The Iliad by Homer (e reader books .TXT) đ
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[62]
Twice Sixty: âThucydides observes that the Boeotian 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.ââColeridge, p. 211, sq.
[63]
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.
[64]
âAdam, the goodliest man of men since born, His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.â
ââParadise Lost,â iv. 323.
[65]
AEsetesâ 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 âOdyssey,â
ii. p. 21, or on Eur. âAlcest.â vol. i. p. 240.
[66]
Zeleia, another name for Lycia. The inhabitants were greatly devoted to the worship of Apollo. See Muller, âDorians,â vol.
i. p. 248.
[67]
Barbarous tongues. âVarious as were the dialects of the Greeksâand these differences existed not only between the several tribes, but even between neighbouring citiesâthey yet acknowledged in their language that they formed but one nation were but branches of the same family. Homer has âmen of other tongues:â and yet Homer had no general name for the Greek nation.ââHeeren, âAncient Greece,â Section vii. p. 107, sq.
[68]
The cranes.
âMarking the tracts of air, the clamorous cranes Wheel their due flight in varied ranks descried: And each with outstretchâd neck his rank maintains, In marshallâd order through thâ ethereal void.â
Lorenzo de Medici, in Roscoeâs Life, Appendix.
See Caryâs Dante: âHell,â canto v.
[69]
Silent, breathing rage.
âThus they,
Breathing united force with fixed thought, Moved on in silence.â
âParadise Lost,â book i. 559.
[70]
âAs when some peasant in a bushy brake Has with unwary footing pressâd a snake; He starts aside, astonishâd, when he spies His rising crest, blue neck, and rolling eyesâ
Drydenâs Virgil, ii. 510.
[71]
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.
[72]
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 âPhoenissaeâ represents Antigone surveying the opposing champions from a high tower, while the paedagogus describes their insignia and details their histories.
[73]
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.
[74]
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.âGrote, vol. i p. 289.
[75]
Antenor, like AEneas, had always been favourable to the restoration of Helen. Liv 1. 2.
[76]
âHis labâring heart with sudden rapture seized He pausâd, and on the ground in silence gazed.
Unskillâd 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.â
Merrickâs âTryphiodorus,â 148, 99.
[77]
Duport, âGnomol. Homer,â 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.
[78]
Her brothersâ 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.
[79]
Idreus was the arm-bearer and charioteer of king Priam, slain during this war. Cf. AEn, vi. 487.
[80]
Scaeaâs gates, rather Scaean gates,
i.e. the left-hand gates.
[81]
This was customary in all sacrifices. Hence we find Iras descending to cut off the hair of Dido, before which she could not expire.
[82]
Nor pierced.
âThis said, his feeble hand a javâlin threw, Which, fluttâring, seemed to loiter as it flew, Just, and but barely, to the mark it held, And faintly tinkled on the brazen shield.â
Drydenâs Virgil, ii. 742.
[83]
Revealâd the queen.
âThus having said, she turnâd and made appear Her neck refulgent and dishevellâd hair, Which, flowing from her shoulders, reachâd 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.â
Drydenâs Virgil, i. 556.
[84]
Cranaeâs isle, i.e. Athens. See the âSchol.â and Albertiâs âHesychius,â vol. ii. p. 338. This name was derived from one of its early kings, Cranaus.
[85]
The martial maid. In the original, âMinerva Alalcomeneis,â i.e. the defender, so called from her temple at Alalcomene in Boeotia.
[86]
âAnything for a quiet life!â
[87]
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. AEn., i. 28.
[88]
A wife and sister.
âBut I, who walk in awful state above The majesty of heavân, the sister-wife of Jove.â
Drydenâs âVirgil,â i. 70.
So Apuleius, l. c. speaks of her as âJovis germana et conjux, and so Horace, Od. iii. 3, 64, âconjuge me Jovis et sorore.â
[89]
âThither 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.âââParadise Lost,â iv. 555.
[90]
AEsepusâ flood. A river of Mysia, rising from Mount Cotyius, in the southern part of the chain of Ida.
[91]
Zelia, a town of Troas, at the foot of Ida.
[92]
Podaleirius and Machaon 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.
âGalen 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 reliefâall recognized the god not merely as the object of their common worship, but also as their actual progenitor.ââGrote vol. i. p. 248.
[93]
âThe plant she bruises with a stone, and stands Tempering the juice between her ivory hands This oâer 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 stanchâd, the youth revives.â
âOrlando Furioso,â book 1.
[94]
Well might I wish.
âWould heavân (said he) my strength and youth recall, Such as I was beneath Praenesteâs wallâ
Then when I made the foremost foes retire, And set whole heaps of conquerâd shields on fire; When Herilus in single fight I slew, Whom with three lives Feronia did endue.â
Drydenâs Virgil, viii. 742.
[95]
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.
[96]
Forwarnâd the horrors. The same portent has already been mentioned. To this day, modern nations are not wholly free from this superstition.
[97]
Sevenfold city, Boeotian Thebes, which had seven gates.
[98]
As when the winds.
âThus, when a black-browâd gust begins to rise, White foam at first on the curlâd ocean fries; Then roars the main, the billows mount the skies, Till, by the fury of the storm full blown, The muddy billow oâer the clouds is thrown.â
Drydenâs Virgil, vii. 736.
[99]
âStood
Like Teneriffe or Atlas unremoved;
His stature reachâd the sky.âââParadise Lost,â iv. 986.
[100]
The Abantes
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