No More Learning

A melancholy choir attend around,
With plaintive sighs, and music's solemn sound:
Alternately they sing, alternate flow
The obedient tears, melodious in their woe.
While deeper sorrows groan from each full heart,
And nature speaks at every pause of art.

First to the corse the weeping consort flew;
Around his neck her milk-white arms she threw,
"And oh, my Hector! Oh, my lord! (she cries)
Snatch'd in thy bloom from these desiring eyes!
Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone!
And I abandon'd, desolate, alone!
An only son, once comfort of our pains,
Sad product now of hapless love, remains!
Never to manly age that son shall rise,
Or with increasing graces glad my eyes:
For Ilion now (her great defender slain)
Shall sink a smoking ruin on the plain.
Who now protects her wives with guardian care?
Who saves her infants from the rage of war?
Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o'er
(Those wives must wait them) to a foreign shore:
Thou too, my son, to barbarous climes shall go,
The sad companion of thy mother's woe;
Driven hence a slave before the victor's sword
Condemn'd to toil for some inhuman lord:
Or else some Greek whose father press'd the plain,
Or son, or brother, by great Hector slain,
In Hector's blood his vengeance shall enjoy,
And hurl thee headlong from the towers of Troy. (297)
For thy stern father never spared a foe:
Thence all these tears, and all this scene of woe!
Thence many evils his sad parents bore,
His parents many, but his consort more.
Why gav'st thou not to me thy dying hand?
And why received not I thy last command?
Some word thou would'st have spoke, which, sadly dear,
My soul might keep, or utter with a tear;
Which never, never could be lost in air,
Fix'd in my heart, and oft repeated there! "

Thus to her weeping maids she makes her moan,
Her weeping handmaids echo groan for groan.

The mournful mother next sustains her part:
"O thou, the best, the dearest to my heart!
Of all my race thou most by heaven approved,
And by the immortals even in death beloved!
While all my other sons in barbarous bands
Achilles bound, and sold to foreign lands,
This felt no chains, but went a glorious ghost,
Free, and a hero, to the Stygian coast.
Sentenced, 'tis true, by his inhuman doom,
Thy noble corse was dragg'd around the tomb;
(The tomb of him thy warlike arm had slain;)
Ungenerous insult, impotent and vain!
Yet glow'st thou fresh with every living grace;
No mark of pain, or violence of face:
Rosy and fair! as Phoebus' silver bow
Dismiss'd thee gently to the shades below. "

Thus spoke the dame, and melted into tears.
Sad Helen next in pomp of grief appears;
Fast from the shining sluices of her eyes
Fall the round crystal drops, while thus she cries.

"Ah, dearest friend! in whom the gods had join'd(298)
Tne mildest manners with the bravest mind,
Now twice ten years (unhappy years) are o'er
Since Paris brought me to the Trojan shore,
(O had I perish'd, ere that form divine
Seduced this soft, this easy heart of mine! )
Yet was it ne'er my fate, from thee to find
A deed ungentle, or a word unkind.
When others cursed the authoress of their woe,
Thy pity check'd my sorrows in their flow.
If some proud brother eyed me with disdain,
Or scornful sister with her sweeping train,
Thy gentle accents soften'd all my pain.
For thee I mourn, and mourn myself in thee,
The wretched source of all this misery.
The fate I caused, for ever I bemoan;
Sad Helen has no friend, now thou art gone!
Through Troy's wide streets abandon'd shall I roam!
In Troy deserted, as abhorr'd at home! "

So spoke the fair, with sorrow-streaming eye.
Distressful beauty melts each stander-by.
On all around the infectious sorrow grows;
But Priam check'd the torrent as it rose:
"Perform, ye Trojans! what the rites require,
And fell the forests for a funeral pyre;
Twelve days, nor foes nor secret ambush dread;
Achilles grants these honours to the dead. "(299)

[Illustration: FUNERAL OF HECTOR. ]

FUNERAL OF HECTOR.


He spoke, and, at his word, the Trojan train
Their mules and oxen harness to the wain,
Pour through the gates, and fell'd from Ida's crown,
Roll back the gather'd forests to the town.
These toils continue nine succeeding days,
And high in air a sylvan structure raise.
But when the tenth fair morn began to shine,
Forth to the pile was borne the man divine,
And placed aloft; while all, with streaming eyes,
Beheld the flames and rolling smokes arise.
Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn,
With rosy lustre streak'd the dewy lawn,
Again the mournful crowds surround the pyre,
And quench with wine the yet remaining fire.
The snowy bones his friends and brothers place
(With tears collected) in a golden vase;
The golden vase in purple palls they roll'd,
Of softest texture, and inwrought with gold.
Last o'er the urn the sacred earth they spread,
And raised the tomb, memorial of the dead.
(Strong guards and spies, till all the rites were done,
Watch'd from the rising to the setting sun. )
All Troy then moves to Priam's court again,
A solemn, silent, melancholy train:
Assembled there, from pious toil they rest,
And sadly shared the last sepulchral feast.
Such honours Ilion to her hero paid,
And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade. (300)





CONCLUDING NOTE.


We have now passed through the Iliad, and seen the anger of Achilles, and
the terrible effects of it, at an end, as that only was the subject of the
poem, and the nature of epic poetry would not permit our author to proceed
to the event of the war, it perhaps may be acceptable to the common reader
to give a short account of what happened to Troy and the chief actors in
this poem after the conclusion of it.

I need not mention that Troy was taken soon after the death of Hector by
the stratagem of the wooden horse, the particulars of which are described
by Virgil in the second book of the ? neid.

Achilles fell before Troy, by the hand of Paris, by the shot of an arrow
in his heel, as Hector had prophesied at his death, lib. xxii.

The unfortunate Priam was killed by Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles.

Ajax, after the death of Achilles, had a contest with Ulysses for the
armour of Vulcan, but being defeated in his aim, he slew himself through
indignation.

Helen, after the death of Paris, married Deiphobus his brother, and at the
taking of Troy betrayed him, in order to reconcile herself to Menelaus her
first husband, who received her again into favour.

Agamemnon at his return was barbarously murdered by ? gysthus, at the
instigation of Clytemnestra his wife, who in his absence had dishonoured
his bed with ? gysthus.

Diomed, after the fall of Troy, was expelled his own country, and scarce
escaped with his life from his adulterous wife ? giale; but at last was
received by Daunus in Apulia, and shared his kingdom; it is uncertain how
he died.

Nestor lived in peace with his children, in Pylos, his native country.

Ulysses also, after innumerable troubles by sea and land, at last returned
in safety to Ithaca, which is the subject of Homer's Odyssey.

For what remains, I beg to be excused from the ceremonies of taking leave
at the end of my work, and from embarrassing myself, or others, with any
defences or apologies about it. But instead of endeavouring to raise a
vain monument to myself, of the merits or difficulties of it (which must
be left to the world, to truth, and to posterity), let me leave behind me
a memorial of my friendship with one of the most valuable of men, as well
as finest writers, of my age and country, one who has tried, and knows by
his own experience, how hard an undertaking it is to do justice to Homer,
and one whom (I am sure) sincerely rejoices with me at the period of my
labours. To him, therefore, having brought this long work to a conclusion,
I desire to dedicate it, and to have the honour and satisfaction of
placing together, in this manner, the names of Mr. CONGREVE, and of

March 25, 1720

A. POPE

Ton theon de eupoiia--to mae epi pleon me procophai en poiaetikn kai allois
epitaeoeimasi en ois isos a kateschethaen, ei aesthomaen emautan euodos
proionta.

M. AUREL ANTON _de Seipso,_ lib. i. Section 17.





END OF THE ILLIAD






FOOTNOTES


1 "What," says Archdeacon Wilberforce, "is the natural root of loyalty
as distinguished from such mere selfish desire of personal security
as is apt to take its place in civilized times, but that
consciousness of a natural bond among the families of men which
gives a fellow-feeling to whole clans and nations, and thus enlists
their affections in behalf of those time-honoured representatives of
their ancient blood, in whose success they feel a personal interest?
Hence the delight when we recognize an act of nobility or justice in
our hereditary princes

"'Tuque prior, tu parce genus qui ducis Olympo,
Projice tela manu _sanguis meus_'

"So strong is this feeling, that it regains an engrafted influence
even when history witnesses that vast convulsions have rent and
weakened it and the Celtic feeling towards the Stuarts has been
rekindled in our own days towards the grand daughter of George the
Third of Hanover.

"Somewhat similar may be seen in the disposition to idolize those
great lawgivers of man's race, who have given expression, in the
immortal language of song, to the deeper inspirations of our nature.
The thoughts of Homer or of Shakespere are the universal inheritance
of the human race. In this mutual ground every man meets his
brother, they have been bet forth by the providence of God to
vindicate for all of us what nature could effect, and that, in these
representatives of our race, we might recognize our common
benefactors. '--_Doctrine of the Incarnation,_ pp. 9, 10.

2 Eikos de min aen kai mnaemoruna panton grapherthai. Vit. Hom. in
Schweigh Herodot t. iv. p. 299, sq. Section 6. I may observe that
this Life has been paraphrased in English by my learned young friend
Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, and appended to my prose translation of the
Odyssey. The present abridgement however, will contain all that is
of use to the reader, for the biographical value of the treatise is
most insignificant.

3 --_I. e. _ both of composing and reciting verses for as Blair observes,
"The first poets sang their own verses. " Sextus Empir. adv. Mus. p.
360 ed. Fabric. Ou hamelei ge toi kai oi poiaetai melopoioi
legontai, kai ta Omaerou epae to palai pros lyran aedeto.

"The voice," observes Heeren, "was always accompanied by some
instrument. The bard was provided with a harp on which he played a
prelude, to elevate and inspire his mind, and with which he
accompanied the song when begun. His voice probably preserved a
medium between singing and recitation; the words, and not the melody
were regarded by the listeners, hence it was necessary for him to
remain intelligible to all. In countries where nothing similar is
found, it is difficult to represent such scenes to the mind; but
whoever has had an opportunity of listening to the improvisation of
Italy, can easily form an idea of Demodocus and Phemius. "--_Ancient
Greece,_ p. 94.

4 "Should it not be, since _my_ arrival? asks Mackenzie, observing
that "poplars can hardly live so long". But setting aside the fact
that we must not expect consistency in a mere romance, the ancients
had a superstitious belief in the great age of trees which grew near
places consecrated by the presence of gods and great men. See Cicero
de Legg II I, sub init. , where he speaks of the plane tree under
which Socrates used to walk and of the tree at Delos, where Latona
gave birth to Apollo. This passage is referred to by Stephanus of
Byzantium, _s. v. _ N. T. p. 490, ed. de Pinedo. I omit quoting any
of the dull epigrams ascribed to Homer for, as Mr. Justice Talfourd
rightly observes, "The authenticity of these fragments depends upon
that of the pseudo Herodotean Life of Homer, from which they are
taken. " Lit of Greece, pp. 38 in Encycl. Metrop. Cf. Coleridge,
Classic Poets, p. 317.

5 It is quoted as the work of Cleobulus, by Diogenes Laert. Vit.
Cleob. p. 62, ed. Casaub.

6 I trust I am justified in employing this as an equivalent for the
Greek leschai.

7 Os ei tous, Homerous doxei trephein autois, omilon pollon te kai
achreoin exousin. enteuthen de kai tounoma Homeros epekrataese to
Melaesigenei apo taes symphoraes oi gar Kumaioi tous tuphlous
Homerous legousin. Vit. Hom. _l. c. _ p. 311. The etymology has been
condemned by recent scholars. See Welcker, Epische Cyclus, p. 127,
and Mackenzie's note, p. xiv.

8 Thestorides, thnetoisin anoiston poleon per, ouden aphrastoteron
peletai noou anthropoisin. Ibid. p. 315. During his stay at Phocoea,
Homer is said to have composed the Little Iliad, and the Phocoeid.
See Muller's Hist. of Lit. , vi. Section 3. Welcker, _l. c. _ pp. 132,
272, 358, sqq. , and Mure, Gr. Lit. vol. ii. p. 284, sq.

9 This is so pretty a picture of early manners and hospitality, that
it is almost a pity to find that it is obviously a copy from the
Odyssey. See the fourteenth book. In fact, whoever was the author of
this fictitious biography, he showed some tact in identifying Homer
with certain events described in his poems, and in eliciting from
them the germs of something like a personal narrative.

10 Dia logon estionto. A common metaphor. So Plato calls the parties
conversing daitumones, or estiatores. Tim. i. p. 522 A. Cf. Themist.
Orat. vi. p. 168, and xvi. p. 374, ed. Petav So diaegaemasi sophois
omou kai terpnois aedio taen Thoinaen tois hestiomenois epoiei,
Choricius in Fabric. Bibl. Gr. T. viii. P. 851. logois gar estia,
Athenaeus vii p 275, A

11 It was at Bolissus, and in the house of this Chian citizen, that
Homer is said to have written the Batrachomyomachia, or Battle of
the Frogs and Mice, the Epicichlidia, and some other minor works.

12 Chandler, Travels, vol. i. p. 61, referred to in the Voyage
Pittoresque dans la Grece, vol. i. P.
92, where a view of the spot
is given of which the author candidly says,-- "Je ne puis repondre
d'une exactitude scrupuleuse dans la vue generale que j'en donne,
car etant alle seul pour l'examiner je perdis mon crayon, et je fus
oblige de m'en fier a ma memoire. Je ne crois cependant pas avoir
trop a me plaindre d'elle en cette occasion. "

13 A more probable reason for this companionship, and for the character
of Mentor itself, is given by the allegorists, viz. : the assumption
of Mentor's form by the guardian deity of the wise Ulysses, Minerva.
The classical reader may compare Plutarch, Opp. t. ii. p. 880;
_Xyland. _ Heraclid. Pont. Alleg. Hom. p. 531-5, of Gale's Opusc.
Mythol. Dionys. Halic. de Hom. Poes. c. 15; Apul. de Deo Socrat. s.
f.

14 Vit. Hom. Section 28.

15 The riddle is given in Section 35. Compare Mackenzie's note, p. xxx.

16 Heeren's Ancient Greece, p. 96.

17 Compare Sir E. L. Bulwer's Caxtons v. i. p. 4.

18 Pericles and Aspasia, Letter lxxxiv. , Works, vol ii. p. 387.

19 Quarterly Review, No. lxxxvii. , p. 147.

20 Viz. , the following beautiful passage, for the translation of which
I am indebted to Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. 286.

"Origias, farewell! and oh! remember me
Hereafter, when some stranger from the sea,
A hapless wanderer, may your isle explore,
And ask you, maid, of all the bards you boast,
Who sings the sweetest, and delights you most
Oh! answer all,--'A blind old man and poor
Sweetest he sings--and dwells on Chios' rocky shore. '"

_See_ Thucyd. iii, 104.

21 Longin. , de Sublim. , ix. Section 26. Othen en tae Odysseia
pareikasai tis an kataduomeno ton Omaeron haelio, oo dixa taes
sphodrotaetos paramenei to megethos

22 See Tatian, quoted in Fabric. Bibl. Gr. v. II t. 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.