to lie with her on the ground, declaring that he had never
been in such a state of rapture before, even when they first met one
another

Without the knowledge of their parents;

or that other tale of how Hephaestus, because of similar goings on,
cast a chain around Ares and Aphrodite?

Indeed, he said, I am strongly of opinion that they ought not to hear
that sort of thing.

But any deeds of endurance which are done or told by famous men, these
they ought to see and hear; as, for example, what is said in the verses,

He smote his breast, and thus reproached his heart,
Endure, my heart; far worse hast thou endured!

Certainly, he said.

In the next place, we must not let them be receivers of gifts or lovers
of money.

Certainly not.

Neither must we sing to them of

Gifts persuading gods, and persuading reverend kings.

Neither is Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles, to be approved or deemed to
have given his pupil good counsel when he told him that he should take
the gifts of the Greeks and assist them; but that without a gift he
should not lay aside his anger. Neither will we believe or acknowledge
Achilles himself to have been such a lover of money that he took
Agamemnon's or that when he had received payment he restored the dead
body of Hector, but that without payment he was unwilling to do so.

Undoubtedly, he said, these are not sentiments which can be approved.

Loving Homer as I do, I hardly like to say that in attributing these
feelings to Achilles, or in believing that they are truly to him, he is
guilty of downright impiety. As little can I believe the narrative of
his insolence to Apollo, where he says,

Thou hast wronged me, O far-darter, most abominable of deities.
Verily I would he even with thee, if I had only the power,

or his insubordination to the river-god, on whose divinity he is ready
to lay hands; or his offering to the dead Patroclus of his own hair,
which had been previously dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius,
and that he actually performed this vow; or that he dragged Hector
round the tomb of Patroclus, and slaughtered the captives at the pyre;
of all this I cannot believe that he was guilty, any more than I can
allow our citizens to believe that he, the wise Cheiron's pupil, the
son of a goddess and of Peleus who was the gentlest of men and third in
descent from Zeus, was so disordered in his wits as to be at one time
the slave of two seemingl