FOOTNOTES
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Homer, Southey, Robert, and Cowper, William
Night was venerated, both for her antiquity and power.
[One of the heads of Ida.]
A bird about the size of a hawk, and entirely black.
By Juno is understood the air, and it is allegorically said that she was nourished by the vapors that rise from the ocean and the earth. Tethys being the same as Rhea.
[Europa.]
An evident allusion to the ether and the atmosphere.—E.P.P.
Footnotes for Book XV:
[The translator seizes the opportunity afforded to him by this remarkable passage, to assure his readers who are not readers of the original, that the discipline which Juno is here said to have suffered from the hands of Jove, is not his own invention. He found it in the original, and considering fidelity as his indispensable duty, has not attempted to soften or to refine away the matter. He begs that this observation may be adverted to as often as any passage shall occur in which ancient practices or customs, not consonant to our own, either in point of delicacy or humanity, may be either expressed or alluded to.
He makes this request the rather, because on these occasions Mr. Pope has observed a different conduct, suppressing all such images as he had reason to suppose might be offensive.]—Tr.
The earliest form of an oath seems to have been by the elements of nature, or rather the deities who preside over them.—Trollope.
In the following speech, Jupiter discloses the future events of the war.
The illustration in the following lines is one of the most beautiful in Homer. The rapid passage of Juno is compared to the speed of thought, by which a traveller revisits in imagination the scenes over which he has passed. No simile could more exalt the power of the Goddess.—Felton.
The picture is strikingly true to nature. The smile upon the lip, and frown upon the brow, express admirably the state of mind in which the Goddess must be supposed to have been at this moment.—Felton.
[To tempest—κυδοιμησων—Milton uses tempest as a verb. Speaking of the fishes, he says
... part, huge of bulk Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait, Tempest the ocean.
]—Tr.
The Furies are said to wait upon men in a double sense; either for evil; as upon Orestes after he had killed his mother, or else for their good, as upon elders when they are injured, to protect them and avenge their wrongs. The ancients considered birth-right as a right divine.
[Τρωες δε προυτυψαν αολλεες. The translation is literal, and affords one of many instances in which the Greek and English idiom correspond exactly.]—Tr.
[Arcesilaüs.]
[This abruptness of transition from the third person to the first, follows the original.]
[The translator hopes that his learned readers will pardon him, if sometimes, to avoid an irksome cacophony, he turns brass into steel. In fact, arrow had not a point of steel, but a brazen one.]—Tr.
This sentiment is noble and patriotic. It is in strict keeping with the character of Hector, who always appears as his country’s champion, and ready to die in her defence. Our sympathies go with him; we involuntarily wish him success, and deplore his misfortune, though we admire the invincible courage of his more fortunate antagonist. His actions and sentiments, springing from the simplest feelings of our nature, will always command applause, and, under all circumstances, and every form of political existence, will be imitated by the defenders of their country.
The speech of Ajax is animating and powerful. It is conceived in the true spirit of a warrior rousing his followers to make a last effort to repel the enemy.—Felton.
[Meges.]
Hector is here represented as an instrument in the hand of Jupiter, to bring about the design the God had long ago projected. As his fatal hour now approaches, Jove is willing to recompense his early death with this short-lived glory.
It may be asked what Pallas has to do with the Fates, or what power has she over them? Homer speaks thus, because Minerva has already resolved to deceive Hector and exalt Achilles. Pallas, as the wisdom and knowledge of Jove, may be considered as drawing all things to the termination decreed by his councils.
[This termination of the period, so little consonant to the beginning of it, follows the original, where it is esteemed by commentators a great beauty.]—Tr.
Footnotes for Book XVI:
[This translation of δνοφερον is warranted by the Scholiast, who paraphrases it thus:
μετα δονησεως φερομενον.
Iliad per Vill.]
The friendship of Achilles and Patroclus was celebrated by all antiquity. It is said in the life of Alexander the Great, that when that prince visited the monuments of the heroes of Troy, and placed a crown upon the tomb of Achilles, his friend Hephæstion placed another on that of Patroclus; an intimation of his being to Alexander, what Patroclus was to Achilles. It is also said, that Alexander remarked, “Achilles was happy indeed, in having had such a friend to love him when living, and such a poet to celebrate him when dead.”
[περιαγνυται. A word of incomparable force, and that defies translation.]
This charge is in keeping with the ambitious character of Achilles. He is unwilling that even his dearest friend should have the honor of conquering Hector.
The picture of the situation of Ajax, exhausted by his efforts, pressed by the arms of his assailants and the will of Jupiter, is drawn with much graphic power.—Felton.
Argus-slayer.
The mythi which we find in the Iliad respecting Mercury, represent him as the god who blessed the land with fertility, which was his attribute in the original worship. He is represented as loving the daughter of Phthiotian Phylas, the possessor of many herds, and by her had Eudorus (or riches) whom the aged Phylas fostered and brought up in his house—quite a significant local mythus, which is here related, like others in the usual tone of heroic mythology.—Muller.
This passage is an exact description and perfect ritual of the ceremonies on these occasions. Achilles, urgent as the case was, would not suffer Patroclus to enter the fight, till he had in the most solemn manner recommended him to the protection of Jupiter.
[Meges.]
[Brother of Antilochus.]