suggesting that his absconding from the battle was not running away or cowardice, but only anger. And Nestor says to Agamemnon,
For it has, I think, a better moral tendency to say "You forgot," or "You did it inadvertently," than to say "You acted unfairly," or "You behaved shamefully:" as also "Don't contend with your brother," than "Don't envy your brother;" and "Avoid the woman who is your ruin," than "Stop ruining the woman."
Such is the language employed in rebuke that desires to reform and not to wound; that rebuke which looks merely at the effect to be produced acts on another principle.
For when it is necessary to stop people on the verge of wrong-doing, or to check some violent and irregular impulse, or if we wish to rouse and infuse vigour in those who prosecute virtue only feebly and languidly, we may then assign strange and unbecoming motives for their behaviour.
As Odysseus in Sophocles' play,112 striving to rouse Achilles, says he is not angry about his supper,113 but "that he is afraid now that he looks upon the walls of Troy," and when Achilles was vexed at this, and talked of sailing home again, he said,
Thus by frightening the high-spirited and courageous man by the imputation of