Footnotes
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Homer and Pope, Alexander
“The jolly crew, unmindful of the past, The quarry share, their plenteous dinner haste, Some strip the skin; some portion out the spoil; The limbs yet trembling, in the caldrons boil; Some on the fire the reeking entrails broil. Stretch’d on the grassy turf, at ease they dine, Restore their strength with meat, and cheer their souls with wine.”
“Him th’ Almighty power Hurl’d headlong flaming from th ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion”
“Nor was his name unheard or unadored In ancient Greece, and in Ausonian land Men call’d him Mulciber, and how he fell From heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o’er the crystal battlements from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer’s day and with the setting sun Dropp’d from the zenith like a falling star On Lemnos, th’ Aegean isle thus they relate.”
“And roseate dews disposed All but the unsleeping eyes of God to rest.”
“When, by Minerva sent, a fraudful Dream Rush’d from the skies, the bane of her and Troy.”
“Turpe duci totam somno consumere noctem.”
“To whom once more the winged god appears; His former youthful mien and shape he wears.”
“Thus the monarch spoke, Then pledged the chief in a capacious cup, Golden, and framed by art divine (a gift Which to Almighty Jove lame Vulcan brought Upon his nuptial day, when he espoused The Queen of Love), the sire of gods bestow’d The cup on Dardanus, who gave it next To Ericthonius Tros received it then, And left it, with his wealth, to be possess’d By Ilus he to great Laomedon Gave it, and last to Priam’s lot it fell.”
Source notes
Dryden’s “Virgil,” i. 293.
[69]Crown’d, i.e. filled to the brim. The custom of adorning goblets with flowers was of later date.
[70]He spoke, &c. “When a friend inquired of Phidias what pattern he had formed his Olympian Jupiter, he is said to have answered by repeating the lines of the first Iliad in which the poet represents the majesty of the god in the most sublime terms; thereby signifying that the genius of Homer had inspired him with it. Those who beheld this statue are said to have been so struck with it as to have asked whether Jupiter had descended from heaven to show himself to Phidias, or whether Phidias had been carried thither to contemplate the god.”— “Elgin Marbles,” vol. xii p.124.
[71] “So was his will Pronounced among the gods, and by an oath, That shook heav’n’s whole circumference, confirm’d.”
“Paradise Lost” ii. 351.
[72]A double bowl, i.e. a vessel with a cup at both ends, something like the measures by which a halfpenny or pennyworth of nuts is sold. See Buttmann, Lexic. p. 93 sq.
[73] “Paradise Lost,” i. 44.
[74] The occasion on which Vulcan incurred Jove’s displeasure was this—After Hercules, had taken and pillaged Troy, Juno raised a storm, which drove him to the island of Cos, having previously cast Jove into a sleep, to prevent him aiding his son. Jove, in revenge, fastened iron anvils to her feet, and hung her from the sky, and Vulcan, attempting to relieve her, was kicked down from Olympus in the manner described. The allegorists have gone mad in finding deep explanations for this amusing fiction. See Heraclides, “Ponticus,” p. 463 sq., ed Gale. The story is told by Homer himself in Book xv. The Sinthians were a race of robbers, the ancient inhabitants of Lemnos which island was ever after sacred to Vulcan.
“Paradise Lost,” i. 738
[75] It is ingeniously observed by Grote, vol i p. 463, that “The gods formed a sort of political community of their own which had its hierarchy, its distribution of ranks and duties, its contentions for power and occasional revolutions, its public meetings in the agora of Olympus, and its multitudinous banquets or festivals.”
[76] Plato, Rep. iii. p. 437, was so scandalized at this deception of Jupiter’s, and at his other attacks on the character of the gods, that he would fain sentence him to an honourable banishment. (See Minucius Felix, Section 22.) Coleridge, Introd. p. 154, well observes, that the supreme father of gods and men had a full right to employ a lying spirit to work out his ultimate will. Compare “Paradise Lost,” v. 646:
[77] —Dream ought to be spelt with a capital letter, being, I think, evidently personified as the god of dreams. See Anthon and others.
Dyce’s “Select Translations from Quintus Calaber,” p.10.
[78] “Sleep’st thou, companion dear, what sleep can close Thy eye-lids?”—“Paradise Lost,” v. 673.
[79] This truly military sentiment has been echoed by the approving voice of many a general and statesman of antiquity. See Pliny’s Panegyric on Trajan. Silius neatly translates it,
[80]The same in habit, &c.
Dryden’s Virgil, iv. 803.
[81] “As bees in spring-time, when The sun with Taurus rides, Pour forth their populous youth about the hive In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank, The suburb of this straw-built citadel, New-nibb’d with balm, expatiate and confer Their state affairs. So thick the very crowd Swarm’d and were straiten’d.”—“Paradise Lost” i. 768.
[82] It was the herald’s duty to make the people sit down. “A standing agora is a symptom of manifest terror (II. Xviii. 246) an evening agora, to which men came elevated by wine, is also the forerunner of mischief (‘Odyssey,’ iii. 138).”—Grote, ii. p. 91, note.
[83] This sceptre, like that of Judah (Genesis xlix. 10), is a type of the supreme and far-spread dominion of the house of the Atrides. See Thucydides i. 9. “It is traced through the hands of Hermes, he being the wealth giving god, whose blessing is most efficacious in furthering the process of acquisition.”—Grote, i. p. 212. Compare Quintus Calaber (Dyce’s Selections, p. 43).
[84] Grote, i, p. 393, states the number of the Grecian forces at upwards of 100,000 men. Nichols makes a total of 135,000.
[85] “As thick as when a field Of Ceres, ripe for harvest, waving bends His bearded grove of ears, which way the wind Sways them.”—Paradise Lost,” iv. 980, sqq.
[86] This sentiment used to be a popular one with some of the greatest tyrants, who abused it into a pretext for unlimited usurpation of power. Dion, Caligula, and Domitian were particularly fond of it, and, in an extended form, we find the maxim propounded by Creon in the Antigone of Sophocles. See some important remarks of Heeren, “Ancient Greece,” ch. vi. p. 105.
[87] It may be remarked, that the character of Thersites, revolting and contemptible as it is, serves admirably to develop the disposition of Ulysses in a new light, in which mere cunning is less prominent. Of the gradual and individual development of Homer’s heroes, Schlegel well observes, “In bas-relief the figures are usually in profile, and in the epos all are characterized in the simplest manner in relief; they are not grouped together, but follow one another; so Homer’s heroes advance, one by one, in succession before us. It has been remarked that the Iliad is not definitively closed, but that we are left to suppose something both to precede and to follow it. The bas-relief is equally without limit, and may be continued ad infinitum, either from before or behind, on which account the ancients preferred for it such subjects as admitted of an indefinite extension, sacrificial processions, dances, and lines of combatants, and hence they also exhibit bas-reliefs on curved surfaces, such as vases, or the frieze of a rotunda, where, by the curvature, the two ends are withdrawn from our sight, and where, while we advance, one object appears as another disappears. Reading Homer is very much like such a circuit; the present object alone arresting our attention, we lose sight of what precedes, and do not concern ourselves about what is to follow.”—“Dramatic Literature,” p. 75.
[88] “There cannot be a clearer indication than this description —so graphic in the original poem—of the true character of the Homeric agora. The multitude who compose it are listening and acquiescent, not often hesitating, and never refractory to the chief. The fate which awaits a presumptuous critic, even where his virulent reproaches are substantially well-founded, is plainly set forth in the treatment of Thersites; while the unpopularity of such a character is attested even more by the excessive pains which Homer takes to heap upon him repulsive personal deformities, than by the chastisement of Odysseus he is lame, bald, crook-backed, of misshapen head, and squinting vision.”—Grote, vol. i. p. 97.
[89] According to Pausanias, both the sprig and the remains of the tree were exhibited in his time. The tragedians, Lucretius and others, adopted a different fable to account for the stoppage at Aulis, and seem to have found the sacrifice of Iphigena better suited to form the subject of a tragedy. Compare Dryden’s “Æneid,” vol. iii. sqq.
[90]Full of his god, i.e., Apollo, filled with the prophetic spirit. “The god” would be more simple and emphatic.
[91] Those critics who have maintained that the “Catalogue of Ships” is an interpolation, should have paid more attention to these lines, which form a most natural introduction to their enumeration.
[92] The following observation will be useful to Homeric readers: “Particular animals were, at a later time, consecrated to particular deities. To Jupiter, Ceres, Juno, Apollo, and Bacchus victims of advanced age might be offered. An ox of five years old was considered especially acceptable to Jupiter. A black bull, a ram, or a boar pig, were offerings for Neptune. A heifer, or a sheep, for Minerva. To Ceres a sow was sacrificed, as an enemy to corn. The goat to Bacchus, because he fed on vines. Diana was propitiated with a stag; and to Venus the dove was consecrated. The infernal and evil deities were to be appeased with black victims. 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 Oïleus, a Locrian. He must be distinguished from the other, who was king of Salamis.