Page:Homer The Iliad.djvu/133

shield. On this the god bestows all his skill, and the poet his most graphic description. It is covered with figures of the most elaborate design, wrought in brass, and tin, and gold, and silver. In its centre are the sun, the moon, and all the host of heaven: round the rim flows the mighty ocean-river, which in Homeric as in Eastern mythology encompasses the earth; and on its embossed surface, crowded with figures, is embodied an epitome of human life, such as life was in the days of Homer. The tale is told in twelve compartments, containing each a scene of peace or war. Three groups represent a city in time of peace: a wedding procession with music and dancing, a dispute in the market-place, and a reference to the judgment of the elders gathered in council. Three represent a city in time of war: a siege, an ambuscade, and a battle. Then follow three scenes of outdoor country life: ploughing, the harvest, and the vintage. The lord of the harvest stands looking on at his reapers, like Boaz. In the vintage scene, the art of the immortal workman is minutely described. The vines are wrought in gold, the props are of silver, the grape-bunches are of a purple black, and there is a trench round of some dark-hued metal, crowned by a palisade of bright tin. Three pastoral groups complete the circle. First, a herd of oxen with herdsmen and their dogs, attacked by lions; secondly, flocks feeding in a deep valley, with the folds and shepherds' huts in the distance; and lastly, a festival dance of men and maidens in holiday attire, with the "divine bard," without whom no festival is complete, singing his lays to his harp in the midst, and two gymnasts performing their feats for the amusement of the crowd of lookers-on. If any reader should have imagined that Homer's