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[384] This very remarkable simile, with which we may compare that in 4.450 ff., has been roughly treated by many critics; Fick goes so far as to call it ‘simply absurd’ (sogar abgeschmackt'. The picture is surely a very fine and appropriate one. The Trojan horses, broken from their chariots and galloping in wild confusion across the plain, are compared to the torrents in a mountain country during a time of rain so excessive that it can only be regarded as a divine judgment. The only lines to which exception can fairly be taken are 387-88 (see note). The comparison of mountain torrents to galloping horses has not improbably given rise to the legend of the Centaurs. κελαιν́η, dark with the clouds that cover it. Spitzner conj. “κελαινῆι”, comparing 11.747 “κελαινῆι λαίλαπι ἶσος”, but the change is needless, and the order of the words is against it. βέβριθε, as though the clouds were a heavy weight upon the earth — a most vigorous and picturesque expression. The variant “βέβρυχε”, groans, is also possible, and corresponds well with the “στενάχοντο” of 393; see Od. 12.242 (of Skylla) “ἀμφὶ δὲ πέτρη δεινὸν βεβρύχει”.

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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