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[535] These personified spirits of strife cannot but recall the Valkyries of Teutonic mythology. 535-38 occur almost verbatim in Scut. Her. 156-59, and have sometimes been considered as copied from there. But they cannot be said to be alien from Epic thought; see 4.440, 11.3. In what form the poet conceived the personification we cannot guess, though 538 implies human shape. Probably the “Κήρ” at least was a winged demon such as we see in the well-known Lykian sarcophagus in the British Museum carrying off a soul in her arms. For the function of the “Κῆρες” — themselves ghosts of the departed — in thus taking souls to the Underworld see note on 2.302 and Od. 14.207 “ἀλλ᾽ ἤτοι τον κῆρες ἔβαν θανάτοιο φέρουσαι εἰς Ἀΐδαο δόμους.” ὁμίλεον, joined in the fray, as 539. In the same line in Hesiod the verb is “ἐθύνεον”.

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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