In this book we still find ourselves, but for the last time, among some of the difficulties which have attended our analysis of the three which precede it. There are, however, two parts of it about which we need feel but little hesitation—the beginning and the end. The first thirty-nine lines clearly belong to and wind up the Making of the Arms; the division of books would have been better placed here than at the end of Σ. The end of the book, probably from 356 τοὶ δ̕ ἀπάνευθε νεῶν, breathes the true spirit of the Μῆνις, and there is no reason to doubt that from the first it introduced Achilles’ career of vengeance. It is in all ways worthy of its place. No doubts need be raised except as to the episode of the speaking horse, to which we will recur.

It is in the intermediate portion that doubts arise. Was there a Reconciliation in the original story? And if so, is it, or any of it, preserved here? That it is not preserved untouched we can say with confidence; the allusions to the gifts in I must at least be as late as that book. The lament of Briseis and the allusions to Neoptolemos are condemned by internal evidence.

It is indeed possible, while leaving these out, to make a selection of short passages which will give a reconciliation-scene such as may have stood in the primitive story. But such a scheme is so artificial and uncertain that it is not worth the pains.