Protesilaus

“ All men were astomshed: but Artayctes seeing the miracle, said to the man, ‘Athenian stranger, fear not this miracle, for it has not been exhibited for thee. This has reference to me. Protesilaus himself is in these fishes: he has also said to me, “I am able to punish thee, O Artayctes, on account of the wealth (that thou hast) taken away.” Now therefore I am willing to restore to him his wealth. I shall give a hundred talents in return for the money stolen from the temple of Protesilaus; for myself and my sons I shall pay two hundred talents to the Athenians.’
The fate of Artayctes. ”

“ His wife, lacerated all around, had been left at Phylace, and his palace half finished. For a Trojan man slew him, as he leaped ashore from his ship much the first of the Greeks. Nor were they, however, without a leader, although they longed for their own leader; for gallant Podarces marshalled them, Podarces, son of sheep-abounding Iphiclus, the son of Phylacis, own brother of magnanimous Protesilaus, younger by birth; but the warlike hero Protesilaus was older and braver. His troops wanted not a leader, but lamented him, being brave; with him forty dark ships followed. ”

“ Antrum upon the sea, and Pteleum that lies upon the grass lands. Of these brave Protesilaus had been captain while he was yet alive, but he was now lying under the earth. He had left a wife behind him in Phylace to tear her cheeks in sorrow, and his house was only half finished, for he was slain by a Dardanian warrior while leaping foremost of the Achæans upon the soil of Troy. ”

“ The wind now proving fair the fleet made sail and brought the forces to the coast of Troy. The Trojans came to oppose their landing, and at the first onset Protesilaus fell by the hand of Hector. Protesilaus had left at home his wife, Laodamia, who was most tenderly attached to him. When the news of his death reached her she implored the gods to be allowed to converse with him only three hours. The request was granted. Mercury led Protesilaus back to the upper world, and when he died a second time Laodamia died with him. ”

“ When he came to Elaēus he offered sacrifice to Protesilaus upon the tomb of that hero, both for other reasons and because Protesilaus seemed to have been the first of the Greeks who took part with Agamemnon in the expedition to Ilium to disembark in Asia. ”

“ Nay, dear wife, the gods do not mock thee, and it is indeed Protesilaus who stands before thee. Yet am I no living man; for the oracle had foretold that the first of the Greek host to leap ashore should be slain; therefore, seeing that the immortal gods asked a life, I gave them mine, and steering to the shore before all the other ships, I [171] sprang on land the first of all the host, and fell, slain by the spear of the enemy. ”

“ Yet even Achilles and Ajax Telamon, the mightiest of the heroes, fell back and would not take the fearful risk of beginning the fight. Then Protesilaus, who had led forty black ships from Phylace and the shore of Antrona, seeing that some one must die for the cause, leaped boldly out of the ship upon the shelving beach. At once a hundred arrows whistled through the air, and glanced from his sevenfold shield of ox-hide; and a heavy spear, thrown by Hector, the mightiest of the Trojans, pierced his fair armor, and laid him bleeding and dead upon the sand. Quickly the warriors leaped ashore ”

“ Homer represents the case of Protesilaus as very afflicting, who was obliged to go to the Trojan war, leaving his wife in the deepest distress, and his house unfinished. Του δε και αμφιδρυφης αλοχος Φυλακῃ ελελειπτο, Και δομος ἡμιτελης· τον δ' εκτανε Δαρδανος ανηρ, Νηος αποθρωσκοντα πολυ πρωτιστον Αχαιων. ”

“ But when Dares gets to work he proceeds with a rapidity which [Pg 172] may be partly due to the desire to contradict Homer. The landing and death of Protesilaus, avenged to some extent by Achilles, the battle in which Hector slays Patroclus (to whom Dares adds Meriones) , and that at the ships, are all lumped together; and the funerals of Protesilaus and Patroclus are simultaneously celebrated. Palamedes begins to plot against Agamemnon. The fighting generally goes much against the Greeks ”

“ This was the occasion of an heroic act by Pro-tes-i-laʹus, king of Phylʹa-ce in Thessaly, who boldly leaped ashore as soon as the vessels touched the land. The prediction of Calchas was soon fulfilled. Protesilaus was struck dead in the first fight by a spear launched by the hands of the Trojan leader, Hector. ”

“ But Patroclus first took aim with his shining spear from the opposite side right into the midst, where they were huddled together in greatest numbers at the stern of the ship of magnanimous Protesilaus, and wounded Pyræchmes, who led the Pæonian equestrian warriors from Amydon, from the wide-flowing Axius. Him he smote upon the right shoulder, and he fell on his back in the dust groaning; but the Pæonians, his companions, were put to flight around him, for Patroclus caused fear to them all, having slain their leader, who was very brave to fight. ”

“ I. 25, 18 and 20. ↑ Homer, Iliad, XXIV. 5, referring to Achilles on his bed when mourning for Patroclus. ↑ Patroclus and Antilochus were well-known friends of Achilles, but "Menelaus" (the reading of S) must be wrong, partly because he was not in any way a special friend, and particularly because he was not killed, as the context requires. Some other friend of the hero, who was killed, must be supplied, and that can hardly be anyone but Protesilaus, who was one of his playmates under the tutelage of Cheiron. ”

“ Perhaps the mention of Protesilaus suggested to Gower the idea of Proteus, of whom he had heard as one who could change his form at will, see l. 6672, and perhaps as [Pg 497] having prophesied the birth and greatness of Achilles (Ovid, Metam. xi. 221 ff.) .
3119. topseilcole, see note on viii. 1890.
3138 f. Cp. Achill. i. 812 ff.
3247 ff. The first part of the story of Jason and Medea (ll. 3247-3926) is taken from Benoît (Rom. de Troie, 703-2062) , and not from Guido, as may be easily shown by comparison of the texts. ”

“ F has punctuation after ‘dai,’ but this is clearly a case of the inverted order of the conjunction: cp. note on Prol. 155, and below on l. 3966.
2961 ff. The story is probably taken from Statius, Achill. i. 197 ff., where however it is told at much greater length. For Gower’s acquaintance with the Achilleis, cp. iv. 1968 ff.
3002 ff. Cp. Achill. i. 338 ff.
3004 f. That is, howsoever his behaviour might be watched.
3082. Protheüs. According to Statius, Achill. i. 494 ff., Protesilaus rebuked Calchas for not having discovered Achilles, upon which Calchas revealed the truth. ”

“ Πρωρευς εν τῃ νησῳ δηχθεις ὑπο οφεως εταφη. This Pilot was bitten by a serpent, and buried in the island. Conformable to my opinion is the account given by Tzetzes, who says, that Proteus resided in the [626] Pharos: by which is signified, that he was the Deity of the place. He is represented in the Orphic poetry as the first-born of the world, the chief God of the sea, and at the same time a mighty [627] prophet.
The history then of Menelaus in Egypt, if such a person ever existed, amounts to this. In a state of uncertainty he applied to a temple near Canobus, which was sacred to Proteus. ”

“ From the first discovery of the Protozoa, their life-history has been the subject of the highest interest: yet it is only within our own times that we can say that the questions of their origin and development have been thoroughly worked out. If animal or vegetable matter of any kind be macerated in water, filtered, or even distilled, various forms of Protista make their appearance; and frequently, as putrefaction advances, form after form makes its appearance, becomes abundant, and then disappears to be replaced by other species. ”

“ In common with all the other gods, Proteus enjoyed the gift of prophecy, and had the power to assume any shape he pleased. The former gift he was wont to exercise very reluctantly; and when mortals wished to consult him, he would change his form with bewildering rapidity, and, unless they clung to him through all his changes, they could obtain no answer to their questions.
“Shouting [we] seize the god: our force t’ evade,
His various arts he soon resumes in aid:
A lion now, he curls a surgy mane ”

“ The imperishable remains of dead Protista, for instance, the flinty shells of the Diatomeæ and Radiolaria and the calcareous shells of the Acyttaria, often form large rock masses.
In regard to their vital phenomena, especially those of nutrition and propagation, some Protista are more allied to plants, others more to animals. Both in their mode of taking food and in the chemical changes of their living substance, they sometimes more resemble the lower animals, at others the lower plants. Free locomotion is possessed by many Protista, while others are without it ”

“ A great authority has declared its spine to be like those of the monster animals of pre-historic ages known as Saurians. The most extraordinary part of the Proteus' history is that it seems perfectly able to live without food. It has never been seen to eat in captivity, and one has been kept alive for years by occasionally changing the water in which [Pg 364] it lives. These animals were originally discovered in the Grottoes of Laybach, and later on at Adelsberg, being rare in dry seasons, but plentiful after heavy rains. ”

“ Menelaus returned to his kingdom of Sparta with his wife, Helen, but he had many wanderings and adventures. He was detained by unfavorable winds for some time on an island near the coast of Egypt, and he might never have reached home but for the advice he received from Proʹteus, one of the sea gods. It was no easy matter to get advice from Proteus. ”

“ S. Proterius was the head of the orthodox party at Alexandria, when the patriarch Dioscorus adopted Eutychian views. That unprincipled and haughty prelate, knowing the esteem in which Proterius was held, made him arch-priest of his diocese; but as his heretical opinions became more evident, Proterius took decided steps to oppose him, and on the condemnation and deposition of Dioscorus by the Council of Chalcedon, in 452, he was ordained in his room. This led to a schism in the Church of Alexandria, the Catholics acknowledging Proterius, and the Eutychians holding with Dioscorus. ”

“ After explanations Glaucus willingly accompanied him to Proteus lair.
The pact was sealed. Glaucus would be returned to his prior form. Proteus was to return once more to Poseidon's service. "And myself?" Demo queried.
"It shall be as with Glaucus."
Proteus smiled, if one can say a squid smiles. At least, he grimaced.
"How, then, do we deal with Oceanus? You know of his rekindled ambition. What can be done to placate one such as he?"
They talked long, examining the problem each from his own perspective. "It is a problem without solution!" exclaimed Proteus. "He seems invincible. ”

“ At the same time (which is not our time!) , and as Intelligence takes on a leading part in morals, there will come the indulgent recognition that such a “decency” as we may exact (or try to exact) from ourselves, cannot, any more than personal cleanliness in our own day, be exacted from all our neighbours. It may take a good many transformations of Proteus before the mote can always be removed from our brother’s eye, even supposing the beam to have been taken away from our own. ”

“ There are obvious resemblances that strike us at once. He looks the same, he acts the same, he has the same mannerisms, the same kind of voice, and he answers to the same name. If Proteus, with the best intention in the world, but with an unlimited variety of self-manifestations, were to call every day, we should greet him always as a stranger. ”

“ This polarization provides strong evidence that actinomycetes and neomura together form a clade, which I designate 'proteates' because the proteasome with core 7-fold symmetry is its synapomorphy, and thus excludes the root of the tree of life from anywhere within proteates. One can hardly suppose that the complex proteasome core was the ancestral state for all life and that monomeric NTN hydrolases ultimately evolved from it via HslV and two progressive simplifications involving a change of chaperone partner and then its loss. ”

“ Everything passes, or almost everything. Only the climate, only the north wind and the sea remain as they were when Menelaus, the first visitor, landed upon Ras el Tin, and exacted from Proteus the promise of life everlasting. He was to escape death, on his wife’s account: he was not to descend into the asphodel with the other shades whom Hermes conducts, himself a shade. Immortal, yet somehow or other unsatisfactory, Menelaus accordingly leads the Alexandrian pageant with solid tread; cotton-brokers conclude it ”

“ Things growing to a tumult, king Charilaus, apprehending that it was a conspiracy against his person, took sanctuary in the temple of Minerva of the Brazen House; but, being soon after undeceived, and having taken an oath of them that they had no designs against him, he quitted his refuge, and himself also entered into the confederacy with them; of so gentle and flexible a disposition he was, to which Archelaus, his brother-king, alluded, when, hearing him extolled for his goodness, he said, "Who can say he is anything but good? he is so even to the bad." ”

“ Blindly, the proteus obeyed. Herndon's finger caressed the firing-knob of the needler. He watched the proteus atop the low wall, staring down into the murky harbor water, and counted to three.
On the third count he fired. The slim needle-projectile sped brightly across the marketplace and buried itself in the back of the proteus' body. Death must have been instantaneous; the needle contained a nerve-poison that was effective on all known forms of life. ”