Thersites, of whom the poet gives a sketch, brief enough, but with so many marks of individuality, that we may be justified in looking at him as a character drawn from life.
"The ugliest man was he who came to Troy,
With squinting eyes and one distorted foot,
His shoulders round, and buried in his breast
His narrow head with scanty growth of hair."
His talent lies in speaking evil of dignities—a talent which, no doubt, he had found popular enough in some circles of camp society, though all the respectable Greeks, we are assured, are shocked at him. He launches out now with bitter virulence—in which there is nevertheless (as in most oratory of the kind) a certain amount of truth—against Agamemnon. He denounces his greed, his selfishness, his disregard of the sufferings of his troops, his late treatment of Achilles; they must all be cowards, he says, to obey such a leader—
"Women of Greece! I will not call ye men!"
Why not sail home at once, and leave him, if he can, to take Troy with his own single hand?
The mutineer speaks in an evil hour for himself, this time; for Ulysses hears him. That energetic chief answers him in terms as strong as his own, and warns him that if he should catch him again railing in like fashion—"taking the name of kings in his abusive mouth"—he will strip his garments from him, and flog him naked back to the ships. And, as an earnest of his promise, he lays the mighty sceptre heavily on his back and shoulders. Such prompt and vigorous chastisement meets the popular humour at once; and as
