530 This, Goddefs, this to his remembrance call, Embrace his knees, at his tribunal fall;

Conjure him far to drive the Grecian train,

To hurl them headlong to their fleet and main To heap the shores with copious death, and bring $35 The Greeks to know the curfe of fuch a King:

Let Agamemnon lift his haughty head

O'er all his wide dominion of the dead,

And mourn in blood, that e'er he durft difgrace
The boldeft warrior of the Grecian race.
540 Unhappy fon! (fair Thetis thus replies,
While tears celeftial trickle from her eyes)
Why have I born thee with a mother's throes,
To fates averfe, and nurs'd for future woes?
So fhort a space the light of heav'n to view!
$45 So fhort a space! and fill'd with forrow too!
O might a parent's careful with prevail,

Far, far from Ilion fhould thy veffels fail,

And thou, from camps remote, the danger shun,
Which now, alas! too nearly threats my fon.
550 Yet (what I can) to move thy fuit I'll go,

To great Olympus crown'd with fleecy fnow.
Mean time, fecure within thy fhips from far
Behold the field, nor mingle in the war.
G 6

The

The Sire of Gods, and all th' ætherial train, 555 On the warm limits of the fartheft main,

Now mix with mortals, nor disdain to grace-
The Feasts of Ethiopia's blameless race:

557. The feats of Ethiopia's blameless race.]

The thiopians, fays Diodorus, lib. 3. are faid to be the inventors of pomps, facrifices, folemn meetings, and other hanours paid to the Gods. From hence arose their character of piety, which is here celebrated by Homer. Among these there was an annual feaft at Diofpolis, which Euftathius mentions, wherein they carry'd about the statues of Jupiter and the other Gods, for twelve days, according to their number; to which if we add the ancient custom of fetting meat before statues, it will appear a rite from which this fable might easily arife. But it would be a great mistake to imagine from this place, that Homer reprefents the Gods as eating and drinking upon earth: a gross notion he was never guilty of, as appears from. thefe verfes in the fifth book, . 340.

Ιχος, οἷός πές τε ρέει μακάρεσσι θεοίσιν.
Οὐ γδ σίτον ἔδεσ ̓, ὅ πίνεσ' αἴθοπα οἶνον,
Τένεκ' αναίμονες εἰσι, και αθάνατοι καλέον).

(For not the bread of man their life sustains,.
Nor wine's inflaming juice fupplies their veins.)

Macrobius would have it, that by Jupiter here is meant
the fun, and that the number twelve hints at the twelve-
figns; but whatever may be faid in a critical defence of this
opinion, I believe the reader will be fatisfy'd that Homer, con-
fider'd as a Poet, would have his machinary understood upon
that fyftem of the Gods which is properly Grecian.

One may take notice here, that it were to be wifh'd fome paffage were found in any authentic author, that might tell us the time of the year when the Æthiopians kept this festival at Diofpolis: For from thence one might determine the precife feafon of the year wherein the actions of the Iliad are represented. to have happen'd; and perhaps by that means farther explain the beauty and propriety of many passages in the Poem,

Twelve days the pow'rs indulge the genial rite,
Returning with the twelfth revolving light.

jo Then will I-mount the brazen dome, and move
The high tribunal of immortal Jove.

The Goddefs fpoke: The rolling waves unclofe; Then down the deep the plung'd from whence fhe rofe, And left him forrowing on the lonely coaft, 65 In wild refentment for the fair he loft,

In Chryfa's port now fage Ulyffes, rode;

Beneath the deck the deftin'd victims ftow'd:

The fails they furl'd, they lafh'd the maft afide,
And dropt their anchors,, and the pinnace ty'd..
570 Next on the fhore their hecatomb they land,
Chryfeis laft defcending on the ftrand.,

Her, thus returning from. the furrow'd main,
Ulyffes led to. Phoebus facred fane;

Where at his folemn altar, as the maid.
$75 He gave to Chryfes, thus the Heroe faid.

Hail rev'rend priest! to Phoebus' awful dome
A fuppliant I from great Atrides come:
Unranfom'd here receive the spotless fair;

Accept the hecatomb the Greeks prepare;

Sos And may thy God who fcatters darts around,,

Aton'd'by facrifice, defift to wound..

A

At this, the Sire embrac'd the maid again,

So fadly loft, fo lately fought in vain.

Then near the altar of the darting King,
$85 Difpos'd in rank their hecatomb they bring:
With water purify their hands, and take
The facred off'ring of the falted cake;
While thus with arms devoutly rais'd in air,

And folemn voice, the Prieft directs his pray'r.
590 God of the filver bow, thy ear incline,
Whofe pow'r encircles Cilla the divine;
Whofe facred eye thy Tenedos furveys,
And gilds fair Chryfa with diftinguish'd rays!
If, fir'd to vengeance at thy prieft's requeft,
595 Thy direful darts inflict the raging peft;

Once more attend! avert the waftful woe, And fmile propitious, and unbend thy bow. So Chryfes pray'd, Apollo heard his pray'r; And now the Greeks their hecatomb prepare; 600 Between their horns the falted barley threw, And with their heads to heav'n the victims flew :

The

600. The Sacrifice] If we confider this paffage, it is not made to fhine in poetry: All that can be done is to give it numbers, and endeavour to fet the particulars in a diftinct view. But if we take it in another light, and as a piece of

learning,

The limbs they fever from th' inclofing hide;
The thighs, felected to the Gods, divide:
On these, in double cawls involv'd with art,
5 The chofeft morfels lay from ev'ry part.
The Priest himself before his altar ftands,
And burns the off'ring with his holy hands,

learning, it is valuable for being the moft exact account of the ancient facrifices any where left us. There is firft the purification, by washing of hands: Secondly the offering up of Prayers: Thirdly the Mola, or barley cakes thrown upon the victim: Fourthly the manner of killing it with the head turn'd upwards to the celeftial Gods (as they turn'd it downwards when they offer'd to the infernals :) Fifthly their felecting the thighs and fat for their Gods as the best of the facrifice, and the difpofing about them pieces cut from every part for a representation of the whole; (hence the thighs, or unei, are frequently us'd in Homer and the Greek Poets for the whole victim :) Sixthly the libation of wine: Seventhly confuming the thighs in the fire of the altar: Eighthly the facrificers dreffing and feafting on the reft, with joy and hymns to the Gods. Thus pun&tually have the ancient Poets, and in particular Homer, written with a care and respect to religion. One may queftion whether any countrey, as much a ftranger to chriftianity as we are to heathenifm, might be fo well inform'd by our Poets in the worship belonging to any profeffion of religion at prefent.

I am obliged to take notice how entirely Mr. Dryden has miftaken the fenfe of this paffage, and the custom of antiquity; for in his tranflation, the cakes are thrown into the fire inftead of being caft on the victim; the facrificers are made to eat the thighs and whatever belong'd to the Gods; and no part of the victim is confum'd for a burnt offering, fo that in effect there is no facrifice at all. Some of the mifakes (particularly that of turning the roaft-meat on the Spits which was not known in Homer's days) he was led into by Chapman's tranflation,

Pours