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Book Nine
he was acting as if he were more than a god. For by taking the proper action
(and the Achaeans have now taken the proper action towards Akhilleus) the
anger even of the gods can be averted. Obduracy brings retribution from
Zeus. Besides - and this is the point of the Meleagros paradigm - the
enemy's victory may be more complete than was intended: Meleagros lost
his gifts and had to fight just the same to save himself. None the less Phoinix'
contribution, if not exactly 'a psychological and argumentative disaster'
(Brenk), is without its intended effect; it does not move the action forward,
as analytical scholars have emphasized by ejecting it. However, Akhilleus'
only reply is a command to be silent (612), a confession that he is moved by
Phoinix' argument and has no answer to it. It also motivates the weakening
of Akhilleus' resolve to depart (619), as Plato astutely observed {Hipp. Min.
370), and this is necessary after his dramatic announcement at 356-61. Yet
in a work of fiction the failure of the speech to stir Akhilleus into action is a
hint that it is really addressed to us, the audience of the Iliad: it highlights
the danger of Akhilleus' position from the moral standpoint and points the
way to the tragedy that follows and the hero's realization through his own
suffering what other values there are beside the KAEOS that he has just
rejected (see also 6o5n.).
A useful selection of the extensive literature on the scene is listed by F. E.
Brenk, Eranos 84 (1986) 77-86, and R. Scodel, AJP 103 (1982) 128-36, and
CPh 84 (1989) 91-9; see also Lohmann, Reden 245-76.
430-1 These verses constitute a formular couplet f Qs 6