χαίρεις ὑβρίζουσ’ εἰς ἔμ’, ὦ πανοῦργε σύ·
and she, no way shrinking from the imputation, replies
οὐ γάρ με χαίρειν χρὴ, σὲ τιμωρουμένην;
In one place Homer has taken an opportunity of showing us, what he thinks of the principle of exultation over fallen enemies. When Euryclea is about to shout over the fallen Suitors, Ulysses, though he has not yet ended the bloody work of retribution, gravely checks her. ‘It is wrong,’ he says, ‘to exult over the slain. These men have been overtaken by divine providence, and by their own perverse deeds: for they regarded no human being, noble or vile, with whom they had to do: wherefore they have miserably perished in their wickedness.’ The whole tone and language of this rebuke, so grave and earnest as it is, and more sad even than it is stern, is worthy of any moral code that the world has known.
Wrath in Ulysses and in Achilles.
There is indeed a terrible severity in the proceedings of Ulysses against the Suitors, the women, and his rebellious subjects. But it is plain that the case, which Homer had to represent, was one that required the hero to effect something like a reconquest of the country. It is also plain that Homer felt that these stern measures would require a very strong warrant. Hence without doubt it is, that the preparations for the crisis are so elaborate; the insults offered to the disguised master of the palace so aggravated; and the direct agency of Minerva introduced to deepen his sufferings. Hence, again, when the incensed warrior is about to pursue with martial ardour the flying insurgents, his eagerness is mildly marked as excessive, and is effectually checked by the friendly but decisive intervention of Jupiter. Some critics have objected to this passage, and have argued that it could not be genuine. They surely must forget, that Homer does not seek to present us in his protagonists with a faultlessness which would have carried them out of the sphere, such as it was conceived by him and by his age, of life either divine or human. Both Ulysses and Achilles may err. But where they err, it is in measure and degree. Ulysses is the minister of public justice, and of divine retribution. But he is composed, like ourselves, of flesh and blood, and he carries his righteous office, in a natural heat, to the verge of cruelty. Then the warning voice is vouchsafed to him, and he at once dutifully obeys. And is, then, a thing like this so new and strange to us? And has neither our philosophy nor our experience of life taught us that there are no circumstances, in which a good and just man runs so serious a risk of becoming harsh and cruel unawares, as when he is hurried along by the torrent of an originally righteous indignation?
Even so with Achilles. He is, no more than Ulysses, merely vengeful, but he resents a wrong done to justice, to decency, and to love, in his person. Upon the stream of this resentment he is carried, until it threatens to become a torrent. Then, by an admirable design, he is chastised in the yet deeper passion of his soul, his friendship for Patroclus; and so is recalled within the bounds of his duty to his suffering countrymen.
But in both cases the foundation of conduct is just and sound: by neither is any sanction given to the principle which the Gospel rebukes, ‘an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ For a wrong done to principles of public morality and justice is in each case alike the thing chiefly resented, although in each case the person who resents it is also a person that had greatly suffered by it.
Again, we should misunderstand Homer’s picture of the Greek character, if we conceived that he left no room in it for those accesses of emotion, with respect to which it may be difficult to say whether they contributed most to its strength or its weakness, while it seems clear that they are in near association with both.
The Poet’s intention does not oblige him to place his protagonists beyond the reach of human infirmity, as we see in the stubborn wrath of Achilles, and in the awakened keenness of Ulysses for the blood of his rebellious subjects[865]. And though he never exhibits them as vicious, still, in the case of Ulysses, as well as in that of Achilles, he has introduced into his picture great quickness of temper, which is indeed nearly, though not necessarily, connected with sensitiveness of honour. On two occasions in particular is this observable: in the sharp answers namely of Ulysses, first to Agamemnon, who on his circuit accuses him of remissness in military duty[866]; and secondly to the θυμοδακὴς μῦθος of Euryalus[867], who has taken him for a πρήκτηρ or merchant, and a rogue to boot.