No More Learning

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. 21,
or on Eur. "Alcest. " vol. i. p. 240.

106 --_Zeleia,_ another name for Lycia. The inhabitants were greatly
devoted to the worship of Apollo. See Muller, "Dorians," vol. i. p.
248.

107 --_Barbarous tongues. _ "Various as were the dialects of the
Greeks--and these differences existed not only between the several
tribes, but even between neighbouring cities--they yet acknowledged
in their language that they formed but one nation were but branches
of the same family. Homer has 'men of other tongues:' and yet Homer
had no general name for the Greek nation. "--Heeren, "Ancient Greece,"
Section vii. p. 107, sq.

_ 108 The cranes. _
"Marking the tracts of air, the clamorous cranes
Wheel their due flight in varied ranks descried:
And each with outstretch'd neck his rank maintains,
In marshall'd order through th' ethereal void. "

Lorenzo de Medici, in Roscoe's Life, Appendix.

See Cary's Dante: "Hell," canto v.

_ 109 Silent, breathing rage. _
"Thus they,
Breathing united force with fixed thought,
Moved on in silence. "

"Paradise Lost," book i. 559.

110 "As when some peasant in a bushy brake
Has with unwary footing press'd a snake;
He starts aside, astonish'd, when he spies
His rising crest, blue neck, and rolling eyes"

Dryden's Virgil, ii. 510.

111 Dysparis, i. e. unlucky, ill fated, Paris. This alludes to the evils
which resulted from his having been brought up, despite the omens
which attended his birth.

112 The following scene, in which Homer has contrived to introduce so
brilliant a sketch of the Grecian warriors, has been imitated by
Euripides, who in his "Phoenissae" represents Antigone surveying the
opposing champions from a high tower, while the paedagogus describes
their insignia and details their histories.

113 --_No wonder,_ &c. Zeuxis, the celebrated artist, is said to have
appended these lines to his picture of Helen, as a motto. Valer Max.
iii. 7.

114 The early epic was largely occupied with the exploits and sufferings
of women, or heroines, the wives and daughters of the Grecian
heroes. A nation of courageous, hardy, indefatigable women, dwelling
apart from men, permitting only a short temporary intercourse, for
the purpose of renovating their numbers, burning out their right
breast with a view of enabling themselves to draw the bow freely;
this was at once a general type, stimulating to the fancy of the
poet, and a theme eminently popular with his hearers. We find these
warlike females constantly reappearing in the ancient poems, and
universally accepted as past realities in the Iliad. When Priam
wishes to 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.

115 --_Antenor,_ like ? neas, had always been favourable to the
restoration of Helen. Liv 1. 2.

116 "His lab'ring heart with sudden rapture seized
He paus'd, and on the ground in silence gazed.
Unskill'd and uninspired he seems to stand,
Nor lifts the eye, nor graceful moves the hand:
Then, while the chiefs in still attention hung,
Pours the full tide of eloquence along;
While from his lips the melting torrent flows,
Soft as the fleeces of descending snows.
Now stronger notes engage the listening crowd,
Louder the accents rise, and yet more loud,
Like thunders rolling from a distant cloud. "

Merrick's "Tryphiodorus," 148, 99.

117 Duport, "Gnomol. Homer," p. 20, well observes that this comparison
may also be sarcastically applied to the _frigid_ style of oratory.
It, of course, here merely denotes the ready fluency of Ulysses.

118 --_Her brothers' doom. _ They perished in combat with Lynceus and
Idas, whilst besieging Sparta. See Hygin. Poet Astr. 32, 22. Virgil
and others, however, make them share immortality by turns.

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

120 --_Scaea's gates,_ rather _Scaean gates,_ _i. e. _ the left-hand gates.

121 This was customary in all sacrifices. Hence we find Iras descending
to cut off the hair of Dido, before which she could not expire.

122 --_Nor pierced. _

"This said, his feeble hand a jav'lin threw,
Which, flutt'ring, seemed to loiter as it flew,
Just, and but barely, to the mark it held,
And faintly tinkled on the brazen shield. "

Dryden's Virgil, ii. 742.

_ 123 Reveal'd the queen. _

"Thus having said, she turn'd and made appear
Her neck refulgent and dishevell'd hair,
Which, flowing from her shoulders, reach'd the ground,
And widely spread ambrosial scents around.
In length of train descends her sweeping gown;
And, by her graceful walk, the queen of love is known. "

Dryden's Virgil, i. 556.

124 --_Cranae's isle, i. e. _ Athens. See the "Schol. " and Alberti's
"Hesychius," vol. ii. p. 338. This name was derived from one of its
early kings, Cranaus.

125 --_The martial maid. _ In the original, "Minerva Alalcomeneis," _i. e.
the defender,_ so called from her temple at Alalcomene in Boeotia.

126 "Anything for a quiet life! "

127 --_Argos. _ The worship of Juno at Argos was very celebrated in
ancient times, and she was regarded as the patron deity of that
city. Apul. Met. , vi. p. 453; Servius on Virg. ? n. , i. 28.

128 --_A wife and sister. _

"But I, who walk in awful state above
The majesty of heav'n, the sister-wife of Jove. "

Dryden's "Virgil," i. 70.

So Apuleius, _l. c. _ speaks of her as "Jovis germana et conjux, and
so Horace, Od. iii. 3, 64, "conjuge me Jovis et sorore. "

129 "Thither came Uriel, gleaming through the even
On a sunbeam, swift as a shooting star
In autumn thwarts the night, when vapours fired
Impress the air, and shows the mariner
From what point of his compass to beware
Impetuous winds. "

--"Paradise Lost," iv. 555.

130 --_? sepus' flood. _ A river of Mysia, rising from Mount Cotyius, in
the southern part of the chain of Ida.

131 --_Zelia,_ a town of Troas, at the foot of Ida.

132 --_Podaleirius_ and _Machaon_ are the leeches of the Grecian army,
highly prized and consulted by all the wounded chiefs. Their medical
renown was further prolonged in the subsequent poem of Arktinus, the
Iliou Persis, wherein the one was represented as unrivalled in
surgical operations, the other as sagacious in detecting and
appreciating morbid symptoms. It was Podaleirius who first noticed
the glaring eyes and disturbed deportment which preceded the suicide
of Ajax.

"Galen appears uncertain whether Asklepius (as well as Dionysus) was
originally a 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.

133 "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.

134 --_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.

135 --_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.

136 --_Forwarn'd the horrors. _ The same portent has already been
mentioned. To this day, modern nations are not wholly free from this
superstition.

137 --_Sevenfold city,_ Boeotian Thebes, which had seven gates.

138 --_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.

139 "Stood
Like Teneriffe or Atlas unremoved;
His stature reach'd the sky. "

--"Paradise Lost," iv. 986.

140 The Abantes seem to have been of Thracian origin.

141 I may, once for all, remark that Homer is most anatomically correct
as to the parts of the body in which a wound would be immediately
mortal.

142 --_? nus,_ a fountain almost proverbial for its coldness.

143 Compare Tasso, Gier. Lib. , xx. 7:

"Nuovo favor del cielo in lui niluce
E 'l fa grande, et angusto oltre il costume.
Gl' empie d' honor la faccia, e vi riduce
Di giovinezza il bel purpureo lume. "

144 "Or deluges, descending on the plains,
Sweep o'er the yellow year, destroy the pains
Of lab'ring oxen, and the peasant's gains;
Uproot the forest oaks, and bear away
Flocks, folds, and trees, an undistinguish'd prey. "

Dryden's Virgil ii. 408.

145 --_From mortal mists. _

"But to nobler sights
Michael from Adam's eyes the film removed. "

"Paradise Lost," xi. 411.

146 --_The race of those. _

"A pair of coursers, born of heav'nly breed,
Who from their nostrils breathed ethereal fire;
Whom Circe stole from her celestial sire,
By substituting mares produced on earth,
Whose wombs conceived a more than mortal birth.

Dryden's Virgil, vii. 386, sqq.

147 The belief in the existence of men of larger stature in earlier
times, is by no means confined to Homer.

148 --_Such stream, i. e. _ the _ichor,_ or blood of the gods.

"A stream of nect'rous humour issuing flow'd,
Sanguine, such as celestial spirits may bleed. "

"Paradise Lost," vi. 339.

149 This was during the wars with the Titans.

150 --_Amphitryon's son,_ Hercules, born to Jove by Alcmena, the wife of
Amphitryon.

151 --_? giale_ daughter of Adrastus. The Cyclic poets (See Anthon's
Lempriere, _s. v. _) assert Venus incited her to infidelity, in
revenge for the wound she had received from her husband.

152 --_Pherae,_ a town of Pelasgiotis, in Thessaly.

153 --_Tlepolemus,_ son of Hercules and Astyochia. Having left his native
country, Argos, in consequence of the accidental murder of
Liscymnius, he was commanded by an oracle to retire to Rhodes. Here
he was chosen king, and accompanied the Trojan expedition. After his
death, certain games were instituted at Rhodes in his honour, the
victors being rewarded with crowns of poplar.

154 These heroes' names have since passed into a kind of proverb,
designating the _oi polloi_ or mob.

155 --_Spontaneous open. _

"Veil'd with his gorgeous wings, upspringing light
Flew through the midst of heaven; th' angelic quires,
On each hand parting, to his speed gave way
Through all th' empyreal road; till at the gate
Of heaven arrived, the gate self-open'd wide,
On golden hinges turning. "

--"Paradise Lost," v. 250.

156 "Till Morn,
Waked by the circling Hours, with rosy hand
Unbarr'd the gates of light. "

--"Paradise Lost," vi, 2.

157 --_Far as a shepherd. _ "With what majesty and pomp does Homer exalt
his deities! He here measures the leap of the horses by the extent
of the world. And who is there, that, considering the exceeding
greatness of the space would not with reason cry out that 'If the
steeds of the deity were to take a second leap, the world would want
room for it'? "--Longinus, Section 8.

158 "No trumpets, or any other instruments of sound, are used in the
Homeric action itself; but the trumpet was known, and is introduced
for the purpose of illustration as employed in war. Hence arose the
value of a loud voice in a commander; Stentor was an indispensable
officer. . . In the early Saracen campaigns frequent mention is made
of the service rendered by men of uncommonly strong voices; the
battle of Honain was restored by the shouts and menaces of Abbas,
the uncle of Mohammed," &c. --Coleridge, p. 213.

159 "Long had the wav'ring god the war delay'd,
While Greece and Troy alternate own'd his aid. "

Merrick's "Tryphiodorus," vi. 761, sq.

160 --_Paeon_ seems to have been to the gods, what Podaleirius and
Machaon were to the Grecian heroes.

161 --_Arisbe,_ a colony of the Mitylenaeans in Troas.

162 --_Pedasus,_ a town near Pylos.

163 --_Rich heaps of brass. _ "The halls of Alkinous and Menelaus glitter
with gold, copper, and electrum; while large stocks of yet
unemployed metal--gold, copper, and iron are stored up in the
treasure-chamber of Odysseus and other chiefs. Coined money is
unknown in the Homeric age--the trade carried on being one of barter.
In reference also to the metals, it deserves to be remarked, that
the Homeric descriptions universally suppose copper, and not iron,
to be employed for arms, both offensive and defensive. By what
process the copper was tempered and hardened, so as to serve the
purpose of the warrior, we do not know; but the use of iron for
these objects belongs to a later age. "--Grote, vol. ii. p. 142.

164 --_Oh impotent,_ &c. "In battle, quarter seems never to have been
given, except with a view to the ransom of the prisoner. Agamemnon
reproaches Menelaus with unmanly softness, when he is on the point
of sparing a fallen enemy, and himself puts the suppliant to the
sword. "--Thirlwall, vol. i. p. 181

165 "The ruthless steel, impatient of delay,
Forbade the sire to linger out the day.
It struck the bending father to the earth,
And cropt the wailing infant at the birth.
Can innocents the rage of parties know,
And they who ne'er offended find a foe? "

Rowe's Lucan, bk. ii.

166 "Meantime the Trojan dames, oppress'd with woe,
To Pallas' fane in long procession go,
In hopes to reconcile their heav'nly foe:
They weep; they beat their breasts; they rend their hair,
And rich embroider'd vests for presents bear. "

Dryden's Virgil, i. 670

167 The manner in which this episode is introduced, is well illustrated
by the following remarks of Mure, vol. i. p. 298: "The poet's method
of introducing his episode, also, illustrates in a curious manner
his tact in the dramatic department of his art. Where, for example,
one or more heroes are despatched on some commission, to be executed
at a certain distance of time or place, the fulfilment of this task
is not, as a general rule, immediately described. A certain interval
is allowed them for reaching the appointed scene of action, which
interval is dramatised, as it were, either by a temporary
continuation of the previous narrative, or by fixing attention for a
while on some new transaction, at the close of which the further
account of the mission is resumed. "

168 --_With tablets sealed. _ These probably were only devices of a
hieroglyphical character. Whether writing was known in the Homeric
times is utterly uncertain. See Grote, vol ii. p. 192, sqq.

169 --_Solymaean crew,_ a people of Lycia.

170 From this "melancholy madness" of Bellerophon, hypochondria received
the name of "Morbus Bellerophonteus. " See my notes in my prose
translation, p. 112. The "Aleian field," _i. e. _ "the plain of
wandering," was situated between the rivers Pyramus and Pinarus, in
Cilicia.

171 --_His own, of gold. _ This bad bargain has passed into a common
proverb. See Aulus Gellius, ii, 23.

172 --_Scaean, i e. _ left hand.

173 --_In fifty chambers. _

"The fifty nuptial beds, (such hopes had he,
So large a promise of a progeny,)
The ports of plated gold, and hung with spoils. "

Dryden's Virgil, ii. 658

174 --_O would kind earth,_ &c. "It is apparently a sudden, irregular
burst of popular indignation to which Hector alludes, when he
regrets that the Trojans had not spirit enough to cover Paris with a
mantle of stones. This, however, was also one of the ordinary formal
modes of punishment for great public offences. It may have been
originally connected with the same feeling--the desire of avoiding
the pollution of bloodshed--which seems to have suggested the
practice of burying prisoners alive, with a scantling of food by
their side. Though Homer makes no mention of this horrible usage,
the example of the Roman Vestals affords reasons for believing that,
in ascribing it to the heroic ages, Sophocles followed an authentic
tradition. "--Thirlwall's Greece, vol. i. p. 171, sq.

175 --_Paris' lofty dome. _ "With respect to the private dwellings, which
are oftenest described, the poet's language barely enables us to
form a general notion of their ordinary plan, and affords no
conception of the style which prevailed in them or of their effect
on the eye. It seems indeed probable, from the manner in which he
dwells on their metallic ornaments that the higher beauty of
proportion was but little required or understood, and it is,
perhaps, strength and convenience, rather than elegance, that he
means to commend, in speaking of the fair house which Paris had
built for himself with the aid of the most skilful masons of
Troy. "--Thirlwall's Greece, vol. i. p. 231.

176 --_The wanton courser. _

"Come destrier, che da le regie stalle
Ove a l'usa de l'arme si riserba,
Fugge, e libero al fiu per largo calle
Va tragl' armenti, o al fiume usato, o a l'herba. "

Gier, Lib. ix. 75.

177 --_Casque. _ The original word is stephanae, about the meaning of
which there is some little doubt. Some take it for a different kind
of cap or helmet, others for the rim, others for the cone, of the
helmet.

178 --_Athenian maid:_ Minerva.

179 --_Celadon,_ a river of Elis.

180 --_Oileus, i. e. _ Ajax, the son of Oileus, in contradistinction to
Ajax, son of Telamon.

181 --_In the general's helm. _ It was customary to put the lots into a
helmet, in which they were well shaken up; each man then took his
choice.

182 --_God of Thrace. _ Mars, or Mavors, according to his Thracian
epithet. Hence "Mavortia Moenia. "

183 --_Grimly he smiled. _

"And death
Grinn'd horribly a ghastly smile. "

--"Paradise Lost," ii. 845.

"There Mavors stands
Grinning with ghastly feature. "

--Carey's Dante: Hell, v.

184 "Sete o guerrieri, incomincio Pindoro,
Con pari honor di pari ambo possenti,
Dunque cessi la pugna, e non sian rotte
Le ragioni, e 'l riposo, e de la notte. "

--Gier. Lib. vi. 51.

185 It was an ancient style of compliment to give a larger portion of
food to the conqueror, or person to whom respect was to be shown.
See Virg. ? n. viii. 181. Thus Benjamin was honoured with a "double
portion. " Gen. xliii. 34.

186 --_Embattled walls. _ "Another essential basis of mechanical unity in
the poem is the construction of the rampart. This takes place in the
seventh book. The reason ascribed for the glaring improbability that
the Greeks should have left their camp and fleet unfortified during
nine years, in the midst of a hostile country, is a purely poetical
one: 'So long as Achilles fought, the terror of his name sufficed to
keep every foe at a distance. ' The disasters consequent on his
secession first led to the necessity of other means of protection.
Accordingly, in the battles previous to the eighth book, no allusion
occurs to a rampart; in all those which follow it forms a prominent
feature. Here, then, in the anomaly as in the propriety of the
Iliad, the destiny of Achilles, or rather this peculiar crisis of
it, forms the pervading bond of connexion to the whole poem. "--Mure,
vol. i.