[258] _Pursuit was there._] Homer, Il. vi. 5: She charged her shoulder with the dreadful Shield, The shaggy Ægis, border’d thick around With Terror: there was Discord, Prowess there, There hot Pursuit. There Discord raged, there Tumult, and the force Of ruthless Destiny. She now a chief Seiz’d newly wounded, and now captive held Another yet unhurt, and now a third Dragg’d breathless through the battle by his feet: And all her garb was dappled thick with blood. Like living men they travers’d and they strove, And dragg’d by turns the bodies of the slain. COWPER, book xviii. Shield of Achilles. [259] _Herds of boars._] That animal (the wild boar) was no less terrible on the opposite coast of Asia than in Greece: as we learn from Herodotus, book i. c. 34. GILLIES. [260] _The battle of the Lapithæ._] This forms the subject of the _alto-relievo_ on the entablature of the Parthenon, or the temple of Minerva: ascribed to Phidias. See the “Memorandum” on the Elgin marbles. [261] _Some from their city._] Homer, Il. book xvii. Shield of Achilles: The other city by two glittering hosts Invested stood: and a dispute arose Between the hosts, whether to burn the town And lay all waste, or to divide the spoil. Meantime the citizens, still undismay’d, Surrender’d not the town, but taking arms Prepared an ambush; and the wives and boys, With all the hoary elders, kept the walls. COWPER. [262] _And near to them_ _Stood Misery._] Warton observes, History of English poetry, vol. i. p. 468: “The French and Italian poets, whom Chaucer imitates, abound in allegorical personages: and it is remarkable that the early poets of Greece and Rome were fond of these creations: we have in Hesiod ‘Darkness:’ and many others; if the Shield of Hercules be of his hand.” But it seems to have escaped the writer that it is not literal, but figurative Darkness which is personified. Guietus ingeniously supposes that it is meant for the dimness of death. Homer, indeed, applies to this the same term: in the death of Eurymachus, Od. xxii. 88: Κατ’ οφθαλμων δ’ εχυτ’ ΑΧΛΥΣ. A darkening mist was pour’d upon his eyes. Tanaquil Faber, on Longinus, contends that αχλυς is here Sorrow. Sorrow is personified in a fragment of Ennius: Omnibus endo locis ingens apparet imago Tristitia. Sorrow, a giant form, uprears the head In every place.