Страница 18 из 69
The next Book (X.) is almost universally thought a late interpolation; an opinion elsewhere discussed (see {blank space}). Let us, then, say with Mr. Leaf that the Book begins with "exaggerated despondency" and ends with "hasty exultation," in consequence of a brilliant camisade, wherein Odysseus and Diomede massacre a Thracian contingent. Our point is that the poet carefully (see The Doloneia) continues the study of Agamemnon in despondency, and later, by his "hasty exultation," preludes to the valour which the Over-Lord displays in Book XI.
The poet knows that something in the way of personal valour is due to Agamemnon's position; he fights brilliantly, receives a flesh wound, retires, and is soon proposing a general flight in his accustomed way. When the Trojans, in Book XIV., are attacking the ships, Agamemnon remarks that he fears the disaffection of his whole army (XIV. 49, 51), and, as for the coming defeat, that he "knew it," even when Zeus helped the Greeks. They are all to perish far from Argos. Let them drag the ships to the sea, moor them with stones, and fly, "For there is no shame in fleeing from ruin, even in the night. Better doth he fare who flees from trouble than he that is overtaken." It is now the turn of Odysseus again to save the honour of the army. "Be silent, lest some other of the Achaeans hear this word, that no man should so much as suffer to pass through his mouth.... And now I wholly scorn thy thoughts, such a word hast thou uttered." On this Agamemnon instantly repents. "Right sharply hast thou touched my heart with thy stern reproof:" he has not even the courage of his nervousness.
The combat is now in the hands of Aias and Patroclus, who is slain. Agamemnon, who is wounded, does not reappear till Book XIX., when Achilles, anxious to fight and avenge Patroclus at once, without formalities of reconciliation, professes his desire to let bygones be bygones. Agamemnon excuses his insolence to Achilles as an inspiration of Ate: a predestined fault—"Not I am the cause, but Zeus and Destiny."
Odysseus, to clinch the reunion and fulfil customary law, advises Agamemnon to bring out the gifts of atonement (the gifts prepared in Book IX.), after which the right thing is for him to give a feast of reconciliation, "that Achilles may have nothing lacking of his right." {Footnote: Book XIX. 179, 180.} The case is one which has been provided for by customary law in every detail. Mr. Leaf argues that all this part must be late, because of the allusion to the gifts offered in Book IX. But we reply, with Mr. Monro, that the Ninth Book is "almost necessary to any Achilleis." The question is, would a late editor or poet know all the details of customary law in such a case as a quarrel between Over-Lord and peer? would a feudal audience have been satisfied with a poem which did not wind the quarrel up in accordance with usage? and would a late poet, in a society no longer feudal, know how to wind it up? Would he find any demand on the part of his audience for a long series of statements, which to a modern seem to interrupt the story? To ourselves it appears that a feudal audience desired the customary details; to such an audience they were most interesting.
This is a taste which, as has been said, we find in all early poetry and in the sagas; hence the long "runs" of the Celtic sagas, minutely repeated descriptions of customary things. The Icelandic saga-men never weary, though modern readers do, of legal details. For these reasons we reckon the passages in Book XIX. about the reconciliation as original, and think they can be nothing else. It is quite natural that, in a feudal society of men who were sticklers for custom, the hearers should insist on having all things done duly and in order—the giving of the gifts and the feast of reconciliation—though the passionate Achilles himself desires to fight at once. Odysseus insists that what we may call the regular routine shall be gone through. It is tedious to the modern reader, but it is surely much more probable that a feudal poet thus gratified his peculiar audience (he looked for no other) than that a late poet, with a different kind of audience, thrust the Reconciliation in as an "after-thought." {Footnote: Leaf, Iliad, vol. ii. p. 317.} The right thing must be done, Odysseus assures Achilles, "for I was born first, and know more things." It is not the right thing to fight at once, unfed, and before the solemn sacrifice by the Over-Lord, the prayer, the Oath of Agamemnon, and the reception of the gifts by Achilles; only after these formalities, and after the army has fed, can the host go forth. "I know more than you do; you are a younger man," says Odysseus, speaking in accordance with feudal character, at the risk of wearying later unforeseen generations.
This is not criticism inspired by mere "literary feeling," for "literary feeling" is on the side of Achilles, and wishes the story to hurry to his revenge. But ours is {blank space} criticism; we must think of the poet in relation to his audience and of their demands, which we can estimate by similar demands, vouched for by the supply, in the early national poetry of other peoples and in the Icelandic sagas.
We hear no more of Agamemnon till, in Book XXIII, 35-38, after the slaying of Hector, Achilles "was brought to noble Agamemnon" (for that, as Odysseus said, was the regular procedure) "by the Achaean chiefs, hardly persuading him thereto, for his heart was wroth for his comrade." Here they feast, Achilles still full of grief and resentment. He merely goes through the set forms, much against his will. It does appear to us that the later the poet the less he would have known or cared about the forms. An early society is always much interested in forms and in funerals and funeral games, so the poet indulges their taste with the last rites of Patroclus. The last view of Agamemnon is given when, at the end of the games, Achilles courteously presents him with the flowered lebes, the prize for hurling the spear, without asking him to compete, since his superior skill is notorious. This act of courtesy is the real reconciliation; previously Achilles had but gone reluctantly through the set forms in such cases provided. Even when Agamemnon offered the gifts of atonement, Achilles said, "Give them, as is customary, or keep them, as you please" (XIX. 146, 148). Achilles, young and passionate, cares nothing for the feudal procedure.
This rapid survey seems to justify the conclusion that the poet presents an uniform and historically correct picture of the Over-Lord and of his relations with his peers, a picture which no late editor could have pieced together out of the widely varying repertoiresof late strolling reciters. Such reciters would gladly have forgotten, and such an editor would gladly have "cut" the "business" of the reconciliation. They would also, in a democratic spirit, have degraded the Over-Lord into the tyrant, but throughout, however low Agamemnon may fall, the poet is guided by the knowledge that his right to rule is jure divino, that he has qualities, that his responsibilities are crushing, "I, whom among all men Zeus hath planted for ever among labours, while my breath abides within me, and my limbs move," says the Over-Lord (X. Sg, go.{sic}). In short, the poet's conception of the Over-Lord is throughout harmonious, is a contemporary conception entertained by a singer who lives among peers that own, and are jealous of, and obey an Over-Lord. The character and situation of Agamemnon are a poetic work of one age, one moment of culture.