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Book Nine
is the same in both cases, admitting the force of the argument but citing his
feelings towards Agamemnon as an insuperable bar to action. Phoinix is
treated to the imperative mood and a sharp reminder of his duty towards
his patrons; the address to Aias follows the conciliatory pattern 'Yes ... But
... However ...', cf. Poseidon's reply to Iris, 15.206-17.
645-6 Aias' words were KOCTOC OUUOV (i.e. Akhilleus' Ouuos) but none the
less unacceptable. If Akhilleus had intended to comply he would have said
KOCTOC uotpocv, 'in accordance with what must be': Korrd uoTpav eenres etc. (7 x
//., 12X Od.). Akhilleus recognizes the force of Aias' words but cannot
budge because oiS&VETca Kpoc5ir| xohoo. In a calmer mood, in a passage that
echoes this one (16.49-55 ~ see n - an d Lohmann, Reden 274-5) Akhilleus
spoke of his aivov axos rather than his xo^°s; that permitted him to say TCX
uev TtpoTETUxOai edcrouEV (16.60), and relent a little. - Verse 645 was quoted
by Plato, Crat. 428c, with contracted eeicrco for eeiaao, thus illustrating the
pressure on the text for assimilation to classical vernacular forms.
648 = 16.59. usTavdorris: a 'refugee', obliged to beg for his bread and
abused by the more fortunate, would be a description more appropriate to
Briseis than Akhilleus (as Rhianus, reading ueTavdoriv, thought). Akhilleus
speaks of his sufferings with his usual hyperbole. Patroklos, hovering in the
background, would not have agreed that a ueTavdcrrns was necessarily
650-3 Akhilleus' words pick up Phoinix' argument that Meleagros had
to fight when the battle reached his home (587-9). But indirectly Phoinix
had shown the way out of Akhilleus' moral dilemma: if he has a personal reason
for fighting he can save his friends while maintaining (or simply ignoring)
his anger with Agamemnon. His words are appropriate to character
and situation; Akhilleus misses his metier (cf. 189, 11.600), but cannot say
so openly to present company, nor could Akhilleus make any concession less
than the peril of his own huts and ships the occasion for his return. The
distinction made between the Myrmidons and the Argives illuminates the
limits of Akhilleus' sense of social obligation: it stops at the boundary of his
own tribe. His statement 'I shall not think of war until ...' is the second
affirmation that he will return to the war, more precise than that of Zeus
(8.473-7, if genuine), and reads like a programmatic announcement,
obliquely made through the mouth of a character. It is picked up by
16.61-3 - unless iqynv there is taken with Arn/A to mean 'I thought'
(8I6VOTJ6T|V), see n. ad loc. The poet reveals his intentions by stages; at
8.473-7 tnat Hektor will reach the ships, here that Hektor will burn them,
at 11.792-801 that Patroklos will first take the field, and at 15.65 that
Hektor will kill Patroklos. In each case the adumbration is embedded in
detail which is appropriate at the time but falsified in the event, cf. 15.56-
77n. The possibility that the Achaean ships themselves might be in danger
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