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[754] The comparison of a warrior rushing at full speed to a snowy mountain is extraordinarily inappropriate. If we adopt Nitzsch's explanation that ὄρεϊ νιφόεντι means an avalanche, this objection is removed, but only to make way for two others: first, that the words could hardly give the sense: secondly, that the avalanche is apparently unknown in Greece, and in any case cannot have ever been familiar on the coasts of Asia Minor. All attempts to amend the text are futile. The simile is imitated by Virgil ( Aen. xii. 699 ff. “Quantus Athos . . gaudetque nivali Vertice se attollens pater Apenninus ad auras” ) without avoiding bombast. When Suhrab in the Shahnama drives his charger at the foe ‘like a moving mountain’ we feel of course no offence.

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

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