Or with these hands the cruel stroke repel, Thus having said, the father of the fires Then first he form'd the immense and solid shield; Rich various artifice emblazed the field ; Its utmost verge a threefold circle bound; A silver chain suspends the massy round; Five ample plates the broad expanse compose, And godlike labors on the surface rose. There shone the image of the master-mind : There earth, there heaven, there ocean he design'd; The unwearied sun, the moon completely round; The starry lights that heaven's high convex crown'd; The Pleiads. Hyads, with the northern team; And great Orion's more refulgent beam : To which, around the axle of the sky, The Bear, revolving, points his golden eye, Still shines exalted on the ethereal plain, Nor bathes his blazing forehead in the main. Two cities radiant on the shield appear, * * Quintus Calaber, lib. v., has attempted to rival Homer in his description of the shield of the same hero. A few extracts from Mr. Dyce's verses (Seiect Translations, p. 104, seq.) may here be introduced. In the wide circle of the shield were seen The image one of peace, and one of war. There in the forum swarm a numerous train; Another part (a prospect differing far) † Glow'd with refulgent arms, and horrid war. Two mighty hosts a leaguer'd town embrace, And one would pillage, one would burn the place. Meantime the townsmen, arm’d with silent care, A secrot ambush on the foe prepare ; Their wives, their children, and the watchful band Of trembling parents, on the turrets stand. They march; by Pallas and by Mars made bold : Gold were the gods, their radiant garments gold, * On seats of stone. “ Several of the old northern Sagas represent the old inen assembled for the purpose of judging as sitting on great stones, in a circle called the Urtheilsring or gerichtsring:”—Grote, ii. p. 100, note. On the independence of the judicial office in the heroic times, see Thirlwall's Greece, vol. i. p. 166. † Another part, &c. 6 And here And gold their armor : these the squadron led, A field deep furrow'd next the god design’d, * Another field rose high with waving grain ; * A fieid deep furrowed. “Here was a corn field ; reapers in a row, Each with a sharp-tooth'd sickle in his hand, With bended sickles stand the reaper train : Next, ripe in yellow gold, a vineyard shines, Here herds of oxen march, erect and bold, Next this, the eye the art of Vulcan leads A figured dance succeeds; such once was seen The maids in soft simars of linen dress’d; Thus the broad shield complete the artist crown'd This done, whate'er a warrior's use requires And bears the blazing present through the skies.* * Coleridge (Greek Classic Poets, p. 182, seq.) has diligently compared is with the description of the shield of Hercules by Hesiod. He remarks that, “ with two or three exceptions, the imagery differs in little more than the names and arrangements; and the difference of arrangement in the shield of Hercules is altogether for The natural consecution of the Homeric images needs no exposition : it constitutes in itself one of the beauties of the work. The Hesiodic images are huddled together without connection or congruity : Mars and Pallas are awkwardly introduced among the Centaurs and Lapithæ ;-but the gap is wide indeed between hem and Apollo with the Muses, waking the echoes of Olympus to celestial harmonies ; whence, however, we are burried back to Perseus, the Gorgons, and other images of war, over an arm of the sca, in which the sporting dolphins, the fugitive fishes, and the fisherman on the shore with his casting net, are minutely represented. As to the Hesiodic images themselves, the leading remark is, that they catch at beauty by ornament, and at sublimity by exaggeration ; and upon the untenab.e supposition of the genuineness of this poem, there is this curious peculiarity, that, in the description of scenes of rustic peace, the superiority of Homer is decisive-while in those of war and tumult it may be thought, perhaps, that the Hesiodic poet has nore than once the advantage." the worse. |