wherein again he did rightly and worthily, in that, though he could not altogether quell his passion, yet he restrained and reduced it under the command of reason, before it brake forth into such an irreparable act of mischief. Again, even Agamemnon himself talks in that assembly ridiculously, but carries himself more gravely and more like a prince in the matter of Chryseis. For whereas Achilles, when his Briseis was taken away from him,
In sullenness withdraws from all his friends,
And in his tent his time lamenting spends;
Agamemnon himself hands into the ship, delivers to her friends, and so sends from him, the woman concerning whom a little before he declared that he loved her better than his wife; and in that action did nothing unbecoming or savoring of fond affection. Also Phoenix, when his father bitterly cursed him for having to do with one that was his own harlot, says,
Him in my rage I purposed to have killed,
But that my hand some god in kindness held;
And minded me that, Greeks would taunting say,
Lo, here's the man that did his father slay.
It is true that Aristarchus was afraid to permit these verses to stand in the poet, and therefore censured them to be expunged. But they were inserted by Homer very aptly to the occasion of Phoenix's instructing Achilles what a pernicious thing anger is, and what foul acts men do by its instigation, while they are capable neither of making use of their own reason nor of hearing the counsel of others. To which end he also introduceth Meleager at first highly offended with his citizens, and afterwards pacified; justly therein reprehending disordered passions, and praising it as a good and profitable thing not to yield to them, but to resist and overcome them, and to repent when one hath been overcome by them.
Now in these instances the difference is manifest. But where a like clear judgment cannot be passed, there we are to settle the young man's mind thus, by way of distinction. If Nausicaa, having cast her eyes upon Ulysses, a stranger, and feeling the same passion for him as Calypso had before, did (as one that was ripe for a husband) out of wantonness talk with her maidens at this foolish rate,—
O Heaven! in my connubial hour decree
This man my spouse, or such a spouse as he!
("Odyssey," vi. 254.)
she is blameworthy for her impudence and incontinence. But if, perceiving the man's breeding by his discourse, and admiring the prudence of his addresses, she rather wisheth to have such a one for a husband than a merchant or a dancing gallant of her fellow-citizens, she is to be commended. And when Ulysses is represented as pleased with Penelope's jocular conversation with her wooers, and at their presenting her with rich garments and other ornaments,
Because she cunningly the fools cajoled,
And bartered light words for their heavy gold;
("Odyssey," xvii, 282.)
if that joy were occasioned by greediness and covetousness, he discovers himself to be a more sordid prostituter of his own life than Poliager is wont to be represented on the stage to have been, of whom it is said,—