The Iliad

[72] _A double bowl, i.e._ a vessel with a cup at both ends, something like the measures by which a halfpenny or pennyworth of nuts is sold. See Buttmann, Lexic. p. 93 sq.

“Him th’ Almighty power Hurl’d headlong flaming from th ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion”

[74] The occasion on which Vulcan incurred Jove’s displeasure was this—After Hercules, had taken and pillaged Troy, Juno raised a storm, which drove him to the island of Cos, having previously cast Jove into a sleep, to prevent him aiding his son. Jove, in revenge, fastened iron anvils to her feet, and hung her from the sky, and Vulcan, attempting to relieve her, was kicked down from Olympus in the manner described. The allegorists have gone mad in finding deep explanations for this amusing fiction. See Heraclides, “Ponticus,” p. 463 sq., ed Gale. The story is told by Homer himself in Book xv. The Sinthians were a race of robbers, the ancient inhabitants of Lemnos which island was ever after sacred to Vulcan.

“Nor was his name unheard or unadored In ancient Greece, and in Ausonian land Men call’d him Mulciber, and how he fell From heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o’er the crystal battlements from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer’s day and with the setting sun Dropp’d from the zenith like a falling star On Lemnos, th’ Aegean isle thus they relate.”

[75] It is ingeniously observed by Grote, vol i p. 463, that “The gods formed a sort of political community of their own which had its hierarchy, its distribution of ranks and duties, its contentions for power and occasional revolutions, its public meetings in the agora of Olympus, and its multitudinous banquets or festivals.”

[76] Plato, Rep. iii. p. 437, was so scandalized at this deception of Jupiter’s, and at his other attacks on the character of the gods, that he would fain sentence him to an honourable banishment. (See Minucius Felix, Section 22.) Coleridge, Introd. p. 154, well observes, that the supreme father of gods and men had a full right to employ a lying spirit to work out his ultimate will. Compare “Paradise Lost,” v. 646:

“And roseate dews disposed All but the unsleeping eyes of God to rest.”

[77] —_Dream_ ought to be spelt with a capital letter, being, I think, evidently personified as the god of dreams. See Anthon and others.

“When, by Minerva sent, a _fraudful_ Dream Rush’d from the skies, the bane of her and Troy.”

Dyce’s “Select Translations from Quintus Calaber,” p.10.

[78] “Sleep’st thou, companion dear, what sleep can close Thy eye-lids?”—“Paradise Lost,” v. 673.

[79] This truly military sentiment has been echoed by the approving voice of many a general and statesman of antiquity. See Pliny’s Panegyric on Trajan. Silius neatly translates it,

“Turpe duci totam somno consumere noctem.”

“To whom once more the winged god appears; His former youthful mien and shape he wears.”

[81] “As bees in spring-time, when The sun with Taurus rides, Pour forth their populous youth about the hive In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank, The suburb of this straw-built citadel, New-nibb’d with balm, expatiate and confer Their state affairs. So thick the very crowd Swarm’d and were straiten’d.”—“Paradise Lost” i. 768.

[82] It was the herald’s duty to make the people sit down. “A _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.

[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.

[109] _Silent, breathing rage._ “Thus they, Breathing united force with fixed thought, Moved on in silence.”

[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”

[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.”

[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.

“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.”

“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.”

[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.

[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.

“But I, who walk in awful state above The majesty of heav’n, the sister-wife of Jove.”

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.”

[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.”

“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.”

[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.

“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.”

[139] “Stood Like Teneriffe or Atlas unremoved; His stature reach’d the sky.”

[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.

“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.”

“But to nobler sights Michael from Adam’s eyes the film removed.”

“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.

[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.”

[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.

“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.”

[156] “Till Morn, Waked by the circling Hours, with rosy hand Unbarr’d the gates of light.”

[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.”

[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.

[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?”

[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.”

[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.

“The fifty nuptial beds, (such hopes had he, So large a promise of a progeny,) The ports of plated gold, and hung with spoils.”

[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.

“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.”

[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.

[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.”

“And death Grinn’d horribly a ghastly smile.”

“There Mavors stands Grinning with ghastly feature.”

[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.”

[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.

“Seest thou not this? Or do we fear in vain Thy boasted thunders, and thy thoughtless reign?”

[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.”

“E quanto è da le stelle al basso inferno, Tanto è più in sù de la stellata spera”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“And now all heaven Had gone to wrack, with ruin overspread; Had not th’ Almighty Father, where he sits ... foreseen.”

[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.

“Il suo Lesbia quasi bel fior succiso, E in atto si gentil languir tremanti Gl’ occhi, e cader siu ’l tergo il collo mira.”

[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.”

[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.”

[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,

[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.”

[215] “All else of nature’s common gift partake: Unhappy Dido was alone awake.”

[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.”

[219] “Aurora now had left her saffron bed, And beams of early light the heavens o’erspread.”

[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.”

[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.”

“In those bloody fields Where Simois rolls the bodies and the shields Of heroes.”

[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.”

“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.”

“Long time in even scale The battle hung.”

[228] “He on his impious foes right onward drove, _Gloomy as night_.”

[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.

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.”

[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.”

[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.”

“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.”