been the characteristic of most heroes in classical and medieval times, Achilles carving for his guests, while Patroclus deals out the bread. Professor Wilson's remarks on the scene are characteristic:—
"In nothing was the constitution of the heroes more enviable than its native power—of eating at all times, and without a moment's warning. Never does a meal to any distinguished individual come amiss. Their stomachs were as heroic as their hearts, their bowels magnanimous. It cannot have been forgotten by the reader, who hangs with a watering mouth over the description of this entertainment, that about two hours before these three heroes, Ulysses, Ajax, and old Phœnix, had made an almost enormous supper in the pavilion of Agamemnon. But their walk
'Along the margin of the sounding deep'
had reawakened their slumbering appetite."
In this respect, too, the heroes of the Carlovingian and Arthurian romances equal those of Homer—probably, indeed, taking their colour from his originals. Nay, a good capacity for food and drink seems in itself to have been considered an heroic quality. When Sir Gareth of Orkney sits him down at table, coming as a stranger to King Arthur's court, his performance as a trencher-man excites as much admiration as his soldier-like thews and sinews. The company declare of him enthusiastically that "they never saw so goodly a man, nor so well of his eating." And in the same spirit Sir Kay, Arthur's foster-brother, is said, in the Welsh legend, to "have drunk like four, and fought like a hundred." The animal virtues are closely linked together; we still prognosticate favourably of a horse's
