HOMER'S ILIAD COMPLETE

Rhapsody 18

Literally Translated, with Explanatory Notes, by Theodore Alois Buckley

Homer Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Homer in Print

Page 21

First of all he formed a shield,[596] both large and solid, decorating it all over, and around it he threw a shining border, triple and glittering, and from it [there hung] a silver belt. Of the shield itself, there were five folds; but on it he formed many curious works, with cunning skill. On it he wrought the earth, and the heaven, and the sea, the unwearied sun, and the full moon. On it also [he represented] all the constellations with which the heaven is crowned, the Pleiades, the Hyades, and the strength of Orion, and the Bear,[597] which they also call by the appellation of the Wain, which there revolves, and watches Orion;[598] but it alone is free[599] from the baths of the ocean.

[Footnote 596: See Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. 182, sqq.; Riccius, Dissert. Hom. t.i.p. 216; Feith, Antiq. Hom. iv. 10, 4. In reading this whole description, care must be taken to allow for the freedom of poetic description, as well as for the skill of the supposed artificer.]

[Footnote 597: Cf. Virg. Georg. i. 137; Aen. i. 748, iii. 516.]

[Footnote 598: Orion ascends above the horizon, as though in pursuit of the Wain, which in return seems to observe his movements. Manilius, i. 500: "Arctos et Orion adversis frontibus ibant," which is compared by Scaliger, p. 28.]

[Footnote 599: Aratus, Dios. 48: [Greek: Arktoi kyaneou pephylagmenoi okeanoio]. Virg. Georg. i. 246: "Arctos Oceani metuentes aequore tingi." The student of ancient astronomy will do well to compare Scaliger on Manil. i, p. 43, 2; Casaub. on Strabo, i. init.]

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