But for the great master of this art, Homer has chosen Achilles. As with his invectives he grinds to powder, so with the razor edge of the most refined irony he cuts his way in a moment to the quick. When Greece, in the person of the envoy-kings, is at his feet, and he has spurned them away, he says, ‘No: I will go home: you can come and see me depart--if you think it worth your while.’ ὄψεαι, ἢν ἐθέλῃσθα, καὶ αἴ κέν τοι τὰ μεμήλῃ. Of this passage, Il. ix. 356-64, the following translation may give a very imperfect idea[224]: [224] The version of Voss is very accurate, but, I think, lifeless. The version of Cowper is at this point not satisfactory: he weakens, by exaggerating, the delicate expression μεμήλῃ: Look thou forth at early dawn, And, if such spectacle _delight_ thee aught, Thou shalt behold me cleaving with my prows, &c. The version of Pope simply omits the line! Tomorrow we the favouring gods implore: Then shall you see our parting vessels crowned, And hear with oars the Hellespont resound. Of fight with Hector will I none; Tomorrow, with the rising sun, Each holy rite and office done, I load and launch my Phthian fleet; Come, if thou thinkest meet, See, if thou carest for the sight, My ships shall bound in the morning’s light, My rowers row with eager might, O’er Helle’s teeming main. And, if Poseidon give his grace, Then, with but three revolving days, I see my home again; My home of plenty, that I left To fight with Troy; of sense bereft! The plenty of his house (ἔστι δέ μοι μάλα πολλὰ) is the finishing stroke of reply on Agamemnon, who had thought that his resentment, unsatisfied in feeling, could be appeased with gifts. In the same speech occurs the piercing sarcasm[225]: [225] Il. ix. 340. ἦ μοῦνοι φιλέουσ’ ἀλόχους μερόπων ἀνθρώπων Ἀτρεῖδαι; The Greeks had come to Troy to recover the wife of Menelaus: and while they were there, Agamemnon took for a concubine the intended wife of Achilles. Was it, he asks, the privilege of the sons of Atreus alone among mankind to love their wives? Agamemnon, too, being the chief of the two; who had laid hold on Briseis, as he had meant to keep Chryseis, in disparagement of his own marriage bed. Nor can the reader of this passage fail, I think, to be struck with the wonderful manner in which it combines a stately dignity, and an unimpeachable solidity of argument, with the fierceness of its personal onslaught. ~_The faculty of debate in Homer._~ ~_The discussion of the Ninth Iliad._~