298 The following
observations
of Coleridge furnish a most gallant and
interesting view of Helen's character--
"Few things are more interesting than to observe how the same hand
that has given us the fury and inconsistency of Achilles, gives us
also the consummate elegance and tenderness of Helen.
interesting view of Helen's character--
"Few things are more interesting than to observe how the same hand
that has given us the fury and inconsistency of Achilles, gives us
also the consummate elegance and tenderness of Helen.
Iliad - Pope
"--Coleridge, p.
195.
296 "Achilles' ferocious treatment of the corpse of Hector cannot but
offend as referred to the modern standard of humanity. The heroic
age, however, must be judged by its own moral laws. Retributive
vengeance on the dead, as well as the living, was a duty inculcated
by the religion of those barbarous times which not only taught that
evil inflicted on the author of evil was a solace to the injured
man; but made the welfare of the soul after death dependent on the
fate of the body from which it had separated. Hence a denial of the
rites essential to the soul's admission into the more favoured
regions of the lower world was a cruel punishment to the wanderer on
the dreary shores of the infernal river. The complaint of the ghost
of Patroclus to Achilles, of but a brief postponement of his own
obsequies, shows how efficacious their refusal to the remains of his
destroyer must have been in satiating the thirst of revenge, which,
even after death, was supposed to torment the dwellers in Hades.
Hence before yielding up the body of Hector to Priam, Achilles asks
pardon of Patroclus for even this partial cession of his just rights
of retribution. "--Mure, vol. i. 289.
297 Such was the fate of Astyanax, when Troy was taken.
"Here, from the tow'r by stern Ulysses thrown,
Andromache bewail'd her infant son. "
Merrick's Tryphiodorus, v. 675.
298 The following observations of Coleridge furnish a most gallant and
interesting view of Helen's character--
"Few things are more interesting than to observe how the same hand
that has given us the fury and inconsistency of Achilles, gives us
also the consummate elegance and tenderness of Helen. She is through
the Iliad a genuine lady, graceful in motion and speech, noble in
her associations, full of remorse for a fault for which higher
powers seem responsible, yet grateful and affectionate towards those
with whom that fault had committed her. I have always thought the
following speech in which Helen laments Hector, and hints at her own
invidious and unprotected situation in Troy, as almost the sweetest
passage in the poem. It is another striking instance of that
refinement of feeling and softness of tone which so generally
distinguish the last book of the Iliad from the rest. "--Classic
Poets, p. 198, seq.
299 "And here we part with Achilles at the moment best calculated to
exalt and purify our impression of his character. We had accompanied
him through the effervescence, undulations, and final subsidence of
his stormy passions. We now leave him in repose and under the full
influence of the more amiable affections, while our admiration of
his great qualities is chastened by the reflection that, within a
few short days the mighty being in whom they were united was himself
to be suddenly cut off in the full vigour of their exercise.
The frequent and touching allusions, interspersed throughout the
Iliad, to the speedy termination of its hero's course, and the moral
on the vanity of human life which they indicate, are among the
finest evidences of the spirit of ethic unity by which the whole
framework of the poem is united. "--Mure, vol. i. p 201.
300 Cowper says,--"I cannot take my leave of this noble poem without
expressing how much I am struck with the plain conclusion of it. It
is like the exit of a great man out of company, whom he has
entertained magnificently; neither pompous nor familiar; not
contemptuous, yet without much ceremony. " Coleridge, p.
296 "Achilles' ferocious treatment of the corpse of Hector cannot but
offend as referred to the modern standard of humanity. The heroic
age, however, must be judged by its own moral laws. Retributive
vengeance on the dead, as well as the living, was a duty inculcated
by the religion of those barbarous times which not only taught that
evil inflicted on the author of evil was a solace to the injured
man; but made the welfare of the soul after death dependent on the
fate of the body from which it had separated. Hence a denial of the
rites essential to the soul's admission into the more favoured
regions of the lower world was a cruel punishment to the wanderer on
the dreary shores of the infernal river. The complaint of the ghost
of Patroclus to Achilles, of but a brief postponement of his own
obsequies, shows how efficacious their refusal to the remains of his
destroyer must have been in satiating the thirst of revenge, which,
even after death, was supposed to torment the dwellers in Hades.
Hence before yielding up the body of Hector to Priam, Achilles asks
pardon of Patroclus for even this partial cession of his just rights
of retribution. "--Mure, vol. i. 289.
297 Such was the fate of Astyanax, when Troy was taken.
"Here, from the tow'r by stern Ulysses thrown,
Andromache bewail'd her infant son. "
Merrick's Tryphiodorus, v. 675.
298 The following observations of Coleridge furnish a most gallant and
interesting view of Helen's character--
"Few things are more interesting than to observe how the same hand
that has given us the fury and inconsistency of Achilles, gives us
also the consummate elegance and tenderness of Helen. She is through
the Iliad a genuine lady, graceful in motion and speech, noble in
her associations, full of remorse for a fault for which higher
powers seem responsible, yet grateful and affectionate towards those
with whom that fault had committed her. I have always thought the
following speech in which Helen laments Hector, and hints at her own
invidious and unprotected situation in Troy, as almost the sweetest
passage in the poem. It is another striking instance of that
refinement of feeling and softness of tone which so generally
distinguish the last book of the Iliad from the rest. "--Classic
Poets, p. 198, seq.
299 "And here we part with Achilles at the moment best calculated to
exalt and purify our impression of his character. We had accompanied
him through the effervescence, undulations, and final subsidence of
his stormy passions. We now leave him in repose and under the full
influence of the more amiable affections, while our admiration of
his great qualities is chastened by the reflection that, within a
few short days the mighty being in whom they were united was himself
to be suddenly cut off in the full vigour of their exercise.
The frequent and touching allusions, interspersed throughout the
Iliad, to the speedy termination of its hero's course, and the moral
on the vanity of human life which they indicate, are among the
finest evidences of the spirit of ethic unity by which the whole
framework of the poem is united. "--Mure, vol. i. p 201.
300 Cowper says,--"I cannot take my leave of this noble poem without
expressing how much I am struck with the plain conclusion of it. It
is like the exit of a great man out of company, whom he has
entertained magnificently; neither pompous nor familiar; not
contemptuous, yet without much ceremony. " Coleridge, p.
