_standing_ agora is a symptom of manifest terror (II. Xviii. 246) an
evening agora, to which men came elevated by wine, is also the
forerunner of mischief (‘Odyssey,’ iii. 138).”—Grote, ii. p. 91,
_note_.
[83] This sceptre, like that of Judah (Genesis xlix. 10), is a type of
the supreme and far-spread dominion of the house of the Atrides. See
Thucydides i. 9. “It is traced through the hands of Hermes, he being
the wealth giving god, whose blessing is most efficacious in
furthering the process of acquisition.”—Grote, i. p. 212. Compare
Quintus Calaber (Dyce’s Selections, p. 43).
“Thus the monarch spoke,
Then pledged the chief in a capacious cup,
Golden, and framed by art divine (a gift
Which to Almighty Jove lame Vulcan brought
Upon his nuptial day, when he espoused
The Queen of Love), the sire of gods bestow’d
The cup on Dardanus, who gave it next
To Ericthonius Tros received it then,
And left it, with his wealth, to be possess’d
By Ilus he to great Laomedon
Gave it, and last to Priam’s lot it fell.”
[84] Grote, i, p. 393, states the number of the Grecian forces at
upwards of 100,000 men. Nichols makes a total of 135,000.
[85] “As thick as when a field
Of Ceres, ripe for harvest, waving bends
His bearded grove of ears, which way the wind
Sways them.”—Paradise Lost,” iv. 980, sqq.
[86] This sentiment used to be a popular one with some of the greatest
tyrants, who abused it into a pretext for unlimited usurpation of
power. Dion, Caligula, and Domitian were particularly fond of it, and,
in an extended form, we find the maxim propounded by Creon in the
Antigone of Sophocles. See some important remarks of Heeren, “Ancient
Greece,” ch. vi. p. 105.
[87] It may be remarked, that the character of Thersites, revolting
and contemptible as it is, serves admirably to develop the disposition
of Ulysses in a new light, in which mere cunning is less prominent. Of
the gradual and individual development of Homer’s heroes, Schlegel
well observes, “In bas-relief the figures are usually in profile, and
in the epos all are characterized in the simplest manner in relief;
they are not grouped together, but follow one another; so Homer’s
heroes advance, one by one, in succession before us. It has been
remarked that the _Iliad_ is not definitively closed, but that we are
left to suppose something both to precede and to follow it. The
bas-relief is equally without limit, and may be continued _ad
infinitum_, either from before or behind, on which account the
ancients preferred for it such subjects as admitted of an indefinite
extension, sacrificial processions, dances, and lines of combatants,
and hence they also exhibit bas-reliefs on curved surfaces, such as
vases, or the frieze of a rotunda, where, by the curvature, the two
ends are withdrawn from our sight, and where, while we advance, one
object appears as another disappears. Reading Homer is very much like
such a circuit; the present object alone arresting our attention, we
lose sight of what precedes, and do not concern ourselves about what
is to follow.”—“Dramatic Literature,” p. 75.
[88] “There cannot be a clearer indication than this description —so
graphic in the original poem—of the true character of the Homeric
agora. The multitude who compose it are listening and acquiescent, not
often hesitating, and never refractory to the chief. The fate which
awaits a presumptuous critic, even where his virulent reproaches are
substantially well-founded, is plainly set forth in the treatment of
Thersites; while the unpopularity of such a character is attested even
more by the excessive pains which Homer takes to heap upon him
repulsive personal deformities, than by the chastisement of Odysseus
he is lame, bald, crook-backed, of misshapen head, and squinting
vision.”—Grote, vol. i. p. 97.
[89] According to Pausanias, both the sprig and the remains of the
tree were exhibited in his time. The tragedians, Lucretius and others,
adopted a different fable to account for the stoppage at Aulis, and
seem to have found the sacrifice of Iphigena better suited to form the
subject of a tragedy. Compare Dryden’s “Æneid,” vol. iii. sqq.
[90] _Full of his god, i.e._, Apollo, filled with the prophetic
spirit. “_The_ god” would be more simple and emphatic.
[91] Those critics who have maintained that the “Catalogue of Ships”
is an interpolation, should have paid more attention to these lines,
which form a most natural introduction to their enumeration.
[92] The following observation will be useful to Homeric readers:
“Particular animals were, at a later time, consecrated to particular
deities. To Jupiter, Ceres, Juno, Apollo, and Bacchus victims of
advanced age might be offered. An ox of five years old was considered
especially acceptable to Jupiter. A black bull, a ram, or a boar pig,
were offerings for Neptune. A heifer, or a sheep, for Minerva. To
Ceres a sow was sacrificed, as an enemy to corn. The goat to Bacchus,
because he fed on vines. Diana was propitiated with a stag; and to
Venus the dove was consecrated. The infernal and evil deities were to
be appeased with black victims. The most acceptable of all sacrifices
was the heifer of a year old, which had never borne the yoke. It was
to be perfect in every limb, healthy, and without blemish.”—“Elgin
Marbles,” vol. i. p. 78.
[93] _Idomeneus_, son of Deucalion, was king of Crete. Having vowed,
during a tempest, on his return from Troy, to sacrifice to Neptune the
first creature that should present itself to his eye on the Cretan
shore, his son fell a victim to his rash vow.
[94] _Tydeus’ son, i.e._ Diomed.
[95] That is, Ajax, the son of Oïleus, a Locrian. He must be
distinguished from the other, who was king of Salamis.
[96] A great deal of nonsense has been written to account for the word
_unbid_, in this line. Even Plato, “Sympos.” p. 315, has found some
curious meaning in what, to us, appears to need no explanation. Was
there any _heroic_ rule of etiquette which prevented one brother-king
visiting another without a formal invitation?
[97] Fresh water fowl, especially swans, were found in great numbers
about the Asian Marsh, a fenny tract of country in Lydia, formed by
the river Cayster, near its mouth. See Virgil, “Georgics,” vol. i.
383, sq.
[98] _Scamander_, or Scamandros, was a river of Troas, rising,
according to Strabo, on the highest part of Mount Ida, in the same
hill with the Granicus and the OEdipus, and falling into the sea at
Sigaeum; everything tends to identify it with Mendere, as Wood,
Rennell, and others maintain; the Mendere is 40 miles long, 300 feet
broad, deep in the time of flood, nearly dry in the summer. Dr. Clarke
successfully combats the opinion of those who make the Scamander to
have arisen from the springs of Bounabarshy, and traces the source of
the river to the highest mountain in the chain of Ida, now Kusdaghy;
receives the Simois in its course; towards its mouth it is very muddy,
and flows through marshes. Between the Scamander and Simois, Homer’s
Troy is supposed to have stood: this river, according to Homer, was
called Xanthus by the gods, Scamander by men. The waters of the
Scamander had the singular property of giving a beautiful colour to
the hair or wool of such animals as bathed in them; hence the three
goddesses, Minerva, Juno, and Venus, bathed there before they appeared
before Paris to obtain the golden apple: the name Xanthus, “yellow,”
was given to the Scamander, from the peculiar colour of its waters,
still applicable to the Mendere, the yellow colour of whose waters
attracts the attention of travellers.
[99] It should be “his _chest_ like Neptune.” The torso of Neptune, in
the “Elgin Marbles,” No. 103, (vol. ii. p. 26,) is remarkable for its
breadth and massiveness of development.
[100] “Say first, for heav’n hides nothing from thy view.”—“Paradise
Lost,” i. 27.
“Ma di’ tu, Musa, come i primi danni
Mandassero à Cristiani, e di quai parti:
Tu ’l sai; ma di tant’ opra a noi si lunge
Debil aura di fama appena giunge.”—“Gier. Lib.” iv. 19.
[101] “The Catalogue is, perhaps, the portion of the poem in favour of
which a claim to separate authorship has been most plausibly urged.
Although the example of Homer has since rendered some such formal
enumeration of the forces engaged, a common practice in epic poems
descriptive of great warlike adventures, still so minute a statistical
detail can neither be considered as imperatively required, nor perhaps
such as would, in ordinary cases, suggest itself to the mind of a
poet. Yet there is scarcely any portion of the Iliad where both
historical and internal evidence are more clearly in favour of a
connection from the remotest period, with the remainder of the work.
The composition of the Catalogue, whensoever it may have taken place,
necessarily presumes its author’s acquaintance with a previously
existing Iliad. It were impossible otherwise to account for the
harmony observable in the recurrence of so vast a number of proper
names, most of them historically unimportant, and not a few altogether
fictitious: or of so many geographical and genealogical details as are
condensed in these few hundred lines, and incidentally scattered over
the thousands which follow: equally inexplicable were the pointed
allusions occurring in this episode to events narrated in the previous
and subsequent text, several of which could hardly be of traditional
notoriety, but through the medium of the Iliad.”—Mure, “Language and
Literature of Greece,” vol. i. p. 263.
[102] _Twice Sixty:_ “Thucydides observes that the Bœotian vessels,
which carried one hundred and twenty men each, were probably meant to
be the largest in the fleet, and those of Philoctetes, carrying fifty
each, the smallest. The average would be eighty-five, and Thucydides
supposes the troops to have rowed and navigated themselves; and that
very few, besides the chiefs, went as mere passengers or landsmen. In
short, we have in the Homeric descriptions the complete picture of an
Indian or African war canoe, many of which are considerably larger
than the largest scale assigned to those of the Greeks. If the total
number of the Greek ships be taken at twelve hundred, according to
Thucydides, although in point of fact there are only eleven hundred
and eighty-six in the Catalogue, the amount of the army, upon the
foregoing average, will be about a hundred and two thousand men. The
historian considers this a small force as representing all Greece.
Bryant, comparing it with the allied army at Platae, thinks it so
large as to prove the entire falsehood of the whole story; and his
reasonings and calculations are, for their curiosity, well worth a
careful perusal.”—Coleridge, p. 211, sq.
[103] The mention of Corinth is an anachronism, as that city was
called Ephyre before its capture by the Dorians. But Velleius, vol. i.
p. 3, well observes, that the poet would naturally speak of various
towns and cities by the names by which they were known in his own
time.
[104] “Adam, the goodliest man of men since born, His sons, the
fairest of her daughters Eve.’—“Paradise Lost,” iv. 323.
[105] _Æsetes’ tomb_. Monuments were often built on the sea-coast, and
of a considerable height, so as to serve as watch-towers or land
marks. See my notes to my prose translations of the “Odyssey,” ii. p.
21, or on Eur. “Alcest.” vol. i. p. 240.
[106] _Zeleia_, another name for Lycia. The inhabitants were greatly
devoted to the worship of Apollo. See Muller, “Dorians,” vol. i. p.
248.
[107] _Barbarous tongues_. “Various as were the dialects of the
Greeks—and these differences existed not only between the several
tribes, but even between neighbouring cities—they yet acknowledged in
their language that they formed but one nation were but branches of
the same family. Homer has ‘men of other tongues:’ and yet Homer had
no general name for the Greek nation.”—Heeren, “Ancient Greece,”
Section vii. p. 107, sq.
[108] _The cranes_.
“Marking the tracts of air, the clamorous cranes
Wheel their due flight in varied ranks descried:
And each with outstretch’d neck his rank maintains,
In marshall’d order through th’ ethereal void.”
Lorenzo de Medici, in Roscoe’s Life, Appendix.
See Cary’s Dante: “Hell,” canto v.
[109] _Silent, breathing rage._
“Thus they,
Breathing united force with fixed thought,
Moved on in silence.”
“Paradise Lost,” book i. 559.
[110] “As when some peasant in a bushy brake
Has with unwary footing press’d a snake;
He starts aside, astonish’d, when he spies
His rising crest, blue neck, and rolling eyes”
Dryden’s Virgil, ii. 510.
[111] Dysparis, _i.e._ unlucky, ill fated, Paris. This alludes to the
evils which resulted from his having been brought up, despite the
omens which attended his birth.
[112] The following scene, in which Homer has contrived to introduce
so brilliant a sketch of the Grecian warriors, has been imitated by
Euripides, who in his “Phoenissae” represents Antigone surveying the
opposing champions from a high tower, while the paedagogus describes
their insignia and details their histories.
[113] _No wonder_, &c. Zeuxis, the celebrated artist, is said to have
appended these lines to his picture of Helen, as a motto. Valer Max.
iii. 7.
[114] The early epic was largely occupied with the exploits and
sufferings of women, or heroines, the wives and daughters of the
Grecian heroes. A nation of courageous, hardy, indefatigable women,
dwelling apart from men, permitting only a short temporary
intercourse, for the purpose of renovating their numbers, burning out
their right breast with a view of enabling themselves to draw the bow
freely; this was at once a general type, stimulating to the fancy of
the poet, and a theme eminently popular with his hearers. We find
these warlike females constantly reappearing in the ancient poems, and
universally accepted as past realities in the Iliad. When Priam wishes
to illustrate emphatically the most numerous host in which he ever
found himself included, he tells us that it was assembled in Phrygia,
on the banks of the Sangarius, for the purpose of resisting the
formidable Amazons. When Bellerophon is to be employed in a deadly and
perilous undertaking, by those who prudently wished to procure his
death, he is despatched against the Amazons.—Grote, vol. i p. 289.
[115] _Antenor_, like Æneas, had always been favourable to the
restoration of Helen. Liv 1. 2.
[116]
“His lab’ring heart with sudden rapture seized
He paus’d, and on the ground in silence gazed.
Unskill’d and uninspired he seems to stand,
Nor lifts the eye, nor graceful moves the hand:
Then, while the chiefs in still attention hung,
Pours the full tide of eloquence along;
While from his lips the melting torrent flows,
Soft as the fleeces of descending snows.
Now stronger notes engage the listening crowd,
Louder the accents rise, and yet more loud,
Like thunders rolling from a distant cloud.”
Merrick’s “Tryphiodorus,” 148, 99.
[117] Duport, “Gnomol. Homer,” p. 20, well observes that this
comparison may also be sarcastically applied to the _frigid_ style of
oratory. It, of course, here merely denotes the ready fluency of
Ulysses.
[118] _Her brothers’ doom_. They perished in combat with Lynceus and
Idas, whilst besieging Sparta. See Hygin. Poet Astr. 32, 22. Virgil
and others, however, make them share immortality by turns.
[119] Idreus was the arm-bearer and charioteer of king Priam, slain
during this war. Cf. Æn, vi. 487.
[120] _Scæa’s gates_, rather _Scæan gates_, _i.e._ the left-hand
gates.
[121] This was customary in all sacrifices. Hence we find Iras
descending to cut off the hair of Dido, before which she could not
expire.
[122] _Nor pierced_.
“This said, his feeble hand a jav’lin threw,
Which, flutt’ring, seemed to loiter as it flew,
Just, and but barely, to the mark it held,
And faintly tinkled on the brazen shield.”
Dryden’s Virgil, ii. 742.
[123] _Reveal’d the queen_.
“Thus having said, she turn’d and made appear
Her neck refulgent and dishevell’d hair,
Which, flowing from her shoulders, reach’d the ground,
And widely spread ambrosial scents around.
In length of train descends her sweeping gown;
And, by her graceful walk, the queen of love is known.”
Dryden’s Virgil, i. 556.
[124] _Cranae’s isle, i.e._ Athens. See the “Schol.” and Alberti’s
“Hesychius,” vol. ii. p. 338. This name was derived from one of its
early kings, Cranaus.
[125] _The martial maid_. In the original, “Minerva Alalcomeneis,”
_i.e. the defender_, so called from her temple at Alalcomene in
Bœotia.
[126] “Anything for a quiet life!”
[127] —_Argos_. The worship of Juno at Argos was very celebrated in
ancient times, and she was regarded as the patron deity of that city.
Apul. Met., vi. p. 453; Servius on Virg. Æn., i. 28.
[128] —_A wife and sister_.
“But I, who walk in awful state above
The majesty of heav’n, the sister-wife of Jove.”
Dryden’s “Virgil,” i. 70.
So Apuleius, _l. c._ speaks of her as “Jovis germana et conjux, and so
Horace, Od. iii. 3, 64, “conjuge me Jovis et sorore.”
[129]
“Thither came Uriel, gleaming through the even
On a sunbeam, swift as a shooting star
In autumn thwarts the night, when vapours fired
Impress the air, and shows the mariner
From what point of his compass to beware
Impetuous winds.”
—“Paradise Lost,” iv. 555.
[130] _Æsepus’ flood_. A river of Mysia, rising from Mount Cotyius, in
the southern part of the chain of Ida.
[131] _Zelia_, a town of Troas, at the foot of Ida.
[132] _Podaleirius_ and _Machäon_ are the leeches of the Grecian army,
highly prized and consulted by all the wounded chiefs. Their medical
renown was further prolonged in the subsequent poem of Arktinus, the
Iliou Persis, wherein the one was represented as unrivalled in
surgical operations, the other as sagacious in detecting and
appreciating morbid symptoms. It was Podaleirius who first noticed the
glaring eyes and disturbed deportment which preceded the suicide of
Ajax.
“Galen appears uncertain whether Asklepius (as well as Dionysus)
was originally a god, or whether he was first a man and then became
afterwards a god; but Apollodorus professed to fix the exact date
of his apotheosis. Throughout all the historical ages the
descendants of Asklepius were numerous and widely diffused. The
many families or gentes, called Asklepiads, who devoted themselves
to the study and practice of medicine, and who principally dwelt
near the temples of Asklepius, whither sick and suffering men came
to obtain relief—all recognized the god not merely as the object of
their common worship, but also as their actual progenitor.”—Grote
vol. i. p. 248.
[133]
“The plant she bruises with a stone, and stands
Tempering the juice between her ivory hands
This o’er her breast she sheds with sovereign art
And bathes with gentle touch the wounded part
The wound such virtue from the juice derives,
At once the blood is stanch’d, the youth revives.”
“Orlando Furioso,” book 1.
[134] _Well might I wish._
“Would heav’n (said he) my strength and youth recall,
Such as I was beneath Praeneste’s wall—
Then when I made the foremost foes retire,
And set whole heaps of conquer’d shields on fire;
When Herilus in single fight I slew,
Whom with three lives Feronia did endue.”
Dryden’s Virgil, viii. 742.
[135] _Sthenelus_, a son of Capaneus, one of the Epigoni. He was one
of the suitors of Helen, and is said to have been one of those who
entered Troy inside the wooden horse.
[136] _Forwarn’d the horrors_. The same portent has already been
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
Cretan antiquity known to the poet, apparently as a native hero,
Illustrious enough for a divine parentage, and too ancient to allow
his descent to be traced to any other source. But in a genealogy
recorded by later writers, he is likewise the adopted son of Asterius,
as descendant of Dorus, the son of Helen, and is thus connected with a
colony said to have been led into Creta by Tentamus, or Tectamus, son
of Dorus, who is related either to have crossed over from Thessaly, or
to have embarked at Malea after having led his followers by land into
Laconia.”—Thirlwall, p. 136, seq.
[237] Milton has emulated this passage, in describing the couch of our
first parents:—
“Underneath the violet,
Crocus, and hyacinth with rich inlay,
’Broider’d the ground.”
—“Paradise Lost,” iv. 700.
[238] _He lies protected_.
“Forthwith on all sides to his aid was run
By angels many and strong, who interpos’d
Defence, while others bore him on their shields
Back to his chariot, where it stood retir’d
From off the files of war; there they him laid,
Gnashing for anguish, and despite, and shame.”
“Paradise Lost,” vi. 335, seq.
[239] _The brazen dome_. See the note on Bk. viii. Page 142.
[240] _For, by the gods! who flies_. Observe the bold ellipsis of “he
cries,” and the transition from the direct to the oblique
construction. So in Milton:—
“Thus at their shady lodge arriv’d, both stood,
Both turn’d, and under open sky ador’d
The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven,
Which they beheld, the moon’s resplendent globe,
And starry pole.—Thou also mad’st the night,
Maker omnipotent, and thou the day.”
Milton, “Paradise Lost,” Book iv.
[241] _So some tall rock_.
“But like a rock unmov’d, a rock that braves
The raging tempest, and the rising waves—
Propp’d on himself he stands: his solid sides
Wash off the sea-weeds, and the sounding tides.”
Dryden’s Virgil, vii. 809.
[242] Protesilaus was the first Greek who fell, slain by Hector, as he
leaped from the vessel to the Trojan shore. He was buried on the
Chersonese, near the city of Plagusa. Hygin Fab. ciii. Tzetz. on
Lycophr. 245, 528. There is a most elegant tribute to his memory in
the Preface to the Heroica of Philostratus.
[243] _His best beloved_. The following elegant remarks of Thirlwall
(Greece, vol. i, p. 176 seq.) well illustrate the character of the
friendship subsisting between these two heroes—
“One of the noblest and most amiable sides of the Greek character,
is the readiness with which it lent itself to construct intimate
and durable friendships, and this is a feature no less prominent in
the earliest than in later times. It was indeed connected with the
comparatively low estimation in which female society was held; but
the devotedness and constancy with which these attachments were
maintained, was not the less admirable and engaging. The heroic
companions whom we find celebrated partly by Homer and partly in
traditions which, if not of equal antiquity, were grounded on the
same feeling, seem to have but one heart and soul, with scarcely a
wish or object apart, and only to live as they are always ready to
die for one another. It is true that the relation between them is
not always one of perfect equality; but this is a circumstance
which, while it often adds a peculiar charm to the poetical
description, detracts little from the dignity of the idea which it
presents. Such were the friendships of Hercules and Iolaus, of
Theseus and Pirithous, of Orestes and Pylades; and though These may
owe the greater part of their fame to the later epic or even
dramatic poetry, the moral groundwork undoubtedly subsisted in the
period to which the traditions are referred. The argument of the
Iliad mainly turns on the affection of Achilles for Patroclus,
whose love for the greater hero is only tempered by reverence for
his higher birth and his unequalled prowess. But the mutual regard
which united Idomeneus and Meriones, Diomedes and Sthenelus,
though, as the persons themselves are less important, it is kept
more in the back-ground, is manifestly viewed by the poet in the
same light. The idea of a Greek hero seems not to have been thought
complete, without such a brother in arms by his side.”—Thirlwall,
Greece, vol. i. p. 176, seq.
[244]
“As hungry wolves with raging appetite,
Scour through the fields, ne’er fear the stormy night—
Their whelps at home expect the promised food,
And long to temper their dry chaps in blood—
So rush’d we forth at once.”
—Dryden’s Virgil, ii. 479.
[245] _The destinies ordain_.—“In the mythology, also, of the Iliad,
purely Pagan as it is, we discover one important truth unconsciously
involved, which was almost entirely lost from view amidst the nearly
equal scepticism and credulity of subsequent ages. Zeus or Jupiter is
popularly to be taken as omnipotent. No distinct empire is assigned to
fate or fortune; the will of the father of gods and men is absolute
and uncontrollable. This seems to be the true character of the Homeric
deity, and it is very necessary that the student of Greek literature
should bear it constantly in mind. A strong instance in the Iliad
itself to illustrate this position, is the passage where Jupiter
laments to Juno the approaching death of Sarpedon. ‘Alas me!’ says he
‘since it is fated (moira) that Sarpedon, dearest to me of men, should
be slain by Patroclus, the son of Menoetius! Indeed, my heart is
divided within me while I ruminate it in my mind, whether having
snatched him up from out of the lamentable battle, I should not at
once place him alive in the fertile land of his own Lycia, or whether
I should now destroy him by the hands of the son of Menoetius!’ To
which Juno answers—‘Dost thou mean to rescue from death a mortal man,
long since destined by fate (palai pepromenon)? You may do it—but we,
the rest of the gods, do not sanction it.’ Here it is clear from both
speakers, that although Sarpedon is said to be fated to die, Jupiter
might still, if he pleased, save him, and place him entirely out of
the reach of any such event, and further, in the alternative, that
Jupiter himself would destroy him by the hands of another.”—Coleridge,
p. 156. seq.
[246] _Thrice at the battlements_. “The art military of the Homeric
age is upon a level with the state of navigation just described,
personal prowess decided every thing; the night attack and the
ambuscade, although much esteemed, were never upon a large scale. The
chiefs fight in advance, and enact almost as much as the knights of
romance. The siege of Troy was as little like a modern siege as a
captain in the guards is like Achilles. There is no mention of a ditch
or any other line or work round the town, and the wall itself was
accessible without a ladder. It was probably a vast mound of earth
with a declivity outwards. Patroclus thrice mounts it in armour. The
Trojans are in no respects blockaded, and receive assistance from
their allies to the very end.”—Coleridge, p. 212.
[247] _Ciconians_.—A people of Thrace, near the Hebrus.
[248] _They wept_.
“Fast by the manger stands the inactive steed,
And, sunk in sorrow, hangs his languid head;
He stands, and careless of his golden grain,
Weeps his associates and his master slain.”
Merrick’s Tryphiodorus, v. 18-24.
“Nothing is heard upon the mountains now,
But pensive herds that for their master low,
Straggling and comfortless about they rove,
Unmindful of their pasture and their love.”
Moschus, id. 3, parodied, _ibid._
“To close the pomp, Æthon, the steed of state,
Is led, the funeral of his lord to wait.
Stripp’d of his trappings, with a sullen pace
He walks, and the big tears run rolling down his face.”
Dryden’s Virgil, bk. ii
[249] _Some brawny bull_.
“Like to a bull, that with impetuous spring
Darts, at the moment when the fatal blow
Hath struck him, but unable to proceed
Plunges on either side.”
—Carey’s Dante: Hell, c. xii.
[250] This is connected with the earlier part of last book, the
regular narrative being interrupted by the message of Antilochus and
the lamentations of Achilles.
[251] _Far in the deep_. So Oceanus hears the lamentations of
Prometheus, in the play of Æschylus, and comes from the depths of the
sea to comfort him.
[252] Opuntia, a city of Locris.
[253] Quintus Calaber, lib. v., has attempted to rival Homer in his
description of the shield of the same hero. A few extracts from Mr.
Dyce’s version (Select Translations, p. 104, seq.) may here be
introduced.
“In the wide circle of the shield were seen
Refulgent images of various forms,
The work of Vulcan; who had there described
The heaven, the ether, and the earth and sea,
The winds, the clouds, the moon, the sun, apart
In different stations; and you there might view
The stars that gem the still-revolving heaven,
And, under them, the vast expanse of air,
In which, with outstretch’d wings, the long-beak’d bird
Winnow’d the gale, as if instinct with life.
Around the shield the waves of ocean flow’d,
The realms of Tethys, which unnumber’d streams,
In azure mazes rolling o’er the earth,
Seem’d to augment.”
[254] _On seats of stone_. “Several of the old northern Sagas
represent the old men assembled for the purpose of judging as sitting
on great stones, in a circle called the Urtheilsring or gerichtsring”—
Grote, ii. p. 100, note. On the independence of the judicial office in
The heroic times, see Thirlwall’s Greece, vol. i. p. 166.
[255] _Another part_, &c.
“And here
Were horrid wars depicted; grimly pale
Were heroes lying with their slaughter’d steeds
Upon the ground incarnadin’d with blood.
Stern stalked Bellona, smear’d with reeking gore,
Through charging ranks; beside her Rout was seen,
And Terror, Discord to the fatal strife
Inciting men, and Furies breathing flames:
Nor absent were the Fates, and the tall shape
Of ghastly Death, round whom did Battles throng,
Their limbs distilling plenteous blood and sweat;
And Gorgons, whose long locks were twisting snakes.
That shot their forky tongues incessant forth.
Such were the horrors of dire war.”
—Dyce’s Calaber.
[256] _A field deep furrowed_.
“Here was a corn field; reapers in a row,
Each with a sharp-tooth’d sickle in his hand,
Work’d busily, and, as the harvest fell,
Others were ready still to bind the sheaves:
Yoked to a wain that bore the corn away
The steers were moving; sturdy bullocks here
The plough were drawing, and the furrow’d glebe
Was black behind them, while with goading wand
The active youths impell’d them. Here a feast
Was graved: to the shrill pipe and ringing lyre
A band of blooming virgins led the dance.
As if endued with life.”
—Dyce’s Calaber.
[257] Coleridge (Greek Classic Poets, p. 182, seq.) has diligently
compared this with the description of the shield of Hercules by
Hesiod. He remarks that, “with two or three exceptions, the imagery
differs in little more than the names and arrangements; and the
difference of arrangement in the Shield of Hercules is altogether for
the worse. The natural consecution of the Homeric images needs no
exposition: it constitutes in itself one of the beauties of the work.
The Hesiodic images are huddled together without connection or
congruity: Mars and Pallas are awkwardly introduced among the Centaurs
and Lapithae;— but the gap is wide indeed between them and Apollo with
the Muses, waking the echoes of Olympus to celestial harmonies; whence
however, we are hurried back to Perseus, the Gorgons, and other images
of war, over an arm of the sea, in which the sporting dolphins, the
fugitive fishes, and the fisherman on the shore with his casting net,
are minutely represented. As to the Hesiodic images themselves, the
leading remark is, that they catch at beauty by ornament, and at
sublimity by exaggeration; and upon the untenable supposition of the
genuineness of this poem, there is this curious peculiarity, that, in
the description of scenes of rustic peace, the superiority of Homer is
decisive—while in those of war and tumult it may be thought, perhaps,
that the Hesiodic poet has more than once the advantage.”
[258] “This legend is one of the most pregnant and characteristic in
the Grecian Mythology; it explains, according to the religious ideas
familiar to the old epic poets, both the distinguishing attributes and
the endless toil and endurances of Heracles, the most renowned
subjugator of all the semi-divine personages worshipped by the
Hellenes,—a being of irresistible force, and especially beloved by
Zeus, yet condemned constantly to labour for others and to obey the
commands of a worthless and cowardly persecutor. His recompense is
reserved to the close of his career, when his afflicting trials are
brought to a close: he is then admitted to the godhead, and receives
in marriage Hebe.”—Grote, vol. i. p. 128.
[259] _Ambrosia_.
“The blue-eyed maid,
In ev’ry breast new vigour to infuse.
Brings nectar temper’d with ambrosial dews.”
Merrick’s Tryphiodorus, vi. 249.
[260] “Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering. He
stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth
upon nothing. He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds; and the
cloud is not rent under them.” Job xxvi. 6-8.
[261]
“Swift from his throne the infernal monarch ran,
All pale and trembling, lest the race of man,v Slain by Jove’s wrath,
and led by Hermes’ rod,
Should fill (a countless throng!) his dark abode.”
Merrick’s Tryphiodorus, vi. 769, sqq.
[262] These words seem to imply the old belief, that the Fates might
be delayed, but never wholly set aside.
[263] It was anciently believed that it was dangerous, if not fatal,
to behold a deity. See Exod. xxxiii. 20; Judg. xiii. 22.
[264]
“Ere Ilium and the Trojan tow’rs arose,
In humble vales they built their soft abodes.”
Dryden’s Virgil, iii. 150.
[265] _Along the level seas_. Compare Virgil’s description of Camilla,
who
“Outstripp’d the winds in speed upon the plain,
Flew o’er the field, nor hurt the bearded grain:
She swept the seas, and, as she skimm’d along,
Her flying feet unbathed on billows hung.”
Dryden, vii. 1100.
[266] _The future father_. “Æneas and Antenor stand distinguished from
the other Trojans by a dissatisfaction with Priam, and a sympathy with
the Greeks, which is by Sophocles and others construed as treacherous
collusion,—a suspicion indirectly glanced at, though emphatically
repelled, in the Æneas of Virgil.”—Grote, i. p. 427.
[267] Neptune thus recounts his services to Æneas:
“When your Æneas fought, but fought with odds
Of force unequal, and unequal gods:
I spread a cloud before the victor’s sight,
Sustain’d the vanquish’d, and secured his flight—
Even then secured him, when I sought with joy
The vow’d destruction of ungrateful Troy.”
Dryden’s Virgil, v. 1058.
[268] _On Polydore_. Euripides, Virgil, and others, relate that
Polydore was sent into Thrace, to the house of Polymestor, for
protection, being the youngest of Priam’s sons, and that he was
treacherously murdered by his host for the sake of the treasure sent
with him.
[269] “Perhaps the boldest excursion of Homer into this region of
poetical fancy is the collision into which, in the twenty-first of the
Iliad, he has brought the river god Scamander, first with Achilles,
and afterwards with Vulcan, when summoned by Juno to the hero’s aid.
The overwhelming fury of the stream finds the natural interpretation
in the character of the mountain torrents of Greece and Asia Minor.
Their wide, shingly beds are in summer comparatively dry, so as to be
easily forded by the foot passenger. But a thunder-shower in the
mountains, unobserved perhaps by the traveller on the plain, may
suddenly immerse him in the flood of a mighty river. The rescue of
Achilles by the fiery arms of Vulcan scarcely admits of the same ready
explanation from physical causes. Yet the subsiding of the flood at
the critical moment when the hero’s destruction appeared imminent,
might, by a slight extension of the figurative parallel, be ascribed
to a god symbolic of the influences opposed to all atmospheric
moisture.”—Mure, vol. i. p. 480, sq.
[270] Wood has observed, that “the circumstance of a falling tree,
which is described as reaching from one of its banks to the other,
affords a very just idea of the breadth of the Scamander.”
[271] _Ignominious_. Drowning, as compared with a death in the field
of battle, was considered utterly disgraceful.
[272] _Beneath a caldron_.
“So, when with crackling flames a caldron fries,
The bubbling waters from the bottom rise.
Above the brims they force their fiery way;
Black vapours climb aloft, and cloud the day.”
Dryden’s Virgil, vii. 644.
[273] “This tale of the temporary servitude of particular gods, by
order of Jove, as a punishment for misbehaviour, recurs not
unfrequently among the incidents of the Mythical world.”—Grote, vol.
i. p. 156.
[274] _Not half so dreadful_.
“On the other side,
Incensed with indignation, Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burn’d,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war.”
—“Paradise Lost,” xi. 708.
[275] “And thus his own undaunted mind explores.”—“Paradise Lost,” vi.
113.
[276] The example of Nausicaa, in the Odyssey, proves that the duties
of the laundry were not thought derogatory, even from the dignity of a
princess, in the heroic times.
[277] _Hesper shines with keener light_.
“Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,
If better thou belong not to the dawn.”
“Paradise Lost,” v. 166.
[278] Such was his fate. After chasing the Trojans into the town, he
was slain by an arrow from the quiver of Paris, directed under the
unerring auspices of Apollo. The greatest efforts were made by the
Trojans to possess themselves of the body, which was however rescued
and borne off to the Grecian camp by the valour of Ajax and Ulysses.
Thetis stole away the body, just as the Greeks were about to burn it
with funeral honours, and conveyed it away to a renewed life of
immortality in the isle of Leuke in the Euxine.
[279] _Astyanax_, i.e. the _city-king_ or guardian. It is amusing that
Plato, who often finds fault with Homer without reason, should have
copied this twaddling etymology into his Cratylus.
[280] This book has been closely imitated by Virgil in his fifth book,
but it is almost useless to attempt a selection of passages for
comparison.
[281] _Thrice in order led_. This was a frequent rite at funerals. The
Romans had the same custom, which they called _decursio_. Plutarch
states that Alexander, in after times, renewed these same honours to
the memory of Achilles himself.
[282] _And swore_. Literally, and called Orcus, the god of oaths, to
witness. See Buttmann, Lexilog, p. 436.
[283]
“O, long expected by thy friends! from whence
Art thou so late return’d for our defence?
Do we behold thee, wearied as we are
With length of labours, and with, toils of war?
After so many funerals of thy own,
Art thou restored to thy declining town?
But say, what wounds are these? what new disgrace
Deforms the manly features of thy face?”
Dryden, xi. 369.
[284] _Like a thin smoke_. Virgil, Georg. iv. 72.
“In vain I reach my feeble hands to join
In sweet embraces—ah! no longer thine!
She said, and from his eyes the fleeting fair
Retired, like subtle smoke dissolved in air.”
Dryden.
[285] So Milton:—
“So eagerly the fiend
O’er bog, o’er steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.”
“Paradise Lost,” ii. 948.
[286]
“An ancient forest, for the work design’d
(The shady covert of the savage kind).
The Trojans found: the sounding axe is placed:
Firs, pines, and pitch-trees, and the tow’ring pride
Of forest ashes, feel the fatal stroke,
And piercing wedges cleave the stubborn oak.
High trunks of trees, fell’d from the steepy crown
Of the bare mountains, roll with ruin down.”
Dryden’s Virgil, vi. 261.
[287] _He vowed_. This was a very ancient custom.
[288] The height of the tomb or pile was a great proof of the dignity
of the deceased, and the honour in which he was held.
[289] On the prevalence of this cruel custom amongst the northern
nations, see Mallet, p. 213.
[290] _And calls the spirit_. Such was the custom anciently, even at
the Roman funerals.
“Hail, O ye holy manes! hail again,
Paternal ashes, now revived in vain.”
Dryden’s Virgil, v. 106.
[291] Virgil, by making the boaster vanquished, has drawn a better
moral from this episode than Homer. The following lines deserve
comparison:—
“The haughty Dares in the lists appears:
Walking he strides, his head erected bears:
His nervous arms the weighty gauntlet wield,
And loud applauses echo through the field.
* * * *
Such Dares was, and such he strode along,
And drew the wonder of the gazing throng
His brawny breast and ample chest he shows;
His lifted arms around his head he throws,
And deals in whistling air his empty blows.
His match is sought, but, through the trembling band,
No one dares answer to the proud demand.
Presuming of his force, with sparkling eyes,
Already he devours the promised prize.
* * * *
If none my matchless valour dares oppose,
How long shall Dares wait his dastard foes?”
Dryden’s Virgil, v. 486, seq.
[292]
“The gauntlet-fight thus ended, from the shore
His faithful friends unhappy Dares bore:
His mouth and nostrils pour’d a purple flood,
And pounded teeth came rushing with his blood.”
Dryden’s Virgil, v. 623.
[293] “Troilus is only once named in the Iliad; he was mentioned also
in the Cypriad but his youth, beauty, and untimely end made him an
object of great interest with the subsequent poets.”—Grote, i, p. 399.
[294] Milton has rivalled this passage describing the descent of
Gabriel, “Paradise Lost,” bk. v. 266, seq.
“Down thither prone in flight
He speeds, and through the vast ethereal sky
Sails between worlds and worlds, with steady wing,
Now on the polar winds, then with quick fan
Winnows the buxom air. * * * *
* * * *
At once on th’ eastern cliff of Paradise
He lights, and to his proper shape returns
A seraph wing’d. * * * *
Like Maia’s son he stood,
And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance fill’d
The circuit wide.”
Virgil, Æn. iv. 350:—
“Hermes obeys; with golden pinions binds
His flying feet, and mounts the western winds:
And whether o’er the seas or earth he flies,
With rapid force they bear him down the skies
But first he grasps within his awful hand
The mark of sovereign power, his magic wand;
With this he draws the ghost from hollow graves;
With this he drives them from the Stygian waves:
* * * *
Thus arm’d, the god begins his airy race,v And drives the racking
clouds along the liquid space.”
Dryden.
[295] In reference to the whole scene that follows, the remarks of
Coleridge are well worth reading:—
“By a close study of life, and by a true and natural mode of
expressing everything, Homer was enabled to venture upon the most
peculiar and difficult situations, and to extricate himself from
them with the completest success. The whole scene between Achilles
and Priam, when the latter comes to the Greek camp for the purpose
of redeeming the body of Hector, is at once the most profoundly
skilful, and yet the simplest and most affecting passage in the
Iliad. Quinctilian has taken notice of the following speech of
Priam, the rhetorical artifice of which is so transcendent, that if
genius did not often, especially in oratory, unconsciously fulfil
the most subtle precepts of criticism, we might be induced, on this
account alone, to consider the last book of the Iliad as what is
called spurious, in other words, of later date than the rest of the
poem. Observe the exquisite taste of Priam in occupying the mind of
Achilles, from the outset, with the image of his father; in
gradually introducing the parallel of his own situation; and,
lastly, mentioning Hector’s name when he perceives that the hero is
softened, and then only in such a manner as to flatter the pride of
the conqueror. The ego d’eleeinoteros per, and the apusato aecha
geronta, are not exactly like the tone of the earlier parts of the
Iliad. They are almost too fine and pathetic. The whole passage
defies translation, for there is that about the Greek which has no
name, but which is of so fine and ethereal a subtlety that it can
only be felt in the original, and is lost in an attempt to
transfuse it into another language.”—Coleridge, p. 195.
[296] “Achilles’ ferocious treatment of the corpse of Hector cannot
but offend as referred to the modern standard of humanity. The heroic
age, however, must be judged by its own moral laws. Retributive
vengeance on the dead, as well as the living, was a duty inculcated by
the religion of those barbarous times which not only taught that evil
inflicted on the author of evil was a solace to the injured man; but
made the welfare of the soul after death dependent on the fate of the
body from which it had separated. Hence a denial of the rites
essential to the soul’s admission into the more favoured regions of
the lower world was a cruel punishment to the wanderer on the dreary
shores of the infernal river. The complaint of the ghost of Patroclus
to Achilles, of but a brief postponement of his own obsequies, shows
how efficacious their refusal to the remains of his destroyer must
have been in satiating the thirst of revenge, which, even after death,
was supposed to torment the dwellers in Hades. Hence before yielding
up the body of Hector to Priam, Achilles asks pardon of Patroclus for
even this partial cession of his just rights of retribution.”—Mure,
vol. i. 289.
[297] Such was the fate of Astyanax, when Troy was taken.
“Here, from the tow’r by stern Ulysses thrown,
Andromache bewail’d her infant son.”
Merrick’s Tryphiodorus, v. 675.
[298] The following observations of Coleridge furnish a most gallant
and interesting view of Helen’s character—
“Few things are more interesting than to observe how the same hand
that has given us the fury and inconsistency of Achilles, gives us
also the consummate elegance and tenderness of Helen. She is
through the Iliad a genuine lady, graceful in motion and speech,
noble in her associations, full of remorse for a fault for which
higher powers seem responsible, yet grateful and affectionate
towards those with whom that fault had committed her. I have always
thought the following speech in which Helen laments Hector, and
hints at her own invidious and unprotected situation in Troy, as
almost the sweetest passage in the poem. It is another striking
instance of that refinement of feeling and softness of tone which
so generally distinguish the last book of the Iliad from the
rest.”—Classic Poets, p. 198, seq.
[299] “And here we part with Achilles at the moment best calculated to
exalt and purify our impression of his character. We had accompanied
him through the effervescence, undulations, and final subsidence of
his stormy passions. We now leave him in repose and under the full
influence of the more amiable affections, while our admiration of his
great qualities is chastened by the reflection that, within a few
short days the mighty being in whom they were united was himself to be
suddenly cut off in the full vigour of their exercise.
The frequent and touching allusions, interspersed throughout the
Iliad, to the speedy termination of its hero’s course, and the
moral on the vanity of human life which they indicate, are among
the finest evidences of the spirit of ethic unity by which the
whole framework of the poem is united.”—Mure, vol. i. p 201.
[300] Cowper says,—“I cannot take my leave of this noble poem without
expressing how much I am struck with the plain conclusion of it. It is
like the exit of a great man out of company, whom he has entertained
magnificently; neither pompous nor familiar; not contemptuous, yet
without much ceremony.” Coleridge, p. 227, considers the termination
of “Paradise Lost” somewhat similar.