167 The manner in which this episode is introduced, is well illustrated by the following remarks of Mure, vol. i. p.298: "The poet's method of introducing his episode, also, illustrates in a curious manner his tact in the dramatic department of his art. Where, for example, one or more heroes are despatched on some commission, to be executed at a certain distance of time or place, the fulfilment of this task is not, as a general rule, immediately described. A certain interval is allowed them for reaching the appointed scene of action, which interval is dramatised, as it were, either by a temporary continuation of the previous narrative, or by fixing attention for a while on some new transaction, at the close of which the further account of the mission is resumed." 168 --_With tablets sealed._ These probably were only devices of a hieroglyphical character. Whether writing was known in the Homeric times is utterly uncertain. See Grote, vol ii. p. 192, sqq. 169 --_Solymaean crew,_ a people of Lycia. 170 From this "melancholy madness" of Bellerophon, hypochondria received the name of "Morbus Bellerophonteus." See my notes in my prose translation, p. 112. The "Aleian field," _i.e._ "the plain of wandering," was situated between the rivers Pyramus and Pinarus, in Cilicia. 171 --_His own, of gold._ This bad bargain has passed into a common proverb. See Aulus Gellius, ii, 23. 172 --_Scaean, i e._ left hand. 173 --_In fifty chambers._ "The fifty nuptial beds, (such hopes had he, So large a promise of a progeny,) The ports of plated gold, and hung with spoils." Dryden's Virgil, ii.658 174 --_O would kind earth,_ &c. "It is apparently a sudden, irregular burst of popular indignation to which Hector alludes, when he regrets that the Trojans had not spirit enough