Chapter Iliad in a Nutshell to Imogine of I by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Iliad in a Nutshell to Imogine

Iliad in a Nutshell (The), Pliny tells us that the Iliad was once copied in so small a hand that the whole of the twenty-four books were shut up in a nut-shell.—Hist., vii. 21.

N.B.—Huet, bishop of Avranches, demonstrated the possibility of this being the case by writing eighty lines of the Iliad on the space occupied by one line of this dictionary, so that the whole Iliad might be got into about two-thirds of a single page.

In No. 530 of the Harleian MSS. is an account of a similar performance by Peter Bales, a Chancery clerk in the reign of queen Elizabeth. He wrote out, in 1590, the whole Bible, and enclosed his MS. in a walnut-shell. Bales’s MS. contained as many leaves as an ordinary Bible, but the size of the leaves was reduced, and the paper was as thin as possible.

(I have myself seen the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, and “God save the King!” all written on a space not larger than a silver threepence; and who has not seen a sheet of the Times newspaper reduced to the size of a locket?)

The Iliad in a nutshell is quite out-done by the web given to a prince by the White Cat. It was wrapped in a millet seed, and was 400 yards long. What was more wonderful than this: there were painted on it all sorts of birds, beasts, and fishes; fruits, trees, and plants; rocks and sea-shells; the sun, moon, stars, and planets; the likenesses of all the kings and princes of the world, with their wives, mistresses, and children, all dressed in the proper costume.

The prince took out of a box, covered with rubies, a walnut, which he cracked, and saw inside it a small hazel nut, which he cracked also, and found inside a kernel of wax. He peeled the kernel, and discovered a corn of wheat, and in the wheat-corn was a grain of millet, which contained a web 400 yards in length.—Comtesse D’Aulnoy: Fairy Tales (“The White Cat,” 1682).

Iliad of Old English Literature, “The Knight’s Tale” of Palamon and Arcite in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1388). (See Arcite, p. 56.)

Iliad of Woes (Latin, Ilias malorum), a world of disasters (Cicero, Attic., viii. 11). Homer’s Iliad is an epic of “woe” from beginning to end.

Let others boast of blood, and spoils of foes, Fierce rapines, murders, Iliads of woes. Drummond: Death of Mæliades (1612).

Ilissus, one of the rivers on which Athens was situated. Plato lays the scene of many of the best conversations of Socratês on the banks of this river.

…the thymy vale, Where oft, enchanted with Socratic sounds, Ilissus pure devolved his tuneful stream In gentler murmurs. Akenside: Pleasures of Imagination, i.(1744).

Ill Luck always attended those who possessed the gold of Nibelungen, the gold of Toboso, the sword of Kol called Graysteel, Harmonia’s necklace, Sherborne, etc. (See each.)

Illuminated Doctor (The), Raymond Lully (1235–1315).

John Tauler, the German mystic, is so called also (1294–1361).

Imaus , the Himalaya or snow-hills.

The huge incumbrance of horrific words From Asian Taurus, from Imaus stretched Athwart the roving Tartar’s sullen bounds. Thomson: The Seasons (“Autumn,” 1730).

Imis, the daughter and only child of an island king. She was enamoured of her cousin Philax. A fay named Pagan loved her, and, seeing she rejected his suit, shut up Imis and Philax in the “Palace of