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between the straps, to protect the head, and make the helmet fit close.

[218] “All the circumstances of this action—the night, Rhesus buried in a profound sleep, and Diomede with the sword in his hand hanging over the head of that prince—furnished Homer with the idea of this fiction, which represents Rhesus lying fast asleep, and, as it were, beholding his enemy in a dream, plunging the sword into his bosom. This image is very natural; for a man in his condition awakes no farther than to see confusedly what environs him, and to think it not a reality but a dream.”—Pope.

“There’s one did laugh in his sleep, and one cry’d murder; They wak’d each other.”

—_Macbeth_.

[219] “Aurora now had left her saffron bed, And beams of early light the heavens o’erspread.”

Dryden’s Virgil, iv. 639

[220] _Red drops of blood_. “This phenomenon, if a mere fruit of the poet’s imagination, might seem arbitrary or far-fetched. It is one, however, of ascertained reality, and of no uncommon occurrence in the climate of Greece.”—Mure, i p. 493. Cf. Tasso, Gier. Lib. ix. 15:

“La terra in vece del notturno gelo Bagnan rugiade tepide, e sanguigne.”

[221] “No thought of flight, None of retreat, no unbecoming deed That argued fear.”

—“Paradise Lost,” vi. 236.

[222] _One of love_. Although a bastard brother received only a small portion of the inheritance, he was commonly very well treated. Priam appears to be the only one of whom polygamy is directly asserted in the Iliad. Grote, vol. ii. p. 114, note.

[223] “Circled with foes as when a packe of bloodie jackals cling About a goodly palmed hart, hurt with a hunter’s bow Whose escape his nimble feet insure, whilst his warm blood doth flow, And his light knees have power to move: but (maistred by his wound) Embost within a shady hill, the jackals charge him round, And teare his flesh—when instantly fortune sends in the powers Of some sterne lion, with whose sighte they flie and he devours. So they around Ulysses prest.”

—Chapman.

[224] _Simois, railing_, &c.

“In those bloody fields Where Simois rolls the bodies and the shields Of heroes.”

—Dryden’s Virgil, i. 142.

[225] “Where yon disorder’d heap of ruin lies, Stones rent from stones,—where clouds of dust arise,— Amid that smother, Neptune holds his place, Below the wall’s foundation drives his mace, And heaves the building from the solid base.”

Dryden’s Virgil, ii. 825.

[226] _Why boast we_.

“Wherefore do I assume These royalties and not refuse to reign, Refusing to accept as great a share Of hazard as of honour, due alike to him Who reigns, and so much to him due Of hazard more, as he above the rest High honour’d sits.”

—“Paradise Lost,” ii. 450.

[227] _Each equal weight_.

“Long time in even scale The battle hung.”

—“Paradise Lost,” vi. 245.

[228] “He on his impious foes right onward drove, _Gloomy as night_.”

—“Paradise Lost,” vi. 831

[229] _Renown’d for justice and for length of days_, Arrian. de Exp. Alex. iv. p. 239, also speaks of the independence of these people, which he regards as the result of their poverty and uprightness. Some authors have regarded the phrase “Hippomolgian,” _i.e._ “milking their mares,” as an epithet applicable to numerous tribes, since the oldest of the Samatian nomads made their mares’ milk one of their chief articles of diet. The epithet abion or abion, in this passage, has occasioned much discussion. It may mean, according as we read it, either “long-lived,” or “bowless,” the latter epithet indicating that they did not depend upon archery for subsistence.

[230] Compare Chapman’s quaint, bold verses:—

“And as a round piece of a rocke, which with a winter’s flood Is from his top torn, when a shoure poured from a bursten cloud, Hath broke the naturall band it had within the roughftey rock, Flies jumping all adourne the woods, resounding everie shocke, And on, uncheckt, it headlong leaps till in a plaine it stay, And then (tho’ never so impelled), it stirs not any way:— So Hector,—”

[231] This book forms a most agreeable interruption to the continuous round of battles, which occupy the latter part of the Iliad. It is as well to observe, that the sameness of these scenes renders many notes unnecessary.

[232] _Who to Tydeus owes, i.e._ Diomed.

[233] Compare Tasso:—

Teneri sdegni, e placide, e tranquille Repulse, e cari vezzi, e liete paci, Sorrisi, parolette, e dolci stille Di pianto, e sospir tronchi, e molli baci.”

Gier. Lib. xvi. 25

[234] Compare the description of the dwelling of Sleep in Orlando Furioso, bk. vi.

[235] “Twice seven, the charming daughters of the main— Around my person wait, and bear my train: Succeed my wish, and second my design, The fairest, Deiopeia, shall be thine.”

Dryden’s Virgil, Æn. i. 107, seq.

[236] _And Minos_. “By Homer, Minos is described as the son of Jupiter, and of the daughter of Phœnix, whom all succeeding authors name Europa; and he is thus carried back into the remotest period of Cretan antiquity known to the poet, apparently as a native hero, Illustrious enough for a divine parentage, and too ancient to allow his descent to be traced to any other source. But in a genealogy recorded by later writers, he is likewise the adopted son of Asterius, as descendant of Dorus, the son of Helen, and is thus connected with a colony said to have been led into Creta by Tentamus, or Tectamus, son of Dorus, who is related either to have crossed over from Thessaly, or to have embarked at Malea after having led his followers by land into Laconia.”—Thirlwall, p. 136, seq.

[237] Milton has emulated this passage, in describing the couch of our first parents:—

“Underneath the violet, Crocus, and hyacinth with rich inlay, ’Broider’d the ground.”

—“Paradise Lost,” iv. 700.

[238] _He lies protected_.

“Forthwith on all sides to his aid was run By angels many and strong, who interpos’d Defence, while others bore him on their shields Back to his chariot, where it stood retir’d From off the files of war; there they him laid, Gnashing for anguish, and despite, and shame.”

“Paradise Lost,” vi. 335, seq.

[239] _The brazen dome_. See the note on Bk. viii. Page 142.

[240] _For, by the gods! who flies_. Observe the bold ellipsis of “he cries,” and the transition from the direct to the oblique construction. So in Milton:—

“Thus at their shady lodge arriv’d, both stood, Both turn’d, and under open sky ador’d The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven, Which they beheld, the moon’s resplendent globe, And starry pole.—Thou also mad’st the night, Maker omnipotent, and thou the day.”

Milton, “Paradise Lost,” Book iv.

[241] _So some tall rock_.

“But like a rock unmov’d, a rock that braves The raging tempest, and the rising waves— Propp’d on himself he stands: his solid sides Wash off the sea-weeds, and the sounding tides.”

Dryden’s Virgil, vii. 809.

[242] Protesilaus was the first Greek who fell, slain by Hector, as he leaped from the vessel t