Book XVII
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In the chase, the spoils of the prey, the hide and head of the animal, belonged to the one who gave the first wound. So in war—the one who first pierced an enemy slain in battle, was entitled to his armor.
[The expediency and utility of prayer, Homer misses no opportunity of enforcing. Cold and comfortless as the religious creed of the heathens was, they were piously attentive to its dictates, and to a degree that may serve as a reproof to many professed believers of revelation. The allegorical history of prayer, given us in the 9th Book of the Iliad from the lips of Phœnix, the speech of Antilochus in the 23d, in which he ascribes the ill success of Eumelus in the chariot race to his neglect of prayer, and that of Pisistratus in the 3d book of the Odyssey, where speaking of the newly-arrived Telemachus, he says;
For I deem Him wont to pray; since all of every land Need succor from the Gods;
are so many proofs of the truth of this remark; to which a curious reader might easily add a multitude.]—Tr.
[There is no word in our language expressive of loud sound at all comparable in effect to the Greek _Bo-o-osin_. I have therefore endeavored by the juxta-position of two words similar in sound, to palliate in some degree defect which it was not in my power to cure.]—Tr.
[Or collar-bone.]
[The proper meaning of επιοσαομενω—is not simply _looking on_, but _providing against_. And thus their ignorance of the death of Patroclus is accounted for. They were ordered by Nestor to a post in which they should have little to do themselves, except to superintend others, and were consequently too remote from Patroclus to see him fall, or even to hear that he had fallen.—See Villoisson.]—Tr.
This is one of the similes of Homer which illustrates the manners and customs of his age. The mode of preparing hides for use is particularly described. They were first softened with oil, and then were stretched every direction by the hands of men, so that the moisture might be removed and the oil might penetrate them. Considered in the single point of comparison intended, it gives a lively picture of the struggle on all sides to get possession of the body.—Felton.
This is the proper imperfect of the verb _chide_, though modern usage has substituted _chid_, a word of mean and awkward sound, in the place of it.
This alludes to the custom of placing columns upon tombs, on which were frequently represented chariots with two or four horses. The horses standing still to mourn for their master, could not be more finely represented than by the dumb sorrow of images standing over a tomb. Perhaps the very posture in which these horses are described, their heads bowed down, and their manes falling in the dust, has an allusion to the attitude in which those statues on monuments were usually represented; there are bas-reliefs that favor this conjecture.
[The Latin plural of Ajax is sometimes necessary, because the English plural—Ajaxes—would be insupportable.]—Tr.
[Leïtus was another chief of the Bœotians.]—Tr.
[Διφρω εφεσταοτος—Yet we learn soon after that he fought on foot. But the Scholiast explains the expression thus—νεωστι τω διφωω επιβαντος. The fact was that Idomeneus had left the camp on foot, and was on foot when Hector prepared to throw at him. But Cœranus, charioteer of Meriones, observing his danger, drove instantly to his aid. Idomeneus had just time to mount, and the spear designed for him, struck Cœranus.—For a right understanding of this very intricate and difficult passage, I am altogether indebted to the Scholiast as quoted by Villoisson.]—Tr.
[The translator here follows the interpretation preferred by the Scholiast. The original expression is ambiguous, and may signify, either, that _we shall perish in the fleet ourselves_, or that Hector will soon be in the midst of it. Vide Villoisson _in loco_.]—Tr.
[A noble instance of the heroism of Ajax, who asks not deliverance from the Trojans, or that he may escape alive, but light only, without which be could not possibly distinguish himself. The tears of such a warrior, and shed for such a reason, are singularly affecting.]—Tr.
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