The words, as so taken, refer to the vision of Helen, described in the lines that follow. Another, for the line “In deepest woe,” &c., ... would give,
“Believing not he sees the lost one there.”
[302]. The art of Pheidias had already made it natural at Athens to speak of kings as decorating their palaces with the life-size busts or statues of those they loved.
[303]. Here again one may note a protest against the aggressive policy of Pericles, an assertion of the principle that a nation should be content with independence, without aiming at supremacy.
[304]. Perhaps passively, “Soon suffers trespassers.”
[305]. As the play opens on the morning of the day on which Troïa was taken, and now we have the arrivals, first, of the herald, and then of Agamemnon, after the capture has been completed, and the spoil divided, and the fleet escaped a storm, an interval of some days must be supposed between the two parts of the play, the imaginary law of the unities notwithstanding.
[306]. The customary adornment of heralds who brought good news. Comp. Sophocles, Œd. K. v. 83. The custom prevailed for many centuries, and is recognised by Dante, Purg. ii. 70, as usual in his time in Italy.
[307]. So in the Seven against Thebes (v. 494), smoke is called “the sister of fire.”
[308]. A probable reference, not only to the story, but to the actual words of Homer, Il. i. 45-52.
[309]. Specially the Dioscuri, Castor and Polydeukes.