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[Achilles.]
[This, according to Eustathius, is the import of αμοιβοι.—See Iliad III., in which Priam relates an expedition of his into that country.]—Tr.
Footnotes for Book XIV:
The beauty of this simile will be lost to those who have never been at sea during a calm. The water is then not quite motionless, but swells gently in smooth waves, which fluctuate in a balancing motion, until a rising wind gives them a certain determination. Every circumstance of the comparison is just, as well as beautiful.
Anointing the body with perfumed oil was a remarkable part of ancient cosmetics. It was probably an eastern invention, agreeable to the luxury of the Asiatics.
A footstool was considered a mark of honor.
In accordance with the doctrine of Thales the Milesian, that all things are generated from water, and nourished by the same element.
[Hercules.]
Night was venerated, both for her antiquity and power.
[One of the heads of Ida.]
A bird about the size of a hawk, and entirely black.
By Juno is understood the air, and it is allegorically said that she was nourished by the vapors that rise from the ocean and the earth. Tethys being the same as Rhea.
[Europa.]
An evident allusion to the ether and the atmosphere.—E.P.P.
Footnotes for Book XV:
[The translator seizes the opportunity afforded to him by this remarkable passage, to assure his readers who are not readers of the original, that the discipline which Juno is here said to have suffered from the hands of Jove, is not his own invention. He found it in the original, and considering fidelity as his indispensable duty, has not attempted to soften or to refine away the matter. He begs that this observation may be adverted to as often as any passage shall occur in which ancient practices or customs, not consonant to our own, either in point of delicacy or humanity, may be either expressed or alluded to.
He makes this request the rather, because on these occasions Mr. Pope has observed a different conduct, suppressing all such images as he had reason to suppose might be offensive.]—Tr.
The earliest form of an oath seems to have been by the elements of nature, or rather the deities who preside over them.—Trollope.
In the following speech, Jupiter discloses the future events of the war.
The illustration in the following lines is one of the most beautiful in Homer. The rapid passage of Juno is compared to the speed of thought, by which a traveller revisits in imagination the scenes over which he has passed. No simile could more exalt the power of the Goddess.—Felton.
The picture is strikingly true to nature. The smile upon the lip, and frown upon the brow, express admirably the state of mind in which the Goddess must be supposed to have been at this moment.—Felton.
[To tempest—κυδοιμησων—Milton uses tempest as a verb. Speaking of the fishes, he says
... part, huge of bulk
Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait,
Tempest the ocean.
]—Tr.
The Furies are said to wait upon men in a double sense; either for evil; as upon Orestes after he had killed his mother, or else for their good, as upon elders when they are injured, to protect them and avenge their wrongs. The ancients considered birth-right as a right divine.
[Τρωες δε προυτυψαν αολλεες. The translation is literal, and affords one of many instances in which the Greek and English idiom correspond exactly.]—Tr.
[Arcesilaüs.]
[This abruptness of transition from the third person to the first, follows the original.]
[The translator hopes that his learned readers will pardon him, if sometimes, to avoid an irksome cacophony, he turns brass into steel. In fact, arrow had not a point of steel, but a brazen one.]—Tr.
This sentiment is noble and patriotic. It is in strict keeping with the character of Hector, who always appears as his country's champion, and ready to die in her defence. Our sympathies go with him; we involuntarily wish him success, and deplore his misfortune, though we admire the invincible courage of his more fortunate antagonist. His actions and sentiments, springing from the simplest feelings of our nature, will always command applause, and, under all circumstances, and every form of political existence, will be imitated by the defenders of their country.
The speech of Ajax is animating and powerful. It is conceived in the true spirit of a warrior rousing his followers to make a last effort to repel the enemy.—Felton.
[Meges.]
Hector is here represented as an instrument in the hand of Jupiter, to bring about the design the God had long ago projected. As his fatal hour now approaches, Jove is willing to recompense his early death with this short-lived glory.
It may be asked what Pallas has to do with the Fates, or what power has she over them? Homer speaks thus, because Minerva has already resolved to deceive Hector and exalt Achilles. Pallas, as the wisdom and knowledge of Jove, may be considered as drawing all things to the termination decreed by his councils.
[This termination of the period, so little consonant to the beginning of it, follows the original, where it is esteemed by commentators a great beauty.]—Tr.
Footnotes for Book XVI:
[This translation of δνοφερον is warranted by the Scholiast, who paraphrases it thus:
μετα δονησεως φερομενον.
Iliad per Vill.]
The friendship of Achilles and Patroclus was celebrated by all antiquity. It is said in the life of Alexander the Great, that when that prince visited the monuments of the heroes of Troy, and placed a crown upon the tomb of Achilles, his friend Hephæstion placed another on that of Patroclus; an intimation of his being to Alexander, what Patroclus was to Achilles. It is also said, that Alexander remarked, "Achilles was happy indeed, in having had such a friend to love him when living, and such a poet to celebrate him when dead."
[περιαγνυται. A word of incomparable force, and that defies translation.]
This charge is in keeping with the ambitious character of Achilles. He is unwilling that even his dearest friend should have the honor of conquering Hector.
The picture of the situation of Ajax, exhausted by his efforts, pressed by the arms of his assailants and the will of Jupiter, is drawn with much graphic power.—Felton.
Argus-slayer.
The mythi which we find in the Iliad respecting Mercury, represent him as the god who blessed the land with fertility, which was his attribute in the original worship. He is represented as loving the daughter of Phthiotian Phylas, the possessor of many herds, and by her had Eudorus (or riches) whom the aged Phylas fostered and brought up in his house—quite a significant local mythus, which is here related, like others in the usual tone of heroic mythology.—Muller.
This passage is an exact description and perfect ritual of the ceremonies on these occasions. Achilles, urgent as the case was, would not suffer Patroclus to enter the fight, till he had in the most solemn manner recommended him to the protection of Jupiter.
[Meges.]
[Brother of Antilochus.]
[αμαιμακετην—is a word which I can find nowhere satisfactorily derived. Perhaps it is expressive of great length, and I am the more inclined to that sense of it, because it is the epithet given to the mast on which Ulysses floated to Charybdis. We must in that case derive it from αμα andμηκος Doricè,μακος—longitudo.
In this uncertainty I thought myself free to translate it as I have, by the word—monster.]—Tr.
[Apollonius says that the οστεα λευκα here means theοπονδυλους, or vertebræ of the neck.—See Villoisson.]—Tr.
['Αμιτροχιτονας is a word, according to Clarke, descriptive of their peculiar habit. Their corselet, and the mail worn under it, were of a piece, and put on together. To them therefore the cincture or belt of the Greeks was unnecessary.]—Tr.
According to the history or fable received in Homer's time, Sarpedon was interred in Lycia. This gave the poet the liberty of making him die at Troy, provided that after his death he was carried into Lycia, to preserve the fable. In those times, as at this day, princes and persons of rank who died abroad, were carried to their own country to be laid in the tomb of their fathers. Jacob, when dying in Egypt, desired his children to carry him to the land of Canaan, where he wished to be buried.
[Sarpedon certainly was not slain in the fleet, neither can the Greek expressionνεων εν αγωνι be with propriety interpreted—in certamine de navibus—as Clarke and Mme. Dacier are inclined to render it. Juvenum in certamine, seems equally an improbable sense of it. Eustathius, indeed, and Terrasson, supposing Sarpedon to assert that he dies in the middle of the fleet (which was false in fact) are kind enough to vindicate Homer by pleading in his favor, that Sarpedon, being in the article of death, was delirious, and knew not, in reality, where he died. But Homer, however he may have been charged with now and then a nap (a crime of which I am persuaded he is never guilty) certainly does not slumber here, nor needs to be so defended.'Αγων in the 23d Iliad, means the whole extensive area in which the games were exhibited, and may therefore here, without any strain of the expression, be understood to signify the whole range of shore on which the ships were stationed. In which case Sarpedon represents the matter as it was, saying that he dies—νεων εν αγωνι—that is, in the neighborhood of the ships, and in full prospect of them.
The translator assumes not to himself the honor of this judicious remark. It belongs to Mr. Fuseli.]—Tr.
[λασιν κηρ.]
The clouds of thick dust that rise from beneath the feet of the combatants, which hinder them from knowing one another.
[Υπασπιδια προβιβωντος. A similar expression occurs in Book xiii., 158. There we readυπασπιδια προποδιζων. Which is explained by the Scholiast in Villoisson to signify—advancing with quick, short steps, and at the same time covering the feet with a shield. A practice which, unless they bore the αμφιβροτην ασπιδα, must necessarily leave the upper parts exposed.
It is not improbable, though the translation is not accommodated to that conjecture, that Æneas, in his following speech to Meriones, calls him, ορχηστην, with a view to the agility with which he performed this particular step in battle.]—Tr.
[Two lines occurring here in the original which contain only the same matter as the two preceding, and which are found neither in the MSS. use by Barnes nor in the Harleian, the translator has omitted them in his version as interpolated and superfluous.]—Tr.
[Ιρα ταλαντα—Voluntatem Jovis cui cedendum—So it is interpreted is the Scholium MSS. Lipsiensis.—Vide Schaufelbergerus.]—Tr.
It is an opinion of great antiquity, that when the soul is on the point of leaving the body, its views become stronger and clearer, and the mind is endowed with a spirit of true prediction.
Footnotes for Book XVII:
In the chase, the spoils of the prey, the hide and head of the animal, belonged to the one who gave the first wound. So in war—the one who first pierced an enemy slain in battle, was entitled to his armor.
[The expediency and utility of prayer, Homer misses no opportunity of enforcing. Cold and comfortless as the religious creed of the heathens was, they were piously attentive to its dictates, and to a degree that may serve as a
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