of Achilles is dignified—Juno's anger against Troy is mere vicious spite. The subtle craft of Ulysses is at least exercised for the benefit of his countrymen and their cause; but the shifty counsels of Jupiter are the mere expedients of a cunning despot who, between queen and ministers and favourites, finds it difficult, in spite of his despotism, to have his own way. The quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles is tragedy: the domestic wrangles of the Thunderer and his queen are in the very spirit of low comedy, and not even the burlesques of Life in Olympus, which some years ago were popular on our English stage, went far beyond the recognised legends of mythology. In fact, the comic element, what little there is of it in the Iliad, is supplied (with the single exception of the incident of Thersites) by the powers whom the poet recognises as divinities. The idea of rival wills and influences existing in the supernatural world led the poet necessarily to represent his gods as quarrelling; and quarrels in a primitive age are perhaps hardly compatible with dignity. But the conception of gods in human shape has always a tendency to monstrosities and caricature. How close, too, the supernatural and the grotesque seem to lie together may be seen even in the existing sculptures and carvings of ancient Christendom, and still more remarkably in the old Miracle-Plays, which mix buffoonery with the most sacred subjects in a manner which it is hard to reconcile with any real feeling of reverence.
Thetis throws herself at the feet of her father Jupiter, and begs of him, as a personal favour, the temporary humiliation of Agamemnon and his Greeks. For a while the Thunderer is silent, and hesitates; Thetis
