The key to these deductions is furnished by a section of the twenty-third book, of about fifty lines, of which John Addington Symonds says, "There is surely nothing more thrilling in its pathos throughout the whole range of poetry." Achilles sees Patroclus in his dreams, who recalls to him their youthful days and asks to be buried with him and foretells Achilles's own death. The warrior promises to grant his friend's requests and pleads: "But stand nearer to me, that embracing each other for a little while, we may indulge in sad lamentation." Achilles tried in vain to touch him, and told his comrades afterwards: "All night the spirit of poor Patroclus stood by me, groaning and lamenting, and enjoined to me each particular and was wonderfully like unto himself." All this has too authentic and personal a touch for any one not to feel that Homer was reporting a dream of his own and was attributing it to Achilles. The poet had also spent restless nights and saw his dead friend before him "wonderfully like unto himself"; the dream was very vivid to him, and more so if as tradition reports he was blind. No indeed, Homer was no mere spectator reciting Achilles's troubles in an objective manner. He had a great sorrow of his own and he did not go out of the way to counterfeit one. He sang his own loss; he told his own dream; Achilles was the medium through which he told the world of his own troubles. Patroclus's prophecy that Achilles would die soon shows that Homer after his loss had wished he too would die, and Homer must have dreamt that his own end would come soon, in accordance with the principle that we often dream as happening or about to happen what we wish to take place. He saw his friend in his dream just as we all do because we wish our friends to be still with us. This dream then is the clue to the tragedy of Homer's life. So Homer had loved a friend and suffered. Like Patroclus, he hoped his friend wanted to be buried with him; at least Homer wanted to have his own bones repose near those of his friend. What the nature of the friendship was we cannot say; it may have been homosexual, a love which was common among the later Greeks. But it did have the element of passion. We know now the chief event of Homer's life. What the details were we cannot say. It is rather unsafe to guess. But there are a few facts that appear, whose import is significant. Achilles, we recall, resolved to fight the Trojans again only because they killed Patroclus. He was now ready to forget Agamemnon's wrong to him in depriving him of his captive woman. He knew that by his new resolve he would lose his life. He was willing to die for his friend. Homer's love for his friend was also so great that he too would no doubt have given up his life for him. This I believe establishes the passionate element in the friendship of both warrior and poet.