The Iliad of Homer by Homer
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Title: The Iliad of Homer
Author: Homer
Release Date: September 2006 [Ebook #6130] Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
***START OF THE PROJECT EBOOK THE ILIAD OF HOMER*** The Iliad of Homer
Translated by Alexander Pope, with notes by the
Rev. Theodore Alois Buckley, M.A., F.S.A. and
Flaxman's Designs.
1899
Contents
INTRODUCTION.
POPE'S PREFACE TO THE ILIAD OF HOMER BOOK I.
BOOK II. BOOK III. BOOK IV. BOOK V. BOOK VI. BOOK VII. BOOK VIII. BOOK IX. BOOK X. BOOK XI. BOOK XII. BOOK XIII. BOOK XIV. BOOK XV. BOOK XVI. BOOK XVII. BOOK XVIII. BOOK XIX. BOOK XX. BOOK XXI. BOOK XXII. BOOK XXIII.
1
BOOK XXIV. CONCLUDING NOTE. Illustrations
HOMER INVOKING THE MUSE. MARS.
MINERVA REPRESSING THE FURY OF ACHILLES.
THE DEPARTURE OF BRISEIS FROM THE TENT OF ACHILLES. THETIS CALLING BRIAREUS TO THE ASSISTANCE OF JUPITER. THETIS ENTREATING JUPITER TO HONOUR ACHILLES. VULCAN.
JUPITER.
THE APOTHEOSIS OF HOMER.
JUPITER SENDING THE EVIL DREAM TO AGAMEMNON. NEPTUNE.
VENUS, DISGUISED, INVITING HELEN TO THE CHAMBER OF PARIS. VENUS PRESENTING HELEN TO PARIS.
VENUS.
Map, titled "Graeciae Antiquae". THE COUNCIL OF THE GODS. Map of the Plain of Troy.
VENUS, WOUNDED IN THE HAND, CONDUCTED BY IRIS TO MARS. OTUS AND EPHIALTES HOLDING MARS CAPTIVE.
DIOMED CASTING HIS SPEAR AT MARS. JUNO.
HECTOR CHIDING PARIS.
THE MEETING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE. BOWS AND BOW CASE.
IRIS.
HECTOR AND AJAX SEPARATED BY THE HERALDS. GREEK AMPHORA--WINE VESSELS.
JUNO AND MINERVA GOING TO ASSIST THE GREEKS. THE HOURS TAKING THE HORSES FROM JUNO'S CAR. THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES.
PLUTO.
THE EMBASSY TO ACHILLES. GREEK GALLEY. PROSERPINE.
ACHILLES.
DIOMED AND ULYSSES RETURNING WITH THE SPOILS OF RHESUS. THE DESCENT OF DISCORD.
HERCULES.
POLYDAMAS ADVISING HECTOR. GREEK ALTAR.
NEPTUNE RISING FROM THE SEA. GREEK EARRINGS.
SLEEP ESCAPING FROM THE WRATH OF JUPITER. GREEK SHIELD.
BACCHUS.
AJAX DEFENDING THE GREEK SHIPS. CASTOR AND POLLUX.
Buckles. DIANA.
SLEEP AND DEATH CONVEYING THE BODY OF SARPEDON TO LYCIA.
AESCULAPIUS.
FIGHT FOR THE BODY OF PATROCLUS. VULCAN FROM AN ANTIQUE GEM.
THETIS ORDERING THE NEREIDS TO DESCEND INTO THE SEA.
2
JUNO COMMANDING THE SUN TO SET. TRIPOD.
THETIS AND EURYNOME RECEIVING THE INFANT VULCAN. VULCAN AND CHARIS RECEIVING THETIS.
THETIS BRINGING THE ARMOUR TO ACHILLES. HERCULES.
THE GODS DESCENDING TO BATTLE. CENTAUR.
ACHILLES CONTENDING WITH THE RIVERS. THE BATH.
ANDROMACHE FAINTING ON THE WALL. THE FUNERAL PILE OF PATROCLUS. CERES.
HECTOR'S BODY AT THE CAR OF ACHILLES. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS.
IRIS ADVISES PRIAM TO OBTAIN THE BODY OF HECTOR. FUNERAL OF HECTOR.
[pg ix] INTRODUCTION.
Scepticism is as much the result of knowledge, as knowledge is of scepticism. To be content with what we at present know, is, for the most part, to shut our ears against conviction; since, from the very gradual character of our education, we must continually for-get, and emancipate ourselves from, knowledge previously acquired; we must set aside old notions and embrace fresh ones; and, as we learn, we must be daily unlearning something which it has cost us no small labour and anxiety to acquire.
And this difficulty attaches itself more closely to an age in which progress has gained a strong ascendency over prejudice, and in which persons and things are, day by day, finding their real level, in lieu of their conventional value. The same principles which have swept away traditional abuses, and which are making rapid havoc among the revenues of sinecurists, and stripping the thin, tawdry veil from attractive superstitions, are working as actively in literature as in society. The credulity of one writer, or the partiality of another, finds as powerful a touchstone and as wholesome a chastisement in the healthy scepticism of a temperate class of antagonists, as the dreams of conservatism, or the impostures of pluralist sinecures in the Church. History and tradition, whether of ancient
or comparatively recent times, are subjected to very different handling from that which the indulgence or credulity of former ages could allow. Mere statements are jealously watched, and the motives of the writer form as important an ingredient in the analysis of his history, as the facts he records. Probability is a powerful and troublesome test; and it is by this troublesome standard that a large portion of historical evidence is sifted. Consistency is no less pertinacious and exacting in its demands. In brief, to write a history, we must know more than mere facts. Human nature, viewed under an induction of extended experience, is the best help to the criticism of human history. Historical characters can only be estimated by the standard which human experience, whether actual or tradition-ary, has furnished. To form correct views of individuals we must regard them as forming parts of a great whole--we must measure them by their relation to the mass of beings by whom they are surrounded, and, in contemplating the incidents in their[pg x] lives
or condition which tradition has handed down to us, we must rather consider the general bearing of the whole narrative, than the respective probability of its details.
It is unfortunate for us, that, of some of the greatest men, we know least, and talk most. Homer, Socrates, and Shakespere1 have, perhaps, contributed more to the intellectual enlightenment of mankind than any other three writers who could be named, and yet the history of all three has given rise to a boundless ocean of discussion, which has left us little save the option of choosing which theory or theories we will follow. The personality of Shakespere is, perhaps, the only thing in which critics will allow us to believe without controversy; but upon everything else, even down to the authorship of plays, there is more or less of doubt and uncertainty. Of Socrates we know as little as the contradictions of Plato and Xenophon will allow us to know. He was one of the dramatis per-sonae in two dramas as unlike in principles as in style. He appears as the enunciator of opinions as different in their tone as those of the writers who have handed them down. When we have read Plato or Xenophon, we think we know something of Socrates; when we have fairly read and examined both, we feel convinced that we are something worse than ignorant.
It has been an easy, and a popular expedient, of late years, to deny the personal or real existence of men and things whose life and condition were too much for our belief. This system--which has often comforted the religious sceptic, and substituted the consola-tions of Strauss for those of the New Testament--has been of incalculable value to the historical theorists of the last and present centuries. To question the existence of Alexander the Great, would be a more excusable act, than to believe in that of Romulus.
To deny a fact related in Herodotus, because it is inconsistent with a theory developed from an Assyrian inscription which no two scholars