Stretch'd on the grassy turf, at ease they dine,
Restore their strength with meat, and cheer their souls with
wine.
Restore their strength with meat, and cheer their souls with
wine.
Iliad - Pope
ii.
Mr.
Mackenzie
has given three brief but elaborate papers on the different writers
on the subject, which deserve to be consulted. See Notes and
Queries, vol. v. pp. 99, 171, and 221. His own views are moderate,
and perhaps as satisfactory, on the whole, as any of the hypotheses
hitherto put forth. In fact, they consist in an attempt to blend
those hypotheses into something like consistency, rather than in
advocating any individual theory.
23 Letters to Phileleuth; Lips.
24 Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 191, sqq.
25 It is, indeed not easy to calculate the height to which the memory
may be cultivated. To take an ordinary case, we might refer to that
of any first rate actor, who must be prepared, at a very short
warning, to 'rhapsodize,' night after night, parts which when laid
together, would amount to an immense number of lines. But all this
is nothing to two instances of our own day. Visiting at Naples a
gentleman of the highest intellectual attainments, and who held a
distinguished rank among the men of letters in the last century, he
informed us that the day before he had passed much time in examining
a man, not highly educated, who had learned to repeat the whole
Gierusalemme of Tasso, not only to recite it consecutively, but also
to repeat those stanzas in utter defiance of the sense, either
forwards or backwards, or from the eighth line to the first,
alternately the odd and even lines--in short, whatever the passage
required; the memory, which seemed to cling to the words much more
than to the sense, had it at such perfect command, that it could
produce it under any form. Our informant went on to state that this
singular being was proceeding to learn the Orlando Furioso in the
same manner. But even this instance is less wonderful than one as to
which we may appeal to any of our readers that happened some twenty
years ago to visit the town of Stirling, in Scotland. No such person
can have forgotten the poor, uneducated man Blind Jamie who could
actually repeat, after a few minutes consideration any verse
required from any part of the Bible--even the obscurest and most
unimportant enumeration of mere proper names not excepted. We do not
mention these facts as touching the more difficult part of the
question before us, but facts they are; and if we find so much
difficulty in calculating the extent to which the mere memory may be
cultivated, are we, in these days of multifarious reading, and of
countless distracting affairs, fair judges of the perfection to
which the invention and the memory combined may attain in a simpler
age, and among a more single minded people? --Quarterly Review, _l.
c. ,_ p. 143, sqq.
Heeren steers between the two opinions, observing that, "The
Dschungariade of the Calmucks is said to surpass the poems of Homer
in length, as much as it stands beneath them in merit, and yet it
exists only in the memory of a people which is not unacquainted with
writing. But the songs of a nation are probably the last things
which are committed to writing, for the very reason that they are
remembered. "-- _Ancient Greece. _ p. 100.
26 Vol. II p. 198, sqq.
27 Quarterly Review, _l. c. ,_ p. 131 sq.
28 Betrachtungen uber die Ilias. Berol. 1841. See Grote, p. 204. Notes
and Queries, vol. v. p. 221.
29 Prolegg. pp. xxxii. , xxxvi. , &c.
30 Vol. ii. p. 214 sqq.
31 "Who," says Cicero, de Orat. iii. 34, "was more learned in that age,
or whose eloquence is reported to have been more perfected by
literature than that of Peisistratus, who is said first to have
disposed the books of Homer in the order in which we now have them? "
Compare Wolf's Prolegomena, Section 33
32 "The first book, together with the eighth, and the books from the
eleventh to the twenty-second inclusive, seems to form the primary
organization of the poem, then properly an Achilleis. "--Grote, vol.
ii. p. 235
33 K. R. H. Mackenzie, Notes and Queries, p. 222 sqq.
34 See his Epistle to Raphelingius, in Schroeder's edition, 4to. ,
Delphis, 1728.
35 Ancient Greece, p. 101.
36 The best description of this monument will be found in Vaux's
"Antiquities of the British Museum," p. 198 sq. The monument itself
(Towneley Sculptures, No. 123) is well known.
37 Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. 276.
38 Preface to her Homer.
39 Hesiod. Opp. et Dier. Lib. I. vers. 155, &c.
40 The following argument of the Iliad, corrected in a few particulars,
is translated from Bitaube, and is, perhaps, the neatest summary
that has ever been drawn up:--"A hero, injured by his general, and
animated with a noble resentment, retires to his tent; and for a
season withdraws himself and his troops from the war. During this
interval, victory abandons the army, which for nine years has been
occupied in a great enterprise, upon the successful termination of
which the honour of their country depends. The general, at length
opening his eyes to the fault which he had committed, deputes the
principal officers of his army to the incensed hero, with commission
to make compensation for the injury, and to tender magnificent
presents. The hero, according to the proud obstinacy of his
character, persists in his animosity; the army is again defeated,
and is on the verge of entire destruction. This inexorable man has a
friend; this friend weeps before him, and asks for the hero's arms,
and for permission to go to the war in his stead. The eloquence of
friendship prevails more than the intercession of the ambassadors or
the gifts of the general. He lends his armour to his friend, but
commands him not to engage with the chief of the enemy's army,
because he reserves to himself the honour of that combat, and
because he also fears for his friend's life. The prohibition is
forgotten; the friend listens to nothing but his courage; his corpse
is brought back to the hero, and the hero's arms become the prize of
the conqueror. Then the hero, given up to the most lively despair,
prepares to fight; he receives from a divinity new armour, is
reconciled with his general and, thirsting for glory and revenge,
enacts prodigies of valour, recovers the victory, slays the enemy's
chief, honours his friend with superb funeral rites, and exercises a
cruel vengeance on the body of his destroyer; but finally appeased
by the tears and prayers of the father of the slain warrior,
restores to the old man the corpse of his son, which he buries with
due solemnities. '--Coleridge, p. 177, sqq.
41 Vultures: Pope is more accurate than the poet he translates, for
Homer writes "a prey to dogs and to _all_ kinds of birds. But all
kinds of birds are not carnivorous.
42 --_i. e. _ during the whole time of their striving the will of Jove was
being gradually accomplished.
43 Compare Milton's "Paradise Lost" i. 6
"Sing, heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Horeb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd. "
44 --_Latona's son: i. e. _ Apollo.
45 --_King of men:_ Agamemnon.
46 --_Brother kings:_ Menelaus and Agamemnon.
47 --_Smintheus_ an epithet taken from sminthos, the Phrygian name for a
_mouse,_ was applied to Apollo for having put an end to a plague of
mice which had harassed that territory. Strabo, however, says, that
when the Teucri were migrating from Crete, they were told by an
oracle to settle in that place, where they should not be attacked by
the original inhabitants of the land, and that, having halted for
the night, a number of field-mice came and gnawed away the leathern
straps of their baggage, and thongs of their armour. In fulfilment
of the oracle, they settled on the spot, and raised a temple to
Sminthean Apollo. Grote, "History of Greece," i. p. 68, remarks that
the "worship of Sminthean Apollo, in various parts of the Troad and
its neighboring territory, dates before the earliest period of
Aeolian colonization. "
48 --_Cilla,_ a town of Troas near Thebe, so called from Cillus, a
sister of Hippodamia, slain by OEnomaus.
49 A mistake. It should be,
"If e'er I _roofed_ thy graceful fane,"
for the custom of decorating temples with garlands was of later
date.
50 --_Bent was his bow_ "The Apollo of Homer, it must be borne in mind,
is a different character from the deity of the same name in the
later classical pantheon. Throughout both poems, all deaths from
unforeseen or invisible causes, the ravages of pestilence, the fate
of the young child or promising adult, cut off in the germ of
infancy or flower of youth, of the old man dropping peacefully into
the grave, or of the reckless sinner suddenly checked in his career
of crime, are ascribed to the arrows of Apollo or Diana. The
oracular functions of the god rose naturally out of the above
fundamental attributes, for who could more appropriately impart to
mortals what little foreknowledge Fate permitted of her decrees than
the agent of her most awful dispensations? The close union of the
arts of prophecy and song explains his additional office of god of
music, while the arrows with which he and his sister were armed,
symbols of sudden death in every age, no less naturally procured him
that of god of archery. Of any connection between Apollo and the
Sun, whatever may have existed in the more esoteric doctrine of the
Greek sanctuaries, there is no trace in either Iliad or
Odyssey. "--Mure, "History of Greek Literature," vol. i. p. 478, sq.
51 It has frequently been observed, that most pestilences begin with
animals, and that Homer had this fact in mind.
52 --_Convened to council. _ The public assembly in the heroic times is
well characterized by Grote, vol. ii. p 92. "It is an assembly for
talk. Communication and discussion to a certain extent by the chiefs
in person, of the people as listeners and sympathizers--often for
eloquence, and sometimes for quarrel--but here its ostensible
purposes end. "
53 Old Jacob Duport, whose "Gnomologia Homerica" is full of curious and
useful things, quotes several passages of the ancients, in which
reference is made to these words of Homer, in maintenance of the
belief that dreams had a divine origin and an import in which men
were interested.
54 Rather, "bright-eyed. " See the German critics quoted by Arnold.
55 The prize given to Ajax was Tecmessa, while Ulysses received
Laodice, the daughter of Cycnus.
56 The Myrmidons dwelt on the southern borders of Thessaly, and took
their origin from Myrmido, son of Jupiter and Eurymedusa. It is
fancifully supposed that the name was derived from myrmaex, an
_ant,_ "because they imitated the diligence of the ants, and like
them were indefatigable, continually employed in cultivating the
earth; the change from ants to men is founded merely on the
equivocation of their name, which resembles that of the ant: they
bore a further resemblance to these little animals, in that instead
of inhabiting towns or villages, at first they commonly resided in
the open fields, having no other retreats but dens and the cavities
of trees, until Ithacus brought them together, and settled them in
more secure and comfortable habitations. "--Anthon's "Lempriere. "
57 Eustathius, after Heraclides Ponticus and others, allegorizes this
apparition, as if the appearance of Minerva to Achilles, unseen by
the rest, was intended to point out the sudden recollection that he
would gain nothing by intemperate wrath, and that it were best to
restrain his anger, and only gratify it by withdrawing his services.
The same idea is rather cleverly worked out by Apuleius, "De Deo
Socratis. "
58 Compare Milton, "Paradise Lost," bk. ii:
"Though his tongue
Dropp'd manna. "
So Proverbs v. 3, "For the lips of a strange woman drop as an
honey-comb. "
59 Salt water was chiefly used in lustrations, from its being supposed
to possess certain fiery particles. Hence, if sea-water could not be
obtained, salt was thrown into the fresh water to be used for the
lustration. Menander, in Clem. Alex. vii. p. 713, hydati perriranai,
embalon alas, phakois.
60 The persons of heralds were held inviolable, and they were at
liberty to travel whither they would without fear of molestation.
Pollux, Onom. viii. p. 159. The office was generally given to old
men, and they were believed to be under the especial protection of
Jove and Mercury.
61 His mother, Thetis, the daughter of Nereus and Doris, who was
courted by Neptune and Jupiter. When, however, it was known that the
son to whom she would give birth must prove greater than his father,
it was determined to wed her to a mortal, and Peleus, with great
difficulty, succeeded in obtaining her hand, as she eluded him by
assuming various forms. Her children were all destroyed by fire
through her attempts to see whether they were immortal, and Achilles
would have shared the same fate had not his father rescued him. She
afterwards rendered him invulnerable by plunging him into the waters
of the Styx, with the exception of that part of the heel by which
she held him. Hygin. Fab. 54
62 Thebe was a city of Mysia, north of Adramyttium.
63 That is, defrauds me of the prize allotted me by their votes.
64 Quintus Calaber goes still further in his account of the service
rendered to Jove by Thetis:
"Nay more, the fetters of Almighty Jove
She loosed"--Dyce's "Calaber," s. 58.
65 --_To Fates averse. _ Of the gloomy destiny reigning throughout the
Homeric poems, and from which even the gods are not exempt, Schlegel
well observes, "This power extends also to the world of gods-- for
the Grecian gods are mere powers of nature--and although immeasurably
higher than mortal man, yet, compared with infinitude, they are on
an equal footing with himself. "--'Lectures on the Drama' v. p. 67.
66 It has been observed that the annual procession of the sacred ship
so often represented on Egyptian monuments, and the return of the
deity from Ethiopia after some days' absence, serves to show the
Ethiopian origin of Thebes, and of the worship of Jupiter Ammon. "I
think," says Heeren, after quoting a passage from Diodorus about the
holy ship, "that this procession is represented in one of the great
sculptured reliefs on the temple of Karnak. The sacred ship of Ammon
is on the shore with its whole equipment, and is towed along by
another boat. It is therefore on its voyage. This must have been one
of the most celebrated festivals, since, even according to the
interpretation of antiquity, Homer alludes to it when he speaks of
Jupiter's visit to the Ethiopians, and his twelve days'
absence. "--Long, "Egyptian Antiquities" vol. 1 p. 96. Eustathius,
vol. 1 p. 98, sq. (ed. Basil) gives this interpretation, and
likewise an allegorical one, which we will spare the reader.
67 --_Atoned,_ i. e. reconciled. This is the proper and most natural
meaning of the word, as may be seen from Taylor's remarks in
Calmet's Dictionary, p. 110, of my edition.
68 That is, drawing back their necks while they cut their throats. "If
the sacrifice was in honour of the celestial gods, the throat was
bent upwards towards heaven; but if made to the heroes, or infernal
deities, it was killed with its throat toward the ground. "-- "Elgin
Marbles," vol i. p. 81.
"The jolly crew, unmindful of the past,
The quarry share, their plenteous dinner haste,
Some strip the skin; some portion out the spoil;
The limbs yet trembling, in the caldrons boil;
Some on the fire the reeking entrails broil.
Stretch'd on the grassy turf, at ease they dine,
Restore their strength with meat, and cheer their souls with
wine. "
Dryden's "Virgil," i. 293.
69 --_Crown'd, i. e. _ filled to the brim. The custom of adorning goblets
with flowers was of later date.
70 --_He spoke,_ &c. "When a friend inquired of Phidias what pattern he
had formed his Olympian Jupiter, he is said to have answered by
repeating the lines of the first Iliad in which the poet represents
the majesty of the god in the most sublime terms; thereby signifying
that the genius of Homer had inspired him with it. Those who beheld
this statue are said to have been so struck with it as to have asked
whether Jupiter had descended from heaven to show himself to
Phidias, or whether Phidias had been carried thither to contemplate
the god. "-- "Elgin Marbles," vol. xii p. 124.
71 "So was his will
Pronounced among the gods, and by an oath,
That shook heav'n's whole circumference, confirm'd. "
"Paradise Lost" ii. 351.
72 --_A double bowl, i. e. _ a vessel with a cup at both ends, something
like the measures by which a halfpenny or pennyworth of nuts is
sold. See Buttmann, Lexic. p. 93 sq.
73 "Paradise Lost," i. 44.
"Him th' Almighty power
Hurl'd headlong flaming from th ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion"
74 The occasion on which Vulcan incurred Jove's displeasure was
this--After Hercules, had taken and pillaged Troy, Juno raised a
storm, which drove him to the island of Cos, having previously cast
Jove into a sleep, to prevent him aiding his son. Jove, in revenge,
fastened iron anvils to her feet, and hung her from the sky, and
Vulcan, attempting to relieve her, was kicked down from Olympus in
the manner described. The allegorists have gone mad in finding deep
explanations for this amusing fiction. See Heraclides, 'Ponticus,"
p. 463 sq. , ed Gale. The story is told by Homer himself in Book xv.
The Sinthians were a race of robbers, the ancient inhabitants of
Lemnos which island was ever after sacred to Vulcan.
"Nor was his name unheard or unadored
In ancient Greece, and in Ausonian land
Men call'd him Mulciber, and how he fell
From heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day and with the setting sun
Dropp'd from the zenith like a falling star
On Lemnos, th' Aegean isle thus they relate. "
"Paradise Lost," i. 738
75 It is ingeniously observed by Grote, vol i p. 463, that "The gods
formed a sort of political community of their own which had its
hierarchy, its distribution of ranks and duties, its contentions for
power and occasional revolutions, its public meetings in the agora
of Olympus, and its multitudinous banquets or festivals. "
76 Plato, Rep. iii. p. 437, was so scandalized at this deception of
Jupiter's, and at his other attacks on the character of the gods,
that he would fain sentence him to an honourable banishment. (See
Minucius Felix, Section 22. ) Coleridge, Introd. p. 154, well
observes, that the supreme father of gods and men had a full right
to employ a lying spirit to work out his ultimate will. Compare
"Paradise Lost," v. 646:
"And roseate dews disposed
All but the unsleeping eyes of God to rest. "
77 --_Dream_ ought to be spelt with a capital letter, being, I think,
evidently personified as the god of dreams. See Anthon and others.
"When, by Minerva sent, a _fraudful_ Dream
Rush'd from the skies, the bane of her and Troy. "
Dyce's "Select Translations from Quintus Calaber," p. 10.
78 "Sleep'st thou, companion dear, what sleep can close
Thy eye-lids? "
--"Paradise Lost," v. 673.
79 This truly military sentiment has been echoed by the approving voice
of many a general and statesman of antiquity. See Pliny's Panegyric
on Trajan. Silius neatly translates it,
"Turpe duci totam somno consumere noctem. "
80 --_The same in habit, &c. _
"To whom once more the winged god appears;
His former youthful mien and shape he wears. "
Dryden's Virgil, iv. 803.
81 "As bees in spring-time, when
The sun with Taurus rides,
Pour forth their populous youth about the hive
In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers
Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank,
The suburb of this straw-built citadel,
New-nibb'd with balm, expatiate and confer
Their state affairs. So thick the very crowd
Swarm'd and were straiten'd. "--"Paradise Lost" i. 768.
82 It was the herald's duty to make the people sit down. "A _standing_
agora is a symptom of manifest terror (II. Xviii. 246) an evening
agora, to which men came elevated by wine, is also the forerunner of
mischief ('Odyssey,' iii. 138). "--Grote, ii. p. 91, _note. _
83 This sceptre, like that of Judah (Genesis xlix. 10), is a type of
the supreme and far-spread dominion of the house of the Atrides. See
Thucydides i. 9. "It is traced through the hands of Hermes, he being
the wealth giving god, whose blessing is most efficacious in
furthering the process of acquisition. "--Grote, i. p. 212. Compare
Quintus Calaber (Dyce's Selections, p. 43).
"Thus the monarch spoke,
Then pledged the chief in a capacious cup,
Golden, and framed by art divine (a gift
Which to Almighty Jove lame Vulcan brought
Upon his nuptial day, when he espoused
The Queen of Love), the sire of gods bestow'd
The cup on Dardanus, who gave it next
To Ericthonius Tros received it then,
And left it, with his wealth, to be possess'd
By Ilus he to great Laomedon
Gave it, and last to Priam's lot it fell. "
84 Grote, i, p. 393, states the number of the Grecian forces at upwards
of 100,000 men. Nichols makes a total of 135,000.
85 "As thick as when a field
Of Ceres, ripe for harvest, waving bends
His bearded grove of ears, which way the wind
Sways them. "--Paradise Lost," iv. 980, sqq.
86 This sentiment used to be a popular one with some of the greatest
tyrants, who abused it into a pretext for unlimited usurpation of
power. Dion, Caligula, and Domitian were particularly fond of it,
and, in an extended form, we find the maxim propounded by Creon in
the Antigone of Sophocles. See some important remarks of Heeren,
"Ancient Greece," ch. vi. p. 105.
87 It may be remarked, that the character of Thersites, revolting and
contemptible as it is, serves admirably to develop the disposition
of Ulysses in a new light, in which mere cunning is less prominent.
Of the gradual and individual development of Homer's heroes,
Schlegel well observes, "In bas-relief the figures are usually in
profile, and in the epos all are characterized in the simplest
manner in relief; they are not grouped together, but follow one
another; so Homer's heroes advance, one by one, in succession before
us. It has been remarked that the _Iliad_ is not definitively
closed, but that we are left to suppose something both to precede
and to follow it. The bas-relief is equally without limit, and may
be continued _ad infinitum,_ either from before or behind, on which
account the ancients preferred for it such subjects as admitted of
an indefinite extension, sacrificial processions, dances, and lines
of combatants, and hence they also exhibit bas-reliefs on curved
surfaces, such as vases, or the frieze of a rotunda, where, by the
curvature, the two ends are withdrawn from our sight, and where,
while we advance, one object appears as another disappears. Reading
Homer is very much like such a circuit; the present object alone
arresting our attention, we lose sight of what precedes, and do not
concern ourselves about what is to follow. "--"Dramatic Literature,"
p. 75.
88 "There cannot be a clearer indication than this description --so
graphic in the original poem--of the true character of the Homeric
agora. The multitude who compose it are listening and acquiescent,
not often hesitating, and never refractory to the chief. The fate
which awaits a presumptuous critic, even where his virulent
reproaches are substantially well-founded, is plainly set forth in
the treatment of Thersites; while the unpopularity of such a
character is attested even more by the excessive pains which Homer
takes to heap upon him repulsive personal deformities, than by the
chastisement of Odysseus he is lame, bald, crook-backed, of
misshapen head, and squinting vision. "--Grote, vol. i. p. 97.
89 According to Pausanias, both the sprig and the remains of the tree
were exhibited in his time. The tragedians, Lucretius and others,
adopted a different fable to account for the stoppage at Aulis, and
seem to have found the sacrifice of Iphigena better suited to form
the subject of a tragedy. Compare Dryden's "? neid," vol. iii. sqq.
90 --_Full of his god, i. e. ,_ Apollo, filled with the prophetic spirit.
"_The_ god" would be more simple and emphatic.
91 Those critics who have maintained that the "Catalogue of Ships" is
an interpolation, should have paid more attention to these lines,
which form a most natural introduction to their enumeration.
92 The following observation will be useful to Homeric readers:
"Particular animals were, at a later time, consecrated to particular
deities. To Jupiter, Ceres, Juno, Apollo, and Bacchus victims of
advanced age might be offered. An ox of five years old was
considered especially acceptable to Jupiter. A black bull, a ram, or
a boar pig, were offerings for Neptune. A heifer, or a sheep, for
Minerva. To Ceres a sow was sacrificed, as an enemy to corn. The
goat to Bacchus, because he fed on vines. Diana was propitiated with
a stag; and to Venus the dove was consecrated. The infernal and evil
deities were to be appeased with black victims. The most acceptable
of all sacrifices was the heifer of a year old, which had never
borne the yoke. It was to be perfect in every limb, healthy, and
without blemish. "--"Elgin Marbles," vol. i. p. 78.
93 --_Idomeneus,_ son of Deucalion, was king of Crete. Having vowed,
during a tempest, on his return from Troy, to sacrifice to Neptune
the first creature that should present itself to his eye on the
Cretan shore, his son fell a victim to his rash vow.
94 --_Tydeus' son, i. e. _ Diomed.
95 That is, Ajax, the son of Oileus, a Locrian. He must be
distinguished from the other, who was king of Salamis.
96 A great deal of nonsense has been written to account for the word
_unbid,_ in this line. Even Plato, "Sympos. " p. 315, has found some
curious meaning in what, to us, appears to need no explanation. Was
there any _heroic_ rule of etiquette which prevented one
brother-king visiting another without a formal invitation?
97 Fresh water fowl, especially swans, were found in great numbers
about the Asian Marsh, a fenny tract of country in Lydia, formed by
the river Cayster, near its mouth. See Virgil, "Georgics," vol. i.
383, sq.
98 --_Scamander,_ or Scamandros, was a river of Troas, rising, according
to Strabo, on the highest part of Mount Ida, in the same hill with
the Granicus and the OEdipus, and falling into the sea at Sigaeum;
everything tends to identify it with Mendere, as Wood, Rennell, and
others maintain; the Mendere is 40 miles long, 300 feet broad, deep
in the time of flood, nearly dry in the summer. Dr. Clarke
successfully combats the opinion of those who make the Scamander to
have arisen from the springs of Bounabarshy, and traces the source
of the river to the highest mountain in the chain of Ida, now
Kusdaghy; receives the Simois in its course; towards its mouth it is
very muddy, and flows through marshes. Between the Scamander and
Simois, Homer's Troy is supposed to have stood: this river,
according to Homer, was called Xanthus by the gods, Scamander by
men. The waters of the Scamander had the singular property of giving
a beautiful colour to the hair or wool of such animals as bathed in
them; hence the three goddesses, Minerva, Juno, and Venus, bathed
there before they appeared before Paris to obtain the golden apple:
the name Xanthus, "yellow," was given to the Scamander, from the
peculiar colour of its waters, still applicable to the Mendere, the
yellow colour of whose waters attracts the attention of travellers.
99 It should be "his _chest_ like Neptune. " The torso of Neptune, in
the "Elgin Marbles," No. 103, (vol. ii. p. 26,) is remarkable for
its breadth and massiveness of development.
100 "Say first, for heav'n hides nothing from thy view. "
--"Paradise Lost," i. 27.
"Ma di' tu, Musa, come i primi danni
Mandassero a Cristiani, e di quai parti:
Tu 'l sai; ma di tant' opra a noi si lunge
Debil aura di fama appena giunge. "
--"Gier. Lib. " iv. 19.
101 "The Catalogue is, perhaps, the portion of the poem in favour of
which a claim to separate authorship has been most plausibly urged.
Although the example of Homer has since rendered some such formal
enumeration of the forces engaged, a common practice in epic poems
descriptive of great warlike 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.
102 --_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.
103 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.
104 "Adam, the goodliest man of men since born,
His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve. '
--"Paradise Lost," iv. 323.
105 --_? setes' 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.
has given three brief but elaborate papers on the different writers
on the subject, which deserve to be consulted. See Notes and
Queries, vol. v. pp. 99, 171, and 221. His own views are moderate,
and perhaps as satisfactory, on the whole, as any of the hypotheses
hitherto put forth. In fact, they consist in an attempt to blend
those hypotheses into something like consistency, rather than in
advocating any individual theory.
23 Letters to Phileleuth; Lips.
24 Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 191, sqq.
25 It is, indeed not easy to calculate the height to which the memory
may be cultivated. To take an ordinary case, we might refer to that
of any first rate actor, who must be prepared, at a very short
warning, to 'rhapsodize,' night after night, parts which when laid
together, would amount to an immense number of lines. But all this
is nothing to two instances of our own day. Visiting at Naples a
gentleman of the highest intellectual attainments, and who held a
distinguished rank among the men of letters in the last century, he
informed us that the day before he had passed much time in examining
a man, not highly educated, who had learned to repeat the whole
Gierusalemme of Tasso, not only to recite it consecutively, but also
to repeat those stanzas in utter defiance of the sense, either
forwards or backwards, or from the eighth line to the first,
alternately the odd and even lines--in short, whatever the passage
required; the memory, which seemed to cling to the words much more
than to the sense, had it at such perfect command, that it could
produce it under any form. Our informant went on to state that this
singular being was proceeding to learn the Orlando Furioso in the
same manner. But even this instance is less wonderful than one as to
which we may appeal to any of our readers that happened some twenty
years ago to visit the town of Stirling, in Scotland. No such person
can have forgotten the poor, uneducated man Blind Jamie who could
actually repeat, after a few minutes consideration any verse
required from any part of the Bible--even the obscurest and most
unimportant enumeration of mere proper names not excepted. We do not
mention these facts as touching the more difficult part of the
question before us, but facts they are; and if we find so much
difficulty in calculating the extent to which the mere memory may be
cultivated, are we, in these days of multifarious reading, and of
countless distracting affairs, fair judges of the perfection to
which the invention and the memory combined may attain in a simpler
age, and among a more single minded people? --Quarterly Review, _l.
c. ,_ p. 143, sqq.
Heeren steers between the two opinions, observing that, "The
Dschungariade of the Calmucks is said to surpass the poems of Homer
in length, as much as it stands beneath them in merit, and yet it
exists only in the memory of a people which is not unacquainted with
writing. But the songs of a nation are probably the last things
which are committed to writing, for the very reason that they are
remembered. "-- _Ancient Greece. _ p. 100.
26 Vol. II p. 198, sqq.
27 Quarterly Review, _l. c. ,_ p. 131 sq.
28 Betrachtungen uber die Ilias. Berol. 1841. See Grote, p. 204. Notes
and Queries, vol. v. p. 221.
29 Prolegg. pp. xxxii. , xxxvi. , &c.
30 Vol. ii. p. 214 sqq.
31 "Who," says Cicero, de Orat. iii. 34, "was more learned in that age,
or whose eloquence is reported to have been more perfected by
literature than that of Peisistratus, who is said first to have
disposed the books of Homer in the order in which we now have them? "
Compare Wolf's Prolegomena, Section 33
32 "The first book, together with the eighth, and the books from the
eleventh to the twenty-second inclusive, seems to form the primary
organization of the poem, then properly an Achilleis. "--Grote, vol.
ii. p. 235
33 K. R. H. Mackenzie, Notes and Queries, p. 222 sqq.
34 See his Epistle to Raphelingius, in Schroeder's edition, 4to. ,
Delphis, 1728.
35 Ancient Greece, p. 101.
36 The best description of this monument will be found in Vaux's
"Antiquities of the British Museum," p. 198 sq. The monument itself
(Towneley Sculptures, No. 123) is well known.
37 Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. 276.
38 Preface to her Homer.
39 Hesiod. Opp. et Dier. Lib. I. vers. 155, &c.
40 The following argument of the Iliad, corrected in a few particulars,
is translated from Bitaube, and is, perhaps, the neatest summary
that has ever been drawn up:--"A hero, injured by his general, and
animated with a noble resentment, retires to his tent; and for a
season withdraws himself and his troops from the war. During this
interval, victory abandons the army, which for nine years has been
occupied in a great enterprise, upon the successful termination of
which the honour of their country depends. The general, at length
opening his eyes to the fault which he had committed, deputes the
principal officers of his army to the incensed hero, with commission
to make compensation for the injury, and to tender magnificent
presents. The hero, according to the proud obstinacy of his
character, persists in his animosity; the army is again defeated,
and is on the verge of entire destruction. This inexorable man has a
friend; this friend weeps before him, and asks for the hero's arms,
and for permission to go to the war in his stead. The eloquence of
friendship prevails more than the intercession of the ambassadors or
the gifts of the general. He lends his armour to his friend, but
commands him not to engage with the chief of the enemy's army,
because he reserves to himself the honour of that combat, and
because he also fears for his friend's life. The prohibition is
forgotten; the friend listens to nothing but his courage; his corpse
is brought back to the hero, and the hero's arms become the prize of
the conqueror. Then the hero, given up to the most lively despair,
prepares to fight; he receives from a divinity new armour, is
reconciled with his general and, thirsting for glory and revenge,
enacts prodigies of valour, recovers the victory, slays the enemy's
chief, honours his friend with superb funeral rites, and exercises a
cruel vengeance on the body of his destroyer; but finally appeased
by the tears and prayers of the father of the slain warrior,
restores to the old man the corpse of his son, which he buries with
due solemnities. '--Coleridge, p. 177, sqq.
41 Vultures: Pope is more accurate than the poet he translates, for
Homer writes "a prey to dogs and to _all_ kinds of birds. But all
kinds of birds are not carnivorous.
42 --_i. e. _ during the whole time of their striving the will of Jove was
being gradually accomplished.
43 Compare Milton's "Paradise Lost" i. 6
"Sing, heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Horeb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd. "
44 --_Latona's son: i. e. _ Apollo.
45 --_King of men:_ Agamemnon.
46 --_Brother kings:_ Menelaus and Agamemnon.
47 --_Smintheus_ an epithet taken from sminthos, the Phrygian name for a
_mouse,_ was applied to Apollo for having put an end to a plague of
mice which had harassed that territory. Strabo, however, says, that
when the Teucri were migrating from Crete, they were told by an
oracle to settle in that place, where they should not be attacked by
the original inhabitants of the land, and that, having halted for
the night, a number of field-mice came and gnawed away the leathern
straps of their baggage, and thongs of their armour. In fulfilment
of the oracle, they settled on the spot, and raised a temple to
Sminthean Apollo. Grote, "History of Greece," i. p. 68, remarks that
the "worship of Sminthean Apollo, in various parts of the Troad and
its neighboring territory, dates before the earliest period of
Aeolian colonization. "
48 --_Cilla,_ a town of Troas near Thebe, so called from Cillus, a
sister of Hippodamia, slain by OEnomaus.
49 A mistake. It should be,
"If e'er I _roofed_ thy graceful fane,"
for the custom of decorating temples with garlands was of later
date.
50 --_Bent was his bow_ "The Apollo of Homer, it must be borne in mind,
is a different character from the deity of the same name in the
later classical pantheon. Throughout both poems, all deaths from
unforeseen or invisible causes, the ravages of pestilence, the fate
of the young child or promising adult, cut off in the germ of
infancy or flower of youth, of the old man dropping peacefully into
the grave, or of the reckless sinner suddenly checked in his career
of crime, are ascribed to the arrows of Apollo or Diana. The
oracular functions of the god rose naturally out of the above
fundamental attributes, for who could more appropriately impart to
mortals what little foreknowledge Fate permitted of her decrees than
the agent of her most awful dispensations? The close union of the
arts of prophecy and song explains his additional office of god of
music, while the arrows with which he and his sister were armed,
symbols of sudden death in every age, no less naturally procured him
that of god of archery. Of any connection between Apollo and the
Sun, whatever may have existed in the more esoteric doctrine of the
Greek sanctuaries, there is no trace in either Iliad or
Odyssey. "--Mure, "History of Greek Literature," vol. i. p. 478, sq.
51 It has frequently been observed, that most pestilences begin with
animals, and that Homer had this fact in mind.
52 --_Convened to council. _ The public assembly in the heroic times is
well characterized by Grote, vol. ii. p 92. "It is an assembly for
talk. Communication and discussion to a certain extent by the chiefs
in person, of the people as listeners and sympathizers--often for
eloquence, and sometimes for quarrel--but here its ostensible
purposes end. "
53 Old Jacob Duport, whose "Gnomologia Homerica" is full of curious and
useful things, quotes several passages of the ancients, in which
reference is made to these words of Homer, in maintenance of the
belief that dreams had a divine origin and an import in which men
were interested.
54 Rather, "bright-eyed. " See the German critics quoted by Arnold.
55 The prize given to Ajax was Tecmessa, while Ulysses received
Laodice, the daughter of Cycnus.
56 The Myrmidons dwelt on the southern borders of Thessaly, and took
their origin from Myrmido, son of Jupiter and Eurymedusa. It is
fancifully supposed that the name was derived from myrmaex, an
_ant,_ "because they imitated the diligence of the ants, and like
them were indefatigable, continually employed in cultivating the
earth; the change from ants to men is founded merely on the
equivocation of their name, which resembles that of the ant: they
bore a further resemblance to these little animals, in that instead
of inhabiting towns or villages, at first they commonly resided in
the open fields, having no other retreats but dens and the cavities
of trees, until Ithacus brought them together, and settled them in
more secure and comfortable habitations. "--Anthon's "Lempriere. "
57 Eustathius, after Heraclides Ponticus and others, allegorizes this
apparition, as if the appearance of Minerva to Achilles, unseen by
the rest, was intended to point out the sudden recollection that he
would gain nothing by intemperate wrath, and that it were best to
restrain his anger, and only gratify it by withdrawing his services.
The same idea is rather cleverly worked out by Apuleius, "De Deo
Socratis. "
58 Compare Milton, "Paradise Lost," bk. ii:
"Though his tongue
Dropp'd manna. "
So Proverbs v. 3, "For the lips of a strange woman drop as an
honey-comb. "
59 Salt water was chiefly used in lustrations, from its being supposed
to possess certain fiery particles. Hence, if sea-water could not be
obtained, salt was thrown into the fresh water to be used for the
lustration. Menander, in Clem. Alex. vii. p. 713, hydati perriranai,
embalon alas, phakois.
60 The persons of heralds were held inviolable, and they were at
liberty to travel whither they would without fear of molestation.
Pollux, Onom. viii. p. 159. The office was generally given to old
men, and they were believed to be under the especial protection of
Jove and Mercury.
61 His mother, Thetis, the daughter of Nereus and Doris, who was
courted by Neptune and Jupiter. When, however, it was known that the
son to whom she would give birth must prove greater than his father,
it was determined to wed her to a mortal, and Peleus, with great
difficulty, succeeded in obtaining her hand, as she eluded him by
assuming various forms. Her children were all destroyed by fire
through her attempts to see whether they were immortal, and Achilles
would have shared the same fate had not his father rescued him. She
afterwards rendered him invulnerable by plunging him into the waters
of the Styx, with the exception of that part of the heel by which
she held him. Hygin. Fab. 54
62 Thebe was a city of Mysia, north of Adramyttium.
63 That is, defrauds me of the prize allotted me by their votes.
64 Quintus Calaber goes still further in his account of the service
rendered to Jove by Thetis:
"Nay more, the fetters of Almighty Jove
She loosed"--Dyce's "Calaber," s. 58.
65 --_To Fates averse. _ Of the gloomy destiny reigning throughout the
Homeric poems, and from which even the gods are not exempt, Schlegel
well observes, "This power extends also to the world of gods-- for
the Grecian gods are mere powers of nature--and although immeasurably
higher than mortal man, yet, compared with infinitude, they are on
an equal footing with himself. "--'Lectures on the Drama' v. p. 67.
66 It has been observed that the annual procession of the sacred ship
so often represented on Egyptian monuments, and the return of the
deity from Ethiopia after some days' absence, serves to show the
Ethiopian origin of Thebes, and of the worship of Jupiter Ammon. "I
think," says Heeren, after quoting a passage from Diodorus about the
holy ship, "that this procession is represented in one of the great
sculptured reliefs on the temple of Karnak. The sacred ship of Ammon
is on the shore with its whole equipment, and is towed along by
another boat. It is therefore on its voyage. This must have been one
of the most celebrated festivals, since, even according to the
interpretation of antiquity, Homer alludes to it when he speaks of
Jupiter's visit to the Ethiopians, and his twelve days'
absence. "--Long, "Egyptian Antiquities" vol. 1 p. 96. Eustathius,
vol. 1 p. 98, sq. (ed. Basil) gives this interpretation, and
likewise an allegorical one, which we will spare the reader.
67 --_Atoned,_ i. e. reconciled. This is the proper and most natural
meaning of the word, as may be seen from Taylor's remarks in
Calmet's Dictionary, p. 110, of my edition.
68 That is, drawing back their necks while they cut their throats. "If
the sacrifice was in honour of the celestial gods, the throat was
bent upwards towards heaven; but if made to the heroes, or infernal
deities, it was killed with its throat toward the ground. "-- "Elgin
Marbles," vol i. p. 81.
"The jolly crew, unmindful of the past,
The quarry share, their plenteous dinner haste,
Some strip the skin; some portion out the spoil;
The limbs yet trembling, in the caldrons boil;
Some on the fire the reeking entrails broil.
Stretch'd on the grassy turf, at ease they dine,
Restore their strength with meat, and cheer their souls with
wine. "
Dryden's "Virgil," i. 293.
69 --_Crown'd, i. e. _ filled to the brim. The custom of adorning goblets
with flowers was of later date.
70 --_He spoke,_ &c. "When a friend inquired of Phidias what pattern he
had formed his Olympian Jupiter, he is said to have answered by
repeating the lines of the first Iliad in which the poet represents
the majesty of the god in the most sublime terms; thereby signifying
that the genius of Homer had inspired him with it. Those who beheld
this statue are said to have been so struck with it as to have asked
whether Jupiter had descended from heaven to show himself to
Phidias, or whether Phidias had been carried thither to contemplate
the god. "-- "Elgin Marbles," vol. xii p. 124.
71 "So was his will
Pronounced among the gods, and by an oath,
That shook heav'n's whole circumference, confirm'd. "
"Paradise Lost" ii. 351.
72 --_A double bowl, i. e. _ a vessel with a cup at both ends, something
like the measures by which a halfpenny or pennyworth of nuts is
sold. See Buttmann, Lexic. p. 93 sq.
73 "Paradise Lost," i. 44.
"Him th' Almighty power
Hurl'd headlong flaming from th ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion"
74 The occasion on which Vulcan incurred Jove's displeasure was
this--After Hercules, had taken and pillaged Troy, Juno raised a
storm, which drove him to the island of Cos, having previously cast
Jove into a sleep, to prevent him aiding his son. Jove, in revenge,
fastened iron anvils to her feet, and hung her from the sky, and
Vulcan, attempting to relieve her, was kicked down from Olympus in
the manner described. The allegorists have gone mad in finding deep
explanations for this amusing fiction. See Heraclides, 'Ponticus,"
p. 463 sq. , ed Gale. The story is told by Homer himself in Book xv.
The Sinthians were a race of robbers, the ancient inhabitants of
Lemnos which island was ever after sacred to Vulcan.
"Nor was his name unheard or unadored
In ancient Greece, and in Ausonian land
Men call'd him Mulciber, and how he fell
From heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day and with the setting sun
Dropp'd from the zenith like a falling star
On Lemnos, th' Aegean isle thus they relate. "
"Paradise Lost," i. 738
75 It is ingeniously observed by Grote, vol i p. 463, that "The gods
formed a sort of political community of their own which had its
hierarchy, its distribution of ranks and duties, its contentions for
power and occasional revolutions, its public meetings in the agora
of Olympus, and its multitudinous banquets or festivals. "
76 Plato, Rep. iii. p. 437, was so scandalized at this deception of
Jupiter's, and at his other attacks on the character of the gods,
that he would fain sentence him to an honourable banishment. (See
Minucius Felix, Section 22. ) Coleridge, Introd. p. 154, well
observes, that the supreme father of gods and men had a full right
to employ a lying spirit to work out his ultimate will. Compare
"Paradise Lost," v. 646:
"And roseate dews disposed
All but the unsleeping eyes of God to rest. "
77 --_Dream_ ought to be spelt with a capital letter, being, I think,
evidently personified as the god of dreams. See Anthon and others.
"When, by Minerva sent, a _fraudful_ Dream
Rush'd from the skies, the bane of her and Troy. "
Dyce's "Select Translations from Quintus Calaber," p. 10.
78 "Sleep'st thou, companion dear, what sleep can close
Thy eye-lids? "
--"Paradise Lost," v. 673.
79 This truly military sentiment has been echoed by the approving voice
of many a general and statesman of antiquity. See Pliny's Panegyric
on Trajan. Silius neatly translates it,
"Turpe duci totam somno consumere noctem. "
80 --_The same in habit, &c. _
"To whom once more the winged god appears;
His former youthful mien and shape he wears. "
Dryden's Virgil, iv. 803.
81 "As bees in spring-time, when
The sun with Taurus rides,
Pour forth their populous youth about the hive
In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers
Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank,
The suburb of this straw-built citadel,
New-nibb'd with balm, expatiate and confer
Their state affairs. So thick the very crowd
Swarm'd and were straiten'd. "--"Paradise Lost" i. 768.
82 It was the herald's duty to make the people sit down. "A _standing_
agora is a symptom of manifest terror (II. Xviii. 246) an evening
agora, to which men came elevated by wine, is also the forerunner of
mischief ('Odyssey,' iii. 138). "--Grote, ii. p. 91, _note. _
83 This sceptre, like that of Judah (Genesis xlix. 10), is a type of
the supreme and far-spread dominion of the house of the Atrides. See
Thucydides i. 9. "It is traced through the hands of Hermes, he being
the wealth giving god, whose blessing is most efficacious in
furthering the process of acquisition. "--Grote, i. p. 212. Compare
Quintus Calaber (Dyce's Selections, p. 43).
"Thus the monarch spoke,
Then pledged the chief in a capacious cup,
Golden, and framed by art divine (a gift
Which to Almighty Jove lame Vulcan brought
Upon his nuptial day, when he espoused
The Queen of Love), the sire of gods bestow'd
The cup on Dardanus, who gave it next
To Ericthonius Tros received it then,
And left it, with his wealth, to be possess'd
By Ilus he to great Laomedon
Gave it, and last to Priam's lot it fell. "
84 Grote, i, p. 393, states the number of the Grecian forces at upwards
of 100,000 men. Nichols makes a total of 135,000.
85 "As thick as when a field
Of Ceres, ripe for harvest, waving bends
His bearded grove of ears, which way the wind
Sways them. "--Paradise Lost," iv. 980, sqq.
86 This sentiment used to be a popular one with some of the greatest
tyrants, who abused it into a pretext for unlimited usurpation of
power. Dion, Caligula, and Domitian were particularly fond of it,
and, in an extended form, we find the maxim propounded by Creon in
the Antigone of Sophocles. See some important remarks of Heeren,
"Ancient Greece," ch. vi. p. 105.
87 It may be remarked, that the character of Thersites, revolting and
contemptible as it is, serves admirably to develop the disposition
of Ulysses in a new light, in which mere cunning is less prominent.
Of the gradual and individual development of Homer's heroes,
Schlegel well observes, "In bas-relief the figures are usually in
profile, and in the epos all are characterized in the simplest
manner in relief; they are not grouped together, but follow one
another; so Homer's heroes advance, one by one, in succession before
us. It has been remarked that the _Iliad_ is not definitively
closed, but that we are left to suppose something both to precede
and to follow it. The bas-relief is equally without limit, and may
be continued _ad infinitum,_ either from before or behind, on which
account the ancients preferred for it such subjects as admitted of
an indefinite extension, sacrificial processions, dances, and lines
of combatants, and hence they also exhibit bas-reliefs on curved
surfaces, such as vases, or the frieze of a rotunda, where, by the
curvature, the two ends are withdrawn from our sight, and where,
while we advance, one object appears as another disappears. Reading
Homer is very much like such a circuit; the present object alone
arresting our attention, we lose sight of what precedes, and do not
concern ourselves about what is to follow. "--"Dramatic Literature,"
p. 75.
88 "There cannot be a clearer indication than this description --so
graphic in the original poem--of the true character of the Homeric
agora. The multitude who compose it are listening and acquiescent,
not often hesitating, and never refractory to the chief. The fate
which awaits a presumptuous critic, even where his virulent
reproaches are substantially well-founded, is plainly set forth in
the treatment of Thersites; while the unpopularity of such a
character is attested even more by the excessive pains which Homer
takes to heap upon him repulsive personal deformities, than by the
chastisement of Odysseus he is lame, bald, crook-backed, of
misshapen head, and squinting vision. "--Grote, vol. i. p. 97.
89 According to Pausanias, both the sprig and the remains of the tree
were exhibited in his time. The tragedians, Lucretius and others,
adopted a different fable to account for the stoppage at Aulis, and
seem to have found the sacrifice of Iphigena better suited to form
the subject of a tragedy. Compare Dryden's "? neid," vol. iii. sqq.
90 --_Full of his god, i. e. ,_ Apollo, filled with the prophetic spirit.
"_The_ god" would be more simple and emphatic.
91 Those critics who have maintained that the "Catalogue of Ships" is
an interpolation, should have paid more attention to these lines,
which form a most natural introduction to their enumeration.
92 The following observation will be useful to Homeric readers:
"Particular animals were, at a later time, consecrated to particular
deities. To Jupiter, Ceres, Juno, Apollo, and Bacchus victims of
advanced age might be offered. An ox of five years old was
considered especially acceptable to Jupiter. A black bull, a ram, or
a boar pig, were offerings for Neptune. A heifer, or a sheep, for
Minerva. To Ceres a sow was sacrificed, as an enemy to corn. The
goat to Bacchus, because he fed on vines. Diana was propitiated with
a stag; and to Venus the dove was consecrated. The infernal and evil
deities were to be appeased with black victims. The most acceptable
of all sacrifices was the heifer of a year old, which had never
borne the yoke. It was to be perfect in every limb, healthy, and
without blemish. "--"Elgin Marbles," vol. i. p. 78.
93 --_Idomeneus,_ son of Deucalion, was king of Crete. Having vowed,
during a tempest, on his return from Troy, to sacrifice to Neptune
the first creature that should present itself to his eye on the
Cretan shore, his son fell a victim to his rash vow.
94 --_Tydeus' son, i. e. _ Diomed.
95 That is, Ajax, the son of Oileus, a Locrian. He must be
distinguished from the other, who was king of Salamis.
96 A great deal of nonsense has been written to account for the word
_unbid,_ in this line. Even Plato, "Sympos. " p. 315, has found some
curious meaning in what, to us, appears to need no explanation. Was
there any _heroic_ rule of etiquette which prevented one
brother-king visiting another without a formal invitation?
97 Fresh water fowl, especially swans, were found in great numbers
about the Asian Marsh, a fenny tract of country in Lydia, formed by
the river Cayster, near its mouth. See Virgil, "Georgics," vol. i.
383, sq.
98 --_Scamander,_ or Scamandros, was a river of Troas, rising, according
to Strabo, on the highest part of Mount Ida, in the same hill with
the Granicus and the OEdipus, and falling into the sea at Sigaeum;
everything tends to identify it with Mendere, as Wood, Rennell, and
others maintain; the Mendere is 40 miles long, 300 feet broad, deep
in the time of flood, nearly dry in the summer. Dr. Clarke
successfully combats the opinion of those who make the Scamander to
have arisen from the springs of Bounabarshy, and traces the source
of the river to the highest mountain in the chain of Ida, now
Kusdaghy; receives the Simois in its course; towards its mouth it is
very muddy, and flows through marshes. Between the Scamander and
Simois, Homer's Troy is supposed to have stood: this river,
according to Homer, was called Xanthus by the gods, Scamander by
men. The waters of the Scamander had the singular property of giving
a beautiful colour to the hair or wool of such animals as bathed in
them; hence the three goddesses, Minerva, Juno, and Venus, bathed
there before they appeared before Paris to obtain the golden apple:
the name Xanthus, "yellow," was given to the Scamander, from the
peculiar colour of its waters, still applicable to the Mendere, the
yellow colour of whose waters attracts the attention of travellers.
99 It should be "his _chest_ like Neptune. " The torso of Neptune, in
the "Elgin Marbles," No. 103, (vol. ii. p. 26,) is remarkable for
its breadth and massiveness of development.
100 "Say first, for heav'n hides nothing from thy view. "
--"Paradise Lost," i. 27.
"Ma di' tu, Musa, come i primi danni
Mandassero a Cristiani, e di quai parti:
Tu 'l sai; ma di tant' opra a noi si lunge
Debil aura di fama appena giunge. "
--"Gier. Lib. " iv. 19.
101 "The Catalogue is, perhaps, the portion of the poem in favour of
which a claim to separate authorship has been most plausibly urged.
Although the example of Homer has since rendered some such formal
enumeration of the forces engaged, a common practice in epic poems
descriptive of great warlike 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.
102 --_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.
103 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.
104 "Adam, the goodliest man of men since born,
His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve. '
--"Paradise Lost," iv. 323.
105 --_? setes' 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.
