No More Learning

156. seq.

246 --_Thrice at the battlements. _ "The art military of the Homeric age
is upon a level with the state of navigation just described,
personal prowess decided every thing; the night attack and the
ambuscade, although much esteemed, were never upon a large scale.
The chiefs fight in advance, and enact almost as much as the knights
of romance. The siege of Troy was as little like a modern siege as a
captain in the guards is like Achilles. There is no mention of a
ditch or any other line or work round the town, and the wall itself
was accessible without a ladder. It was probably a vast mound of
earth with a declivity outwards. Patroclus thrice mounts it in
armour. The Trojans are in no respects blockaded, and receive
assistance from their allies to the very end. "--Coleridge, p. 212.

247 --_Ciconians. _--A people of Thrace, near the Hebrus.

248 --_They wept.
_

"Fast by the manger stands the inactive steed,
And, sunk in sorrow, hangs his languid head;
He stands, and careless of his golden grain,
Weeps his associates and his master slain. "

Merrick's Tryphiodorus, v. 18-24.

"Nothing is heard upon the mountains now,
But pensive herds that for their master low,
Straggling and comfortless about they rove,
Unmindful of their pasture and their love. "

Moschus, id. 3, parodied, _ibid. _

"To close the pomp, ? thon, the steed of state,
Is led, the funeral of his lord to wait.
Stripp'd of his trappings, with a sullen pace
He walks, and the big tears run rolling down his face. "

Dryden's Virgil, bk. ii

249 --_Some brawny bull. _

"Like to a bull, that with impetuous spring
Darts, at the moment when the fatal blow
Hath struck him, but unable to proceed
Plunges on either side. "

--Carey's Dante: Hell, c. xii.

250 This is connected with the earlier part of last book, the regular
narrative being interrupted by the message of Antilochus and the
lamentations of Achilles.

251 --_Far in the deep.