CHAPTER II.
THE DUEL OF PARIS AND MENELAUS.
The battle is set in array, "army against army." But there is a difference in the bearing of the opposed forces which is very significant, and is probably a note of real character, not a mere stroke of the poet's art. The Trojan host, after the fashion of Asiatic warfare, modern as well as ancient, move forward to the combat with loud shouts and clashing of weapons. The poet compares their confused clamour to the noise of a flock of cranes on their annual migration. The Greeks, on the other hand, march in silence, with closed ranks, uttering no sound, but " breathing determination." So, when afterwards they actually close for action, not a sound is heard in their ranks but the voice of the leaders giving the word of command. "You would not think," says the poet, " that all that mighty host had tongues;" while, in the mixed battalions of the enemy, whose allies are men of many lands and languages, there arises a noisy discordant clamour—" like as of bleating ewes that hear the cries of their lambs."
But while the hostile forces yet await the signal for the battle, Paris springs forth alone from the Trojan ranks. "Godlike" he is in his beauty, and with the
