In the last canto of the Iliad we see an old man, a mourner, a father who kisses the hand of his most terrible enemy, of the man who has killed his sons, who has just killed his most loved son. Priam, the old king, head of the rich, ruined city, father of fifty sons, kneels at the feet of Achilles, the greatest hero, and the most unhappy among the Greeks, son of the Sea-Goddess, avenger of Patroclus, slayer of Hector. The white head of the kneeling old man is bowed before the proud youth of the victor, and Priam mourns for the slain, strongest, fairest, most loved of all his fifty sons, and kisses the hand of the slayer! “Thou also,” he says, “hast a grey-haired, failing, defenseless, far-distant father. In the name of thy father’s love, give me back at least the dead body of my son.” Achilles, the fierce, the wild, the slaughterer, puts the suppliant gently on one side and begins to weep; and both of them, the two enemies, the conqueror and the conquered, the father bereft of his son and the son who will never see his father again, the white-haired old man and the golden-haired youth both weep, drawn together for the first time by sorrow. The others round about gaze at them silent and astounded: we ourselves after thirty centuries are shaken by their grief. But in the kiss of Priam there is no pardon, there is no love. This king humbles himself to obtain a difficult and unusual favor. If a God had not inspired him he would not have stirred from Ilium; and Achilles does not weep for dead Hector, for weeping Priam, for the powerful man who is brought to humble himself, for the enemy who is brought to kiss the hand of the slayer. He weeps over his lost friend; over Patrocles, dearer to him than all other men; over Peleus, left at Phthia; over his father, whom he will never more embrace, for he knows that his young days are numbered. And he gives back to the father the dead body of his son—that body which he has dragged for so many days in the dust—because it is the will of Zeus, not because his hunger of vengeance is stilled. Both of them weep for themselves; the kiss of Priam is a harsh necessity, the restitution of Achilles is obedience to the Gods. In the noblest heroic world of antiquity there is no place for that love which destroys hate and takes the place of hate, for love stronger than the strength of hate, more ardent, more implacable, more faithful, for love which is not forgetfulness of wrong, but love of wrong, because wrong is a misfortune for him who commits it rather than for him who suffers. There is no place for love for enemies in the world of antiquity.