[47] Bacchus accused her to Diana of having lain with Theseus in his temple, and the Goddess punished her with death. [48] Probably meaning Helen. [49] This is surely one of the most natural strokes to be found in any Poet. Convinced, for a moment, by the virtues of Penelope, he mentioned her with respect; but recollecting himself suddenly, involves even her in his general ill opinion of the sex, begotten in him by the crimes of Clytemnestra. [50] Another most beautiful stroke of nature. Ere yet Ulysses has had opportunity to answer, the very thought that Peleus may possibly be insulted, fires him, and he takes the whole for granted. Thus is the impetuous character of Achilles sustained to the last moment! [51] Γυναίων εινεκα δώρων--Priam is said to have influenced by gifts the wife and mother of Eurypylus, to persuade him to the assistance of Troy, he being himself unwilling to engage. The passage through defect of history has long been dark, and commentators have adapted different senses to it, all conjectural. The Ceteans are said to have been a people of Mysia, of which Eurypylus was King. [52] Κατ' ασφοδελον λειμωνα--Asphodel was planted on the graves and around the tombs of the deceased, and hence the supposition that the Stygian plain was clothed with asphodel. F. [53] Βασαζοντα must have this sense interpreted by what follows. To attempt to make the English numbers expressive as the Greek is a labour like that of Sisyphus. The Translator has done what he could. [54] It is now, perhaps, impossible to ascertain with precision what Homer meant by the word κραταιίς, which he uses only here, and in the next book, where it is the name of Scylla's dam.--Αναιδης--is also of very doubtful explication. [55] The two first lines of the following book seem to ascertain the true meaning of the conclusion of this, and to prove sufficiently that by Ὠκεανὸς here Homer could not possibly intend any other than a river. In those lines he tells us in the plainest terms that _the ship left the stream of the river Oceanus, and arrived in the open sea_. Diodorus Siculus informs us that Ὠκεανὸς had been a name anciently given to the Nile. See Clarke. BOOK XII ARGUMENT Ulysses, pursuing his narrative, relates his return from the shades to Circe's island, the precautions given him by that Goddess, his escape from the Sirens, and from Scylla and Charybdis; his arrival in Sicily, where his companions, having slain and eaten the oxen of the Sun, are afterward shipwrecked and lost; and concludes the whole with an account of his arrival, alone, on the mast of his vessel, at the island of Calypso.