We have Taxées applied in Od. xiv. 133 to birds; but to birds engaged in stripping bones, and therefore stationary. Twice, in Il. xxiv. 292, 310, the eagle of a particular kind is the nimble messenger (Taxus ayyeλos) of Zeus. This may recall the case of Iris. It is, indeed, in a general description of the eagle's power of motion; but where we have, in Od. xvi. 468, ayyeλos ¿kús, it is in reference to an actual message which had been brought, and which thus supplied a concrete instead of an abstract image. Okus is applied to birds in Il. xv. 238, xvi. 583, xxi. 253: but in each of these cases it is in connection with motion actually performed. Among inanimate objects, the most significant use of these words is for the arrow. In Пl. xi. 478 the arrow is spoken of as subduing or crippling a man: in Il. v. 395 we are told how Ares suffered from an arrow: in both cases the epithet is кús. In Пl. xxi. 416 it is again used, when Odusseus takes up the arrow, which lay by him ready for the great shot, and discharges it. The rest of his arrows, says the Poet, were within the quiver; and the lifting with the hand is here given as part of the concrete act. Now the epithet tachus is remarkably suitable to the arrow in itself, because it flies without effort and seems to start at its full speed; and it is repeatedly applied in the plural to arrows: Il. xxi. 492, Od. xxii. 3, xxiv. 178. But in no one of these cases is it for arrows in flight; it is always for the removal of them from the quiver in preparation for flight. This cannot be considered part of the actual shot; so that it is the subjective quality of the arrow which alone is described. Again, Athenè proposes that Pandaros should despatch an arrow. This proposal is perfectly separate from the action and accordingly the expression is taxùv lóv (Il. iv. 94). In complete accordance with the view here taken, Homer applies okūs sometimes to a ship, but tachus never: for a ship may be swift, but cannot be agile or nimble. With regard to men, it is to be observed that Homer uses TaxÚTηs for the foot-race in the 23rd Iliad (TaxúrηTos aɛna, v. 740). It is not the speed that is to be tested by the reward, but the power or faculty of speed, that is to say, Taxúτns. In the same way he says, in the chariot-race, that Antilochos went ahead of Menelaos, κέρδεσιν οὔτι τάχει γε (ν. 515). Here, as κέρδος does not signify a performance, but a quality or faculty, so does ráxos: Antilochos won by craft, not by superior power of movement in his team. In like manner (v. 406) Athenè has given táxos to the horses of Diomed: not the fact of speed, but the faculty of speed, or agility. Homer does not commonly associate the idea of speed with the human animal, which is not well formed for it, and is greatly excelled by inferior creatures. It is remarkable, however, that okūs, podokes and podas okūs, and also podarkes are given as epithets only to Achilles (though Podarkes is the name of a combatant; Orsilochos in the Odyssey, xiii. 260, is podas okus, and podokes is used as a description of Dolon in Il. x. 316). For Achilles they are, beyond doubt, favourite epithets. They are used scores of times, and in all manner of situations; as for example when he addresses Odusseus in his barrack, on the occasion of the Embassy of the Ninth Book (ix. 307). The reason appears to be that it is part of Homer's plan to adorn Achilles with all that is most rare, as for example his wearing gold ornaments (ii. 875) and his playing on the lyre (ix. 186); and not merely with paramount excellence in the commoner attributes of beauty and strength. Ares was fleetest of the gods (wkúτatos, Od. viii. 331), and is okus as opposed to the slow and halting Hephaistos (βραδύς, Od. viii. 329). But Achilles always has the very highest of its kind. Therefore, while the epithets of pure speed, which is the highest idea in the matter of movement, are largely given to him, those of nimbleness seldom appear, and commonly only as to nimbleness of the feet, not of the man (П. xiii. 13, 249, 348, xvii. 709, xviii. 2, 354, 358, xxi. 564, xx. 189, Od. xiii. 261). Only once he is called Taxús, and then evidently with reference to the subjective quality of agility; for it is when he is still and in grief, with the Myrmidones standing around him (Il. xviii. 69). On the other hand it is the favourite epithet for the lesser Ajax: out of a small total number of references, we have the phrase 'Oïños Taxus Alas nine times in the Iliad, and twice (x. 110, 175) he is called taxús simply: nimbleness, not velocity, being the proper quality of a warrior of his stamp. As Taxús thus belongs to a bodily organisation, Homer makes no use of it in the immaterial world, but employs okus: чuxĥs wкιOTOS öλɛlpos (Il. xxii. 325); and again for the departing spirit, weùs d'ék μελέων θυμὸς πτάτο (xxiii. 880). We need not be surprised when we find these two epithets applied to the same subject; for it may be both fleet and nimble. But, as we have seen, each of them is sometimes applied exclusively, and they are never applied to the same subject in the same manner, but always so as to mark the dominant quality, as in Achilles and Oilean Ajax, or with strict reference to the situation at the moment, according as action is represented or not, as in the hind and in the arrow. Having thus separated, I hope effectually, these two epithets according to their qualitative difference, I proceed with the quantitative scale from Kús downwards to its opposite Spadús in the other extreme. Both okus and tachūs are unencumbered with any sense of weight in connection with the movement of the material object. But when we come to the word (Ooós) thoos, the notion of weight is at once added. It also differs in the number of its secondary or derivative meanings. It is right to observe that, here as before, the Lexicons scarcely appear as yet to have recorded the true distinctions; nor do they, I think, clearly exhibit the specific idea of the word in its Homeric use.2 Alacer, velox, strenuus, celer, according to Ebeling: three meanings at least are included in the four words, and no clue to a root-meaning, or to the relation which connects the three. Quick, nimble, active,' Liddell and Scott. Buttmann, who is usually so satisfactory, expounds the Homeric uses of the word at great length; but I cannot feel satisfied with the manner in which they are arranged and correlated. I will first give my own conclusions, and then the reasons for them. First, then, we have here the element or factor of weight added to pure speed: a compound is substituted for a simple idea. If so, it will not surprise us that this compound and no longer one-edged idea should lead us out into a greater diversity of meanings, so that Ooós varies, while άkús remains at its original standing-point as a simple description of speed. Next let us consider the admitted derivation, which is from Ośw (see Buttmann, Ebeling, and others). Buttmann indeed doubts whether, to meet some of the senses, another root is not required: but let us see. The word éw (used also for the movement of deities) seems to designate by preference the hard running of a man. Curro vehementer is the meaning given by Damm. If this is so, the fast running of a man represents weight along with motion, but the speed is the chief idea, and weight is the secondary element. The characteristic of it, as distinguished from the idea expressed in okus, is that it carries way, as is said of a ship or boat. Thus a railway train might be called thoos, for it carries a great deal of way: yet speed is the principal idea it offers through the eye to the mind. The best English word that occurs to me for describing this particular class of movement is a vehement or rushing movement. And this I take to be the radical idea of thoos: velocity with vehemence. Now (1) that, which rushes, is apt to smash objects on which it impinges, and to sever their parts. It does the work of a sharp instrument, and thus acquires the cognate sense of sharp, and may describe sharpness in acutely angular material form. Secondly (2), that which rushes may have passed beyond measured into an unmeasured motion. It then has the effect of haste as opposed to order, and thus thoos obtains the cognate sense of hasty. Thirdly (3), the rush of battle is the proper work of the brave warrior, and attaches to him closely, as in the constant Homeric phrase πóρovσε. The Homeric warrior leaps, springs, or bounds. Thus thoos acquires the cognate sense of bold or brave. 2 hope these words may not appear to imply censure or depreciation. What we may expect of Lexicons is that they shall exhibit, in the best manner compatible with their rigid limitations of space, all results firmly established by usage, or obtained by detailed and special inquiry. This great task they accomplish for us. There cannot, for example, be a Greek student in England who is insensible of the debt he owes to Deans Liddell and Scott for their invaluable work. Fourthly (4), that, which rushes and smashes, inspires fear; and thus thoos acquires the cognate sense of awful or formidable. These five senses, the original and the four derivative, will include, I think, among them every passage in which the word is used by Homer. 1. That use, which I have called the primary use of thoos, the rushing, or moving onwards both with weight and with rapidity, may be readily exemplified. For example, it is a stock epithet of Ares, applied to him eight times (Il. v. 430 et alibi). In the passage named I do not doubt that a corporal and not a mental quality is principally signified: for the Ares of Homer is never described by mental qualities unless they be bad ones, which thoos is not; for, although it may tend to, it does not include, excess. Buttmann expresses a different opinion on the passage, but he does not appear to have taken into consideration the very marked Homeric view of the character of Ares. But, out of about seventy places where the word is used in the Iliad, fifty have it as an epithet for ships. In the Odyssey it reappears still more markedly as a stock epithet; and, out of fiftythree places, in no less than fifty-one it is applied to ships. The ship, then, will probably supply the leading idea. Buttmann observes that the meaning here might be sharp in form, from the shape of the beak (in voc. § 2). But if the old building of the hull was bluff, it seems unlikely that the form of the beak, which is a mere appendage, should suggest an epithet so dominant, which is sure to signify some principal property. This must, then, he found in the motion of the ship and such motion unites the three properties of being smooth, weighty or forceful, and rapid. This entirely agrees with the application of the word to Ares, the only other case in which it is employed as a stock phrase. I think, therefore, that this is established as the staple idea of the word for Homer, and that the other senses are derivative and occasional. The two motions give to thoos the place I have assigned it in the quantitative scale. And we may conceive it as meaning, for the ship, way-carrying; for Ares, with no more than a shade of difference, rushing or vehement. : It is strongly supported by the grammatical derivative lows (thoōs). We find this adverb used in eight places of the Iliad: which appears uniformly to bear the sense of briskly or promptly,' and thus to give testimony, as far as it goes, to the original sense of brisk or quick motion. In the Odyssey we have the adverb sixteen times: and in two of the passages, which relate to acts done in terror (xxii. 19, 364), which Buttmann has failed to observe (in voc. § 1), we may trace the idea of haste. In all the rest the word has, to all appearance, the exact meaning which appears in the Iliad. In Пl. xviii. 40 a Nereid nymph is Thoè, in ii. 758 the warrior Prothoos is thoos, and in Od. i. 71 the mother of Poluphemos is Thoōsa. In the first of these we can hardly presume any element of vehemence in the idea conveyed; in the second and third we may. The other applications of thoos are as follows. It is given to Antilochos, Æneas, Glaucos, Acamas, and several other warriors, and also to the Abantes of Euboea, who are commonly mentioned with great favour by the Poet. Here we have the rush of battle for the basis of the idea, just as, in the expression, Bonv åyalós, we have the shout of battle. In the case of Æneas (xiii. 477) the two ideas are joined: he is there Bon Boós. To both of these notions the idea of stout or valiant is proximate; and this appears to be the meaning wherever the word is given to warriors. We have it in the rallying call of Sarpedon to the Lycians (Il. xvi. 422) retreating from Patroclos : αἰδώς, ὦ Λύκιοι, πότε φεύγετε ; νῦν θεοὶ ἐστέ. To suppose anything but the direct meaning to be here intended (as in the refined irony 'now ye are swift,' ¿.e. in running away) is out of keeping with Homer's high estimate of the Lycian soldiery and with the use of the lofty word aidós. We may, without doubt, render the phrase 'be bold,' 'quit you like men.' Next, as that which is in rapid movement while carrying weight must always be near to an excess of rapidity, the idea of haste is kindred and proximate to the primary sense, and so appears in Od. viii. 38, foǹv åλeyúvete daîta, ́ prepare a hasty meal.' The other applications of the word are as follows: to Night, in Il. x. 394, 468; xii. 463; xiv. The (warrior's) hand, xii. 306; and, in In the first of these cases alone thoos has something of the character of a stock epithet. Doubtless the rapid descent of Night entitles her to the epithet. Et jam nox humida calo Præcipitat (En. ii. 8). But the mere sense of rapid or rushing Night would be rather tame and thin for a passage like Il. xiv. 261, where impersonated Sleep described how Night was able to save him from the resentment of Zeus : ἄζετο γὰρ, μὴ Νυκτὶ θοῇ ἀποθύμια ἔρδοι. The spirit of the passage requires, that the epithet should tend to represent Night as a personage that even Zeus would be shy of offending say, as dread or formidable Night. This is agreeable to all the epithets attaching to Night in Homer; with whom, be it remembered, Night is one thing, and moonlit Night is another. With the single exception of außpooin, an epithet always used for Night in relation to the supernatural order, all her epithets are of the awful and repellent character. Not only is she δνοφερή, όρφναίη, and μέλαινα, but |