The Iliad Part 79

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 --_aesetes' 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: "h.e.l.l," 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 ill.u.s.trate emphatically the most numerous host in which he ever found himself included, he tells us that it was a.s.sembled 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 aeneas, 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. aen, vi. 487.

120 --_Scaea's gates,_ rather _Scaean 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 Boeotia.

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. aen., 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 compa.s.s to beware Impetuous winds."

--"Paradise Lost," iv. 555.

130 --_aesepus' 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 _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.

"Galen appears uncertain whether Asklepius (as well as Dionysus) was originally a G.o.d, or whether he was first a man and then became afterwards a G.o.d; 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 princ.i.p.ally dwelt near the temples of Asklepius, whither sick and suffering men came to obtain relief--all recognized the G.o.d not merely as the object of their common worship, but also as their actual progenitor."--Grote vol. i. p. 248.