Agamemnon, in insolence of self-will, offends Chryses and a God. He refused Chyseis--He robs Achilles. In Agamemnon the Insolence of Human Self-will is humbled, first under the hand of Apollo--then of Jupiter--say, altogether, of Heaven. He suffers and submits. And now Achilles, who has no less interest in the Courts of Heaven than Chryses--indeed higher--in overweening anger fashions out a redress for himself which the Father of Gods and Men grants. And what follows? Agamemnon again suffers and submits. For Achilles--Patroclus' bloody corse! [Greek: Keitai Patroklos]--that is the voice that rings! Now he accepts the proffered reconciliation of Agamemnon, before scornfully refused; and in the son of Thetis, too, the Insolence of Human Self-will is chastened under the hand of Heaven. SEWARD. He suffers, but submits not till Hector lies transfixed--till Twelve noble youths of the Trojans and their Allies have bled on Patroclus' Pyre. And does he submit then? No. For twelve days ever and anon he drags the insensible corse at his horses' heels round that sepulchral earth. BULLER. Mad, if ever a man was. NORTH. The Gods murmur--and will that the unseemly Revenge cease. Jove sends Thetis to him--and what meeter messenger for minister of mercy than a mother to her son! God-bidden by that voice, he submits--he remits his Revenge. The Human Will, infuriated, bows under the Heavenly. SEWARD. Touched by the prayers and the sight of that kneeling gray-haired Father, he has given him back his dead son--and from the ransom a costly pall of honour, to hide the dead son from the father's eyes--and of his own Will and Power Twelve Days' truce; and the days have expired, and the Funeral is performed--and the pyre is burned out--and the mound over the slayer of Patroclus is heaped--and the Iliad is done--and this Moral indelibly writes itself on the heart--the words of Apollo in that Council-- [Greek: Tlêton gas Thymon Moisai Thnêtôsie edôchan.] THE FATES HAVE APPOINTED TO MORTALS A SPIRIT THAT SHALL SUBMIT AND ENDURE. NORTH. Right and good. [Greek: Tlêton] is more than "shall suffer." It is, that shall accept suffering--that shall _bear_. SEWARD. Compare this one Verse and the Twenty-four Books, and you have the poetical simplicity and the poetical multiplicity side by side. BULLER. Right and good. NORTH. Yes, my friends, the Teaching of the Iliad is Piety to the Gods-- SEWARD. Reverence for the Rights of Men-- NORTH. A Will humbled, conformed to the Will of Heaven-- BULLER. That the Earth is justly governed. NORTH. Dim foreshadowings, which Milton, I doubt not, discerned and cherished. The Iliad was the natural and spiritual father of the Paradise Lost-- SEWARD. And the son is greater than the sire. NORTH. I see in the Iliad the love of Homer to Greece and to humankind. He was a legislator to Greece before Solon and Lycurgus--greater than either--after the manner fabled of Orpheus. SEWARD.