Then, again, a passage occurs in the twenty-fourth Book of the ‘Iliad,’[192] which has excited much discussion. Thetis the goddess advises her son to find consolation for his distress in the arms of a woman, and he follows her advice, and seeks out Briseis. Perhaps it is the direct way in which the statement is made that has offended critics (ἀγαθὸν δὲ γυναικί περ ἐν φιλότητι μίσγεσθ’), though it is to be noticed that here, as throughout Homer, the physical enjoyment is always blended with the notion of friendship. The passage forms a feature in the dispute whether the last book of the ‘Iliad’ was written by the author of most of the other books. Some condemned it because it was unworthy of Homer. Among these was Aristarchus, the great Alexandrian critic, who was followed by other Alexandrian critics. But the passage seems to have the simplicity of early thought and expression. Koechly appears to me to be right when he says in regard to it: “It is self-evident that we must not let ourselves be deprived of verses 130–132, which are characteristic, and required by line 675 and following, through the prudery of the Alexandrians which occurs also sometimes in other places, although my honoured friend Faesi appears to approve of striking them out, more, I think, as a gymnasial director than as a critic of Homer.”[193] Düntzer says[194] “that there is a similar sentiment in Goethe’s ‘Hermann and Dorothea,’ and that it is entirely in harmony with old naïve times, ‘der alten naiven Zeit.’”