The Iliad of Homer by Homer (some good books to read txt) 📕

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.]

[αμαιμακετην—is a word which I can find nowhere satisfactorily derived. Perhaps it is expressive of great length, and I am the more inclined to that sense of it, because it is the epithet given to the mast on which Ulysses floated to Charybdis. We must in that case derive it from αμα andμηκος Doricè,μακος—longitudo.

In this uncertainty I thought myself free to translate it as I have, by the word—monster.]—Tr.

[Apollonius says that the οστεα λευκα here means theοπονδυλους, or vertebræ of the neck.—See Villoisson.]—Tr.

['Αμιτροχιτονας is a word, according to Clarke, descriptive of their peculiar habit. Their corselet, and the mail worn under it, were of a piece, and put on together. To them therefore the cincture or belt of the Greeks was unnecessary.]—Tr.

According to the history or fable received in Homer's time, Sarpedon was interred in Lycia. This gave the poet the liberty of making him die at Troy, provided that after his death he was carried into Lycia, to preserve the fable. In those times, as at this day, princes and persons of rank who died abroad, were carried to their own country to be laid in the tomb of their fathers. Jacob, when dying in Egypt, desired his children to carry him to the land of Canaan, where he wished to be buried.

[Sarpedon certainly was not slain in the fleet, neither can the Greek expressionνεων εν αγωνι be with propriety interpreted—in certamine de navibus—as Clarke and Mme. Dacier are inclined to render it. Juvenum in certamine, seems equally an improbable sense of it. Eustathius, indeed, and Terrasson, supposing Sarpedon to assert that he dies in the middle of the fleet (which was false in fact) are kind enough to vindicate Homer by pleading in his favor, that Sarpedon, being in the article of death, was delirious, and knew not, in reality, where he died. But Homer, however he may have been charged with now and then a nap (a crime of which I am persuaded he is never guilty) certainly does not slumber here, nor needs to be so defended.'Αγων in the 23d Iliad, means the whole extensive area in which the games were exhibited, and may therefore here, without any strain of the expression, be understood to signify the whole range of shore on which the ships were stationed. In which case Sarpedon represents the matter as it was, saying that he dies—νεων εν αγωνι—that is, in the neighborhood of the ships, and in full prospect of them.

The translator assumes not to himself the honor of this judicious remark. It belongs to Mr. Fuseli.]—Tr.

[λασιν κηρ.]

The clouds of thick dust that rise from beneath the feet of the combatants, which hinder them from knowing one another.

[Υπασπιδια προβιβωντος. A similar expression occurs in Book xiii., 158. There we readυπασπιδια 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.

[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.

[Ιρα ταλαντα—Voluntatem Jovis cui cedendum—So it is interpreted is the Scholium MSS. Lipsiensis.—Vide Schaufelbergerus.]—Tr.

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.