All this should be borne in mind, when we estimate the consistency of the Poet through the medium of the conduct of Achilles.
It was not a moment’s light apprehension, suffered by Agamemnon and the army, that could avail to obliterate his resentment. They had scarcely tasted of the cup of bitterness; he required that they should drain it to the dregs. He will not hear of the return of Briseis: τῇ παριαύων τερπέσθω[705]. With a mixture of close argument, terrible denunciation, and withering sarcasm, he overpowers and silences the Envoys. Only Phœnix can address him, and that after a long pause and in tears.
Yet the mighty spirit of Achilles sways to and fro in the tempest of its own emotions. Again he has threatened to depart: bidding them, with a bitterness that mounts far away into the region of the sublime, come the next day and see, if they think such a sight can be worth their seeing, his fleet speeding homeward across the broad Hellespont; or north Ægean. But this course of action would have balked his appetite for glory; which, as he knew[706], he could only buy, and that with his life, at Troy. Perhaps, too, he was softened by the respect of the Envoys, who were personally agreeable to him; perhaps grimly pleased with the awe that his Titanic passion had inspired; perhaps affected with a sympathetic feeling of regard by the straightforward bluntness of Ajax. At any rate it is plain that there followed upon the speech of the Telamoniad chief[707] a greater sign of yielding, than any which the paternal exhortations of Phœnix, or those most artfully drawn pictures by Ulysses[708] of the rage and fury of Hector, had sufficed to produce. In answer to Ulysses, to the bottom of whose astuteness his clear eye had pierced, he says, ‘I shall go[709].’ In answer to Phœnix[710], ‘To-morrow we will decide, whether to go or stay.’ In answer to Ajax, he makes a more sensible advance. He now so far relents as to tell them, he will bethink himself of battle; yet it shall only be when the hand of Hector, dealing death to Greeks, and flame to their vessels, shall have reached the tents and ships of the Myrmidons. Then it will be time enough: for then, at his encampment and by his dark ship, he trows that he will stay the course of Hector, however keen for fight[711].
Consistency maintained in and after Il. ix.
Thus far, then, we surely have no pretext for saying that Homer has departed from the purpose of his poem, of which the man Achilles is the centre and animating principle, and his Wrath with its terrible effects the theme. These effects are now developed up to a certain point: not such a point as really to endanger the army, or excite strong sympathy or apprehension on its behalf, but yet such a point as entirely to tame the irresolute egotism of Agamemnon, and drive his but half-masculine character into efforts again to lay hold upon the prop, which he had so rashly and lightly, as well as selfishly and unjustly, put away.
If we were to consider Achilles as engaged in a mere personal quarrel, we must condemn him, without any qualification whatever, for not accepting the reparation now tendered by Agamemnon. But if we bear in mind that the wrong done was a public wrong, that no confession of this wrong was made, that the other kings and leaders, and the whole army, became in some degree parties to it by their acquiescence, and that he was thus as much or more the vindicator of great public rights than the mere avenger of a personal offence, it is not so clear that the conduct of Achilles after the mission of the Ninth Book is incapable in principle of justification, according to the moral code of Greece. It must, however, undoubtedly remain amenable to severe censure on the score of excess: a culpability, for the penal notice of which Homer has made abundant provision in the sequel of the poem.
But this question is by the way: the main issue raised is as to the poetical consistency and effect of the structure, which Homer has chosen for his work. Upon this there is surely little room for doubt.
From the Ninth Book we commence afresh: Achilles in his moody seclusion, the Greeks in a manful determination to do their best; even Agamemnon is now roused to feel what he has brought upon the army, thrown back from his moral irresolution as a chief upon his personal courage as a soldier, and resolved to appear in the field, that he too may earn his laurels there.
And these intentions are gallantly fulfilled. The night foray of Diomed and Ulysses stands well, as one of the minor but safe measures, by which a skilful generalship often makes its first efforts to raise the spirits of a downcast army. Agamemnon then appears, and shows himself to be a warrior of a high, nay of the highest order of strength and valour. The other kings exert themselves with their wonted chivalry. But the decree of Jove, working through the accidents of war, drives three of the four great champions from the field, and leaves only Ajax; who, invincible wherever he is found, yet cannot be everywhere, nor, single handed, govern the result of battle along the whole extent of the line. And now come the great exertions and successes of the Trojans, especially Sarpedon and his Lycian contingent, Hector playing rather a conventional than a real part. Now it goes hard indeed with the Greeks; the fire touches the ships; Patroclus must go forth and die; and the Wrath is at an end, for it is drowned in the bitterness of the tears of Achilles.