And as to the second, i.e. (O. ix. 29):—
Vainly Calypso, the fair goddess, would fain have kept me
with her in her hollow caves longing to have me for her lord.
Circe of Aia would have stayed me in her halls, longing to
have me for her lord. But never did they prevail upon my
heart within my breast.
Especially does he expound his opinion of virtue in the passages in which he makes Achilles not only brave but most beautiful in form, and swiftest of foot, and most illustrious in birth and distinguished in race and aided by the chiefest of the gods; and Odysseus understanding and firm in soul—in other respects not enjoying an equal fortune. His stature and aspect not conspicuous, his parentage not altogether noteworthy, his country obscure, hated by a god who was all but first. None of these things prevented him from being famous, from gaining the chief good of the soul.
But the Peripatetic School think the goods of the soul have the pre-eminence, such as prudence, fortitude, temperance, justice. Afterward are those of the body, such as health, strength, beauty, swiftness; and there are besides external goods such as reputation, nobility, wealth. For they think any one worthy of praise and admiration if he, fortified by the protective virtues of the soul, holds out against evils in the midst of sufferings, disease, want, unforeseen accidents, but that this situation is not a desirable nor a happy one. For not only the possession of virtue do they think good, but its use and its activity. And these distinctions Homer directly showed, for he always makes the gods (O. viii. 325):—
The givers of good things,—
these things also men pray the gods to furnish them, as being plainly neither useless to them nor indifferent, but advantageous to happiness.
What the goods are men aim at, and through which they are called happy, he declares in many places. But all of them together were centred in Hermes (I. xxiv. 376):—
Blessed are thy parents in a son so grac'd,
In face and presence, and of mind so wise.
He bears witness to his beauty of body, his intelligence, and his lineage. Separately he takes them up (I. vi. 156):—
On whom the gods bestowed
The gifts of beauty and of manly grace,
And Zeus poured out lordly wealth,—