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This dialogue between Achilles and Æneas, when on the point of battle, as well as several others of a similar description, have been censured as improbable and impossible. The true explanation is to be found in the peculiar character of war in the heroic age. A similar passage has been the subject of remark.—Felton.
[Some commentators, supposing the golden plate the outermost as the most ornamental, have perplexed themselves much with this passage, for how, say they, could two folds be pierced and the spear be stopped by the gold, if the gold lay on the surface? But to avoid the difficulty, we need only suppose that the gold was inserted between the two plates of brass and the two of tin; Vulcan, in this particular, having attended less to ornament than to security.
See the Scholiast in Villoisson, who argues at large in favor of this opinion.]—Tr.
Tmolus was a mountain of Lydia, and Hyda a city of the same country. The Gygæan lake was also in Lydia.
[Neptune. So called, either because he was worshiped on Helicon, a mountain of Bœotia, or from Helice, an island of Achaia, where he had a temple.]—Tr. If the bull bellowed as he was led to the altar, it was considered a favorable omen. Hence the simile.—Felton.
[It is an amiable trait in the character of Hector, that his pity in this instance supercedes his caution, and that at the sight of his brother in circumstances so affecting, he becomes at once inattentive to himself and the command of Apollo.]—Tr.
Footnotes for Book XXI:
The scene is now entirely changed, and the battle diversified with a vast variety of imagery and description. It is worthy of notice, that though the whole war of the Iliad was upon the banks of these rivers, yet Homer has reserved the machinery of the river-gods to aggrandize his hero in this battle. There is no book in the poem which exhibits greater force of imagination, none in which the inexhaustible invention of the poet is more powerfully exerted.
The swarms of locusts that sometimes invade whole countries in the East, have often been described. It seems that the ancient mode of exterminating them was, to kindle a fire, and thus drive them into a lake or river. The simile illustrates in the most striking manner the panic caused by Achilles.—Felton.
According to the Scholiast, Arisba was a city of Thrace, and near to the Hellespont; but according to Eustathius, a city of Troas, inhabited by a colony from Mitylene.
It was an ancient custom to cast living horses into rivers, to honor, as it were, the rapidity of their streams.
This gives us an idea of the superior strength of Achilles. His spear pierced so deep in the ground, that another hero of great strength could not disengage it, but immediately after, Achilles draws it with the utmost ease.
['Ακροκελαινιοων.—The beauty and force of this word are wonderful; I have in vain endeavored to do it justice.]—Tr.
[The reason given in the Scholium is, that the surface being hardened by the wind, the moisture remains unexhaled from beneath, and has time to saturate the roots.—See Villoisson.]—Tr.
[Αμβολαδην.]
Homer represents Aphrodite as the protector of Æneas, and in the battle of the Trojans, Ares appears in a disadvantageous light; the weakness of the goddess, and the brutal confidence of the god are described with evident irony. In like manner Diana and the river-god Scamander sometimes play a very undignified part. Apollo alone uniformly maintains his dignity.—Muller.
This is a very beautiful soliloquy of Agenor, such as would naturally arise in the soul of a brave man going upon a desperate enterprise. From the conclusion it is evident, that the story of Achilles being invulnerable except in the heel, is an invention of a later age.
Footnotes for Book XXII:
This simile is very striking. It not only describes the appearance of Achilles, but is peculiarly appropriate because the star was supposed to be of evil omen, and to bring with it disease and destruction. So Priam beholds Achilles, splendid with the divine armor, and the destined slayer of his son.—Felton.
The usual cruelties practised in the sacking of towns. Isaiah foretells to Babylon, that her children shall be dashed in pieces by the Medes. David says to the same city, "Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."—Ps. c22vii. 9.
It was supposed that venomous serpents were accustomed to eat poisonous roots and plants before attacking their victims.—Felton.
This speech of Hector shows the fluctuation of his mind, with much discernment on the part of the poet. He breaks out, after having apparently meditated a return to the city. But the imagined reproaches of Polydamas, and the anticipated scorn of the Trojans forbid it. He soliloquizes upon the possibility of coming to terms with Achilles, and offering him large concessions; but the character of Achilles precludes all hope of reconciliation. It is a fearful crisis with him, and his mind wavers, as if presentient of his approaching doom.—Felton.
[The repetition follows the original, and the Scholiast is of opinion that Homer uses it here that he may express more emphatically the length to which such conferences are apt to proceed.—Δια την πολυλογιαν τη αναληψε εχρησατο.]—Tr.
[It grew near to the tomb of Ilus.]
The Scamander ran down the eastern side of Ida, and at the distance of three stadia from Troy, making a subterraneous dip, it passed under the walls and rose again in the form of the two fountains here described—from which fountains these rivulets are said to have proceeded.
It was the custom of that age to have cisterns by the side of rivers and fountains, to which the women, including the wives and daughters of kings and princes, resorted to wash their garments.
Sacrifices were offered to the gods upon the hills and mountains, or, in the language of scripture, upon the high places, for the people believed that the gods inhabited such eminences.
[The numbers in the original are so constructed as to express the painful struggle that characterizes such a dream.]—Tr.
[προπροκυλινδομενος.]
The whole circumference of ancient Troy is said to have measured sixty stadia. A stadium measured one hundred and twenty-five paces.
[The knees of the conqueror were a kind of sanctuary to which the vanquished fled for refuge.]—Tr.
[The lines of which these three are a translation, are supposed by some to have been designed for theΕπινικιον, or song of victory sung by the whole army.]—Tr.
[It was a custom in Thessaly to drag the slayer around the tomb of the slain; which custom was first begun by Simon, whose brother being killed by Eurydamas, he thus treated the body of the murderer. Achilles therefore, being a Thessalian, when he thus dishonors Hector, does it merely in compliance with the common practice of his country.]—Tr.
[It is an observation of the Scholiast, that two more affecting spectacles cannot be imagined, than Priam struggling to escape into the field, and Andromache to cast herself from the wall; for so he understands ατυζομενην απολεσθαι.]—Tr.
A figurative expression. In the style of the orientals, marrow and fatness are taken for whatever is best, most tender, and most delicious.
Homer is in nothing more excellent than in the distinction of characters, which he maintains throughout the poem. What Andromache here says, cannot be said with propriety by any one but Andromache.
Footnotes for Book XXIII:
According to the oriental custom. David mourns in the same manner, refusing to wash or take any repast, and lies upon the earth.
[Bacchus having hospitably entertained Vulcan in the island of Naxos, one of the Cyclades, received from him a cup as a present; but being driven afterward by Lycurgus into the sea, and kindly protected by Thetis, he presented her with this work of Vulcan, which she gave to Achilles for a receptacle of his bones after death.]—Tr.
[The funeral pile was a square of a hundred feet on each side.]—Tr.
The ceremony of cutting off the hair in honor of the dead, was practised not only among the Greeks, but among other nations. Ezekiel describing a great lamentation, says, "They shall make themselves utterly bald for thee." ch. xxvii. 31. If it was the general custom of any country to wear long hair, then the cutting it off was a token of sorrow; but if the custom was to wear it short, then letting it grow, in neglect, was a sign of mourning.
It was the custom of the ancients not only to offer their own hair to the river-gods of their country, but also the hair of their children. In Egypt hair was consecrated to the Nile.
[Westering wheel.—Milton.]
[Himself and the Myrmidons.]
[That the body might be the more speedily consumed. The same end was promoted by the flagons of oil and honey.]—Tr.
Homer here introduces the gods of the winds in person, and as Iris, or the rainbow, is a sign of winds, they are made to come at her bidding.
[Such it appears to have been in the sequel.]—Tr.
[Φιαλη—a vessel, as Athenæus describes it, made for the purpose of warming water. It was formed of brass, and expanded somewhat in the shape of a broad leaf.]—Tr.
The poet omits no opportunity of paying honor to Nestor. His age has disabled him from taking an active part in the games, yet, Antilochus wins, not by the speed of his horses, but by the wisdom of Nestor.
[This could not happen unless the felly of the wheel were nearly horizontal to the eye of the spectator, in which case the chariot must be infallibly overturned.—There is an obscurity in the passage which none of the commentators explain. The Scholiast, as quoted by Clarke, attempts an explanation, but, I think, not successfully.]—Tr.
[Eumelus.]
[Resentful of the attack made on him by Diomede in the fifth Book.]
[The twin monster or double man called the Molions. They were sons of Actor and Molione, and are said to have had two heads with four hands and four feet, and being so formed were invincible both in battle and in athletic exercises. Even Hercules could only slay them by stratagem, which he did when he desolated Elis. See Villoisson.]—Tr.
[The repetition follows the original.]—Tr.
[παρακαββαλε.]
[With which they bound on the cestus.]—Tr.
[τετριγει—It is a circumstance on which the Scholiast observes that it denotes in a wrestler the greatest possible bodily strength and firmness of position.—See Villoisson.]—Tr.
[I have given what seems to me the most probable interpretation, and such a one as to any person who has ever witnessed a wrestling-match, will, I presume, appear intelligible.]—Tr.
[The Sidonians were celebrated not only as the most ingenious artists but as great adepts in science, especially in astronomy and arithmetical calculation.]—Tr.
[King of Lemnos.]
[That is to say, Ulysses; who, from the first intending it, had run close behind him.]—Tr.
The prodigious weight and size of the quoit is described with the simplicity of the orientals, and in the manner of the heroic ages. The poet does not specify the quantity of this enormous piece of iron, but the use it will be to the winner. We see from hence that the ancients in the prizes they proposed, had in view not only the honorable but the useful; a captive for work, a bull for tillage, a quoit for the provision of iron, which in those days was scarce.
[The use of this staff was to separate the cattle.
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