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Book Ten
signified flight (see o,.2n.), but that doctrine may not be binding on this
Book.
11-13 Though speaking of Agamemnon the poet considers the general
situation. The armies are camped in sight of each other anticipating with
diverse feelings the renewal of the battle at first light, like the English and
French before Agincourt:
Now entertain conjecture of a time
When creeping murmur and the poring dark
Fills the wide vessel of the universe.
From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night,
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fix'd sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other's watch:
Fire answers fire, and through the paly flames
Each battle sees the other's umber'd face ...
(Shakespeare, Henry F, Act iv)
The simile 5-8 indirectly invites the audience to 'entertain conjecture ...',
an important function of similes. Since we have not been told otherwise
Agamemnon was thought by Aristarchus (Arn/A) to be tossing in (or by,
cf. 74) his hut, from which he could not look out over the plain; such a
challenge to critical ingenuity could not be declined, Agamemnon must be
camped on elevated ground - eiA£AAr|V 6 TTOITITTIS is the comment here
(and 17X elsewhere). The hostile bias of the bT scholia against the Trojans
appears at 223 and 319 (the prudence of Diomedes versus the foolhardiness
of Dolon), 277 (piety of the Achaeans versus the negligence of Dolon), 300
(cavalier behaviour of Hektor versus the courtesy of Agamemnon), 308
(Hektor's demand is excessive), 315 (Dolon's greed), 317 (his upbringing in
a feminine atmosphere), 325 (his boastfulness), 436 (he curries favour). The
bias exists elsewhere, notably in the portrayal of Hektor from book 12
onwards, but is usually tempered by the poet's humanity (so Mueller, Iliad
89-90). For the denigration of Hektor in bT see 12.231-50^, and for the
158