The ARGUMENT. The fecond battel, and the diftrefs of the Greeks. JUPITER affembles a council of the Deities, and threatens them with the pains of Tartarus if they aff either fide: Minerva only obtains of him that he may direct the Greeks by her counfels. The armies join battel; Jupiter on mount Ida weighs in his balances the fates of both, and affrights the Greeks with his thunders and lightnings. Neftor alone continues in the field in great danger; Diomed relieves him; whofe exploits and thofe of Hector, are excellently defcribed. Juno endeavours to animate Neptune to the affiftance of the Greeks, but in vain. The acts of Teucer, who is at length wounded by Hector, and carry'd off. Juno and Minerva prepare to aid the Grecians, but are reftrained by Iris, fent from Jupiter. The night puts an end to the battel. Hector continues the field (the Greeks being driven to their fortification before the ships) and gives orders to keep the watch all night in the camp, to prevent the enemy from reimbarking and efcaping by fight. They kindle fires thro' all the field, and pass the night under arms. The time of feven and twenty days is employed from the The fcene bere pening of the Poem to the end of this book. (except of the celeftial machines) lies in the field toward the fea-fbore. THE The Fight being agzin began to j'advantaxe ef y Giveks. Jupiter leto sell Thunder 20 4 feet Diomedes Herjés; 2 Nestor who accompanys him is jo terrys 22 it that he Obliges him to quit y Field or Battle.gra w gTrojans remein Mesterse " B. VE THE * EIGHTH BOOK I L A OF THE LIA D. URORA now, fair daughter of the dawn, Where high Olympus' cloudy tops arise. The *Homer, like moft of the Greeks, is thought to have travelled into Egypt, and brought from the priests there, not only their learning, but their manner of conveying it in fables and hieroglyphicks. This is neceffary to be confidered by thofe who would thoroughly penetrate into the beauty and defign of many parts of this author: For whoever reflects that this was the mode of learning in those times, will make no doubt but there are feveral mysteries both of natural and moral philofophy involv'd in his fictions, VOL. II. I which The Sire of Gods his awful filence broke; Back to the skies with shame he shall be driv’n, Gafh'd with dishonest wounds, the scorn of heav'n: 15 With which otherwife in the literal meaning appear too trivial or irrational; and it is but just, when these are not plain or immediately intelligible, to imagine that something of this kind may be hid under them. Nevertheless, as Homèr travelled not with a direct view of writing philofophy or theology, so he might often use these hieroglyphical fables and traditions as embellishments of his poetry only, without taking the pains to open their mystical meaning to his readers, and perhaps without diving very deeply into it himself. V. 16. Low in the dark Tartarean gulf, &c.] This opinion of Tartarus, the place of torture for the impious after death, might be taken from the Egyptians: for it seems not improbable, as fome writers have obferved, that fome tradition might then be fpread in the Eastern parts of the world, of the fall of the angels, the punishment of the damned, and other facred truths which were afterterwards more fully explained and taught by the Prophets and Apostles. Thefe Homer feems to allude to in this and other paffages; as where Vulcan is faid to be precipitated from heaven in the firit book; where Jupiter threatens Mars with Tartarus in the fifth, and where the Dæmon of Difcord is caft out of heaven in the mineteenth. Virgil has translated a part of thefe lines in the fixth Eneid. |