The Iliad

[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. Æn, vi. 487.

[120] Scæa’s gates, rather Scæan 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 Bœotia.

[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. Æn., 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.