Him the old man Priam first beheld, as he sped across the plain, blazing as the star that cometh forth at harvest-time, and plain seen his rays shine forth amid the host of stars in the darkness of night, the star whose name men call Orion’s Dog. Brightest of all is he, yet for an evil sign is he set, and bringeth much fever upon hapless men. Even so on Achilles’ breast the bronze gleamed as he ran.[42] Footnote 42: _Iliad_, xxii. 25-32. In the corresponding passage relating to Diomed (v. 4-7), the _naïve_ literalness with which the ‘baths of Ocean’ are thought of is conveyed by the hint that the star shone at rising with increased brilliancy through having newly washed in them. Abnormal celestial appearances are scarcely noticed in the Homeric poems. Certain portentous darknesses, reinforcing the solemnity of crises of battle, or impending doom,[43] are much too vaguely defined to be treated as indexes to natural phenomena of any kind. Nevertheless, Professor Stockwell finds that, by a curious coincidence, Ajax’s Prayer to Father Zeus for death—if death was decreed—in the light, might very well have been uttered during a total eclipse of the sun, the lunar shadow having passed centrally over the Hellespont at 2h. 21 min. P.M. on August 28, 1184 B.C.[44] Comets, however, have left not even the suspicion of a trace in these early songs; nor do they embody any tradition of a star shower, or of a display of Northern Lights. The rain of blood, by which Zeus presaged and celebrated the death of Sarpedon,[45] might, it is true, be thought to embody a reminiscence of a crimson aurora, frequently, in early times, chronicled under that form; but the portent indicated is more probably an actual shower of rain tinged red by a microscopic alga. An unmistakable meteor, however, furnishes one of the glowing similes of the Iliad. By its help the irresistible swiftness and unexpectedness of Athene’s descent from Olympus to the Scamandrian plain are illustrated. Footnote 43: _Iliad_, xv. 668; xvii. 366; _Odyssey_, xx. 356. Footnote 44: _Astronomical Journal_, Nos. 220, 221. Footnote 45: _Iliad_, xvi. 459; also xi. 53. Even as the son of Kronos the crooked counsellor sendeth a star, a portent for mariners or a wide host of men, bright shining, and therefrom are scattered sparks in multitude; even in such guise sped Pallas Athene to earth, and leapt into their midst.[46] Footnote 46: _Iliad_, iv. 75-79. In the Homeric verses the Milky Way—the ‘path of souls’ of prairie-roving Indians, the mediæval ‘way of pilgrimage’[47]—finds no place. Yet its conspicuousness, as seen across our misty air, gives an imperfect idea of the lustre with which it spans the translucent vault which drew the wondering gaze of the Achæan bard. Footnote 47: