The Iliad of Homer - Get a Free Blog

imated nature imaginable; every thing
moves, every thing lives, and is put in
action. If a council be called, or a battle
fought, you are not coldly informed of
[pg what was said or done as from a third
xxxii]
person; the reader is hurried out of himself
by the force of the poet's imagination,
and turns in one place to a hearer, in
another to a spectator. The course of his
verses resembles that of the army he describes,
Hoid' ar' isan hosei te puri chthon
pasa nemoito.
"They pour along like a fire that sweeps
the whole earth before it." It is, however,
remarkable, that his fancy, which is
everywhere vigorous, is not discovered
immediately at the beginning of his poem
in its fullest splendour: it grows in the
progress both upon himself and others,
and becomes on fire, like a chariot-