No More Learning

39 Hesiod. Opp. et Dier. Lib. I. vers. 155, &c.

40 The following argument of the Iliad, corrected in a few particulars,
is translated from Bitaube, and is, perhaps, the neatest summary
that has ever been drawn up:--"A hero, injured by his general, and
animated with a noble resentment, retires to his tent; and for a
season withdraws himself and his troops from the war. During this
interval, victory abandons the army, which for nine years has been
occupied in a great enterprise, upon the successful termination of
which the honour of their country depends. The general, at length
opening his eyes to the fault which he had committed, deputes the
principal officers of his army to the incensed hero, with commission
to make compensation for the injury, and to tender magnificent
presents. The hero, according to the proud obstinacy of his
character, persists in his animosity; the army is again defeated,
and is on the verge of entire destruction. This inexorable man has a
friend; this friend weeps before him, and asks for the hero's arms,
and for permission to go to the war in his stead. The eloquence of
friendship prevails more than the intercession of the ambassadors or
the gifts of the general. He lends his armour to his friend, but
commands him not to engage with the chief of the enemy's army,
because he reserves to himself the honour of that combat, and
because he also fears for his friend's life. The prohibition is
forgotten; the friend listens to nothing but his courage; his corpse
is brought back to the hero, and the hero's arms become the prize of
the conqueror.
Then the hero, given up to the most lively despair,
prepares to fight; he receives from a divinity new armour, is
reconciled with his general and, thirsting for glory and revenge,
enacts prodigies of valour, recovers the victory, slays the enemy's
chief, honours his friend with superb funeral rites, and exercises a
cruel vengeance on the body of his destroyer; but finally appeased
by the tears and prayers of the father of the slain warrior,
restores to the old man the corpse of his son, which he buries with
due solemnities. '--Coleridge, p. 177, sqq.

41 Vultures: Pope is more accurate than the poet he translates, for
Homer writes "a prey to dogs and to _all_ kinds of birds. But all
kinds of birds are not carnivorous.

42 --_i. e. _ during the whole time of their striving the will of Jove was
being gradually accomplished.

43 Compare Milton's "Paradise Lost" i. 6

"Sing, heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Horeb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd. "

44 --_Latona's son: i. e. _ Apollo.

45 --_King of men:_ Agamemnon.

46 --_Brother kings:_ Menelaus and Agamemnon.

47 --_Smintheus_ an epithet taken from sminthos, the Phrygian name for a
_mouse,_ was applied to Apollo for having put an end to a plague of
mice which had harassed that territory.