FOOTNOTES 4 страница

1. [λασιν κηρ.]
2. The clouds of thick dust that rise from beneath the feet of the combatants, which hinder them from knowing one another.
3. [Υπασπιδια προβιβωντος. A similar expression occurs in Book xiii., 158. There we read υπασπιδια προποδιζων. Which is explained by the Scholiast in Villoisson to signify—advancing with quick, short steps, and at the same time covering the feet with a shield. A practice which, unless they bore the αμφιβροτην ασπιδα, must necessarily leave the upper parts exposed.

It is not improbable, though the translation is not accommodated to that conjecture, that Æneas, in his following speech to Meriones, calls him, ορχηστην, with a view to the agility with which he performed this particular step in battle.]—Tr.

1. [Two lines occurring here in the original which contain only the same matter as the two preceding, and which are found neither in the MSS. use by Barnes nor in the Harleian, the translator has omitted them in his version as interpolated and superfluous.]—Tr.
2. [Ιρα ταλαντα— Voluntatem Jovis cui cedendum —So it is interpreted is the Scholium MSS. Lipsiensis.—Vide Schaufelbergerus.]—Tr.
3. It is an opinion of great antiquity, that when the soul is on the point of leaving the body, its views become stronger and clearer, and the mind is endowed with a spirit of true prediction.

Footnotes for Book XVII:

1. In the chase, the spoils of the prey, the hide and head of the animal, belonged to the one who gave the first wound. So in war—the one who first pierced an enemy slain in battle, was entitled to his armor.
2. [The expediency and utility of prayer, Homer misses no opportunity of enforcing. Cold and comfortless as the religious creed of the heathens was, they were piously attentive to its dictates, and to a degree that may serve as a reproof to many professed believers of revelation. The allegorical history of prayer, given us in the 9th Book of the Iliad from the lips of Phœnix, the speech of Antilochus in the 23d, in which he ascribes the ill success of Eumelus in the chariot race to his neglect of prayer, and that of Pisistratus in the 3d book of the Odyssey, where speaking of the newly-arrived Telemachus, he says;

For I deem
Him wont to pray; since all of every land
Need succor from the Gods;

are so many proofs of the truth of this remark; to which a curious reader might easily add a multitude.]—Tr.

1. [There is no word in our language expressive of loud sound at all comparable in effect to the Greek Bo-o-osin. I have therefore endeavored by the juxta-position of two words similar in sound, to palliate in some degree defect which it was not in my power to cure.]—Tr.
2. [Or collar-bone.]
3. [The proper meaning of επιοσαομενω—is not simply looking on, but providing against. And thus their ignorance of the death of Patroclus is accounted for. They were ordered by Nestor to a post in which they should have little to do themselves, except to superintend others, and were consequently too remote from Patroclus to see him fall, or even to hear that he had fallen.—See Villoisson.]—Tr.
4. This is one of the similes of Homer which illustrates the manners and customs of his age. The mode of preparing hides for use is particularly described. They were first softened with oil, and then were stretched every direction by the hands of men, so that the moisture might be removed and the oil might penetrate them. Considered in the single point of comparison intended, it gives a lively picture of the struggle on all sides to get possession of the body.—Felton.
5. This is the proper imperfect of the verb chide, though modern usage has substituted chid, a word of mean and awkward sound, in the place of it.
6. This alludes to the custom of placing columns upon tombs, on which were frequently represented chariots with two or four horses. The horses standing still to mourn for their master, could not be more finely represented than by the dumb sorrow of images standing over a tomb. Perhaps the very posture in which these horses are described, their heads bowed down, and their manes falling in the dust, has an allusion to the attitude in which those statues on monuments were usually represented; there are bas-reliefs that favor this conjecture.
7. [The Latin plural of Ajax is sometimes necessary, because the English plural—Ajaxes—would be insupportable.]—Tr.
8. [Leïtus was another chief of the Bœotians.]—Tr.
9. [Διφρω εφεσταοτος—Yet we learn soon after that he fought on foot. But the Scholiast explains the expression thus—νεωστι τω διφωω επιβαντος. The fact was that Idomeneus had left the camp on foot, and was on foot when Hector prepared to throw at him. But Cœranus, charioteer of Meriones, observing his danger, drove instantly to his aid. Idomeneus had just time to mount, and the spear designed for him, struck Cœranus.—For a right understanding of this very intricate and difficult passage, I am altogether indebted to the Scholiast as quoted by Villoisson.]—Tr.
10. [The translator here follows the interpretation preferred by the Scholiast. The original expression is ambiguous, and may signify, either, that we shall perish in the fleet ourselves, or that Hector will soon be in the midst of it. Vide Villoisson in loco. ]—Tr.
11. [A noble instance of the heroism of Ajax, who asks not deliverance from the Trojans, or that he may escape alive, but light only, without which be could not possibly distinguish himself. The tears of such a warrior, and shed for such a reason, are singularly affecting.]—Tr.

Footnotes for Book XVIII:

1. This speech of Antilochus may serve as a model for its brevity.
2. This form of manifesting grief is frequently alluded to in the classical writers, and sometimes in the Bible. The lamentation of Achilles is in the spirit of the heroic times, and the poet describes it with much simplicity. The captives join in the lamentation, perhaps in the recollection of his gentleness, which has before been alluded to.—Felton.
3. [Here it is that the drift of the whole poem is fulfilled. The evils consequent on the quarrel between him and Agamemnon, at last teach Achilles himself this wisdom—that wrath and strife are criminal and pernicious; and the confession is extorted from his own lips, that the lesson may be the more powerfully inculcated. To point the instruction to leaders of armies only, is to narrow its operation unnecessarily. The moral is of universal application, and the poet's beneficent intentions are wronged by one so partial.]—Tr.
4. The promise of Thetis to present her son with a suit of armor, was the most artful method of hindering him from putting immediately in practice his resolution of fighting, which, with his characteristic violence, he would otherwise have done.
5. [The sun is said to set with reluctance, because his setting-time was not yet come. Jupiter had promised Hector that he should prevail till the sun should go down, and sacred darkness cover all. Juno therefore, impatient to arrest the victor's progress, and having no other means of doing it, shortens the time allotted him.]—Tr.
6. [καταδημοβορησαι.]
7. This custom of washing the dead is continued among the Greeks to this day, and is performed by the dearest friend or relative. The body is then anointed with a perfume, and covered with linen, exactly in the manner here related.
8. Among the Greeks, visitors of rank are still honored in the same manner, by being set apart from the rest of the company, on a high seat, with a footstool.
9. ['Ανεδραμε.]
10. The description of the shield of Achilles is one of the noblest passages in the Iliad. It is elaborated to the highest finish of poetry. The verse is beautifully harmonious, and the language as nicely chosen and as descriptive as can be conceived. But a still stronger interest belongs to this episode when considered as an exact representation of life at a very early period of the world, as it undoubtedly was designed by the poet.

It is certainly a most remarkable passage for the amount of information it conveys relative to the state of arts, and the general condition of life at that period. From many intimations in the ancient authors, it may be gathered, that shields were often adorned by deities of figures in bas-relief, similar to those here described. In particular, see Æschylus in the Seven against Thebes. A close examination of the whole passage will lead to many curious inductions and inferences relative to the ancient world, and throw much light upon points which are elsewhere left in great obscurity.—Felton.

1. Murder was not always punished with death or even banishment. But on the payment of a fine, the criminal was allowed to remain in the city.
2. Linus was the most ancient name in poetry, the first upon record as inventor of verse and measure among the Grecians. There was a solemn custom among the Greeks, of bewailing annually their first poet. Pausanias informs us, that before the yearly sacrifice to the Muses on Mount Helicon, the obsequies of Linus were performed, who had a statue and altar erected to him in that place. In this passage Homer is supposed to allude to that custom.
3. See article Theseus, Gr. and Rom. Mythology.
4. There were two kinds of dance—the Pyrrhic, and the common dance; both are here introduced. The Pyrrhic, or military, is performed by Youths wearing swords, the other by the virgins crowned with garlands. The Grecian dance is still performed in this manner in the oriental nations. The youths and maidens dance in a ring, beginning slowly; by degrees the music plays in quicker time, till at last they dance with the utmost swiftness; and towards the conclusion, they sing in a general chorus.
5. The point of comparison is this. When the potter first tries the wheel to see "if it will run," he moves it much faster than when at work. Thus it illustrates the rapidity of the dance.—Felton.

Footnotes for Book XIX:

1. [Brave men are great weepers—was a proverbial saying in Greece. Accordingly there are few of Homer's heroes who do not weep plenteously on occasion. True courage is doubtless compatible with the utmost sensibility. See Villoisson.]—Tr.
2. The fear with which the divine armor filled the Myrmidons, and the exaltation of Achilles, the terrible gleam of his eye, and his increased desire for revenge, are highly poetical.—Felton.
3. The ancients had a great horror of putrefaction previous to interment.
4. [Achilles in the first book also summons a council himself, and not as was customary, by a herald. It seems a stroke of character, and intended by the poet to express the impetuosity of his spirit, too ardent for the observance of common forms, and that could trust no one for the dispatch he wanted.]—Tr.
5. ['Ασπασιως γονυ καμψειν.—Shall be glad to bend their knee, i.e. to sit and repose themselves.]—Tr.
6. [Τουτον μυθον.—He seems to intend the reproaches sounded in his ear from all quarters, and which he had repeatedly heard before.]—Tr.
7. [By some call'd Antibia, by others, Nicippe.]—Tr.
8. It was unlawful to eat the flesh of victims that were sacrificed in confirmation of oaths. Such were victims of malediction.
9. Nothing can be more natural than the representation of these unhappy young women; who, weary of captivity, take occasion from every mournful occurrence to weep afresh, though in reality little interested in the objects that call forth these expressions of sorrow.—Dacier.
10. Son of Deidameia, daughter of Lycomedes, in whose house Achilles was concealed at the time when he was led forth to the war.
11. [We are not warranted in accounting any practice unnatural or absurd, merely because it does not obtain among ourselves. I know not that any historian has recorded this custom of the Grecians, but that it was a custom among them occasionally to harangue their horses, we may assure ourselves on the authority of Homer, who would not have introduced such speeches, if they could have appeared as strange to his countrymen as they do to us.]—Tr.
12. Hence it seems, that too great an insight into futurity, or the revelation of more than was expedient, was prevented by the Furies.—Trollope.

Footnotes for Book XX:

1. [This rising ground was five stadia in circumference, and was between the river Simois and a village named Ilicon, in which Paris is said to have decided between the goddesses. It was called Callicolone, being the most conspicuous ground in the neighborhood of the city.—Villoisson.]—Tr.
2. [Iris is the messenger of the gods on ordinary occasions, Mercury on those of importance. But Themis is now employed, because the affair in question is a council, and to assemble and dissolve councils is her peculiar Province. The return of Achilles is made as magnificent as possible. A council in heaven precedes it, and a battle of the gods is the consequence.—Villoisson.]—Tr.
3. [The readiness of Neptune to obey the summons is particularly noticed, on account of the resentment he so lately expressed, when commanded by Jupiter to quit the battle.—Villoisson.]—Tr.
4. The description of the battle of the gods is strikingly grand. Jupiter thunders in the heavens, Neptune shakes the boundless earth and the high mountain-tops; Ida rocks on its base, and the city of the Trojans and the ships of the Greeks tremble; and Pluto leaps from his throne in terror, lest his loathsome dominions should be laid open to mortals and immortals.—Felton.
5. [The Leleges were a colony of Thessalians, and the first inhabitants of the shores of the Hellespont.]—Tr.
6. Hector was the son of Priam, who descended from Ilus, and Æneas the son of Anchises, whose descent was from Assaracus, the brother of Ilus.
7. This dialogue between Achilles and Æneas, when on the point of battle, as well as several others of a similar description, have been censured as improbable and impossible. The true explanation is to be found in the peculiar character of war in the heroic age. A similar passage has been the subject of remark.—Felton.
8. [Some commentators, supposing the golden plate the outermost as the most ornamental, have perplexed themselves much with this passage, for how, say they, could two folds be pierced and the spear be stopped by the gold, if the gold lay on the surface? But to avoid the difficulty, we need only suppose that the gold was inserted between the two plates of brass and the two of tin; Vulcan, in this particular, having attended less to ornament than to security.

See the Scholiast in Villoisson, who argues at large in favor of this opinion.]—Tr.

1. Tmolus was a mountain of Lydia, and Hyda a city of the same country. The Gygæan lake was also in Lydia.
2. [Neptune. So called, either because he was worshiped on Helicon, a mountain of Bœotia, or from Helice, an island of Achaia, where he had a temple.]—Tr. If the bull bellowed as he was led to the altar, it was considered a favorable omen. Hence the simile.—Felton.
3. [It is an amiable trait in the character of Hector, that his pity in this instance supercedes his caution, and that at the sight of his brother in circumstances so affecting, he becomes at once inattentive to himself and the command of Apollo.]—Tr.

Footnotes for Book XXI:

1. The scene is now entirely changed, and the battle diversified with a vast variety of imagery and description. It is worthy of notice, that though the whole war of the Iliad was upon the banks of these rivers, yet Homer has reserved the machinery of the river-gods to aggrandize his hero in this battle. There is no book in the poem which exhibits greater force of imagination, none in which the inexhaustible invention of the poet is more powerfully exerted.
2. The swarms of locusts that sometimes invade whole countries in the East, have often been described. It seems that the ancient mode of exterminating them was, to kindle a fire, and thus drive them into a lake or river. The simile illustrates in the most striking manner the panic caused by Achilles.—Felton.
3. According to the Scholiast, Arisba was a city of Thrace, and near to the Hellespont; but according to Eustathius, a city of Troas, inhabited by a colony from Mitylene.
4. It was an ancient custom to cast living horses into rivers, to honor, as it were, the rapidity of their streams.
5. This gives us an idea of the superior strength of Achilles. His spear pierced so deep in the ground, that another hero of great strength could not disengage it, but immediately after, Achilles draws it with the utmost ease.
6. ['Ακροκελαινιοων.—The beauty and force of this word are wonderful; I have in vain endeavored to do it justice.]—Tr.
7. [The reason given in the Scholium is, that the surface being hardened by the wind, the moisture remains unexhaled from beneath, and has time to saturate the roots.—See Villoisson.]—Tr.
8. [Αμβολαδην.]
9. Homer represents Aphrodite as the protector of Æneas, and in the battle of the Trojans, Ares appears in a disadvantageous light; the weakness of the goddess, and the brutal confidence of the god are described with evident irony. In like manner Diana and the river-god Scamander sometimes play a very undignified part. Apollo alone uniformly maintains his dignity.—Muller.
10. This is a very beautiful soliloquy of Agenor, such as would naturally arise in the soul of a brave man going upon a desperate enterprise. From the conclusion it is evident, that the story of Achilles being invulnerable except in the heel, is an invention of a later age.

Footnotes for Book XXII:

1. This simile is very striking. It not only describes the appearance of Achilles, but is peculiarly appropriate because the star was supposed to be of evil omen, and to bring with it disease and destruction. So Priam beholds Achilles, splendid with the divine armor, and the destined slayer of his son.—Felton.
2. The usual cruelties practised in the sacking of towns. Isaiah foretells to Babylon, that her children shall be dashed in pieces by the Medes. David says to the same city, "Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."—Ps. c22vii. 9.
3. It was supposed that venomous serpents were accustomed to eat poisonous roots and plants before attacking their victims.—Felton.
4. This speech of Hector shows the fluctuation of his mind, with much discernment on the part of the poet. He breaks out, after having apparently meditated a return to the city. But the imagined reproaches of Polydamas, and the anticipated scorn of the Trojans forbid it. He soliloquizes upon the possibility of coming to terms with Achilles, and offering him large concessions; but the character of Achilles precludes all hope of reconciliation. It is a fearful crisis with him, and his mind wavers, as if presentient of his approaching doom.—Felton.
5. [The repetition follows the original, and the Scholiast is of opinion that Homer uses it here that he may express more emphatically the length to which such conferences are apt to proceed.—Δια την πολυλογιαν τη αναληψε εχρησατο.]—Tr.
6. [It grew near to the tomb of Ilus.]
7. The Scamander ran down the eastern side of Ida, and at the distance of three stadia from Troy, making a subterraneous dip, it passed under the walls and rose again in the form of the two fountains here described—from which fountains these rivulets are said to have proceeded.
8. It was the custom of that age to have cisterns by the side of rivers and fountains, to which the women, including the wives and daughters of kings and princes, resorted to wash their garments.
9. Sacrifices were offered to the gods upon the hills and mountains, or, in the language of scripture, upon the high places, for the people believed that the gods inhabited such eminences.
10. [The numbers in the original are so constructed as to express the painful struggle that characterizes such a dream.]—Tr.
11. [προπροκυλινδομενος.]
12. The whole circumference of ancient Troy is said to have measured sixty stadia. A stadium measured one hundred and twenty-five paces.
13. [The knees of the conqueror were a kind of sanctuary to which the vanquished fled for refuge.]—Tr.
14. [The lines of which these three are a translation, are supposed by some to have been designed for the Επινικιον, or song of victory sung by the whole army.]—Tr.
15. [It was a custom in Thessaly to drag the slayer around the tomb of the slain; which custom was first begun by Simon, whose brother being killed by Eurydamas, he thus treated the body of the murderer. Achilles therefore, being a Thessalian, when he thus dishonors Hector, does it merely in compliance with the common practice of his country.]—Tr.
16. [It is an observation of the Scholiast, that two more affecting spectacles cannot be imagined, than Priam struggling to escape into the field, and Andromache to cast herself from the wall; for so he understands ατυζομενην απολεσθαι.]—Tr.
17. A figurative expression. In the style of the orientals, marrow and fatness are taken for whatever is best, most tender, and most delicious.
18. Homer is in nothing more excellent than in the distinction of characters, which he maintains throughout the poem. What Andromache here says, cannot be said with propriety by any one but Andromache.

Footnotes for Book XXIII:

1. According to the oriental custom. David mourns in the same manner, refusing to wash or take any repast, and lies upon the earth.
2. [Bacchus having hospitably entertained Vulcan in the island of Naxos, one of the Cyclades, received from him a cup as a present; but being driven afterward by Lycurgus into the sea, and kindly protected by Thetis, he presented her with this work of Vulcan, which she gave to Achilles for a receptacle of his bones after death.]—Tr.
3. [The funeral pile was a square of a hundred feet on each side.]—Tr.
4. The ceremony of cutting off the hair in honor of the dead, was practised not only among the Greeks, but among other nations. Ezekiel describing a great lamentation, says, "They shall make themselves utterly bald for thee." ch. xxvii. 31. If it was the general custom of any country to wear long hair, then the cutting it off was a token of sorrow; but if the custom was to wear it short, then letting it grow, in neglect, was a sign of mourning.
5. It was the custom of the ancients not only to offer their own hair to the river-gods of their country, but also the hair of their children. In Egypt hair was consecrated to the Nile.
6. [Westering wheel.—Milton.]
7. [Himself and the Myrmidons.]
8. [That the body might be the more speedily consumed. The same end was promoted by the flagons of oil and honey.]—Tr.
9. Homer here introduces the gods of the winds in person, and as Iris, or the rainbow, is a sign of winds, they are made to come at her bidding.
10. [Such it appears to have been in the sequel.]—Tr.
11. [Φιαλη—a vessel, as Athenæus describes it, made for the purpose of warming water. It was formed of brass, and expanded somewhat in the shape of a broad leaf.]—Tr.
12. The poet omits no opportunity of paying honor to Nestor. His age has disabled him from taking an active part in the games, yet, Antilochus wins, not by the speed of his horses, but by the wisdom of Nestor.
13. [This could not happen unless the felly of the wheel were nearly horizontal to the eye of the spectator, in which case the chariot must be infallibly overturned.—There is an obscurity in the passage which none of the commentators explain. The Scholiast, as quoted by Clarke, attempts an explanation, but, I think, not successfully.]—Tr.
14. [Eumelus.]
15. [Resentful of the attack made on him by Diomede in the fifth Book.]
16. [The twin monster or double man called the Molions. They were sons of Actor and Molione, and are said to have had two heads with four hands and four feet, and being so formed were invincible both in battle and in athletic exercises. Even Hercules could only slay them by stratagem, which he did when he desolated Elis. See Villoisson.]—Tr.
17. [The repetition follows the original.]—Tr.
18. [παρακαββαλε.]
19. [With which they bound on the cestus.]—Tr.
20. [τετριγει—It is a circumstance on which the Scholiast observes that it denotes in a wrestler the greatest possible bodily strength and firmness of position.—See Villoisson.]—Tr.
21. [I have given what seems to me the most probable interpretation, and such a one as to any person who has ever witnessed a wrestling-match, will, I presume, appear intelligible.]—Tr.
22. [The Sidonians were celebrated not only as the most ingenious artists but as great adepts in science, especially in astronomy and arithmetical calculation.]—Tr.
23. [King of Lemnos.]
24. [That is to say, Ulysses; who, from the first intending it, had run close behind him.]—Tr.
25. The prodigious weight and size of the quoit is described with the simplicity of the orientals, and in the manner of the heroic ages. The poet does not specify the quantity of this enormous piece of iron, but the use it will be to the winner. We see from hence that the ancients in the prizes they proposed, had in view not only the honorable but the useful; a captive for work, a bull for tillage, a quoit for the provision of iron, which in those days was scarce.
26. [The use of this staff was to separate the cattle. It had a string attached to the lower part of it, which the herdsman wound about his hand, and by the help of it whirled the staff to a prodigious distance.—Villoisson.]—Tr.
27. [The transition from narrative to dramatic follows the original.]—Tr.
28. [Apollo; frequently by Homer called the King without any addition.]—Tr.
29. Teucer is eminent for his archery, yet he is excelled by Meriones, who had not neglected to invoke Apollo the god of archery.

Footnotes for Book XXIV:

1. This is the first allusion in the Iliad to the Judgment of Paris, which gave mortal offence to Minerva and Juno. On this account it has been supposed by some that these lines are spurious, on the ground that Homer could not have known the fable, or he would have mentioned it earlier in the poem.—Felton.
2. [His blessing, if he is properly influenced by it; his curse in its consequences if he is deaf to its dictates.]—Tr.
3. [This is the sense preferred by the Scholiast, for it is not true that Thetis was always present with Achilles, as is proved by the passage immediately ensuing.]—Tr.
4. [The angler's custom was, in those days, to guard his line above the hook from the fishes' bite, by passing it through a pipe of horn.]—Tr.
5. [Jupiter justifies him against Apollo's charge, affirming him to be free from those mental defects which chiefly betray men into sin, folly, improvidence, and perverseness.]—Tr.
6. [But, at first, he did fly. It is therefore spoken, as the Scholiast observes, φιλοστοργως, and must be understood as the language of strong maternal affection.]—Tr.
7. [κοροιτυπιησιν αριστοι.]
8. [Through which the reins were passed.]—Tr.
9. [The yoke being flat at the bottom, and the pole round, there would of course be a small aperture between the band and the pole on both sides, through which, according to the Scholium in Villoisson, they thrust the ends of the tackle lest they should dangle.]—Tr.
10. [The text here is extremely intricate; as it stands now, the sons are, first, said to yoke the horses, then Priam and Idæus are said to do it, and in the palace too. I have therefore adopted an alteration suggested by Clarke, who with very little violence to the copy, proposes instead of ζευγνυσθην to read—ζωννυσθην.]—Tr.
11. [The words both signify—sable.]—Tr.
12. Priam begins not with a display of the treasures he has brought for the redemption of Hector's body, but with a pathetic address to the feelings of Achilles. Homer well knew that neither gold nor silver would influence the heart of a young and generous warrior, but that persuasion would. The old king therefore, with a judicious abruptness, avails himself of his most powerful plea at once, and seizes the sympathy of the hero, before he has time to recollect who it is that addresses him.
13. [Mortified to see his generosity, after so much kindness shown to Priam, still distrusted, and that the impatience of the old king threatened to deprive him of all opportunity to do gracefully what he could not be expected to do willingly.]—Tr.
14. [To control anger argues a great mind—and to avoid occasions that may betray one into it, argues a still greater. An observation that should suggest itself to us with no little force, when Achilles, not remarkable either for patience or meekness, exhorts Priam to beware of provoking him; and when having cleansed the body of Hector and covered it, he places it himself in the litter, lest his father, seeing how indecently he had treated it, should be exasperated at the sight, and by some passionate reproach exasperate himself also. For that a person so singularly irascible and of a temper harsh as his, should not only be aware of his infirmity, but even guard against it with so much precaution, evidences a prudence truly wonderful.—Plutarch.]—Tr.
15. ['Επικερτομεων. Clarke renders the word in this place, falso metû, ludens, and Eustathius says that Achilles suggested such cause of fear to Priam, to excuse his lodging him in an exterior part of the tent. The general import of the Greek word is sarcastic, but here it signifies rather—to intimidate. See also Dacier.]—Tr.
16. The poet here shows the importance of Achilles in the army. Agamemnon is the general, yet all the chief commanders appeal to him for advice, and on his own authority he promises Priam a cessation of arms. Giving his hand to confirm the promise, agrees with the custom of the present day.
17. This lament of Andromache may be compared to her pathetic address to Hector in the scene at the Scæan gate. It forms indeed, a most beautiful and eloquent pendant to that.—Felton.
18. [This, according to the Scholiast, is a probable sense of προσφατος.—He derives it απο των νεωστι πεφασμενων εκ γης φυτων.—See Villoisson.]—Tr.
19. Helen is throughout the Iliad a genuine lady, graceful in motion and speech, noble in her associations, full of remorse for a fault for which higher powers seem responsible, yet grateful and affectionate towards those with whom that fault had connected her. I have always thought the following speech in which Helen laments Hector and hints at her own invidious and unprotected situation in Troy, as almost the sweetest passage in the poem.—H.N. Coleridge.
20. [Ως οι γ'αμφιεπον ταφον Εκτορος ιπποδαμοιο.]