Calendar: 1848-1849 Page 297

THE SCHOOL 295 Turn into Latin Hexameters So when Prometheus brav'd the Thunderer's ire Stole from his blazing throne ethereal fire And lantern'd in his breast from realms of day Bore the bright treasure to his man of clay High on cold Caucasus by Vulcan bound The lean impatient vulture fluttering round His writhing limbs in vain he twists and strains To break or loose the adamantine chains The gluttonous bird exulting in his pangs Tears his swoln liver with remorseless fangs Turn into Greek prose Pasturage has generally preceded tillage and herds and flocks constituted the principal riches of Homer's time Cattle in the scarcity or perhaps non-existence of coin were the most usual measure of the value of commodities The golden armour of Glaucus we are told was worth hundred oxen the brazen armour of Diomed nine the tripod the first prize for wrestling at the funeral of Patroclus was valued at twelve oxen the female slave the second prize at four When Eumieus in the Odyssey would convey an idea of the opulence of Ulysses he neither tells of the extent of his lands nor the quantity of his moveables but of his herds and flocks only But commerce seems to have been carried on entirely by exchange In the Iliad we have description of supply of wine brought by sea to the Grecian camp where it is bought by some says the poet with brass by some with iron by some with hides by some with the cattle themselves by some with slaves Turn into Greek Iambics Oh had earlier died ere with these hands stole and sent thee to foreign land And saved thy life from murder's lifted sword-