"The winds again went homeward, back across the Thracian deep. It groaned beneath them, raging with the billow's swell. But the son of Peleus turned from the pyre, and lay down weary, and sweet sleep came upon him." After this manner was the burning of Patroclus. And here the action of the _Iliad_ may be said to end. What follows in the last two books is, however, of the greatest importance in adding dignity to the character of Achilles, and in producing that sense of repose, that pacification of the more violent emotions, which we require in the highest works of tragic art. First come the games around the barrow of Patroclus. Presiding over them is Achilles, who opens his treasure-house to the combatants with royal generosity, forever mindful that in honoring them he is paying honor to the great sad ghost of his dead friend. The bitterness of his sorrow is past; his thirst for vengeance is assuaged. Radiant and tranquil he appears among the chiefs of the Achaians; and to Agamemnon he displays marked courtesy. But it is not enough to show us Achilles serene in the accomplishment of his last service to Patroclus. As the crowning scene in the whole _Iliad_, Homer has contrived to make us feel that, after all, Achilles is a man. The wrathful and revengeful hero, who bearded Agamemnon on his throne, and who slew the unarmed suppliant Lycaon, relents in pity at a father's prayer. Priam, in the tent of Achilles, presents one of the most touching pictures to be found in poetry. We know the leonine fierceness of Achilles; we know how he has cherished the thought of insult to dead Hector as a final tribute to his friend: even now he is brooding in his lair over the Trojan corpse. Into this lion's den the old king ventures. Instead of springing on him, as we might have feared, Achilles is found sublime in generosity of soul. Begging Patroclus to forgive him for robbing his ghost of this last satisfaction, he relinquishes to Priam the body of his son. Yet herein there is nothing sentimental. Achilles is still the same--swift to anger and haughty, but human withal, and tender-hearted to the tears of an enemy at his mercy. This is the last mention made of Achilles in the _Iliad_. The hero, whom we have seen so noble in his interview with Priam, was destined within a few days to die before the walls of Troy, slain by the arrow of Paris.[12] His ashes were mingled with those of Patroclus. In their death they were not divided. Once again in the Homeric poems does Achilles appear. But this time he is a ghost among the pale shadows of Elysium (_Od._ xi. 466): "Thereupon came the soul of Achilles, son of Peleus, and of Patroclus, and of brave Antilochus, and of Ajax, who was first in form and stature among the Achaians after great Peleides. The soul of fleet Æacides knew me, and, wailing, he thus spake: