THE HORSES OF ACHILLES.
The gentleness of chivalry, properly so called, depends on the recognition of the order and awe of lower and loftier animal life, first clearly taught in the myth of Chiron, and in his bringing up of Jason, Æsculapius, and Achilles, but most perfectly by Homer, in the fable of the horses of Achilles, and the part assigned to them, in relation to the death of his friend, and in prophecy of his own. There is, perhaps, in all the "Iliad," nothing more deep in significance—there is nothing in all literature more perfect in human tenderness, and honor for the mystery of inferior life—than the verses that describe the sorrow of the divine horses at the death of Patroclus, and the comfort given them by the greatest of gods.
Ruskin.