There is no more quarrelling after Book
17, how then can there be any more moral from quarrelling? If you insist
on _my_ telling _you_ what is the moral of the 'Iliad,' I insist upon
_your_ telling _me_ what is the moral of a rattlesnake or the moral of a
Niagara. I suppose the moral is--that you must get out of their way, if
you mean to moralize much longer. The going-up (or anabasis) of the Greeks
against Troy, was a _fact;_ and a pretty dense fact; and, by accident, the
very first in which all Greece had a common interest. It was a joint-stock
concern--a representative expedition--whereas, previously there had been
none; for even the Argonautic expedition, which is rather of the darkest,
implied no confederation except amongst individuals. How could it? For the
Argo is supposed to have measured only twenty-seven tons: how she would
have been classed at Lloyd's is hard to say, but certainly not as A 1.
There was no state-cabin; everybody, demi-gods and all, pigged in the
steerage amongst beans and bacon. Greece was naturally proud of having
crossed the herring-pond, small as it was, in search of an entrenched
enemy; proud also of having licked him 'into Almighty smash;' this was
sufficient; or if an impertinent moralist sought for something more,
doubtless the moral must have lain in the booty. A peach is the moral of a
peach, and moral enough; but if a man _will_ have something better--a
moral within a moral--why, there is the peach-stone, and its kernel, out
of which he may make ratafia, which seems to be the ultimate morality that
_can_ be extracted from a peach.
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