as I do29, I hardly like to say that in attributing these feelings to Achilles, or in believing that they are truly attributed to him, he is guilty of downright impiety. As little can I believe the narrative of his insolence to Apollo, where he says,
‘Thou hast wronged me, O far-darter, most abominable of deities. Verily I would be even with thee, if I had only the power30;’
or his insubordination to the river-god31, The impious behaviour of Achilles to Apollo and the river-gods; his cruelty. on whose divinity he is ready to lay hands; or his offering to the dead Patroclus of his own hair32, which had been previously dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius, and that he actually performed this vow; or that he dragged Hector round the tomb of Patroclus33, and slaughtered the captives at the pyre34; of all this I cannot believe that he was guilty, any more than I can allow our citizens to believe that he, the wise Cheiron’s pupil, the son of a goddess and of Peleus who was the gentlest of men and third in descent from Zeus, was so disordered in his wits as to be at one time the slave of two seemingly inconsistent passions, meanness, not untainted by avarice, combined with overweening contempt of gods and men.
You are quite right, he replied.
The tale of Theseus and Peirithous. And let us equally refuse to believe, or allow to be repeated, the tale of Theseus son of Poseidon, or of Peirithous son of Zeus, going forth as they did to perpetrate a horrid rape; or of any other hero or son