It seems indeed probable, from the manner in which he
dwells on their
metallic
ornaments that the higher beauty of
proportion was but little required or understood, and it is,
perhaps, strength and convenience, rather than elegance, that he
means to commend, in speaking of the fair house which Paris had
built for himself with the aid of the most skilful masons of
Troy.
Iliad - Pope
_ left hand.
173 --_In fifty chambers._
"The fifty nuptial beds, (such hopes had he,
So large a promise of a progeny,)
The ports of plated gold, and hung with spoils."
Dryden's Virgil, ii.658
174 --_O would kind earth,_ &c. "It is apparently a sudden, irregular
burst of popular indignation to which Hector alludes, when he
regrets that the Trojans had not spirit enough to cover Paris with a
mantle of stones. This, however, was also one of the ordinary formal
modes of punishment for great public offences. It may have been
originally connected with the same feeling--the desire of avoiding
the pollution of bloodshed--which seems to have suggested the
practice of burying prisoners alive, with a scantling of food by
their side. Though Homer makes no mention of this horrible usage,
the example of the Roman Vestals affords reasons for believing that,
in ascribing it to the heroic ages, Sophocles followed an authentic
tradition."--Thirlwall's Greece, vol. i. p. 171, sq.
175 --_Paris' lofty dome._ "With respect to the private dwellings, which
are oftenest described, the poet's language barely enables us to
form a general notion of their ordinary plan, and affords no
conception of the style which prevailed in them or of their effect
on the eye.
It seems indeed probable, from the manner in which he
dwells on their
metallic
ornaments that the higher beauty of
proportion was but little required or understood, and it is,
perhaps, strength and convenience, rather than elegance, that he
means to commend, in speaking of the fair house which Paris had
built for himself with the aid of the most skilful masons of
Troy.
"--Thirlwall's Greece, vol. i. p. 231.
176 --_The wanton courser._
"Come destrier, che da le regie stalle
Ove a l'usa de l'arme si riserba,
Fugge, e libero al fiu per largo calle
Va tragl' armenti, o al fiume usato, o a l'herba."
Gier, Lib. ix. 75.
177 --_Casque._ The original word is stephanae, about the meaning of
which there is some little doubt. Some take it for a different kind
of cap or helmet, others for the rim, others for the cone, of the
helmet.
