34.  This scene, for true and unaffected pathos, delicate touches of
   nature, and a profound knowledge of the human heart, has rarely
   been equalled, and never surpassed, among all the efforts of genius
   during the three thousand years that have gone by since it was
   conceived and composed.—­FELTON.

Footnotes for Book VII: 
1.  Holding the spear in this manner was, in ancient warfare,
   understood as a signal to discontinue the fight.

2.  The challenge of Hector and the consternation of the Greeks,
   presents much the same scene as the challenge of Goliath, 1 Samuel,
   ch. 17:  “And he stood and cried to the armies of Israel;—­Choose
   you a man for you, and let him come down to me.  If he be able to
   fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants.—­When
   Saul and all Israel heard the words of the Philistine, they were
   dismayed and greatly afraid.”

3.  It was an ancient custom for warriors to dedicate trophies of this
   kind to the temples of their tutelary deities.

4. [The club-bearer.]

5. [It is a word used by Dryden.]

6.  Homer refers every thing, even the chance of the lots, to the
   disposition of the gods.

7. [Agamemnon.]

8.  The lot was merely a piece of wood or shell, or any thing of the
   kind that was at hand.  Probably it had some private mark, and not
   the name, as it was only recognized by the owner.

9.  This reply is supposed to allude to some gesture made by Ajax in
   approaching Hector.

10.  The heralds were considered as sacred persons, the delegates of
   Mercury, and inviolable by the laws of nations.  Ancient history
   furnishes examples of the severity exercised upon those who were
   guilty of any outrage upon them.  Their office was, to assist in the
   sacrifices and councils, to proclaim war or peace, to command
   silence at ceremonies or single combats, to part the combatants and
   declare the conqueror.

11.  This word I have taken leave to coin.  The Latins have both
   substantive and adjective. Purpura—­Purpureus. We make purple
   serve both uses; but it seems a poverty to which we have no need to
   submit, at least in poetry.—­TR.

12.  A particular mark of honor and respect, as this part of the victim
   belonged to the king.  In the simplicity of the times, the reward
   offered a victorious warrior of the best portion of the sacrifice
   at supper, a more capacious bowl, or an upper seat at table, was a
   recompense for the greatest actions.

It is worthy of observation, that beef, mutton, or kid, was the food of the heroes of Homer and the patriarchs and warriors of the Old Testament.  Fishing and fowling were then the arts of more luxurious nations.

13. [The word is here used in the Latin sense of it.  Virgil,
   describing the entertainment given by Evander to the Trojans, says
   that he regaled them