I Oh give my lance to reach the Trojan Knight, 150 That vaunts these eyes shall view the light no more. 160 165 Thefe V. 164. From mortal mists I purge thyrs.] This fiction of Homer, (lays M. Dacier) is founded upon an important truth of religion, not unknown to the Pagans, that God only can open the eyes of men, and enable them to fee what they cannot difcover by their own capacity There are frequent examples of this in the Old Teftament. Goi opens the eyes of Hagar that she' might see the fountair, in Genef. 21, v. 14. So Numbers 22. V. 3. The Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he faw the Angel of the Lord standing in his way, and his fword drawn in his hand. A paffage much refembling this of our author. Venus in Virgil's fecond Eneid performs the fame office to Eneas, and thews him the Gods who were engag'd in the destruction of Troy.. Afpice; namque omnen quæ nunc obducta' tuenti Apparent dira facies, inimicaque Troja Thefe fee thou fhun, thro' all, th' embattled plain, Her fhalt thou wound: So Pallas gives command. 171 175 With that, the blue-ey'd virgin wing'd her flight; The Hero rufh'd impetuous to the fight; With tenfold ardour now invades the plain. Wild with delay, and more enrag'd by pain. As on the fleecy flocks, when hunger calls Amidft the field a brindled lion falls; If chance fome fhepherd with a distant dart The favage wound, he rouzes at the smart, He foams, he roars; the fhepherd dares not stay, But trembling leaves the fcatt'ring flocks a prey. Heaps fall on heaps; he bathes with blood the ground, Then leaps victorious o'er the lofty mound. 181 Not with lefs fury ftern Tydides flew, 185 Milton feems likewife to have imitated this, where he makes Michael open Adam's eyes to fee the future revolutious of the world, and fortunes of his potterity, Book 11. He purg'd with euphrafie and rue The vifual nerve, for he had much to fee, This diftinguifting fight of Diomed was given him only for the prefent occafion and fervice, in which he was employed by Pallas. For we find in the fixth book, that upon meeting Glaucus, he is ignorant whether that. Hero be a Man or a God,.. Allynous Aftynous breaft the deadly lance receives, Hypenor's fhoulder his broad faulchion cleaves. Sons of Eurydamas, who wife and old, Could fates forefee, and myftic dreams unfold; 190 The youths return'd not from the doubtful plain, Young Xanthus next, and Thoön felt his rage, 195 V. 194.] No myftic dream] This line in the original, Τοῖς ἐκ ἔρχομένοις ὁ γέρων ἐκρίνατ ̓ ὀνείρες, contains as puzzling a paffage for the construction as I have met with in Homer. Moft interpreters join the negative particle with the verb xpivalo, which may receive three different meanings: That Eurydamas had not interpreted the dreams of his children when they went to the wars, or that he had foretold them by their dreams they should never return from the wars, or that he fhould now no more have the fatisfaction to interpret their dreams at their return. After all, this construction feems forced, and no way agreeable to the general idiom of the Greek language, or to Homer's fimple diction in particular. If we join & with exoμéron, I think the most obvious fenfe will be this: Diomed attacks the two fons of Eurydamas, arold interpreter of dreams; his children not returning, the prophet fought by his dreams to know their fate; however they fall by the hand of Diomed. This interpretation feems natural and poetical, and tends to move compaffion, which is almoft confrantly the defign of the Poet, in his frequent short digreffions concerning the circumstances and relations of dying persons. Cold Cold death o'ertakes them in their blooming years, 200 And leaves the father unavailing tears: 205 To ftrangers now defcends his wealthy ftore, 210 Thro' V. 202. To ftrangers now defcends his wealthyftore.] This is a circumftance, than which nothing could be imagined more tragical, confidering the character of the father. Homer fays the trustees of the remote collateral relations feized the eftate before his eyes, (according to a cuftom of those times) which to a covetous old man muft be the greatest of miferies. V. 212. Divine Eneas.] It is here Eneas begins to act, and if we take a view of the whole Episode of this Hero in Homer, where he makes but an under-part, it will appear that Virgil has kept him perfectly in the fame character in his Poem, where he fhines as the first Hero. His piety and his valour, though not drawn at fo full a length, are marked no lefs in the original than in the copy. It is the manner of Homer to exprefs very strongly the character of each of his perfons in the firft fpeech he is made to utter in the Poem. In this of Eneas, there is a great air of piety in thofe ftrokes, 1s he fome God who punishes Troy for having neglected his facrifices? And then that fentence, The anger of heaven is terrible. When he is in danger afterwards, he is faved by the heavenly affiftance of the two Deities at once, and his wounds cured in the holy temple of Pergamus by Latona Thro' the thick ftorm of finging fpears he flies, At length he found Lycaon's mighty son; 215 Latona and Diana. As to his valour, he is second only to Hector, and in personal bravery as great in the Greek author as in the Roman. He is made to exert himself on emergencies of the first importance and hazard, rather than on common occafions: He checks Diomed here in the midst of his fury; in the thirteenth book defends his friend Deiphobus before it was his turn to fight, being placed in one of the hindmoft ranks, (which Homer, to take off all objections to his valour, tells us happened becaufe Priam had an animofity to him, though he was one of the braveft of the army.) He is one of those who refcue Hector when he is overthrown by Ajax in the fourteenth book. And what alone were fufficient to eftablish him a first-rate Hero, he is the first that dares refift Achilles himself at his return to the fight in all his rage for the lofs of Patroclus. He indeed avoids encountering two at once in the prefent book; and fhews upon the whole a fedate and deliberate courage, which, if not fo glaring as fome others, is yet more juft. It is worth confidering how thoroughly Virgil penetrated all this, and faw into the very idea of Homer; fo as to extend and call forth the whole figure in its full dimensions and colours from the flightest hints and sketches, which were but cafually touched by Homer, and even in fome points too where they were rather left to be understood, than expreffed. And this, by the way, ought to be confidered by thofe critics who object to Virgil's Hero the want of that fort of courage which strikes us fo much in Homer's Achilles. Eneas was not the creature of Virgil's imagination, but one whom the world was already acquainted with, and expected to fee continued in the same character; and one who perhaps was chofen for the Hero of the Latin Poem, not only as he was the founder of the Roman empire, but as this more calm and regu lar character better agreed with the temper and genius of the Poet himself. Thy 1 |