themselves of the body, which was however rescued and borne off to the Grecian camp by the valour of Ajax and Ulysses. Thetis stole away the body, just as the Greeks were about to burn it with funeral honours, and conveyed it away to a renewed life of immortality in the isle of Leuke in the Euxine. 279 --_Astyanax,_ i.e. the _city-king_ or guardian. It is amusing that Plato, who often finds fault with Homer without reason, should have copied this twaddling etymology into his Cratylus. 280 This book has been closely imitated by Virgil in his fifth book, but it is almost useless to attempt a selection of passages for comparison. 281 --_Thrice in order led._ This was a frequent rite at funerals. The Romans had the same custom, which they called _decursio._ Plutarch states that Alexander, in after times, renewed these same honours to the memory of Achilles himself. 282 --_And swore._ Literally, and called Orcus, the god of oaths, to witness. See Buttmann, Lexilog, p. 436. 283 "O, long expected by thy friends! from whence Art thou so late return'd for our defence? Do we behold thee, wearied as we are With length of labours, and with, toils of war? After so many funerals of thy own, Art thou restored to thy declining town? But say, what wounds are these? what new disgrace Deforms the manly features of thy face?" Dryden, xi. 369. 284 --_Like a thin smoke._ Virgil, Georg. iv. 72. "In vain I reach my feeble hands to join In sweet embraces--ah! no longer thine! She said, and from his eyes the fleeting fair Retired, like subtle smoke dissolved in air." Dryden. 285 So Milton:-- "So eagerly the fiend O'er bog, o'er steep, through strait, rough, den