text:  "_That a classic scholar_ like Trapp should think the plan of the Knight's Tale equal to that of the Iliad _is a degree of candour not to be hoped for_; but surely to an unprejudiced reader a story which exhausts in its conclusion all the interest which it has excited in its progress; which when terminated leaves no question to be asked no personage undisposed of and no curiosity unsatisfied _is abstractedly considered more gratifying than the history of a few weeks of a ten years' war commenced long after the siege had begun and ending long before the city was taken_!" Why is not this the true and magnificent praise of the Iliad that from the heart of the immense war it has taken out a story of individual interest which begins where your curiosity asks and where your sympathy finds repose? Achilles--his quarrel with Agamemnon--his loss of Patrocles--his vengeance on Hector--accomplished when he willingly relinquishes the body to burial? That is the integrity of an epic fable which employs the Ten Years' War not for its subject but for the illimitable field in which its gigantic subject moves