Agamemnon (though the Dream bade him summon the host to arms) dressed in civil costume. His ancestral sceptre in his hand, he is going to hold a deliberative assembly of the unarmed host. His attire proves that fact ({Greek: prepodaes de ae stolae to epi Boulaen exionti}, says the scholiast). Then if we skip, as advised, to II. 443-483 he bids the heralds call the host not to peaceful council, for which his costume is appropriate, but to war! The host gathers, "and in their midst the lord Agamemnon," – still in civil costume, with his sceptre (he has not changed his attire as far as we are told) – "in face and eyes like Zeus; in waist like Ares" (god of war); "in breast like Poseidon," – yet, for all that we are told, entirely unarmed! The host, however, were dressed "in innumerable bronze," "war was sweeter to them than to depart in their ships to their dear native land," – so much did Athene encourage them.
But nobody had been speaking of flight, in THE KERNEL B: THAT proposal was originally made by Thersites, in kernel A, and was attributed to Agamemnon in the part of Book II. where the editor blends A and B. This part, at present, Mr. Leaf throws aside as a very late piece of compilation. Turning next, as directed, to XI. 56, we find the Trojans deploying in arms, and the hosts encounter with fury – Agamemnon still, for all that appears, in the raiment of peace, and with the sceptre of constitutional monarchy. "In he rushed, first of all, and slew Bienor," and many other gentlemen of Troy, not with his sceptre!
Clearly all this is the reverse of "a narrative masterly in conception and smooth in execution: " it is an impossible narrative.
Mr. Leaf has attempted to disengage one of two forms of the old original poem from the parasitic later growths; he has promised to show us a smooth and masterly narrative, and the result is a narrative on which no Achasan poet could have ventured. In II. 50 the heralds are bidden {Greek: kurussein}, that is to summon the host – to what? To a peaceful assembly, as Agamemnon's costume proves, says the next line (II. 51), but that is excised by Mr. Leaf, and we go on to II. 443, and the reunited passage now reads, "Agamemnon bade the loud heralds" (II. 50) "call the Achaeans to battle" (II. 443), and they came, in harness, but their leader – when did he exchange chiton, cloak, and sceptre for helmet, shield, and spear? A host appears in arms; a king who set out with sceptre and doublet is found with a spear, in bronze armour: and not another word is said about the Dream of Agamemnon.
It is perfectly obvious and certain that the two pieces of the broken kernel B do not fit together at all. Nor is this strange, if the kernel was really broken and endured the insertion of matter enough to fill nine Books (IL-XL). If kernel B really contained Book II., line 50, as Mr. Leaf avers, if Agamemnon, as in that line (50) "bade the clear-voiced heralds do…" something – what he bade them do was, necessarily, as his peaceful costume proves, to summon the peaceful assembly which he was to moderate with his sceptre. At such an assembly, or at a preliminary council of Chiefs, he would assuredly speak of his Dream, as he does in the part excised. Mr. Leaf, if he will not have a peaceful assembly as part of kernel B, must begin his excision at the middle of line 42, in II., where Agamemnon wakens; and must make him dress not in mufti but in armour, and call the host of the Achaeans to arm, as the Dream bade him do, and as he does in II. 443. Perhaps we should then excise II. 45 2, 45 3, with the reference to the plan of retreat, for THAT is part of kernel A where there was no promise of Zeus, and no Dream sent to Agamemnon. Then from II. 483, the description of the glorious armed aspect of Agamemnon, Mr. Leaf may pass to XI. 56, the account of the Trojans under Hector, of the battle, of the prowess of Agamemnon, inspired by the Dream which he, contrary to Homeric and French epic custom, has very wisely mentioned to nobody – that is, in the part not excised.
This appears to be the only method by which Mr. Leaf can restore the continuity of his kernel B.
Though Mr. Leaf has failed to fit Book XI. to any point in Book II., of course it does not follow that Book XI. cannot be a continuation of the original Wrath of Achilles (version B). If so, we understand why Agamemnon plucks up heart, in Book XI., and is the chief cause of a temporary Trojan reverse. He relies on the Dream sent from Zeus in the opening lines of Book II., the Dream which was not in kernel A; the Dream which he communicated to nobody; the Dream conveying the promise that he should at once take Troy. This is perhaps a tenable theory, though Agamemnon had much reason to doubt whether the host would obey his command to arm, but an alternative theory of why and wherefore Agamemnon does great feats of valour, in Book XI., will later be propounded. Note that the events of Books XL. – XVIII., by Mr. Leaf's theory, all occur on the very day after Thetis (according to kernel B)' {79} obtains from Zeus his promise to honour Achilles by the discomfiture of the Achaeans; they have suffered nothing till that moment, as far as we learn, from the absence of Achilles and his 2500 men: allowing for casualties, say 2000.
So far we have traced – from Books I. and II. to Book XI. – the fortunes of kernel B, of the supposed later of two versions of the opening of the Iliad. But there may have been a version (A) probably earlier, we have been told, in which Achilles did not appeal to his mother, nor she to Zeus, and Zeus did not promise victory to the Trojans, and sent no false Dream of success to Agamemnon. What were the fortunes of that oldest of all old kernels? In this version (A) Agamemnon, having had no Dream, summoned a peaceful assembly to discuss the awkwardness caused by the mutiny of Achilles. The host met (Iliad, II. 87-99). Here we pass from line 99 to 212-242: Thersites it is who opens the debate, (in version A) insults Agamemnon, and advises flight. The army rushed off to launch the ships, as in II. 142-210, and were brought back by Odysseus, who made a stirring speech, and was well backed by Agamemnon, urging to battle.
Version A appears to us to have been a version that no heroic audience would endure. A low person like Thersites opens a debate in an assembly called by the Over-Lord; this could not possibly pass unchallenged among listeners living in the feudal age. When a prince called an assembly, he himself opened the debate, as Achilles does in Book I. 54-67. That a lewd fellow, the buffoon and grumbler of the host, of "the people," nameless and silent throughout the Epic, should rush in and open debate in an assembly convoked by the Over-Lord, would have been regarded by feudal hearers, or by any hearers with feudal traditions, as an intolerable poetical license. Thersites would have been at once pulled down and beaten; the host would not have rushed to the ships on his motion. Any feudal audience would know better than to endure such an impossibility; they would have asked, "How could Thersites speak – without the sceptre?"
As the poem stands, and ought to stand, nobody less than the Over-Lord, acting within his right, ({Greek: ae themis esti} II. 73), could suggest the flight of the host, and be obeyed.
It is the absolute demoralisation of the host, in consequence of the strange test of their Lord, Agamemnon, making a feigned proposal to fly, and it is their confused, bewildered return to the assembly under the persuasions of Odysseus, urged by Athene, that alone, in the poem, give Thersites his unique opportunity to harangue. When the Over-Lord had called an assembly the first word, of course, was for to speak, as he does in the poem as it stands. That Thersifes should rise in the arrogance bred by the recent disorderly and demoralised proceedings is one thing; that he should open the debate when excitement was eager to hear Agamemnon, and before demoralisation set in, is quite another. We never hear again of Thersites, or of any one of the commonalty, daring to open his mouth in an assembly. Thersites sees his one chance, the chance of a life time, and takes it; because Agamemnon, by means of the test – a proposal to flee homewards – which succeeded, it is said, in the case of Cortès, – has reduced the host, already discontented, to a mob.
Before Agamemnon thus displayed his ineptitude, as he often does later, Thersites had no chance. All this appears sufficiently obvious, if we put ourselves at the point of view of the original listeners. Thersites merely continues, in full assembly, the mutinous babble which he has been pouring out to his neighbours during the confused rush to launch the ships and during the return produced by the influence of Odysseus. The poet says so himself (Iliad, II. 212). "The rest sat down … only Thersites still chattered on." No original poet could manage the situation in any other way.
We have now examined Mr. Leaf's two supposed earliest versions of
