1.534-58 The sacrifice for Apollo: what happens in the following passage is a sacrifice to the gods which is also a feast for the human worshippers (this was the way meat was eaten in the ancient world). The cattle are arranged around the altar, and the sacrificers wash their hands to establish purity for the ritual. They scatter barley on the victims, then pull back their heads and cut their throats over the altar. The animal’s skin is then taken off and a portion prepared for the gods. This is a choice portion, the meat of the thighbones: it is wrapped in a double fold of fat and the outside covered with small pieces of meat from different parts of the animal. This portion is then burned over the fire—the smoke and savor go up to the gods above. Wine is poured over it, a libation. The sacrificers then begin their meal—with the entrails, which they have roasted on forks over the fire, They then carve the carcass and roast portions of meat on spits and set them out for the feast.
1.596 Crouching down at his feet: Thetis assumes the position of the suppliant—kneeling, clasping the knees of the person supplicated, reaching up to his (or her) chin. It is a gesture that symbolizes the utter helplessness of the suppliant, his abject dependence, but at the same time applies a physical and moral constraint on the person so addressed. (See Introduction, p. 52.) The Greeks believed that Zeus was the protector and champion of suppliants.
1.712 He seized my foot: Hephaestus, the smith-god, is lame. This may be a reflection of the fact that in a community where agriculture and war are the predominant features in the life of its men, someone with weak legs and strong arms would probably become a blacksmith. He seems to have been lame from birth: at 18.461-64 he says that his mother, Hera, threw him out of Olympus because of this defect. The fall referred to here was probably a consequence of his attempt to help Hera when Zeus had hung her up from Mount Olympus with a pair of anvils tied to her feet. See 15.23-31 and note 18.462.
1.715 The mortals there: Homer identifies them as the Sintians. Lemnos was a center of the cult of Hephaestus; it was an island noted for its volcanic gas.
2.86 Time-honored custom: the Greek word used here, themis, describes conduct that is usual and proper. It seems unlikely that commanders normally made a discouraging, not to say despairing, speech to their troops when preparing to take the offensive, but that is what the word suggests.
2.121 The giant-killing Guide: in the Greek, two regular epithets of Hermes. He is called the guide or escort (the meaning of the word is disputed) because he is often sent by Zeus to act in that role, as in Book 24, when he escorts Priam to the tent of Achilles. The other epithet refers to the fact that, at the request of Zeus, he killed a monster of immense strength called Argos, who had eyes all over his body, so that he could keep some of them open when he slept. He was killed because Hera had sent him to guard Io, a woman Zeus was in love with, whom Hera had changed into a cow.
2.130 Madness, blinding ruin: the Greek word for this is Ate. The meanings of the word range from “delusion,” “infatuation,” “madness,” to the “ruin,” “disaster,” “doom” that the mood can bring about. In 19.106-57 Atê is personified: Zeus, led astray by her, threw her out of Olympus, so that now she works among men. See Introduction, pp. 50, 54.
2.422-23 Payment in full for the groans ... I we have all borne for Helen: the line could refer to vengeance for the struggles and groans of Helen—a vision of Helen as an unwilling victim of Paris, which is not found elsewhere in the poem. The ancient critic Aristarchus understood it to mean “the struggles and groans because of Helen,” and we have followed his interpretation.
2.529 Her awesome shield of storm: this is the aegis (literally “goatskin”). It is sometimes displayed by Zeus himself, and by Apollo, as well as by Athena. Its shape is not easily determined from the text: at one point it seems to be a shield, for the figure of the Gorgon’s head and other forms of terror appear on it. In any case, its effect seems to be to stiffen morale in the armies it is raised to protect and inspire terror in those who face it.
2.748 Heracles is the greatest of the Greek heroes; he eventually, after his death, became an immortal god. He was the son of Zeus and a mortal woman, Alcmena (14.387-88). Zeus intended that he should “lord it over all who dwell around him,” but Zeus’s jealous wife, Hera, contrived to have that destiny conferred on Eurystheus, king of Argos, to whom Heracles was to be subject (19.112- 57). At Eurystheus’ command, Heracles performed the famous twelve labors: among them was the capture of the three-headed dog, Cerberus, the guardian of the entrance to the underworld (8.419-21). For the story of his sack of Troy, many years before the Trojan War, see 14.300-8, 5.733-38 and note ad loc. Homer refers twice to his participation in battles at Pylos (5.446-62, 11.818- 19): the passage in Book 5 has him wounding Hera and Hades, a story that does not appear elsewhere and that Homer may have invented (see note 5.434- 62). Homer attributes Heracles’ death to “Hera’s savage anger” (18.141, see note 15.32-39), but in other poets’ versions of his death Hera plays no part.
2.826 The Argives would recall Philocietes: this refers to a well-known story about the final phase of the war. The Achaeans, unable to take Troy, learned of a prophecy that they would be able to do so only with the aid of Philoctetes and his bow, a famous weapon that he had inherited from Heracles. They had to send an embassy to Lemnos to persuade him to come and help them. This embassy is the subject of Sophocles’ tragedy Philoctetes.
2.858 Oath-stream of the gods: the river Styx, the main river of the underworld, was the guarantor of oaths sworn by the gods. Any one of the gods, Hesiod tells us (Theogony 793-806), who pours a libation of the river’s water and swears falsely is paralyzed for one year and for nine years after that is excluded from the feasts and assemblies of the gods.
3.77-81 The lovely gifts l of golden Aphrodite: see note 24.35-36 concerning the Judgment of Paris.
3.118 Such limited vengeance: we follow here the interpretation of algos (“hurt”) and phroneô (“I intend”) suggested by Kirk on 3.97-110 of the Greek (1985, pp. 276-77).
3.174 The Scaean Gates: not only the main gates of Troy but the scene of several lethal actions, including the death of Achilles beyond the compass of the poem but foreseen by Hector at 22.424.
3.247 Once in the past: in a last-minute attempt to avoid the war, Menelaus and Odysseus came to address the Trojan assembly, urging them to restore Helen to her husband. The Trojans refused; furthermore, as we learn later (11.161- 64), one of them, Antimachus, even told the assembly that they should kill Menelaus then and there.
3.332 You beneath the ground: presumably the Furies. See 19.305-6.
3.386 Greaves: tin or leather armor that covered the leg below the knee, worn by fighters to protect them from arrows and salvos of rocks and also from being chafed by the lower edge of their shields. See 6.136-37.