yS UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



There would I go, and hang my armour up, 



And with my great name fence that weak oldjman. 



This passage portrays defenseless old age in the same spirit as Ody. n : 

 494 ff., where Achilles' lament in the lower world is given: "Tell what 

 you know of gallant Peleus whether he still has honor in the cities of the 

 Myrmidons; or do they slight him now in Hellas and in Phthia, because 

 old age has touched his hands and feet ? I am myself no longer in the 

 sunlight to defend him, nor like what I once was when on the Trojan 

 plain I routed a brave troop in succoring the Argives. If once like that 

 I could but come, even for a little space, into my father's house, frightful 

 should be my might and my resistless hands to any who are troubling 

 him and keeping him from honor." Compare also Ody. n : 187 ff.; 24: 

 224 ff.; JZ. 18:434 f.; 19:3341!; 24:540 ff. 



And with these slaughterous hands draw sword no more. 



The expression "slaughterous hands" is the same as Homer's "man- 

 slaying hands," II. 18:317; 23:18; 24:479. 



And greatly moved, then Rustum made reply: — 

 "O, Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words ? 

 Thou knowest better words than this to say." 



Compare II. 12:230 ff.: "Then Hector of the glancing helm lowered 

 on him and said: Tolydamus, that thou speakest is no longer pleasing 

 to me; yea, thou knowest how to conceive another counsel better than 

 this.' " Compare also II. 7:356 ff. 

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And as afield the reapers cut a swath 

 Down through the middle of a rich man's corn, 

 And on each side are squares of standing corn, 

 And in the midst a stubble, short and bare — 

 So on each side were squares of men, with spears 

 Bristling, and in the midst, the open sand. 



Though describing a different situation, this passage is a close imitation 

 of II. 11: 67 ff. : "And even as when reapers over against each other drive 

 their swathes through a rich man's field of wheat or barley, and thick 

 fall the handfuls, even so the Trojans and Achaeans leaped upon each 

 other destroying, and neither side took thought of ruinous flight." 



