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Updated: June 28, 2025
The former relates that Agamemnon had stolen from Achilles, Briseis, his beloved slave, and describes the fatal consequences which the subsequent anger of Achilles brought upon the Greeks; and how the loss of his dearest friend, Patroclus, suddenly changed his hostile attitude, and brought about the destruction of Troy and of Hector, its magnanimous defender.
Their limbs are rounded and shapely, their figures full and lithe; they are what I've heard you say Homer calls Briseis. Grey. White-armed, deep-bosomed? Mrs. Grey. Yes; and their necks rise from their shoulders like ivory towers. Any costume will look beautiful on such women. But how are poor, puny, ill-made women to dress in such fashions?
"I will read you the sorrow of Achilles for the loss of Briseis," said I, and, going into the corner, I raised my hand to my shelf of books and stood there with hand upraised yet touching no book, for a sudden spasm seemed to have me in its clutches, and once again the trembling seized me, and the hammer had recommenced its beat, beating upon my brain.
To Achilles had been given another girl, Briseis, of whom he was very fond. Now when Achilles had promised to protect Calchas, the prophet spoke out, and boldly said, what all men knew already, that Apollo caused the plague because Agamemnon would not return Chryseis, and had insulted her father, the priest of the God. On hearing this, Agamemnon was very angry.
Next Nestor counselled Agamemnon to send Ulysses and Aias to Achilles, and promise to give back Briseis, and rich presents of gold, and beg pardon for his insolence. If Achilles would be friends again with Agamemnon, and fight as he used to fight, the Trojans would soon be driven back into the town.
Busied herein was the leaguer yet not in the King Agamemnon Enmity ceas'd, nor the pride to fulfil what his anger had menaced. He to Talthybius now and Eurybates spake his commission, Heralds of royal command, ever near him in ministry watchful: "Pass, ye twain, to the right to the tent of Peleian Achilleus, Enter and take with your hands, and conduct to me hither Brisëis.
But they now took no part in the war, inasmuch as there was no one to marshal them; for Achilles stayed by his ships, furious about the loss of the girl Briseis, whom he had taken from Lyrnessus at his own great peril, when he had sacked Lyrnessus and Thebe, and had overthrown Mynes and Epistrophus, sons of king Evenor, son of Selepus.
In his answer to the ambassadors, Achilleus scornfully rejects the proposals which imply that the mere return of Briseis will satisfy his righteous resentment, unless it be accompanied with that public humiliation to which circumstances have not yet compelled the leader of the Greeks to subject himself. Achilleus is not to be bought or cajoled.
Other lovers have been left forsaken, both in trousers and in ripped petticoats; and I have heard that when Chryseis was reft away from Agamemnon, the cnax andron made himself tolerably comfortable with Briseis; and that, when Theseus sneaked off in the night, Ariadne, after having wept for a decent period, managed in the ultimate to console herself with Theban Bacchus, which I suppose to be a courteous method of stating that the daughter of Minos took to drink.
There the women, weeping, washed Achilles' comely body, and laid him on a bier with a great white mantle over him, and all the women lamented and sang dirges, and the first was Briseis, who loved Achilles better than her own country, and her father, and her brothers whom he had slain in war.
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