300 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



of the passage. Events have, indeed, been hastening to 

 a crisis up to the end of Book XVII., and the action 

 is checked in a marked manner by the f Oplopoeia ' in 

 Book XVIII. Yet it is quite in Homer's manner to 

 introduce, between two series of important events, an 

 interval of comparative inaction, or at least of events 

 wholly different in character from those of either series. 

 We have a marked instance of this in Books IX. and 

 X. Here the appeal to Achilles and the night- adven- 

 ture of Diomed and Ulysses are interposed between the 

 first victory of the Trojans and the great struggle in 

 which Patroclus is slain, and Agamemnon, Ulysses, 

 Diomed, Machaon, and Eurypylus wounded.* In fact, 

 one cannot doubt that in such an arrangement Homer 

 exhibits admirable taste and judgment. The contrast 

 between action and inaction, or between the confused 

 tumult of a heady conflict and the subtle advance of 

 the two Greek heroes, is conceived in the true poetic 

 spirit. The dignity and importance of the action, and 

 the interest of the interposed events, are alike enhanced. 

 Indeed, there is scarcely a noted author whose works 

 do not afford instances of corresponding contrasts. How 

 skilfully, for example, has Shakespeare interposed the 

 ' bald, disjointed chat ' of the sleepy porter between 

 the conscience-wrought horror of Duncan's murderers 

 and the ( horror, horror, horror ' which ( tongue nor 



* Another well-known instance, where ' Patroclus sent in hot haste 

 for news by a man of the most fiery impatience, is button-held by 

 Nestor, and though he has no time to sit down, yet is obliged to endure 

 a speech of 152 lines,' is accounted for by Gladstone in a different manner. 



