Part 81 (1/2)

164 --_Oh iiven, except with a view to the ransoamemnon reproaches Menelaus with un a fallen enemy, and himself puts the suppliant to the sword”--Thirlwall, vol i p 181

165 ”The ruthless steel, ier out the day

It struck the bending father to the earth, And cropt the wailing infant at the birth

Can innocents the rage of parties know, And they who ne'er offended find a foe?”

Rowe's Lucan, bk ii

166 ”Meantime the Trojan dao, In hopes to reconcile their heav'nly foe: They weep; they beat their breasts; they rend their hair, And rich eil, i 670

167 The manner in which this episode is introduced, is well illustrated by the following remarks of Mure, vol i p298: ”The poet'shis episode, also, illustrates in a curious manner his tact in the dramatic department of his art Where, for example, one or more heroes are despatched on some commission, to be executed at a certain distance of tieneral rule, immediately described A certain interval is allowed the the appointed scene of action, which interval is dramatised, as it were, either by a te attention for a while on some new transaction, at the close of which the further account of the mission is resumed”

168 --_With tablets sealed_ These probably were only devices of a hieroglyphical character Whether writing was known in the Homeric times is utterly uncertain See Grote, vol ii p 192, sqq

169 --_Solymaean crew,_ a people of Lycia

170 From this ”melancholy madness” of Bellerophon, hypochondria received the name of ”Morbus Bellerophonteus” See my notes in my prose translation, p 112 The ”Aleian field,” _ie_ ”the plain of wandering,” was situated between the rivers Pyraold_ This bad bargain has passed into a common proverb See Aulus Gellius, ii, 23

172 --_Scaean, i e_ left hand

173 --_In fifty chambers_

”The fifty nuptial beds, (such hopes had he, So large a pro with spoils”

Dryden's Virgil, ii658

174 --_O would kind earth,_ &c ”It is apparently a sudden, irregular burst of popular indignation to which Hector alludes, when he regrets that the Trojans had not spirit enough to cover Paris with a mantle of stones This, however, was also one of the ordinary forreat public offences It --the desire of avoiding the pollution of bloodshed--which see prisoners alive, with a scantling of food by their side Though Hoe, the exa that, in ascribing it to the heroic ages, Sophocles followed an authentic tradition”--Thirlwall's Greece, vol i p 171, sq

175 --_Paris' lofty dos, which are oftenest described, the poet's language barely enables us to foreneral notion of their ordinary plan, and affords no conception of the style which prevailed in them or of their effect on the eye It seems indeed probable, from the manner in which he dwells on their her beauty of proportion was but little required or understood, and it is, perhaps, strength and convenience, rather than elegance, that heof the fair house which Paris had built for himself with the aid of the most skilful masons of Troy”--Thirlwall's Greece, vol i p 231

176 --_The wanton courser_

”Coie stalle Ove a l'usa de l'arl' armenti, o al fiume usato, o a l'herba”

Gier, Lib ix 75

177 --_Casque_ The original word is stephanae, about theof which there is some little doubt Some take it for a different kind of cap or helmet, others for the rim, others for the cone, of the helmet

178 --_Athenian maid:_ Minerva

179 --_Celadon,_ a river of Elis

180 --_Oileus, ie_ Ajax, the son of Oileus, in contradistinction to Ajax, son of Telaeneral's helm_ It was customary to put the lots into a helmet, in which they ell shaken up; each man then took his choice