Endnotes

1. These are the arguments and the language which were commonly employed by Porphyry, Julian, and the other opponents of Christianity. ↩

2. These lines are not meant as a “translation,” but as an humble attempt to give the literal sense in some sort of metre. It would be an act of arrogance even to aim at success where Pope and Chapman failed. It is simply, I believe, impossible to render Homer into English verse; because, for one reason among many, it is impossible to preserve the pomp of sound, which invests with grandeur his most common words. How can any skill represent the rhythm of Homeric Greek in a language which⁠—to take the first verse which comes to hand⁠—transforms “boos megaloio boeien,” into “great ox’s hide”? ↩

3. This punning legend may be seen in Paul Warnefrid’s Gesta Langobardorum. The metre and language are intended as imitations of those of the earlier Eddaic poems. ↩

4. This astounding speech is usually attributed to Proclus, Hypatia’s “great” successor. ↩

5. An authentic letter of Synesius to Hypatia. ↩

6. A fact. ↩