We instruct each other. For this the heroes are all Demigods--that is, the son of a God, or Goddess, or the Descendant at a few Generations. Sarpedon is the Son of Jupiter, and his death by Patroclus is perhaps the passage of the whole Iliad that most specially and energetically, and most profoundly and pathetically, makes the Gods intimate to the life and being of men--presents the conduct of divinity and humanity with condescension there, and for elevation here. I do not mean that there is not more pomp of glorification about Achilles, for whom Jupiter comes from Olympus to Ida, and Vulcan forges arms--whose Mother-Goddess is Messenger to and from Jupiter, and into whose lips, when he is faint with toil and want of nourishment--abstaining in his passion of sorrow and vengeance--Minerva, descending, instils Nectar. But I doubt if there be anything so touching--_under this relation_--and so intimately aggrandising as that other whole place--the hesitation of Jupiter whether he shall VIOLATE FATE, in order to save his own flesh and blood from its decreed stroke--the consolatory device of Juno (in remonstrating and dissuading) that he shall send Apollo to call Death and Sleep--a God-Messenger to God-Ministers--to bear the dead body from the battle-field to his own land and kin for due obsequies. And, lastly, those _drops of blood_ which fall from the sky to the earth, as if the heart-tears of the Sire of all the worlds and their inhabitants. BULLER. You are always great, sir, on Homer. But, pray, have you any intention of returning to the @hautarkeia@? NORTH. Ha! Buller--do you speak? I have not wandered from it. But since you seem to think I have, think of Patroclus lighting a fire under a tripod with his own hands, to boil meat for Achilles' guests--of Achilles himself helping to lay the ransomed body of Hector on the car that was to take it away. This last is honorific and pathetic. Ministrations of all degrees for themselves, in their own affairs, characterise them all. From the least of these to Achilles fighting the River-God--which is an excess--all holds together--is of one meaning--and here, as everywhere, the least, and the familiar, and most homely, attests, vouches, makes evident, probable, and facile to credence, the highest, most uncouth, remote, and difficult otherwise of acceptation. Pitching the speculation lower, plenitude of the most robust, ardent, vigorous life overflows the Iliad--up from the animal to the divine--from the beautiful tall poplar by the river-side, which the wheelwright or wainwright fells. Eating, drinking, sleeping, thrusting through with spears, and hacking the live flesh off the bone--all go together and help one another--and make the "Majesty and Dignity"--or what not--of the Homeric Epos. But I see, Buller, that you are _timing me_--and I am ashamed to confess that I have exceeded the assigned limit. Gentlemen, I ask all your pardons. BULLER.