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 _repertoires_ of 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. CHAPTER VI ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE "ILIAD". BURIAL AND CREMATION