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Book Nine
when it has been soiled. At 343 he uses the past tense, cpiAeov, of his feelings
towards Briseis. Here as elsewhere Akhilleus is obsessed with his own humiliation.
— The expression (y specs) EIAET', zyz\ 8' aAoxov is clearly a variant
of the formula lAcov yap lysx yepas (3X ). Nevertheless Leaf and some early
commentators punctuated with a stop after EIAET' and a comma after
0i/|iccpea. The sentence then translates 'He [Agamemnon] has an aAoxos of
his own, let him be content with her.' But who then is the aAoxos? Briseis
apart, Agamemnon has no named concubine in the camp at this moment,
and to tell him to take his pleasure with Klutaimestra hundreds of miles
away in Mycenae is too rhetorical to make an effective point. Allen's
punctuation in the OCT, which is also that of Ameis-Hentze and Mazon
and implied by the scholia (bT), is preferable. — The long -a- of Ouuapea,
beside Q\j\xf\pss, Od. 10.362, is unexplained.
337-8 Akhilleus is asking 'Why are we here?' The implicit answer, for
the sake of the argument, is that they are there to uphold the rights of
Menelaos. He then sharpens the point and asks 'Why is Agamemnon here?',
so as to bring out the falsity of Agamenon's position. — Impersonal 5eT,
'there is need', does not express moral obligation in archaic literature
(where xpil * s used). The word occurs only here in the Iliad and not at all
in the Odyssey or in Hesiod, but in a passage whose thought is untraditional
that is no cause for surprise. Uncontracted -ee- from -epe- is usually maintained
in the epic but has crept into the Iliad at 5.464 (uieis), 11.708
(TTOAETS), 11.611 (epeTo, if the reading is correct), and perhaps 9.612 (ovyxsi,
for which ovyxee could be read); -el- < -epei is attested only here and Od.
9.227, 9.470 (hnTrAsTv).
339-41 The singular 'ATp8i5r|S in 339 must be Agamemnon in this context.
Agamemnon gathered the host, but it was Menelaos who loved his
wife, hence 'ATpei8ai, plural, at 341. Akhilleus' argument would be even
more effective if Agamemnon had been at Troy to recover his wife. But
Agamemnon can have no complaint; he had identified his own honour with
success at Troy, 2.114-15 = 9.21-2.
340 uspomov dcvOpcomov: the sense of uepovy is unknown, see 1.25on. The
formula, however, is not totally ossified, being declined into the nominative
(18.288) and modified to provide the dat. plur. uepOTTEacn ppOTOicnv
(2.285).
341 Akhilleus attempts a 'persuasive definition', viz. to extend the application
of ix£9pcov into that of ayccOos so as to bring sexual relations within
the province of heroic ocpETf). But the underlying point is that Agamemnon
has indulged his lust at another man's expense. The poet saw no conflict
between Akhilleus' love for Briseis and his sleeping with Diomede this same
night, see 664-5. Persuasive definitions are more frequent in the Odyssey
where the heroic arrogance of the Suitors collides with the ethos of the
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