No More Learning

809.

242 Protesilaus was the first Greek who fell, slain by Hector, as he
leaped from the vessel to the Trojan shore. He was buried on the
Chersonese, near the city of Plagusa. Hygin Fab. ciii. Tzetz. on
Lycophr. 245, 528. There is a most elegant tribute to his memory in
the Preface to the Heroica of Philostratus.

243 --_His best beloved. _ The following elegant remarks of Thirlwall
(Greece, vol. i, p. 176 seq. ) well illustrate the character of the
friendship subsisting between these two heroes--

"One of the noblest and most amiable sides of the Greek character,
is the readiness with which it lent itself to construct intimate and
durable friendships, and this is a feature no less prominent in the
earliest than in later times. It was indeed connected with the
comparatively low estimation in which female society was held; but
the devotedness and constancy with which these attachments were
maintained, was not the less admirable and engaging.
The heroic
companions whom we find celebrated partly by Homer and partly in
traditions which, if not of equal antiquity, were grounded on the
same feeling, seem to have but one heart and soul, with scarcely a
wish or object apart, and only to live as they are always ready to
die for one another. It is true that the relation between them is
not always one of perfect equality; but this is a circumstance
which, while it often adds a peculiar charm to the poetical
description, detracts little from the dignity of the idea which it
presents. Such were the friendships of Hercules and Iolaus, of
Theseus and Pirithous, of Orestes and Pylades; and though These may
owe the greater part of their fame to the later epic or even
dramatic poetry, the moral groundwork undoubtedly subsisted in the
period to which the traditions are referred. The argument of the
Iliad mainly turns on the affection of Achilles for Patroclus, whose
love for the greater hero is only tempered by reverence for his
higher birth and his unequalled prowess. But the mutual regard which
united Idomeneus and Meriones, Diomedes and Sthenelus, though, as
the persons themselves are less important, it is kept more in the
back-ground, is manifestly viewed by the poet in the same light. The
idea of a Greek hero seems not to have been thought complete,
without such a brother in arms by his side. "--Thirlwall, Greece, vol.
i. p. 176, seq.

244 "As hungry wolves with raging appetite,
Scour through the fields, ne'er fear the stormy night--
Their whelps at home expect the promised food,
And long to temper their dry chaps in blood--
So rush'd we forth at once. "

--Dryden's Virgil, ii. 479.

245 --_The destinies ordain. _--"In the mythology, also, of the Iliad,
purely Pagan as it is, we discover one important truth unconsciously
involved, which was almost entirely lost from view amidst the nearly
equal scepticism and credulity of subsequent ages. Zeus or Jupiter
is popularly to be taken as omnipotent.