Page:Modern Eloquence - Volume 1.djvu/25

xvi custom. The Iliad, as a war-epic, cannot be expected to furnish instances of social gathering with attendant feasting and speaking. Yet both are found in two of its most important passages.

Readers will recall the haste, bred of disaster and fear, with which panic-stricken Agamemnon summoned the leaders of the host to meet in general assembly, and made the cowardly proposal to abandon the siege of Troy, charging defeat upon Jove, cruel and faithless. The prolonged silence with which his faint-hearted counsel was reproved being at length broken by Diomede's courageous rebuke a stormy debate appears likely to ensue. It is then that the wisdom of a skilled master of assemblies becomes conspicuous. Venerable Nestor, orator pre-eminent, gracefully turning down his impetuous junior with the remark that, though he had spoken bravely and well, the chief point of the matter had been missed, which he himself will enlarge upon. But not then. Imminent as was the need of good counsel and immediate action the mood of the assembly did not suit him. Therefore he moves to dismiss the fighting men to a plenteous meal. And to the king he says, "Do thou, Agamemnon, taking the lead as supreme in command, assemble the elders to a splendid feast in thy tent, one worthy thy station. Plenty of wine hast thou in store, every appliance is thine, and all will attend on their sovereign. Then let the leaders consult, and of all the counsel they offer choose thou the wisest and best. Good need hath Greece of suggestions, prudent at once and bold, when the fires of the Trojans around us blaze fearfully near, and on this night's decision depends the fate of our army." But first the feast and then the counsel that is to prevail in this crisis. Nor is it until Atreus' son had convened the chiefs to a "strengthening meal," and each one "laying his hand on the plenteous viands before him, hunger and thirst appeased," that they betook themselves to counsel, Nestor introducing his proposal to send an embassy to Achilles, the forlorn hope of the Argives.

It was not a cheerful feast with speeches in the lighter vein; but all the more does this early example of after-dinner discussion show the value of its employment in times of great public concern. Incidentally, also, a dignity is