FOOTNOTES
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Homer, Southey, Robert, and Cowper, William
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.
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.
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.
See article Theseus, Gr. and Rom. Mythology.
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.
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:
[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.
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.
The ancients had a great horror of putrefaction previous to interment.
[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.
['Ασπασιως γονυ καμψειν.—Shall be glad to bend their knee, i.e. to sit and repose themselves.]—Tr.
[Τουτον μυθον.—He seems to intend the reproaches sounded in his ear from all quarters, and which he had repeatedly heard before.]—Tr.
[By some call’d Antibia, by others, Nicippe.]—Tr.
It was unlawful to eat the flesh of victims that were sacrificed in confirmation of oaths. Such were victims of malediction.
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.
Son of Deidameia, daughter of Lycomedes, in whose house Achilles was concealed at the time when he was led forth to the war.
[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.
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:
[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.
[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.
[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.
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.
[The Leleges were a colony of Thessalians, and the first inhabitants of the shores of the Hellespont.]—Tr.
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.
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.
[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.
Tmolus was a mountain of Lydia, and Hyda a city of the same country. The Gygæan lake was also in Lydia.
[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.
[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:
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.
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.
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.
It was an ancient custom to cast living horses into rivers, to honor, as it were, the rapidity of their streams.
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.
['Ακροκελαινιοων.—The beauty and force of this word are wonderful; I have in vain endeavored to do it justice.]—Tr.