er, he has been insulted by Agamemnon,
who has taken away his prize of honor. From that moment Achilles
refuses to join the assemblies, or take a part in the battles, thus
bringing "woes innumerable" on his countrymen. He refuses to yield
even after Agamemnon, alarmed by his reverses, seeks to conciliate him
by offering him gold and horses and women in abundance; telling him he
shall have back his Briseis, whom the king swears he has never
touched, and, besides her, seven Lesbian women of more than human
beauty; also, the choice of twenty Trojan women as soon as the city
capitulates; and, in addition to these, one of the three princesses,
his own daughters--twenty-nine women in all!

Must not a hero who so stubbornly and wrathfully resented the seizure
of his concubine have been deeply in love with her? He himself remarks
to Odysseus, who comes to attempt a reconciliation (IX., 340-44):

"Do the sons of Atreus alone of mortal men love their
bedfellows? Every man who is good and sensible loves his
concubine and cares for her as I too love mine with all my
heart, though but the captive of my spear."

Gladstone here translates the word [Greek: alochos] "wife," though, as
far as Achilles is concerned, it means concubine. Of course it would
have been awkward for England's Prime Minister to make Achilles say
that "every man must love his concubine, if he has sense and virtue;"
so he arbitrarily changes the meaning of the word and then begs us to
notice the moral beauty of this sentiment and the "dignity" of the
relation between Achilles and Briseis! Yet no one seems to have
denounced him for this transgression against ethics, philology, and
common sense. On the contrary, a host of translators and commentators
have done the same thing, to the obscuration of the truth.

Nor is this all. When we examine what the Achilles of Homer means by
the fine phrase "every man loves his bedfellow as I love mine," we
come across a grotesque parody even of sensual infatuation, not to
speak of romantic love. If Achilles had been animated by the strong
individual preference which sometimes results even from animal
passion, he would not have told Agamemnon, "take Briseis, but don't
you dare to touch any of my other property or I will smash your
skull." If he had been what _we_ understand by a lover, he would not
have been represented by the poet, after Briseis was taken away from
him, as having "his heart consumed by grie