¹ It is inherent in the scope of the book that knowledge of no language can be assumed in all readers. The author has chosen the hard way of giving English verse translations which generally reproduce the form of the original so far as our stress accent allows. This is bound at times to blur the sense. Alliteration is particularly Procrustean, and his apologies for the obscurity of A.S. mannerisms are more deserved by the renderings than by the poet. ‘Mer-sheets’ or ‘a boat under bergs; the boys all ready Stepped on the stem’ are more alien than ‘a sea-dress, a sail’ or ‘the boat was under the cliffs; the warriors promptly embarked.’ The poet did know and love ships, nec opponere Ulyxi Beowulfum verear.

² Examples of very trivial points are: p. 36. Iamb. tetram. cat., Aristoph. Ach. 836, etc.; but who would not prefer Philip's? P. 46. Cic. says the poems exist, and condemns their falsification of history, Brut. 16. 62. P. 279. These repeated similes are quite exceptional; similes of one line or more total nearly 800 lines in Iliad, and I have noted only nine other lines repeated. Pp. 394–5. Myc. III use of a pair of spears in war is supported only by one broken sherd (AA 1927, 250) on which two lines may be spears or the rails of the chariot; there are other post-Myc. features which might have been mentioned.