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the Iliad a genuine lady, graceful in motion and speech, noble in
her associations, full of remorse for a fault for which higher
powers seem responsible, yet grateful and affectionate towards those
with whom that fault had committed her. I have always thought the
following speech in which Helen laments Hector, and hints at her own
invidious and unprotected situation in Troy, as almost the sweetest
passage in the poem. It is another striking instance of that
refinement of feeling and softness of tone which so generally
distinguish the last book of the Iliad from the rest."--Classic
Poets, p. 198, seq.
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99 "And here we part with Achilles at the moment best calculated to
exalt and purify our impression of his character. We had accompanied
him through the effervescence, undulations, and final subsidence of
his stormy passions. We now leave him in repose and under the full
influence of the more amiable affections, while our admiration of
his great qualities is chastened by the reflection that, within a
few short days the mighty being in whom they were united was himself
to be suddenly cut off in the full vigour of their exercise.
The frequent and touching allusions, interspersed throughout the
Iliad, to the speedy termination of its hero's course, and the moral
on the vanity of human life which they indicate, are among the
finest evidences of the spirit of ethic unity by which the whole
framework of the poem is united."--Mure, vol. i. p 201.
979
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