, Phoebus' daughter fair;" yet he had delight still in Music and Poetry. Nor did the Harper smite the strings like a madman. They yielded solemn sounds and high, for the chords were struck to odes: chanted by the hero's voice, to the praise of the heroes. That voice was like a bell chiming among groves. It was of miraculous reach but his contr'alto that soared skywards, was no falsetto and his basso was like the sound of the hollow sea when the flowing tide is musicals on the yellow sands in the night silence. Beautiful 'twas felt to be by Ulysses, and Ajax, and Phoenix, when, on their hopeless mission, they paused I at the door of the state-room of his Tent, to listen to Achilles, as if he had been Apollo. His very courtesy awed them; and they left him unmoved in his majesty, with even higher ideas of his heroic character, because that he was inexorable to all their prayers while he u like an arrow which does, it glanced from Agamemnon, and stopped not till it smote Hector. # ΜΗΝΙΝ ἄειδε, Θεὰ, Πηληϊάδεω Αχιλῆος. But that Wrath, as yet, kindles not It against the killer of Patroclus. turns and fastens on his own heart. Dismally streaked is it now with the bloodshot agonies of grief. He rages against all that breathes-stirs-lives -dies, He is angry with T gods and men-with Agamemnon, king of men with himself-most of all with Hecfor though he names him not—and doom of death, since it has fallen on Patroclus. What fierce embracement of the corpse! What fury in the aim meditated against that vein-swollen throat of his, choking in convulsive agonies heaved from his bursting heart! The Invincible about to be a suicide! But his hand is withheld-not by the warrior who "The war wide-wasted, and the pe people kneels beside him-but by the same fell." " Familiar who had been with him ever since the insult-by Revenge. Then it is that the insult is forgottenand Agamemnon too-and that one phantom establishes itself before his eyes never more to leave them, till it be laid in blood-the image of Hector stripping Patroclus, and daring now to wear the armour Achilles wore. That now is the wrong that now is the insult-let the living Briseis warm with love and delight the couch of Agamemnon and none disturb their embraces; the dead body of Patroclus is now all his thought, and all his desireand he will pursue his murderer till he has torn the bloody reckoning from his heart.' From within-if at all-must be moved the soul of Achilles. The more terrible the passion, the more entire its joy. And never is joy so deep, as when drumly and dark it rolls on its way"-the main flood swollen by a thousand tributary streams, each, as it joins, lost in one general grim discoloration. And the soul of Achilles was moved at last -from within-by his love for Patroclus. The first relenting of his Wrath-the first" change that came o'er the spirit of his dream," vindicated his character at once from all that might have seemed questionable in his passion. The hero felt that Hector was too near the ships in the remonstrance of the man dearest to his heart; and while other voices might as well have spoken to the winds, that of his brother began to move the hero. Like two trees had they grown up together in front of the palace of Peleus-they were as the pillars of his state. Go then to battle my Patroclus-and in the armour of thy Achilles!" He went apparition is the most sublime sight --and died; and was his death, think ye, an anodyne to lull asleep the Wrath of him who sent his brother to destruction? But it became say the philosophers another Wrath; it continued the same Wrath, say we; but, like lightning glancing from tree to tree, or if lightning act not so, 11 -[ ] ΜΗΝΙΝ άειδε, Θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Αχιλῆος. But who was it that rescued the body of Patroclus? Not Meriones and the Ajaces, from Hector's self, and restored his dead brother to Achilles? Achilles, unarmed-naked-but for the burning light with which Minerva haloed his head-beyond the fosse stood and shouted. That portentous in poetry, and in nature; if, as we have said, sublimity be the union, as of cause and effect, of power and terror. Such is the union of the two, in thunder, lightning, and the sea, and the roar of battle when hosts commingle; and such then was their union in the figure, face, and voice of one then invested by heaven with supernatural attributes, to astound and scatter a whole warlike host. His goddess-mother alone knew how to lay the agonies of his wrathful woe. It was by elevating his whole spirit to a still loftier pitch of heroism by those heavenly Arms and Armour, to forge which roared all the furnaces in the celestial smithy. She knew the sight of that Shield, engraven with the glories of earth and heaven, would pacify her hero. From the dread music of the bright trembling and quivering beaten silver and gold, as Thetis dropt it, arms and armour, at the feet of her son, all the Myrmidons fled howling; but in that music Achilles heard the death-doom of Hector. He armedhe mounted-and, like the sun-godunappalled by portents and prodigies -when his war-steeds spake-he drove to battle-in a whirlwind of wrath-as when the orb of day looks angry in heaven, and seems to move through the storm. ΜΗΝΙΝ ἄειδε, Θεά, Πηληϊάδεω ̓Αχιλῆος. Patroclus is with him all over the battle-field. For his sake he slaughters. Each foe that falls is a victim to his shade. So much dearer the sacrifice, if of the same blood-like Polydore and Lycaon-as Hector. Yet he scorns not even to take captives. Twelve Trojan princes he binds like slaves, reserved for the funeral pile of Patroclus, for a moment prefigured in a dream. Nor is the grandeur of Achilles abated by the sight of the gods descending mixed in fight." The mortal sustains compare with the immortals. His fury has brought them all from heaven. And now he rages alone before the walls of Troy-and as Hector stands at the Scæan gate, we hear again Homer's voice, saying, in a low mournful tone," If Hector perish, then Ilium falls;" and perish he will, we well know, for his lot, in the eternal balance, kicks the beam held in the hand of Jove. The wrath of Achilles enkindles the burning light of his celestial armour. Kindled from within and from without, he is a figure of fire, or he is the lightning, the flame, the sun, the moon, the star Orion, or like him" that leads the starry host, and shines brightest," VOL. XXXI, NO. CXC. Hesperus, all that is most beautiful, most dreadful, most deathful in the skies. Is He pursues-grasps-kills Hector, as a bird of prey a bird of peace. Yet Hector, too, was an eagle. the Wrath then assuaged at last? No doubt Achilles for a moment imagined that it was assuaged; and, therefore, he cried aloud, " great glory have we achieved; we have slain the illustrious Hector." But he knew not the full power of his own passions of grief and revenge. What is glory now to him the lover of glory? What though Pergamus totter with all its towers? Patroclus is dead; and at that thought all is forgotten but the carcass of the dog that killed him; which shall have no burial but in the bowels of dogs and of the fowls of the air. Not sufficient to satiate his Wrath the wounds the soldiers gave. Achilles perhaps saw them not while they were stabbing; nor heeded the crows picking at the fallen quarry. But he was himself the lion to drag away into his lair the infatuated hunter that dared to turn upon him on the edge of the forest. Then a sudden thought smote him and away he drove in his chariot, amid clouds of dust, the hero's hated head, with its long black-brown curls, dashing, and leaping, and bounding, the whole naked body bloodily begrimed, and distorted all its once fair proportions; and thus doth the noble Hector now approach the fleet he so lately fired, while the city shrieks to see the flight, and there is the silence of consternation among them who have their dwelling in heaven. ΜΗΝΙΝ ἄειδε, Θεὰ, Πηληϊάδεω ̓Αχιλῆος. It-the Wrath-heaves so broad and high the funeral pyre of Patroclus. Sullen as the soul of Achilles, that pyre smoulders, but will not burst into devouring flames. But the hero calls upon the Winds-they obey the spell of his passion-and the sudden conflagration is in a roar. A mingled immolation of hounds, horses, and princes, sacrificed in horrid mixture of brute and human life, expiring in the same pangs in the same expiatory fire! But the bones of the beloved, they are apart and, gathered out of the reach of M |