The Iliad
“In vain I reach my feeble hands to join
In sweet embraces—ah! no longer thine!
She said, and from his eyes the fleeting fair
Retired, like subtle smoke dissolved in air.”
Dryden.
[285] So Milton:—
“So eagerly the fiend
O’er bog, o’er steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.”
“Paradise Lost,” ii. 948.
[286]
“An ancient forest, for the work design’d
(The shady covert of the savage kind).
The Trojans found: the sounding axe is placed:
Firs, pines, and pitch-trees, and the tow’ring pride
Of forest ashes, feel the fatal stroke,
And piercing wedges cleave the stubborn oak.
High trunks of trees, fell’d from the steepy crown
Of the bare mountains, roll with ruin down.”
Dryden’s Virgil, vi. 261.
[287] _He vowed_. This was a very ancient custom.
[288] The height of the tomb or pile was a great proof of the dignity
of the deceased, and the honour in which he was held.
[289] On the prevalence of this cruel custom amongst the northern
nations, see Mallet, p. 213.
[290] _And calls the spirit_. Such was the custom anciently, even at
the Roman funerals.
“Hail, O ye holy manes! hail again,
Paternal ashes, now revived in vain.”
Dryden’s Virgil, v. 106.
[291] Virgil, by making the boaster vanquished, has drawn a better
moral from this episode than Homer. The following lines deserve
comparison:—
“The haughty Dares in the lists appears:
Walking he strides, his head erected bears:
His nervous arms the weighty gauntlet wield,
And loud applauses echo through the field.
* * * *
Such Dares was, and such he strode along,
And drew the wonder of the gazing throng
His brawny breast and ample chest he shows;
His lifted arms around his head he throws,
And deals in whistling air his empty blows.
His match is sought, but, through the trembling band,
No one dares answer to the proud demand.
Presuming of his force, with sparkling eyes,
Already he devours the promised prize.
* * * *
If none my matchless valour dares oppose,
How long shall Dares wait his dastard foes?”
Dryden’s Virgil, v. 486, seq.
[292]
“The gauntlet-fight thus ended, from the shore
His faithful friends unhappy Dares bore:
His mouth and nostrils pour’d a purple flood,
And pounded teeth came rushing with his blood.”
Dryden’s Virgil, v. 623.
[293] “Troilus is only once named in the Iliad; he was mentioned also
in the Cypriad but his youth, beauty, and untimely end made him an
object of great interest with the subsequent poets.”—Grote, i, p. 399.
[294] Milton has rivalled this passage describing the descent of
Gabriel, “Paradise Lost,” bk. v. 266, seq.
“Down thither prone in flight
He speeds, and through the vast ethereal sky
Sails between worlds and worlds, with steady wing,
Now on the polar winds, then with quick fan
Winnows the buxom air. * * * *
* * * *
At once on th’ eastern cliff of Paradise
He lights, and to his proper shape returns
A seraph wing’d. * * * *
Like Maia’s son he stood,
And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance fill’d
The circuit wide.”
Virgil, Æn. iv. 350:—
“Hermes obeys; with golden pinions binds
His flying feet, and mounts the western winds:
And whether o’er the seas or earth he flies,
With rapid force they bear him down the skies
But first he grasps within his awful hand
The mark of sovereign power, his magic wand;
With this he draws the ghost from hollow graves;
With this he drives them from the Stygian waves:
* * * *
Thus arm’d, the god begins his airy race,v And drives the racking
clouds along the liquid space.”
Dryden.
[295] In reference to the whole scene that follows, the remarks of
Coleridge are well worth reading:—
“By a close study of life, and by a true and natural mode of
expressing everything, Homer was enabled to venture upon the most
peculiar and difficult situations, and to extricate himself from
them with the completest success. The whole scene between Achilles
and Priam, when the latter comes to the Greek camp for the purpose
of redeeming the body of Hector, is at once the most profoundly
skilful, and yet the simplest and most affecting passage in the
Iliad. Quinctilian has taken notice of the following speech of
Priam, the rhetorical artifice of which is so transcendent, that if
genius did not often, especially in oratory, unconsciously fulfil
the most subtle precepts of criticism, we might be induced, on this
account alone, to consider the last book of the Iliad as what is
called spurious, in other words, of later date than the rest of the
poem. Observe the exquisite taste of Priam in occupying the mind of
Achilles, from the outset, with the image of his father; in
gradually introducing the parallel of his own situation; and,
lastly, mentioning Hector’s name when he perceives that the hero is
softened, and then only in such a manner as to flatter the pride of
the conqueror. The ego d’eleeinoteros per, and the apusato aecha
geronta, are not exactly like the tone of the earlier parts of the
Iliad. They are almost too fine and pathetic. The whole passage
defies translation, for there is that about the Greek which has no
name, but which is of so fine and ethereal a subtlety that it can
only be felt in the original, and is lost in an attempt to
transfuse it into another language.”—Coleridge, p. 195.
[296] “Achilles’ ferocious treatment of the corpse of Hector cannot
but offend as referred to the modern standard of humanity. The heroic
age, however, must be judged by its own moral laws. Retributive
vengeance on the dead, as well as the living, was a duty inculcated by
the religion of those barbarous times which not only taught that evil
inflicted on the author of evil was a solace to the injured man; but
made the welfare of the soul after death dependent on the fate of the
body from which it had separated. Hence a denial of the rites
essential to the soul’s admission into the more favoured regions of
the lower world was a cruel punishment to the wanderer on the dreary
shores of the infernal river. The complaint of the ghost of Patroclus
to Achilles, of but a brief postponement of his own obsequies, shows
how efficacious their refusal to the remains of his destroyer must
have been in satiating the thirst of revenge, which, even after death,
was supposed to torment the dwellers in Hades. Hence before yielding
up the body of Hector to Priam, Achilles asks pardon of Patroclus for
even this partial cession of his just rights of retribution.”—Mure,
vol. i. 289.
[297] Such was the fate of Astyanax, when Troy was taken.
“Here, from the tow’r by stern Ulysses thrown,
Andromache bewail’d her infant son.”
Merrick’s Tryphiodorus, v. 675.
[298] The following observations of Coleridge furnish a most gallant
and interesting view of Helen’s character—
“Few things are more interesting than to observe how the same hand
that has given us the fury and inconsistency of Achilles, gives us
also the consummate elegance and tenderness of Helen. She is
through the Iliad a genuine lady, graceful in motion and speech,
noble in her associations, full of remorse for a fault for which
higher powers seem responsible, yet grateful and affectionate
towards those with whom that fault had committed her. I have always
thought the following speech in which Helen laments Hector, and
hints at her own invidious and unprotected situation in Troy, as
almost the sweetest passage in the poem. It is another striking
instance of that refinement of feeling and softness of tone which
so generally distinguish the last book of the Iliad from the
rest.”—Classic Poets, p. 198, seq.
[299] “And here we part with Achilles at the moment best calculated to
exalt and purify our impression of his character. We had accompanied
him through the effervescence, undulations, and final subsidence of
his stormy passions. We now leave him in repose and under the full
influence of the more amiable affections, while our admiration of his
great qualities is chastened by the reflection that, within a few
short days the mighty being in whom they were united was himself to be
suddenly cut off in the full vigour of their exercise.
The frequent and touching allusions, interspersed throughout the
Iliad, to the speedy termination of its hero’s course, and the
moral on the vanity of human life which they indicate, are among
the finest evidences of the spirit of ethic unity by which the
whole framework of the poem is united.”—Mure, vol. i. p 201.
[300] Cowper says,—“I cannot take my leave of this noble poem without
expressing how much I am struck with the plain conclusion of it. It is
like the exit of a great man out of company, whom he has entertained
magnificently; neither pompous nor familiar; not contemptuous, yet
without much ceremony.” Coleridge, p. 227, considers the termination
of “Paradise Lost” somewhat similar.