ABSTRACT
But the Ajax who fights Hector and is praised by the latter in IV.5.1 13-47 is the Ajax Telamon of Iliad, Bks. VII, XVII and elsewhere, who depressed the spirit of Hector. Several incidents in Troilus may derive from parts of Homer not yet translated by Chapman. In Shakespeare as in Homer (XVIII), Achilles is moved to return to battle by the death ofPatroclus (V.S.3O-2); but Shakespeare takes from medieval authorities another cause, the slaughter of his Myrmidons. When Achilles has the body of Hector tied to his horse's tail (V.8.21-2; V.IO.4-S) it reflects his unworthy act in Iliad, XXII, when he ties Hector by the feet to his chariot and drags him through the dust. But the horse's tail is from Caxton or Lydgate [inf. 214 and 18S]. Previously, Shakespeare's Achilles, like Homer's, looks for the best place on Hector's body whereon to strike and kill him (IV.5.23O-4S). The allusion to Ajax: 'They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle and struck him down' (1.2.33-4) may come from Iliad, XIV-XV rather than from Ovid, since Homer makes much of Hector's 'sickly fare' and 'grief of mind', after Ajax had felled him with a stone. The references to the Gods as taking sides come from Homer. Thus IIL3.188-go where Achilles' deeds are said to have
Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves, And drave great Mars to faction,
In Homer Troilus, Cressida, Diomedes and Pandarus all appear, but not in their later relationships. Troilus, the youngest son of Priam, is a gallant warrior but scarcely mentioned. Chryseis is one of two Trojan maidens captured by the Greeks, and given to Agamemnon and Achilles respectively.
