The Iliad - Homer (best novels to read for beginners .txt) 📗

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.

 

[62]

Twice Sixty: “Thucydides 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.”—Coleridge, 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]

“Adam, the goodliest man of men since born, His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.’

—“Paradise Lost,” iv. 323.

 

[65]

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.

 

[66]

Zeleia, another name for Lycia. The inhabitants were greatly devoted to the worship of Apollo. See Muller, “Dorians,” vol.

i. p. 248.

 

[67]

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.

 

[68]

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: “Hell,” canto v.

 

[69]

Silent, breathing rage.

“Thus they,

Breathing united force with fixed thought, Moved on in silence.”

“Paradise Lost,” book i. 559.

 

[70]

“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.

 

[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 “Phoenissae” 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.—Grote, vol. i p. 289.

 

[75]

Antenor, like AEneas, had always been favourable to the restoration of Helen. Liv 1. 2.

 

[76]

“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.

 

[77]

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.

 

[78]

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.

 

[79]

Idreus was the arm-bearer and charioteer of king Priam, slain during this war. Cf. AEn, vi. 487.

 

[80]

Scaea’s 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.

“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.

 

[83]

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.

 

[84]

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.

 

[85]

The martial maid. In the original, “Minerva Alalcomeneis,” i.e. the defender, so called from her temple at Alalcomene in Boeotia.

 

[86]

“Anything for a quiet life!”

 

[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.

“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.”

 

[89]

“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.”—“Paradise Lost,” iv. 555.

 

[90]

AEsepus’ 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.

 

“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.

 

[93]

“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.”

“Orlando Furioso,” book 1.

 

[94]

Well might I wish.

“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.”

Dryden’s 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]

Forwarn’d 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.

“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.”

Dryden’s Virgil, vii. 736.

 

[99]

“Stood

Like Teneriffe or Atlas unremoved;

His stature reach’d the sky.”—“Paradise Lost,” iv. 986.

 

[100]

The Abantes