preserve his body and arms from becoming a prey to
the enemy: and this he says without any regard to
himself, but out of most tender concern for his
friend’s reputation, who must for ever become
infamous, if he fails in this point of honour and duty’
(line 605).
263 The scales of Jove Compare The Rape of the Lock, V,
17.
278 ambrosial means immortal in Greek.
286 mount Ida behind Troy.
from the eighteenth book of the IliadPatroclus has now been killed by Hector. News has come to
Achilles. In the customary fashion Hector had stripped his
defeated opponent of his armour to take as his rightful spoils.
Since Patroclus was wearing Achilles’ armour, Thetis, the
goddess-mother of Achilles, requests Vulcan, the god of fire
and divine craftsman, to make a replacement set. Lines 365–
416 and 537–712 of the complete version.
14 Myrmidons the followers of Achilles.
15 In what vain promise Pope comments: ‘The
lamentation of Achilles over the body of Patroclus is
exquisitely touched: it is sorrow in the extreme, but
the sorrow of Achilles. It is nobly ushered in by that
simile of the lion, an idea which is fully answered in
the savage and bloody conclusion of this speech’ (line
379).
16 Menoetius the father of Patroclus who lived in
Opuntia.
67 the immense and solid shield Pope notes that Homer’s
intention was ‘to draw the picture of the whole world
in the compass of this shield’ for in it we see ‘all the
occupations and the ambitions and all the diversions
of mankind’ (concluding note to Book XVIII).
80 the Bear never sets and is ever in opposition to Orion
the hunter on the far horizon.
86 hymeneal Hymen is the god of marriage.