115 Pallas another name for Minerva, daughter of
Jupiter.
144 hind workman, labourer.
178 Linus perhaps a personification of the spring or the
summer.
199 Daedalean art Daedalus was employed by King
Minos at Cnossus to build the labyrinth, a maze in
which the Minotaur was imprisoned. Ariadne was the
daughter of Minos who helped Theseus to escape
from the labyrinth by means of a thread after he had
killed the monstrous Minotaur.
201 simar scarf.
218 ocean in Homer it encircles the world, and is
therefore appropriately placed on the border of the
shield.
222 cuirass breastplate.
227 Olympus dwelling place of the immortal gods, a
mountain in Greece.
from the nineteenth book of the IliadThe title is taken from Pope’s argument. Lines 1–24 and 378–
471 in the complete version.
1 Aurora the dawn goddess.
27 Boreas the north wind.
45 cuishes armour protecting the thighs. Pope comments:
‘There is a wonderful pomp in this description of
Achilles arming himself; every reader without being
pointed to it, will see the extreme grandeur of all
these images; but what is particular, is, in what a
noble scale they rise one above another, and how the
hero is set still in a stronger point of light than
before; till he is at last in a manner covered over with
glories; he is at first likened to the moonlight, then to
the flames of a beacon, then to a comet, and lastly to
the sun itself (line 398).
69 Pelion a mountain in Thessaly in northern Greece,
near the home of Achilles.