How are we to reconcile this with the ninth book, where Achilles declares that he does not care for being honored by the Greeks, ix. 604? In the mouth of the affronted Achilles, of the first book, such words are apt enough: he will grant succor, but only to the extent necessary for the emergency, and in such a way as to insure redress for his own wrong,—which redress he has no reason as yet to conclude that Agamemnôn is willing to grant. But the ninth book _has actually_ tendered to him everything which he here demands, and even more (the daughter of Agamemnôn in marriage, without the price usually paid for a bride, etc.): Brisêis, whom now he is so anxious to repossess, was then offered in restitution, and he disdained the offer. Mr. Knight, in fact, strikes out these lines as spurious; partly, because they contradict the ninth book, where Achilles has actually rejected what he here thirsts for (“Dona cum puellâ jam antea oblata aspernatus erat,”)—partly because he thinks that they express a sentiment unworthy of Achilles; in which latter criticism I do not concur. 5. We proceed a little farther to the address of Patroclus to the Myrmidons, as he is conducting them forth to the battle: “Fight bravely, Myrmidons, that we may bring honor to Achilles; and that the wide-ruling Agamemnôn may know the mad folly which he committed, when he dishonored the bravest of the Greeks.” To impress this knowledge upon Agamemnôn was no longer necessary. The ninth book records his humiliating confession of it, accompanied by atonement and reparation. To teach him the lesson a second time, is to break the bruised reed,—to slay the slain. But leave out the ninth book, and the motive is the natural one,—both for Patroclus to offer, and for the Myrmidons to obey: Achilles still remains a dishonored man, and to humble the rival who has dishonored him is the first of all objects, as well with his friends as with himself. 6. Lastly, the time comes when Achilles, in deep anguish for the death of Patroclus, looks back with aversion and repentance to the past. To what point should we expect that his repentance would naturally turn? Not to his primary quarrel with Agamemnôn, in which he had been undeniably wronged,—but to the scene in the ninth book, where the maximum of atonement for the previous wrong is tendered to him and scornfully rejected. Yet when we turn to xviii. 108, and xix. 55, 68, 270, we find him reverting to the primitive quarrel in the first book, just as if it had been the last incident in his relations with Agamemnôn: moreover, Agamemnôn (xix. 86), in _his_ speech of reconciliation, treats the past just in the same way,—deplores his original insanity in wronging Achilles.