he spake well, and with due moderation and decorum. But when the
soothsayer Chalcas had told him that he feared the wrath of the most
potent among the Grecians, after an oath that while he lived no man
should lay violent hands on him, he adds, but not with like wisdom and
moderation,

Not e'en the chief by whom our hosts are led,
The king of kings, shall touch that sacred head;

in which speech he declares his low opinion or rather his contempt
of his chief commander. And then, being farther provoked, he drew his
weapon with a design to kill him, which attempt was neither good nor
expedient. And therefore by and by he repented his rashness,--

He said, observant of the blue-eyed maid;
Then in the sheath returned the shining blade;

wherein again he did rightly and worthily, in that, though he could not
altogether quell his passion, yet he restrained and reduced it under the
command of reason, before it brake forth into such an irreparable act
of mischief. Again, even Agamemnon himself talks in that assembly
ridiculously, but carries himself more gravely and more like a prince in
the matter of Chryseis. For whereas Achilles, when his Briseis was taken
away from him,

In sullenness withdraws from all his friends,
And in his tent his time lamenting spends;

Agamemnon himself hands into the ship, delivers to her friends, and so
sends from him, the woman concerning whom a little before he declared
that he loved her better than his wife; and in that action did nothing
unbecoming or savoring of fond affection. Also Phoenix, when his father
bitterly cursed him for having to do with one that was his own harlot,
says,

Him in my rage I purposed to have killed,
But that my hand some god in kindness held;
And minded me that, Greeks would taunting say,
Lo, here's the man that did his father slay.

It is true that Aristarchus was afraid to permit these verses to stand
in the poet, and therefore censured them to be expunged. But they were
inserted by Homer very aptly to the occasion of Phoenix's instructing
Achilles what a pernicious thing anger is, and what foul acts men do by
its instigation, while they are capable neither of making use of their
own reason nor of hearing the counsel of others. To which end he also
introduceth Meleager at first highly offended with his citizens, and
afterwards pacified; justly therein reprehending disordered passions,
and praising it as a g