Nor is this all.  When we examine what the Achilles of Homer means by the fine phrase “every man loves his bedfellow as I love mine,” we come across a grotesque parody even of sensual infatuation, not to speak of romantic love.  If Achilles had been animated by the strong individual preference which sometimes results even from animal passion, he would not have told Agamemnon, “take Briseis, but don’t you dare to touch any of my other property or I will smash your skull.”  If he had been what we understand by a lover, he would not have been represented by the poet, after Briseis was taken away from him, as having “his heart consumed by grief” because “he yearned for the battle.”  He would, instead, have yearned for the girl.  And when Agamemnon offered to give her back untouched, Achilles, had he been a real lover, would have thrown pride and wrath to the winds and accepted the offer with eagerness and alacrity.

But the most amazing part of the story is reached when we ask what Achilles means when he says that every good and sensible man [Greek:  phileei kai kaedetai]—­loves and cherishes—­his concubine, as he professes to love his own. How does he love Briseis?  Patroclus had promised her (XIX., 297-99), probably for reasons of his own (she is represented as being extremely fond of him), to see to it that Achilles would ultimately make her his legitimate wife, but Achilles himself never dreams of such a thing, as we see in lines 393-400, book IX.  After refusing the offer of one of Agamemnon’s daughters, he goes on to remark: 

“If the gods preserve me and I return to my home, Peleus himself will seek a wife for me.  There are many Achaian maidens in Hellas and Phthia, daughters of city-protecting princes.  Among these I shall select the one I desire to be my dear wife.  Very often is my manly heart moved with longing to be there to take a wedded wife [Greek:  mnaestaen alochon], and enjoy the possessions Peleus has gathered.”

And if any further detail were needed to prove how utterly shallow, selfish, and sensual was his “love” of Briseis, we should find it a few lines later (663) where the poet naively tells us, as a matter of course, that

“Achilles slept in the innermost part of the tent and by his side lay a beautiful-cheeked woman, whom he had brought from Lesbos.  On the other side lay Patroclus with the fair Isis by his side, the gift of Achilles.”

Obviously even individual preference was not a strong ingredient in the “love” of these “heroes,” and we may well share the significant surprise of Ajax (638) that Achilles should persist in his wrath when seven girls were offered him for one.  Evidently the tent of Achilles, like that of Agamemnon, was full of women (in line 366 he especially refers to his assortment of “fair-girdled women” whom he expects to take home when the war is over); yet Gladstone had the audacity to write that though