The Iliad - 39

mentioned. To this day, modern nations are not wholly free from this
superstition.
[137] _Sevenfold city_, Bœotian Thebes, which had seven gates.
[138] _As when the winds_.
“Thus, when a black-brow’d gust begins to rise,
White foam at first on the curl’d ocean fries;
Then roars the main, the billows mount the skies,
Till, by the fury of the storm full blown,
The muddy billow o’er the clouds is thrown.”
Dryden’s Virgil, vii. 736.
[139]
“Stood
Like Teneriffe or Atlas unremoved;
His stature reach’d the sky.”
—“Paradise Lost,” iv. 986.
[140] The Abantes seem to have been of Thracian origin.
[141] I may, once for all, remark that Homer is most anatomically
correct as to the parts of the body in which a wound would be
immediately mortal.
[142] _Ænus_, a fountain almost proverbial for its coldness.
[143] Compare Tasso, Gier. Lib., xx. 7:
“Nuovo favor del cielo in lui niluce
E ’l fa grande, et angusto oltre il costume.
Gl’ empie d’ honor la faccia, e vi riduce
Di giovinezza il bel purpureo lume.”
[144]
“Or deluges, descending on the plains,
Sweep o’er the yellow year, destroy the pains
Of lab’ring oxen, and the peasant’s gains;
Uproot the forest oaks, and bear away
Flocks, folds, and trees, an undistinguish’d prey.”
Dryden’s Virgil ii. 408.
[145] _From mortal mists_.
“But to nobler sights
Michael from Adam’s eyes the film removed.”
“Paradise Lost,” xi. 411.
[146] _The race of those_.
“A pair of coursers, born of heav’nly breed,
Who from their nostrils breathed ethereal fire;
Whom Circe stole from her celestial sire,
By substituting mares produced on earth,
Whose wombs conceived a more than mortal birth.
Dryden’s Virgil, vii. 386, sqq.
[147] The belief in the existence of men of larger stature in earlier
times, is by no means confined to Homer.
[148] _Such stream, i.e._ the _ichor_, or blood of the gods.
“A stream of nect’rous humour issuing flow’d,
Sanguine, such as celestial spirits may bleed.”
“Paradise Lost,” vi. 339.
[149] This was during the wars with the Titans.
[150] _Amphitryon’s son_, Hercules, born to Jove by Alcmena, the wife
of Amphitryon.
[151] _Ægialé_ daughter of Adrastus. The Cyclic poets (See Anthon’s
Lempriere, _s. v._) assert Venus incited her to infidelity, in revenge
for the wound she had received from her husband.
[152] _Pheræ_, a town of Pelasgiotis, in Thessaly.
[153] _Tlepolemus_, son of Hercules and Astyochia. Having left his
native country, Argos, in consequence of the accidental murder of
Liscymnius, he was commanded by an oracle to retire to Rhodes. Here he
was chosen king, and accompanied the Trojan expedition. After his
death, certain games were instituted at Rhodes in his honour, the
victors being rewarded with crowns of poplar.
[154] These heroes’ names have since passed into a kind of proverb,
designating the _oi polloi_ or mob.
[155] _Spontaneous open_.
“Veil’d with his gorgeous wings, upspringing light
Flew through the midst of heaven; th’ angelic quires,
On each hand parting, to his speed gave way
Through all th’ empyreal road; till at the gate
Of heaven arrived, the gate self-open’d wide,
On golden hinges turning.”
—“Paradise Lost,” v. 250.
[156]
“Till Morn,
Waked by the circling Hours, with rosy hand
Unbarr’d the gates of light.”
—“Paradise Lost,” vi, 2.
[157] _Far as a shepherd_. “With what majesty and pomp does Homer
exalt his deities! He here measures the leap of the horses by the
extent of the world. And who is there, that, considering the exceeding
greatness of the space would not with reason cry out that ‘If the
steeds of the deity were to take a second leap, the world would want
room for it’?”—Longinus, Section 8.
[158] “No trumpets, or any other instruments of sound, are used in the
Homeric action itself; but the trumpet was known, and is introduced
for the purpose of illustration as employed in war. Hence arose the
value of a loud voice in a commander; Stentor was an indispensable
officer... In the early Saracen campaigns frequent mention is made of
the service rendered by men of uncommonly strong voices; the battle of
Honain was restored by the shouts and menaces of Abbas, the uncle of
Mohammed,” &c.—Coleridge, p. 213.
[159] “Long had the wav’ring god the war delay’d,
While Greece and Troy alternate own’d his aid.”
Merrick’s “Tryphiodorus,” vi. 761, sq.
[160] _Pæon_ seems to have been to the gods, what Podaleirius and
Machaon were to the Grecian heroes.
[161] _Arisbe_, a colony of the Mitylenaeans in Troas.
[162] _Pedasus_, a town near Pylos.
[163] _Rich heaps of brass_. “The halls of Alkinous and Menelaus
glitter with gold, copper, and electrum; while large stocks of yet
unemployed metal—gold, copper, and iron are stored up in the
treasure-chamber of Odysseus and other chiefs. Coined money is unknown
in the Homeric age—the trade carried on being one of barter. In
reference also to the metals, it deserves to be remarked, that the
Homeric descriptions universally suppose copper, and not iron, to be
employed for arms, both offensive and defensive. By what process the
copper was tempered and hardened, so as to serve the purpose of the
warrior, we do not know; but the use of iron for these objects belongs
to a later age.”—Grote, vol. ii. p. 142.
[164] _Oh impotent_, &c. “In battle, quarter seems never to have been
given, except with a view to the ransom of the prisoner. Agamemnon
reproaches Menelaus with unmanly softness, when he is on the point of
sparing a fallen enemy, and himself puts the suppliant to the
sword.”—Thirlwall, vol. i. p. 181
[165]
“The ruthless steel, impatient of delay,
Forbade the sire to linger out the day.
It struck the bending father to the earth,
And cropt the wailing infant at the birth.
Can innocents the rage of parties know,
And they who ne’er offended find a foe?”
Rowe’s Lucan, bk. ii.
[166]
“Meantime the Trojan dames, oppress’d with woe,
To Pallas’ fane in long procession go,
In hopes to reconcile their heav’nly foe:
They weep; they beat their breasts; they rend their hair,
And rich embroider’d vests for presents bear.”
Dryden’s Virgil, i. 670
[167] The manner in which this episode is introduced, is well
illustrated by the following remarks of Mure, vol. i. p.298: “The
poet’s method of introducing his episode, also, illustrates in a
curious manner his tact in the dramatic department of his art. Where,
for example, one or more heroes are despatched on some commission, to
be executed at a certain distance of time or place, the fulfilment of
this task is not, as a general rule, immediately described. A certain
interval is allowed them for reaching the appointed scene of action,
which interval is dramatised, as it were, either by a temporary
continuation of the previous narrative, or by fixing attention for a
while on some new transaction, at the close of which the further
account of the mission is resumed.”
[168] _With tablets sealed_. These probably were only devices of a
hieroglyphical character. Whether writing was known in the Homeric
times is utterly uncertain. See Grote, vol ii. p. 192, sqq.
[169] _Solymæan crew_, a people of Lycia.
[170] From this “melancholy madness” of Bellerophon, hypochondria
received the name of “Morbus Bellerophonteus.” See my notes in my
prose translation, p. 112. The “Aleian field,” _i.e._ “the plain of
wandering,” was situated between the rivers Pyramus and Pinarus, in
Cilicia.
[171] _His own, of gold_. This bad bargain has passed into a common
proverb. See Aulus Gellius, ii, 23.
[172] _Scæan, i e._ left hand.
[173] _In fifty chambers_.
“The fifty nuptial beds, (such hopes had he,
So large a promise of a progeny,)
The ports of plated gold, and hung with spoils.”
Dryden’s Virgil, ii.658
[174] _O would kind earth_, &c. “It is apparently a sudden, irregular
burst of popular indignation to which Hector alludes, when he regrets
that the Trojans had not spirit enough to cover Paris with a mantle of
stones. This, however, was also one of the ordinary formal modes of
punishment for great public offences. It may have been originally
connected with the same feeling—the desire of avoiding the pollution
of bloodshed—which seems to have suggested the practice of burying
prisoners alive, with a scantling of food by their side. Though Homer
makes no mention of this horrible usage, the example of the Roman
Vestals affords reasons for believing that, in ascribing it to the
heroic ages, Sophocles followed an authentic tradition.”—Thirlwall’s
Greece, vol. i. p. 171, sq.
[175] _Paris’ lofty dome_. “With respect to the private dwellings,
which are oftenest described, the poet’s language barely enables us to
form a general notion of their ordinary plan, and affords no
conception of the style which prevailed in them or of their effect on
the eye. It seems indeed probable, from the manner in which he dwells
on their metallic ornaments that the higher beauty of proportion was
but little required or understood, and it is, perhaps, strength and
convenience, rather than elegance, that he means to commend, in
speaking of the fair house which Paris had built for himself with the
aid of the most skilful masons of Troy.”—Thirlwall’s Greece, vol. i.
p. 231.
[176] _The wanton courser_.
“Come destrier, che da le regie stalle
Ove a l’usa de l’arme si riserba,
Fugge, e libero al fiu per largo calle
Va tragl’ armenti, o al fiume usato, o a l’herba.”
Gier, Lib. ix. 75.
[177] _Casque_. The original word is stephanae, about the meaning of
which there is some little doubt. Some take it for a different kind of
cap or helmet, others for the rim, others for the cone, of the helmet.
[178] _Athenian maid:_ Minerva.
[179] _Celadon_, a river of Elis.
[180] _Oïleus, i.e._ Ajax, the son of Oïleus, in contradistinction to
Ajax, son of Telamon.
[181] _In the general’s helm_. It was customary to put the lots into a
helmet, in which they were well shaken up; each man then took his
choice.
[182] _God of Thrace_. Mars, or Mavors, according to his Thracian
epithet. Hence “Mavortia Mœnia.”
[183] _Grimly he smiled_.
“And death
Grinn’d horribly a ghastly smile.”
—“Paradise Lost,” ii. 845.
“There Mavors stands
Grinning with ghastly feature.”
—Carey’s Dante: Hell, v.
[184]
“Sete ò guerrieri, incomincio Pindoro,
Con pari honor di pari ambo possenti,
Dunque cessi la pugna, e non sian rotte
Le ragioni, e ’l riposo, e de la notte.”
—Gier. Lib. vi. 51.
[185] It was an ancient style of compliment to give a larger portion
of food to the conqueror, or person to whom respect was to be shown.
See Virg. Æn. viii. 181. Thus Benjamin was honoured with a “double
portion.” Gen. xliii. 34.
[186] _Embattled walls._ “Another essential basis of mechanical unity
in the poem is the construction of the rampart. This takes place in
the seventh book. The reason ascribed for the glaring improbability
that the Greeks should have left their camp and fleet unfortified
during nine years, in the midst of a hostile country, is a purely
poetical one: ‘So long as Achilles fought, the terror of his name
sufficed to keep every foe at a distance.’ The disasters consequent on
his secession first led to the necessity of other means of protection.
Accordingly, in the battles previous to the eighth book, no allusion
occurs to a rampart; in all those which follow it forms a prominent
feature. Here, then, in the anomaly as in the propriety of the Iliad,
the destiny of Achilles, or rather this peculiar crisis of it, forms
the pervading bond of connexion to the whole poem.”—Mure, vol. i., p.
257.
[187] _What cause of fear_, &c.
“Seest thou not this? Or do we fear in vain
Thy boasted thunders, and thy thoughtless reign?”
Dryden’s Virgil, iv. 304.
[188] _In exchange_. These lines are referred to by Theophilus, the
Roman lawyer, iii. tit. xxiii. § 1, as exhibiting the most ancient
mention of barter.
[189] “A similar bond of connexion, in the military details of the
narrative, is the decree issued by Jupiter, at the commencement of the
eighth book, against any further interference of the gods in the
battles. In the opening of the twentieth book this interdict is
withdrawn. During the twelve intermediate books it is kept steadily in
view. No interposition takes place but on the part of the specially
authorised agents of Jove, or on that of one or two contumacious
deities, described as boldly setting his commands at defiance, but
checked and reprimanded for their disobedience; while the other divine
warriors, who in the previous and subsequent cantos are so active in
support of their favourite heroes, repeatedly allude to the supreme
edict as the cause of their present inactivity.”—Mure, vol. i. p 257.
See however, Muller, “Greek Literature,” ch. v. Section 6, and Grote,
vol. ii. p. 252.
[190] “As far removed from God and light of heaven,
As from the centre thrice to th’ utmost pole.”
—“Paradise Lost.”
“E quanto è da le stelle al basso inferno,
Tanto è più in sù de la stellata spera”
—Gier. Lib. i. 7.
“Some of the epithets which Homer applies to the heavens seem to imply
that he considered it as a solid vault of metal. But it is not
necessary to construe these epithets so literally, nor to draw any such
inference from his description of Atlas, who holds the lofty pillars
which keep earth and heaven asunder. Yet it would seem, from the manner
in which the height of heaven is compared with the depth of Tartarus,
that the region of light was thought to have certain bounds. The summit
of the Thessalian Olympus was regarded as the highest point on the
earth, and it is not always carefully distinguished from the aerian
regions above The idea of a seat of the gods—perhaps derived from a
more ancient tradition, in which it was not attached to any
geographical site—seems to be indistinctly blended in the poet’s mind
with that of the real mountain.”—Thirlwall’s Greece, vol. i. p. 217,
sq.
[191]
“Now lately heav’n, earth, another world
Hung e’er my realm, link’d in a golden chain
To that side heav’n.”
—“Paradise Lost,” ii. 1004.
[192] _His golden scales_.
“Jove now, sole arbiter of peace and war,
Held forth the fatal balance from afar:
Each host he weighs; by turns they both prevail,
Till Troy descending fix’d the doubtful scale.”
Merrick’s Tryphiodorus, v 687, sqq.
“Oh’ Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray,
Hung forth in heav’n his golden scales,
Wherein all things created first he weighed;
The pendulous round earth, with balanced air
In counterpoise; now ponders all events,
Battles and realms. In these he puts two weights,
The sequel each of parting and of fight:
The latter quick up flew, and kick’d the beam.”
“Paradise Lost,” iv. 496.
[193] _And now_, &c.
“And now all heaven
Had gone to wrack, with ruin overspread;
Had not th’ Almighty Father, where he sits
... foreseen.”
—“Paradise Lost,” vi. 669.
[194] _Gerenian Nestor_. The epithet _Gerenian_ either refers to the
name of a place in which Nestor was educated, or merely signifies
honoured, revered. See Schol. Venet. in II. B. 336; Strabo, viii. p.
340.
[195] _Ægae, Helicè_. Both these towns were conspicuous for their
worship of Neptune.
[196] _As full blown_, &c.
“Il suo Lesbia quasi bel fior succiso,
E in atto si gentil languir tremanti
Gl’ occhi, e cader siu ’l tergo il collo mira.”
Gier. Lib. ix. 85.
[197] _Ungrateful_, because the cause in which they were engaged was
unjust.
“Struck by the lab’ring priests’ uplifted hands
The victims fall: to heav’n they make their pray’r,
The curling vapours load the ambient air.
But vain their toil: the pow’rs who rule the skies
Averse beheld the ungrateful sacrifice.”
Merrick’s Tryphiodorus, vi. 527, sqq.
[198]
“As when about the silver moon, when aire is free from winde,
And stars shine cleare, to whose sweet beams high prospects on the
brows
Of all steepe hills and pinnacles thrust up themselves for shows,
And even the lowly valleys joy to glitter in their sight;
When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light,
And all the signs in heaven are seene, that glad the shepherd’s heart.”
Chapman.
[199] This flight of the Greeks, according to Buttmann, Lexil. p. 358,
was not a supernatural flight caused by the gods, but “a great and
general one, caused by Hector and the Trojans, but with the approval
of Jove.”
[200] Grote, vol. ii. p. 91, after noticing the modest calmness and
respect with which Nestor addresses Agamemnon, observes, “The Homeric
Council is a purely consultative body, assembled not with any power of
peremptorily arresting mischievous resolves of the king, but solely
for his information and guidance.”
[201] In the heroic times, it is not unfrequent for the king to
receive presents to purchase freedom from his wrath, or immunity from
his exactions. Such gifts gradually became regular, and formed the
income of the German, (Tacit. Germ. Section 15) Persian, (Herodot.
iii.89), and other kings. So, too, in the middle ages, ‘The feudal
aids are the beginning of taxation, of which they for a long time
answered the purpose.’ (Hallam, Middle Ages, ch. x. pt. 1, p. 189)
This fact frees Achilles from the apparent charge of sordidness.
Plato, however, (De Rep. vi. 4), says, “We cannot commend Phœnix, the
tutor of Achilles, as if he spoke correctly, when counselling him to
accept of presents and assist the Greeks, but, without presents, not
to desist from his wrath, nor again, should we commend Achilles
himself, or approve of his being so covetous as to receive presents
from Agamemnon,” &c.
[202] It may be observed, that, brief as is the mention of Briseïs in
the Iliad, and small the part she plays—what little is said is
pre-eminently calculated to enhance her fitness to be the bride of
Achilles. Purity, and retiring delicacy, are features well contrasted
with the rough, but tender disposition of the hero.
[203] _Laodice_. Iphianassa, or Iphigenia, is not mentioned by Homer,
among the daughters of Agamemnon.
[204] “Agamemnon, when he offers to transfer to Achilles seven towns
inhabited by wealthy husbandmen, who would enrich their lord by
presents and tribute, seems likewise to assume rather a property in
them, than an authority over them. And the same thing may be intimated
when it is said that Peleus bestowed a great people, the Dolopes of
Phthia, on Phœnix.”—Thirlwall’s Greece, vol. i Section 6, p. 162,
note.
[205] _Pray in deep silence_. Rather: “use well-omened words;” or, as
Kennedy has explained it, “Abstain from expressions unsuitable to the
solemnity of the occasion, which, by offending the god, might defeat
the object of their supplications.”
[206] _Purest hands_. This is one of the most ancient superstitions
respecting prayer, and one founded as much in nature as in tradition.
[207] It must be recollected, that the war at Troy was not a settled
siege, and that many of the chieftains busied themselves in piratical
expeditions about its neighborhood. Such a one was that of which
Achilles now speaks. From the following verses, it is evident that
fruits of these maraudings went to the common support of the
expedition, and not to the successful plunderer.
[208] _Pythia_, the capital of Achilles’ Thessalian domains.
[209] _Orchomenian town_. The topography of Orchomenus, in Bœotia,
“situated,” as it was, “on the northern bank of the lake Æpais, which
receives not only the river Cephisus from the valleys of Phocis, but
also other rivers from Parnassus and Helicon” (Grote, vol. p. 181),
was a sufficient reason for its prosperity and decay. “As long as the
channels of these waters were diligently watched and kept clear, a
large portion of the lake was in the condition of alluvial land,
pre-eminently rich and fertile. But when the channels came to be
either neglected, or designedly choked up by an enemy, the water
accumulated in such a degree as to occupy the soil of more than one
ancient islet, and to occasion the change of the site of Orchomenus
itself from the plain to the declivity of Mount Hyphanteion.” (Ibid.)
[210] The phrase “hundred gates,” &c., seems to be merely expressive
of a great number. See notes to my prose translation, p. 162.
[211] Compare the following pretty lines of Quintus Calaber (Dyce’s
Select Translations, p 88).—
“Many gifts he gave, and o’er
Dolopia bade me rule; thee in his arms
He brought an infant, on my bosom laid
The precious charge, and anxiously enjoin’d
That I should rear thee as my own with all
A parent’s love. I fail’d not in my trust
And oft, while round my neck thy hands were lock’d,
From thy sweet lips the half articulate sound
Of Father came; and oft, as children use,
Mewling and puking didst thou drench my tunic.”
“This description,” observes my learned friend (notes, p. 121) “is
taken from the passage of Homer, II ix, in translating which, Pope,
with that squeamish, artificial taste, which distinguished the age of
Anne, omits the natural (and, let me add, affecting) circumstance.”
“And the wine
Held to thy lips, and many a time in fits
Of infant frowardness the purple juice
Rejecting thou hast deluged all my vest,
And fill’d my bosom.” —Cowper.
[212] _Where Calydon_. For a good sketch of the story of Meleager, too
long to be inserted here, see Grote, vol. i. p. 195, sqq.; and for the
authorities, see my notes to the prose translation, p. 166.
[213] “_Gifts can conquer_”—It is well observed by Bishop Thirlwall,
“Greece,” vol. i. p, 180, that the law of honour among the Greeks did
not compel them to treasure up in their memory the offensive language
which might be addressed to them by a passionate adversary, nor to
conceive that it left a stain which could only be washed away by
blood. Even for real and deep injuries they were commonly willing to
accept a pecuniary compensation.”
[214] “The boon of sleep.”—Milton
[215]
“All else of nature’s common gift partake:
Unhappy Dido was alone awake.”
—Dryden’s Virgil, iv. 767.
[216] _The king of Crete:_ Idomeneus.
[217] _Soft wool within, i e._ a kind of woollen stuffing, pressed in
between the straps, to protect the head, and make the helmet fit
close.
[218] “All the circumstances of this action—the night, Rhesus buried
in a profound sleep, and Diomede with the sword in his hand hanging
over the head of that prince—furnished Homer with the idea of this
fiction, which represents Rhesus lying fast asleep, and, as it were,
beholding his enemy in a dream, plunging the sword into his bosom.
This image is very natural; for a man in his condition awakes no
farther than to see confusedly what environs him, and to think it not
a reality but a dream.”—Pope.
“There’s one did laugh in his sleep, and one cry’d murder;
They wak’d each other.”
—_Macbeth_.
[219]
“Aurora now had left her saffron bed,
And beams of early light the heavens o’erspread.”
Dryden’s Virgil, iv. 639
[220] _Red drops of blood_. “This phenomenon, if a mere fruit of the
poet’s imagination, might seem arbitrary or far-fetched. It is one,
however, of ascertained reality, and of no uncommon occurrence in the
climate of Greece.”—Mure, i p. 493. Cf. Tasso, Gier. Lib. ix. 15:
“La terra in vece del notturno gelo
Bagnan rugiade tepide, e sanguigne.”
[221]
“No thought of flight,
None of retreat, no unbecoming deed
That argued fear.”
—“Paradise Lost,” vi. 236.
[222] _One of love_. Although a bastard brother received only a small
portion of the inheritance, he was commonly very well treated. Priam
appears to be the only one of whom polygamy is directly asserted in
the Iliad. Grote, vol. ii. p. 114, note.
[223] “Circled with foes as when a packe of bloodie jackals cling
About a goodly palmed hart, hurt with a hunter’s bow Whose escape his
nimble feet insure, whilst his warm blood doth flow, And his light
knees have power to move: but (maistred by his wound) Embost within a
shady hill, the jackals charge him round, And teare his flesh—when
instantly fortune sends in the powers Of some sterne lion, with whose
sighte they flie and he devours. So they around Ulysses prest.”
—Chapman.
[224] _Simois, railing_, &c.
“In those bloody fields
Where Simois rolls the bodies and the shields
Of heroes.”
—Dryden’s Virgil, i. 142.
[225]
“Where yon disorder’d heap of ruin lies,
Stones rent from stones,—where clouds of dust arise,—
Amid that smother, Neptune holds his place,
Below the wall’s foundation drives his mace,
And heaves the building from the solid base.”
Dryden’s Virgil, ii. 825.
[226] _Why boast we_.
“Wherefore do I assume
These royalties and not refuse to reign,
Refusing to accept as great a share
Of hazard as of honour, due alike to him
Who reigns, and so much to him due
Of hazard more, as he above the rest
High honour’d sits.”
—“Paradise Lost,” ii. 450.
[227] _Each equal weight_.
“Long time in even scale
The battle hung.”
—“Paradise Lost,” vi. 245.
[228]
“He on his impious foes right onward drove,
_Gloomy as night_.”
—“Paradise Lost,” vi. 831
[229] _Renown’d for justice and for length of days_, Arrian. de Exp.
Alex. iv. p. 239, also speaks of the independence of these people,
which he regards as the result of their poverty and uprightness. Some
authors have regarded the phrase “Hippomolgian,” _i.e._ “milking their
mares,” as an epithet applicable to numerous tribes, since the oldest
of the Samatian nomads made their mares’ milk one of their chief
articles of diet. The epithet abion or abion, in this passage, has
occasioned much discussion. It may mean, according as we read it,
either “long-lived,” or “bowless,” the latter epithet indicating that
they did not depend upon archery for subsistence.
[230] Compare Chapman’s quaint, bold verses:—
“And as a round piece of a rocke, which with a winter’s flood
Is from his top torn, when a shoure poured from a bursten cloud,
Hath broke the naturall band it had within the roughftey rock,
Flies jumping all adourne the woods, resounding everie shocke,
And on, uncheckt, it headlong leaps till in a plaine it stay,
And then (tho’ never so impelled), it stirs not any way:—
So Hector,—”
[231] This book forms a most agreeable interruption to the continuous
round of battles, which occupy the latter part of the Iliad. It is as
well to observe, that the sameness of these scenes renders many notes
unnecessary.
[232] _Who to Tydeus owes, i.e._ Diomed.
[233] Compare Tasso:—
Teneri sdegni, e placide, e tranquille
Repulse, e cari vezzi, e liete paci,
Sorrisi, parolette, e dolci stille
Di pianto, e sospir tronchi, e molli baci.”
Gier. Lib. xvi. 25
[234] Compare the description of the dwelling of Sleep in Orlando
Furioso, bk. vi.
[235]
“Twice seven, the charming daughters of the main—
Around my person wait, and bear my train:
Succeed my wish, and second my design,
The fairest, Deiopeia, shall be thine.”
Dryden’s Virgil, Æn. i. 107, seq.
[236] _And Minos_. “By Homer, Minos is described as the son of
Jupiter, and of the daughter of Phœnix, whom all succeeding authors
name Europa; and he is thus carried back into the remotest period of