But the parallel most striking to the present passage occurs in the address of Ulysses to Achilles, Odyssey XI. 482—
“Achilles,
Never man before was happier, nor shall ever be, than thou;
When thou wert among the living all the Argives honoured thee
Like a god, and now amid the dead thou sway’st with mighty power.”
To which address the hero gave the well-known reply, a reply characteristic at once of his own tremendous energy, and of the Greek views of a future state:—
“Noble Ulysses, praise me not the state of death; for I would rather
Be a serf, and break the clods to him that owneth acres few
On Earth, than reign the mighty lord of millions of the shadowy dead.”