Page:Homer The Iliad.djvu/111

Rh powers of endurance if we see that lie is, like Sir Gareth, a good feeder. And perhaps it is some lingering reminiscence of the old heroic ages that leads us still to mark our appreciation of modern heroes by bestowing on them a public dinner.

When the meal is over, Ulysses rises, and in accordance with immemorial custom—as old, it appears, as these half-mythical ages—pledges the health of their illustrious host. In a speech which does full justice to the oratorical powers which the poet assigns him, he lays before Achilles the proposal of Agamemnon. He sets forth the straits to which the Greeks are reduced, pent within their fortifications by the terrible Hector, and acknowledges, in the fullest manner, that in the great name of Achilles lies their only hope of rescue. He dwells upon the remorse which Achilles himself will surely feel, when too late, if he suffers the hopes of Greece to be ruined by the indulgence of his own haughty spirit—the temper against which, as he reminds him, his aged father warned him when first he set out for Troy:—

He lays before him the propositions of Agamemnon. Briseis shall be restored to him, in all honour, pure as when she left him; so the great point in the quarrel is fully conceded. Moreover, the king will give him the choice of his three daughters in marriage, if it ever be their happy fate to see again the shores of Argos, and will add such dowry