This video is a passage from the Iliad, from
the Embassy to Achilles in Book 9.
Open your Plato book to Crito, and read through
sections 44b to 47a as you listen to and read
the text of Homer.
Put these two arguments side by side, and
look for similarities and differences.
Here's the text from Homer.
As soon as they had had enough to eat and
drink, Ajax made a sign to Phoenix, and when
he saw this, Odysseus filled his cup with
wine and pledged Achilles.
“Hail,” said he, “Achilles, we have
had no scant of good cheer, neither in the
tent of Agamemnon, nor yet here; there has
been plenty to eat and drink, but our thought
turns upon no such matter.
Sir, we are in the face of great disaster,
and without your help know not whether we
shall save our fleet or lose it.
The Trojans and their allies have camped hard
by our ships and by the wall; they have lit
watchfires throughout their host and deem that nothing can now prevent them from falling on our fleet.
Jove, moreover, has sent his lightnings on
their right; Hector, in all his glory, rages
like a maniac; confident that Jove is with
him he fears neither god nor man, but is gone
raving mad, and prays for the approach of day.
He vows that he will hew the high sterns of
our ships in pieces, set fire to their hulls,
and make havoc of the Achaeans while they
are dazed and smothered in smoke; I much fear
that heaven will make good his boasting, and
it will prove our lot to perish at Troy far
from our home in Argos.
Up, then, and late though it be, save the
sons of the Achaeans who faint before the
fury of the Trojans.
You will repent bitterly hereafter if you
do not, for when the harm is done there will
be no curing it; consider ere it be too late,
and save the Danaans from destruction.
My good friend, when your father Peleus sent
you from Phthia to Agamemnon, did he not charge
you saying, ‘Son, Minerva and Juno will
make you strong if they choose, but check
your high temper, for the better part is in
goodwill.
Eschew vain quarrelling, and the Achaeans
old and young will respect you more for doing so.’
These were his words, but you have forgotten
them.
Even now, however, be appeased, and put away
your anger from you.
Agamemnon will make you great amends if you
will forgive him; listen, and I will tell
you what he has said in his tent that he will
give you.
He will give you seven tripods that have never
yet been on the fire, and ten talents of gold;
twenty iron cauldrons, and twelve strong horses
that have won races and carried off prizes.
Rich indeed both in land and gold is he whohas as many prizes as these horses have won for Agamemnon.
Moreover he will give you seven excellent
workwomen, Lesbians, whom he chose for himself,
when you took Lesbos—all of surpassing beauty.
He will give you these, and with them her
whom he erewhile took from you, the daughter
of Briseus, and he will swear a great oath,
he has never gone up into her couch nor been
with her after the manner of men and women.
All these things will he give you now down,
and if hereafter the gods vouchsafe him to
sack the city of Priam, you can come when
we Achaeans are dividing the spoil, and load
your ship with gold and bronze to your liking.
You can take twenty Trojan women, the loveliest
after Helen herself.
Then, when we reach Achaean Argos, wealthiest
of all lands, you shall be his son-in-law,
and he will show you like honour with his
own dear son Orestes, who is being nurtured
in all abundance.
Agamemnon has three daughters, Chrysothemis,
Laodice, and Iphianassa; you may take the
one of your choice, freely and without gifts
of wooing, to the house of Peleus; he will
add such dower to boot as no man ever yet
gave his daughter, and will give you seven
well-established cities, Cardamyle, Enope,
and Hire where there is grass; holy Pheras
and the rich meadows of Anthea; Aepea also,
and the vine-clad slopes of Pedasus, all near
the sea, and on the borders of sandy Pylos.
The men that dwell there are rich in cattle
and sheep; they will honour you with gifts
as though were a god, and be obedient to your
comfortable ordinances.
All this will he do if you will now forgo
your anger.
Moreover, though you hate both him and his
gifts with all your heart, yet pity the rest
of the Achaeans who are being harassed in
all their host; they will honour you as a
god, and you will earn great glory at their
hands.
You might even kill Hector; he will come within
your reach, for he is infatuated, and declares
that not a Danaan whom the ships have brought
can hold his own against him.”
Achilles answered, “Odysseus, noble son
of Laertes, I should give you formal notice
plainly and in all fixity of purpose that
there be no more of this cajoling, from whatsoever
quarter it may come.
Him do I hate even as the gates of hell who
says one thing while he hides another in his
heart; therefore I will say what I mean.
I will be appeased neither by Agamemnon son
of Atreus nor by any other of the Danaans,
for I see that I have no thanks for all my
fighting.
He that fights fares no better than he that
does not; coward and hero are held in equal
honour, and death deals like measure to him
who works and him who is idle.
I have taken nothing by all my hardships—with
my life ever in my hand; as a bird when she
has found a morsel takes it to her nestlings,
and herself fares hardly, even so man a long
night have I been wakeful, and many a bloody
battle have I waged by day against those who
were fighting for their women.
With my ships I have taken twelve cities,
and eleven round about Troy have I stormed
with my men by land; I took great store of
wealth from every one of them, but I gave
all up to Agamemnon son of Atreus.
He stayed where he was by his ships, yet of
what came to him he gave little, and kept much himself.
Nevertheless he did distribute some meeds
of honour among the chieftains and kings,
and these have them still; from me alone of
the Achaeans did he take the woman in whom
I delighted—let him keep her and sleep with her.
Why, pray, must the Argives needs fight the
Trojans?
What made the son of Atreus gather the host
and bring them?
Was it not for the sake of Helen?
Are the sons of Atreus the only men in the
world who love their wives?
Any man of common right feeling will love
and cherish her who is his own, as I this
woman, with my whole heart, though she was
but a fruitling of my spear.
Agamemnon has taken her from me; he has played
me false; I know him; let him tempt me no
further, for he shall not move me.
Let him look to you, Odysseus, and to the
other princes to save his ships from burning.
He has done much without me already.
He has built a wall; he has dug a trench deep
and wide all round it, and he has planted
it within with stakes; but even so he stays
not the murderous might of Hector.
So long as I fought the Achaeans Hector suffered
not the battle range far from the city walls;
he would come to the Scaean gates and to the
oak tree, but no further.
Once he stayed to meet me and hardly did he
escape my onset: now, however, since I am
in no mood to fight him, I will to-morrow
offer sacrifice to Jove and to all the gods;
I will draw my ships into the water and then
victual them duly; to-morrow morning, if you
care to look, you will see my ships on the Hellespont, and my men rowing out to sea with might and main.
If great Neptune vouchsafes me a fair passage,
in three days I shall be in Phthia.
I have much there that I left behind me when
I came here to my sorrow, and I shall bring
back still further store of gold, of red copper,
of fair women, and of iron, my share of the
spoils that we have taken; but one prize,
he who gave has insolently taken away.
Tell him all as I now bid you, and tell him
in public that the Achaeans may hate him and
beware of him should he think that he can
yet dupe others for his effrontery never fails him.
As for me, hound that he is, he dares not
look me in the face.
I will take no counsel with him, and will
undertake nothing in common with him.
He has wronged me and deceived me enough,
he shall not cozen me further; let him go
his own way, for Jove has robbed him of his reason.
I loathe his presents, and for himself care
not one straw.
He may offer me ten or even twenty times what
he has now done, nay—not though it be all
that he has in the world, both now or ever
shall have; he may promise me the wealth of
Orchomenus or of Egyptian Thebes, which is
the richest city in the whole world, for it
has a hundred gates through each of which
two hundred men may drive at once with their
chariots and horses; he may offer me gifts
as the sands of the sea or the dust of the
plain in multitude, but even so he shall not
move me till I have been revenged in full
for the bitter wrong he has done me.
I will not marry his daughter; she may be
fair as Venus, and skillful as Minerva, but
I will have none of her: let another take
her, who may be a good match for her and who
rules a larger kingdom.
If the gods spare me to return home, Peleus
will find me a wife; there are Achaean women
in Hellas and Phthia, daughters of kings that
have cities under them; of these I can take
whom I will and marry her.
Many a time was I minded when at home in Phthia
to woo and wed a woman who would make me a
suitable wife, and to enjoy the riches of
my old father Peleus.
My life is more to me than all the wealth
of Ilius while it was yet at peace before
the Achaeans went there, or than all the treasure
that lies on the stone floor of Apollo's temple
beneath the cliffs of Pytho.
Cattle and sheep are to be had for harrying,
and a man buy both tripods and horses if he
wants them, but when his life has once left
him it can neither be bought nor harried back again.
My mother Thetis tells me that there are two
ways in which I may meet my end.
If I stay here and fight, I shall not return
alive but my name will live for ever: whereas
if I go home my name will die, but it will
be long ere death shall take me.
To the rest of you, then, I say, ‘Go home,
for you will not take Ilius.’
Jove has held his hand over her to protect
her, and her people have taken heart.
Go, therefore, as in duty bound, and tell
the princes of the Achaeans the message that
I have sent them; tell them to find some other
plan for the saving of their ships and people,
for so long as my displeasure lasts the one
that they have now hit upon may not be.
As for Phoenix, let him sleep here that he
may sail with me in the morning if he so will.
But I will not take him by force.”
