[323]. Here again the translator has to meet the difficulty of a pun. As an alternative we might take—
“To Ilion brought, well-named,
A marriage marring all.”
[324]. The sons of Priam are thought of as taking part in the celebration of Helen's marriage with Paris, and as, therefore, involving themselves in the guilt and the penalty of his crime.
[325]. Here, too, it may be well to give an alternative rendering—
“A mischief in his house,
A man reared, not on milk.”
Home-reared lions seem to have been common as pets, both among Greeks and Latins (Arist., Hist. Anim. ix. 31; Plutarch, de Cohib. irâ, § 14, p. 822), sometimes, as in Martial's Epigram, ii. 25, with fatal consequences. The text shows the practice to have been common enough in the time of Pericles to supply a similitude.
[326]. There may, possibly, be a half allusion here to the passage in the Iliad (vv. 154-160), which describes the fascination which the beauty of Helen exercised on the Troïan elders.
[327]. The poet becomes a prophet, and asserts what it has been given him to know of the righteous government of God. The dominant creed of Greece at the time was, that the Gods were envious of man's prosperity, that this alone, apart from moral evil, was enough to draw down their wrath, and bring a curse upon the prosperous house. So, e.g., Amasis tells Polycrates (Herod. iii. 40) that the unseen Divinity that rules the world is envious, that power and glory are inevitably the precursors of destruction. Comp. also the speech of Artabanos (Herod. vii. 10, 46). Against this, in the tone of one who speaks singlehanded for the truth, Æschylos, through the Chorus, enters his protest.