had reawakened their slumbering appetite.”

In this respect, too, the heroes of the Carlovingian and Arthurian romances equal those of Homer—probably, indeed, taking their colour from his originals. Nay, a good capacity for food and drink seems in itself to have been considered an heroic quality. When Sir Gareth of Orkney sits him down at table, coming as a stranger to King Arthur’s court, his performance as a trencher-man excites as much admiration as his soldier-like thews and sinews. The company declare of him enthusiastically that “they never saw so goodly a man, nor so well of his eating.” And in the same spirit Sir Kay, Arthur’s foster-brother, is said, in the Welsh legend, to “have drunk like four, and fought like a hundred.” The animal virtues are closely linked together; we still prognosticate favourably of a horse’s powers of endurance if we see that he is, like Sir Gareth, a good feeder. And perhaps it is some lingering reminiscence of the old heroic ages that leads us still to mark our appreciation of modern heroes by bestowing on them a public dinner.

When the meal is over, Ulysses rises, and in accordance with immemorial custom—as old, it appears, as these half-mythical ages—pledges the health of their illustrious host. In a speech which does full justice to the oratorical powers which the poet assigns him, he lays before Achilles the proposal of Agamemnon. He sets forth the straits to which the Greeks are reduced, pent within their fortifications by the terrible Hector, and acknowledges, in the fullest manner, that in the great name of Achilles lies their only hope of rescue. He dwells upon the remorse which Achilles himself will surely feel, when too late, if he suffers the hopes of Greece to be ruined by the indulgence of his own haughty spirit—the temper against which, as he reminds him, his aged father warned him when first he set out for Troy:—

He lays before him the propositions of Agamemnon. Briseis shall be restored to him, in all honour, pure as when she left him; so the great point in the quarrel is fully conceded. Moreover, the king will give him the choice of his three daughters in marriage, if it ever be their happy fate to see again the shores of Argos, and will add such dowry

And he will send, for the present, peace-offerings of royal magnificence; ten talents of pure gold, seven fair Lesbian slaves, “well skilled in household cares,” twelve horses of surpassing fleetness—the prizes they have already won would be in themselves a fortune—and seven prosperous towns on the sea-coast of Argos. He adds, in well-conceived climax to his speech, an appeal to higher motives. If Achilles will not relax his wrath against Agamemnon, at least let him have some compassion on the unoffending Greeks; let him bethink himself of the national honour—of his own great name; shall Hector be allowed to boast, as he does now, that no Greek dares meet him in the field?

But neither the eloquence of Ulysses, nor the garrulous pleading of his old foster-father Phœnix, who indulges himself and his company with stories of Achilles’ boyhood, and of the exploits of his own younger days, can bend the iron determination of the hero. He will have none of Agamemnon’s gifts, and none of Agamemnon’s daughters—no, not were the princess as fair as Venus. Greece has store of fair maidens for him to choose from if he will. Nay, had either woman or wealth been his delight, he had scarce come to Troy. He had counted the cost when he set out for the war:—

Besides, he adds with biting sarcasm, Agamemnon can have no need now of his poor services. He has built a wall, he hears,—with ditch and palisade to boot: though he doubts whether, after all, it will keep out Hector. To be sure, when he was in the field, no wall was needed.

Nor is he a whit more moved by the few blunt and soldier-like remarks with which Ajax closes the conference. They may as well return, says that chief to Ulysses; words are lost upon one so obstinate as Achilles, who will neither listen to reason, nor cares for the love of his old companions in arms. Ajax has no patience, either, with the romantic side of the quarrel—

Reproach and argument are alike in vain. The hero listens patiently and courteously; but nothing shall move him from his resolution, unless Hector, the godlike, shall carry fire and sword even to the ships and tents of the Myrmidons; a venture which, he thinks, the Trojan prince, with all his hardihood, will pause before he makes.

With downcast hearts the envoys return to Agamemnon; the aged Phœnix alone remaining behind, at Achilles’ special request, to accompany him when he shall set sail for home. Great consternation falls on the assembled chiefs when they learn the failure of their overtures; only Diomed, chivalrous as ever, laments that they should have stooped to ask grace at such a churlish hand. Let Achilles go or stay as he will: for themselves—let every man refresh himself with food and wine—“for therein do lie both strength and courage”—and then betake themselves to their no less needful rest: ready, so soon as “the rosy-fingered dawn” appears, to set the battle fearlessly in array, in front of their ships and tents, against this redoubtable Hector.

But

There is no rest for the King of Men, who has the fate of a national armament on his soul. He looks forth upon the plain, where the thousand watchfires of the enemy are blazing out into the night, and hears the confused hum of their thick-lying battalions, and the sounds of the wild Eastern music with which they are enlivening their revels, and celebrating their victory by anticipation. He rises from his troubled couch, determined to hold a night-council with Nestor and other chiefs of mark. He is donning his armour, when he is visited by his brother Menelaus—for he too has no rest, thinking of the dire straits into which in his sole cause the armies of Greece are driven. The royal brothers go in different directions through the camp, and quietly rouse all the most illustrious captains. Nestor is the guiding spirit in the council, as before. He advises a reconnoissance of the enemy’s lines under cover of the darkness. The office of a spy, be it remembered, was reckoned in these old times, as in the days of the Hebrew commonwealth, a service of honour as well as of danger; and the kings and chiefs of the Greeks no more thought it beneath their dignity than Gideon did in the case of the Midianites. The man who could discover for them the counsels of Hector would win for himself not only a solid reward, but an immortal name—

Diomed straightway volunteers for the adventure, and out of the many chiefs who offer themselves as his comrade, he chooses Ulysses. So—not without due prayer to Heaven—valour and subtlety go forth together on their perilous errand.

Meanwhile the same idea has occurred to Hector; he too would learn the counsels of his enemies. One Dolon—a young warrior who has a fine taste for horses, but is otherwise of somewhat feminine type (Homer tells us he was the only brother of five sisters), and whose main qualification is fleetness of foot—is tempted to undertake the enterprise on a somewhat singular condition—that he shall have as his prize the more than mortal horses of Achilles, when, as he doubts not will be soon the case, the spoils of the conquered Greeks shall come to be divided. And Hector, with equal confidence, swears “by his sceptre” that they shall be his and none other’s. Wrapped in a cloak of wolfskin, and wearing a cap of marten’s fur instead of a helmet, he too steals out into the night. He does not escape the keen vision of Ulysses. The Greek spies crouch behind some dead bodies, and allow him to pass them, when they rise and cut off his retreat to the Trojan camp. At first he thinks they are Trojans, sent after him by Hector;

Their aim is to take him alive. Diomed at last gets within an easy spear-cast—

Ulysses parleys with the unhappy youth, and drags from his terrified lips not only the secret of his errand, but the disposition of the Trojan forces,—most convenient information for their own movements. Especially, he tells them where they might find an easy prey, such as his own soul would love. Rhesus, king of the Thracian allies, has his camp apart—

The unwilling treachery does not save his wretched life. Ulysses sarcastically admires his choice of a reward—

Then—with the cruel indifference to human life which marks every one of Homer’s heroes—he severs his head from his body.

Following the directions given by Dolon, the two Greeks make their way first to the quarters of the Thracian contingent. Swiftly and silently Diomed despatches the king and twelve of his warriors, as they sleep, while Ulysses drives off the snow-white horses. With these trophies they return safe to the Greek camp, where they are cordially welcomed, though it must be admitted they have gained but little insight into the designs of Hector.[19]

CHAPTER VII.

THE THIRD BATTLE.

With the morrow’s dawn begins the third and great battle, at the Greek lines, which occupies from the eleventh to the eighteenth book of the poem. Agamemnon is the hero of the earlier part of the day, and Hector is warned by Jupiter not to hazard his own person in the battle, unless the Greek king is wounded; which at last he is, by the spear of a son of Antenor. Ulysses and Diomed supply his place; until Paris, fighting in somewhat coward fashion, crouching behind the monumental stone of the national hero Ilus, pins Diomed through the right heel to the ground with an arrow. Ulysses stands manfully at bay almost alone amidst a host of enemies, holding his ground, though he too is wounded, till Ajax comes to his aid. Still the Greeks have the worst of it. The skilful leech Machaon, amongst others, is wounded by an arrow from the bow of Paris: till even Achilles, watching the fight from the lofty prow of his ship, sees his day of triumph and vengeance close at hand. He sends Patroclus to the field—nominally to inquire who has just been carried off wounded, but with the further object, we may suppose, of learning the state of the case more thoroughly. Nestor, to whose tent Patroclus comes, begs him to use his influence now with his angry chief, and persuade him, if not to come to the rescue in person, at least to send his stout Myrmidons to the aid of his countrymen, under Patroclus’ own command.

Again the Greeks are driven within their intrenchments, and Hector and the Trojan chariot-fighters pressing on them, attempt in their fierce excitement even to make their horses leap the ditch and palisade. Foiled in this, they dismount, and, forming in five detachments under the several command of Hector, Helenus, Paris, Æneas, and Asius son of Hyrtacus, they attack the stockade at five points at once. Asius alone refuses to quit his chariot; and choosing the quarter where a gate is still left open to receive the Greek fugitives, he drives full at the narrow entrance. But in that gateway on either hand stand two stalwart warders, Leonteus and Polypates. The latter is the son of the mighty hero Pirithous, friend and comrade of Hercules, and both are of the renowned race of the Lapithæ. Gallantly the two champions keep the dangerous post against all comers, while their friends from the top of the rampart shower huge stones upon their assailants. Even Hector at his point of attack can make no impression: and as his followers vainly strive to pass the ditch, an omen from heaven strikes them with apprehension as to the final issue. An eagle, carrying off a huge serpent through the air, is bitten by the reptile, and drops it, writhing and bleeding, in the midst of the combatants. Polydamas points it out to Hector, and reads in it a warning that their victory will be at best a dearly-bought one. Hector rebukes him for his weakness in putting faith in portents. The noble words in which the poet sums up Hector’s creed in such matters have passed into a proverb with patriots of every age and nation—

Sarpedon the Lycian, who claims none less than Jupiter for his father, has taken chief command of the Trojan auxiliaries, and, gallantly seconded by his countryman Glaucus, sweeps “like a black storm” on the tower where Mnestheus, the Athenian, commands, and is like to have carried it, when Glaucus falls wounded by an arrow from Teucer. The slaughter is terrible on both sides, and the ditch and palisade are red with blood. “The balance of the fight hangs even;” until at last the Trojan prince lifts a huge fragment of rock, and heaves it at the wooden gates which bar the entrance at his point of attack.

Neptune has been watching the fight from the wooded heights of Samothrace, and sees the imminent peril of his friends. “In four mighty strides”—the woods and mountains trembling beneath his feet—he reaches the bay of Œge, in Achaia, where far in the depths lie his shining palaces of gold. There the sea-god mounts his chariot, yoking

He takes the form of the soothsayer Calchas, and in his person rallies the discomfited Greeks, and summons the greater and the lesser Ajax to the rescue. Both feel a sudden accession of new vigour and courage; Ajax Oileus detects the divinity of their visitor, as the seeming Calchas turns to depart. The two chiefs quickly gather round them a phalanx of their comrades.

Hector’s career is stayed. Ajax the Lesser brings into play his band of Locrian bowmen, of little use in the open field, but good when they are under cover.

The galling storm of their arrows throws confusion into the Trojan ranks. Helenas and Deiphobus, Hector’s brothers, have already been led off wounded: Asius son of Hyrtacus has found his trust in chariot and horses vain, and lies dead within the Greek lines. But Hector still presses on, and Paris shows that he can play the soldier on occasion as successfully as the gallant. The Greeks, too, miss their leaders. Agamemnon, Ulysses, Diomed, are all disabled for the time. The two Ajaxes and Idomeneus of Crete do all that man can do. But the stockade has been forced, and the fight is now round the ships,—the last hope of bare safety for the Greek forces. If Hector burns them, as he boasts he will, all means of retreat, all the long-cherished prospect of seeing their homes again, are lost to them. In a hasty conference with his wounded companions beside his galley, Agamemnon, suffering and dispirited, once more counsels retreat before it be too late. If they can but hold out till nightfall, then, under cover of the darkness, he proposes to take the sea. Those vessels which lie close to the shore may be launched at once without discovery from the enemy, and kept out at anchor: the rest can follow when the Trojans have, as usual, withdrawn from immediate attack, as soon as the shades of evening make the distinction hazardous between friend and foe. Ulysses and Diomed overrule the proposal; and the wounded leaders return to the scene of combat, unable to take an active part, but inspiriting their men from safe posts of observation.

The interlude of comedy is furnished again by the denizens of Olympus. Juno has watched with delight the successful efforts of Neptune to rally the Greeks against Hector and the hateful Trojans; but she is in an agony of apprehension lest Jupiter, who has his attention just now occupied in Thrace, should interfere at this critical moment, and still grant the victory to Hector. She determines to put in force all her powers of blandishment, and to coax the Thunderer to spend in her company those precious hours which are laden with the fate of her Greeks. She is not content with her ordinary powers of fascination: she applies to the goddess of love for the loan of her magic girdle,—

It certainly enthrals the mind of the sovereign of Olympus; who, in all cases where female attractions were concerned, was even as the most foolish of mortals. Transfigured by the cestus of Venus, his queen appears to him in a halo of celestial charms which are irresistible. In her company he speedily forgets the wretched squabbles of the creatures upon earth. Juno has bribed the god of sleep also to become her accomplice; and the dread king is soon locked in profound repose.

Then Neptune seizes his opportunity, and heads the Greeks in person. Agamemnon, disregarding his recent wound, is seen once more in the front of the battle. Ajax meets Hector hand to hand, receives his spear full in his breast just where his cross-belts meet, and so escapes unwounded. As the Trojan prince draws back to recover himself, the giant Greek upheaves a huge stone that has shored up one of the galleys, and hurls it with main strength against his breast. “Like an oak of the forest struck by lightning” Hector falls prone in the dust. With shouts of exultation, Ajax and his comrades rush to crown their victory by stripping his armour; but the great chiefs of the enemy,—Æneas, Polydamas, the Lycian captains Sarpedon and Glaucus—gather round and lock their shields in front of the fallen hero, while others bear him aside out of the battle, still in a death-like swoon, to where his chariot stands. Dismayed at the fall of their great leader, the Trojans give ground; the trench is recrossed, and the Greeks breathe again.

Jupiter awakes from sleep just in time to see the mischief that has been done; the Trojans in flight, the Greeks with Neptune at their head pursuing; Hector lying senseless by the side of his chariot, still breathing heavily, and vomiting blood from his bruised chest, and surrounded by his anxious comrades. He turns wrathfully upon Juno—it is her work, he knows. He reminds her of former penalties which she had brought upon herself by deceiving him.

He does not proceed, however, to exercise any such barbarous conjugal discipline on this occasion, and is readily appeased by his queen’s assurance that the interference of Neptune was entirely on his own proper motion. He condescends even to explain why he desires to give a temporary triumph to the Trojans: it is that, in accordance with his sworn promise to Thetis, he may avenge the insult offered to her son Achilles, by teaching the Greeks their utter helplessness without him.

The Goddess of the Rainbow is sent to warn Neptune, on pain of the Thunderer’s displeasure, to quit the fight. The sea-king demurs. “Was not a fair partition made, in the primeval days, between the three brother-gods, of the realms of Air, and Sea, and Darkness? and is not Earth common ground to all? Why is not Jupiter content with his own lawful domains, and by what right does he assume to dictate to a brother—and a brother-king?” Iris, however, calms him; he is perfectly right in theory, she admits; but in practice he will find his elder brother too strong for him. So the sea-god, in sulky acquiescence, leaves the scene of battle, and plunges down into the depths of his own dominion. Phœbus Apollo, on the other hand, receives Jupiter’s permission to aid the Trojans. He sweeps down from Olympus to the spot where Hector lies, now slowly reviving. The hero recognises his celestial visitor, and feels at once his strength restored, and his ardour for the battle reawakened. To the consternation of the Greeks, he reappears in the field, fierce and vigorous as before. But he no longer comes alone; in his front moves Phœbus Apollo,—

When the sun-god flashes this in the faces of the Greeks, heart and spirit fail them. Stalking in the van of the Trojans, he leads them up once more against the embankment, and, planting his mighty foot upon it, levels a wide space for the passage of the chariots,—

The habits and pursuits of grown-up men change with the passing generation; but the children of Homer’s day might play with our own, and understand each other’s ways perfectly.

Chariots and footmen press through the breach pell-mell, and again the battle rages round the Greek galleys. Standing on their high decks, the Greeks maintain the struggle gallantly with the long boarding-pikes, as we should call them, kept on board for use in such emergencies. Ajax’ galley is attacked by Hector in person; but the Greek chief stands desperately at bay, wielding a huge pike thirty-three feet long, and his brother Teucer plies his arrows with fatal effect upon the crowded assailants: until Jupiter, alarmed lest Hector should be struck, snaps his bowstring in sunder. Hector calls loudly for fire to burn the vessels, and one warrior after another, torch in hand, makes the attempt at the cost of his life, until twelve lie biting the sand, slain by the huge weapon of Ajax.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DEATH OF PATROCLUS.

Patroclus, sitting in the tent of the wounded Eurypylus, sees the imminent peril of his countrymen. He cannot bear the sight, and taking hasty leave of his friend, hurries back to the quarters of Achilles, and stands before him in an agony of silent tears. At first the hero affects to chide his follower for such girlish sorrow—what cares he for the Greeks? It is plain, however, that he does care; and when Patroclus, in very outspoken terms, upbraids him for his obduracy, and asks that, even if the dark doom that hangs over him makes his chief unwilling to take the field in person, he will at least send him with the Myrmidons to the rescue, Achilles at once consents. Patroclus shall go, clad in his armour, that so perchance the Trojans may be deceived, and think that they see the well-known crest of Achilles himself once more leading the fight. Only he warns him not to advance too far; to be content with rescuing the galleys, and not attempt to press his victory home to the walls of Troy; in that case he will find the gods of the enemy turn their wrath against him. In spite of his assumed indifference, Achilles is intently watching the combatants in the distance, and sees the flames rising in the air from the galley of Ajax. He can no longer restrain his feelings, but hurries his comrade forth. Patroclus puts on the harness of his chief, and takes his sword and shield: only the mighty spear he forbears to touch;—

He mounts the hero’s chariot, driven by the noble Automedon, and drawn by the three horses, Xanthus, Balius, and Pedasus—or as we should call them, Chestnut, Dapple, and Swift-foot. The battalions of the Myrmidons eagerly gather round their leaders,—even old Phœnix taking command of one detachment. Achilles himself gives them a few fiery words of exhortation. “They have long chafed at their enforced idleness, and clamoured for the battle; lo! there lies the opportunity they have longed for.” Then, standing in the midst, he pours from his most costly goblet the solemn libation to Jove, and prays of him for Patroclus victory and a safe return. The poet tells us, with that licence of prognostication which has been considerably abused by some modern writers of fiction, that half the prayer was heard, and half denied.

“Like a pack of ravening wolves, hungering for their prey,” the Myrmidons launch themselves against the enemy. The Trojans recognise, as they believe, in the armed charioteer who heads them, the terrible Achilles, and consternation spreads through their ranks. Even Hector, though still fighting gallantly, is borne back over the stockade, and the ditch is filled with broken chariots and struggling horses. Back towards the Trojan lines rolls the tide of battle. Sarpedon, the great Lycian chief, own son to Jupiter, falls by the spear of Patroclus. The ruler of Olympus has hesitated for a while whether he shall interpose to save him; but his fated term of life is come, and there is a mysterious Destiny in this Homeric mythology, against which even Jupiter seems powerless. All that he can do for his offspring is to insure for his body the rites of burial; and by his order the twin brothers, Sleep and Death, carry off the corpse to his native shore of Lycia.

But Patroclus has forgotten the parting caution of Achilles. Flushed with his triumph, he follows up the pursuit even to the walls of Troy. But there Apollo keeps guard. Thrice the Greek champion in defiance smites upon the battlements, and thrice the god shakes the terrible Ægis in his face. A fourth time the Greek lifts his spear, when an awful voice warns him that neither for him, nor yet for his mightier master Achilles, is it written in the fates to take Troy. Awe-struck, he draws back from the wall, but only to continue his career of slaughter among the Trojans. Apollo meets him in the field, strips from him his helmet and his armour, and shivers his spear in his hand. The Trojan Euphorbus, seeing him at this disadvantage, stabs him from behind, and Hector, following him as he retreats, drives his spear through his body. As the Trojan prince stands over his victim, exulting after the fashion of all Homeric heroes in what seems to our taste a barbarous and boastful spirit, Patroclus with his dying breath foretells that his slayer shall speedily meet his own fate by the avenging hand of Achilles. Hector spurns the prophecy, and rushes after the charioteer Automedon, whom the immortal horses carry off safe from his pursuit. Then donning the armour of Achilles, so lately worn by Patroclus, he leads on the Trojans to seize the dead body, which Menelaus is gallantly defending. After a long and desperate contest, the Greeks, locking their shields together in close phalanx, succeed in carrying it off, the two Ajaxes keeping the assailants at bay. Jupiter, in pity to the dead hero, casts a veil of darkness round him. But this embarrasses the movements of friends as well as enemies, and gives rise to a characteristic outburst on the part of Ajax, often quoted. He can fight best when he sees his way. “Give us but light, O Jove, and in the light, if thou seest fit, destroy us!”

We have now reached the crisis of the story. The wrath of Achilles against Agamemnon wanes and pales before the far more bitter wrath which now fills his whole soul against Hector, as the slayer of his comrade. Young Antilochus, son of Nestor, brings the mournful tidings to his tent, where he sits already foreboding the result, as he sees the Greeks crowding back to their galleys from the field in front of Troy. His grief is frantic—he tears his hair, and heaps dust upon his head, after a fashion which strongly suggests the Eastern character of the tale. His goddess-mother, Thetis “of the silver feet,” hears him,

and comes with all her train of sea-nymphs to console him, as when before he sat weeping with indignation at the insult of Agamemnon. In vain she strives to comfort him with the thought that his insulted honour has been fully satisfied—that the Greeks have bitterly rued their former treatment of him. He feels only the loss of Patroclus, and curses the hour in which he was born. All that he longs for now is vengeance upon Hector. Thetis sorrowfully reminds him that it is written in the book of fate that when Hector falls, his own last hour is near at hand. Be it so, is his reply—death comes in turn to all men, and he will meet it as he may. But he cannot go forth to battle without armour; and the goddess promises that by the morrow’s dawn, Vulcan, the immortal craftsman, shall furnish him with harness of proof.

The Greeks have fought their way to their vessels, step by step, with the dead body of Patroclus. But Hector with his Trojans has pressed them close all the way, and even when at the Greek lines seizes the corpse by the feet. Iris flies to Achilles with a message from Juno—will he see his dead friend given as a prey to the dogs and vultures?—He is without armour, true; but there is no need for him to adventure himself among the combatants; let him only show himself, let the Trojans but hear his voice, and it is enough. He does so; standing aloft upon the rampart, while Pallas throws her ægis over him, and surrounds his head with a halo of flashing light, he lifts his mighty voice and thrice shouts aloud. Panic seizes the whole host of Troy, and while they give ground in dismay, the dead Patroclus is borne off to the tent of Achilles.

Night falls on the plain, and separates the combatants. The Trojans, before their evening meal, hold an anxious council, in which Polydamas, as great in debate as Hector is in the field, advises that they should now retire within their walls. Achilles, it is evident, will head the Greeks in the morning, and who shall stand before him? But the wise counsel of Polydamas meets the same fate as that of Ahithophel; Heaven will not suffer men to listen to it. Minerva perverts the understandings of the Trojans, and they prefer the rasher exhortations of Hector, who urges them at all hazards to keep the field.

Thetis, meanwhile, has sought out Vulcan, and bespoken his skill in the forging of new armour for her son. The lame god will work for her, she knows; for in the day when his cruel mother Juno, in wrath at his marvellous ugliness, cast him down from Olympus, she with her sister-goddess Eurynome had nursed him in their bosom till he grew strong. She finds him now hard at work at his forges, in the brazen halls which he has made for himself in heaven. He is completing at this moment some marvellous machinery—twenty tripods mounted on wheels of gold (the earliest hint of velocipedes), which are to move of themselves, and carry him to and fro to the assembly of the gods. Another marvel, too, is to be seen in the Fire-king’s establishment, which has long been the desideratum of modern households, but which modern mechanical science has as yet failed to invent—automaton servants, worked by machinery.

Willingly, at the request of the sea-goddess, Vulcan plies his immortal art. Helmet with crest of gold, breastplate “brighter than the flash of fire,” and the pliant greaves that mould themselves to the limb, are soon completed. But the marvel of marvels is the shield. On this the god bestows all his skill, and the, poet his most graphic description. It is covered with figures of the most elaborate design, wrought in brass, and tin, and gold, and silver. In its centre are the sun, the moon, and all the host of heaven: round the rim flows the mighty ocean-river, which in Homeric as in Eastern mythology encompasses the earth; and on its embossed surface, crowded with figures, is embodied an epitome of human life, such as life was in the days of Homer. The tale is told in twelve compartments, containing each a scene of peace or war. Three groups represent a city in time of peace: a wedding procession with music and dancing, a dispute in the market-place, and a reference to the judgment of the elders gathered in council. Three represent a city in time of war: a siege, an ambuscade, and a battle. Then follow three scenes of outdoor country life: ploughing, the harvest, and the vintage. The lord of the harvest stands looking on at his reapers, like Boaz. In the vintage scene, the art of the immortal workman is minutely described. The vines are wrought in gold, the props are of silver, the grape-bunches are of a purple black, and there is a trench round of some dark-hued metal, crowned by a palisade of bright tin. Three pastoral groups complete the circle. First, a herd of oxen with herdsmen and their dogs, attacked by lions; secondly, flocks feeding in a deep valley, with the folds and shepherds’ huts in the distance; and lastly, a festival dance of men and maidens in holiday attire, with the “divine bard,” without whom no festival is complete, singing his lays to his harp in the midst, and two gymnasts performing their feats for the amusement of the crowd of lookers-on. If any reader should have imagined that Homer’s song of (it may be) three thousand years ago was rude and inartistic, he has but to read, in the version of any of our best translators, this description of the Shield of Achilles, to be convinced that the poet understood his work to the full as well as the immortal craftsman whom he represents as having wrought it. We need not trouble ourselves with the difficulty of that French critic, who doubted whether so many subjects could really be represented on any shield of manageable size—like Goldsmith’s rustics who marvelled, in the case of the village schoolmaster,

It is only necessary to point to the clever design of Flaxman for its realisation, and its actual embodiment (with the moderate diameter of three feet) in the shield cast by Pitts.

CHAPTER IX.

THE RETURN OF ACHILLES.