Typhon, in the Greek myths, was the largest monster ever born. His arms were a hundred miles long, his legs were serpents, his eyes flashed fire, and his mouth spewed forth flaming rocks. He may have been a personification of a volcano or, possibly, of a hurricane.
The gods themselves fled in terror before him and he was even able to capture Jupiter and for a while incapacitate him. Typhon was, however, eventually defeated and buried under Mount Etna, the largest and most fearsome volcano known to the ancient world.
Whether volcano or hurricane, it is clear that Typhon had a roaring voice, and that is the point of the metaphor.
... Vulcan and his wife
Ulysses next describes Patroclus imitating Nestor getting ready to speak, or to answer a night alarm, meticulously demonstrating how he acts the old, old man (again presumably very much the way Nestor is really acted). And Ulysses says indignantly:
That's done, as near as the extremest ends
Of parallels, as like as Vulcan and his wife,
- Act I, scene iii, lines 167-68
Since parallels never meet, they can be extended infinitely in either direction. The imitation is as far from reality, Ulysses' words are saying, as is an infinite distance in one direction from an infinite distance in the other. The other comparison of opposites is Vulcan (Hephaestus) and his wife, Venus (see page I-11).
He hath a lady. ..
Ulysses does not go on to say that Patroclus imitates Ulysses as well, but one can easily imagine he does and that that is what really annoys the Ithacan.
But further discussion is interrupted by a messenger who arrives from Troy. It is Aeneas, debonair and gay, bringing a challenge from Hector, offering single combat with any Greek. As a cause for combat, he sends a message which Aeneas delivers as:
He hath a lady wiser, fairer, truer,
Than ever Greek did compass in his arms;
- Act I, scene iii, lines 275-76
This is straight out of the medieval tales, when knights were supposed to fight in the names of their ladies in accord with the rules of courtly love (see page I-54). Agamemnon rises to the occasion, following the silly conventions on his own account, saying:
This shall be told our lovers, Lord Aeneas;
If none of them have soul in such a kind,
We left them all at home. But we are soldiers;
And may that soldier a mere recreant prove,
That means not, hath not, or is not in love!
- Act I, scene iii, lines 284-88
It is hard to believe that such lines can be read seriously in surroundings that even hint at the grandeur with which Homer surrounded the Trojan War.
... the great Myrmidon
Agamemnon leads Aeneas off to carry the challenge to the various tents, but it is clear that it is meant for Achilles.
When he is gone, Ulysses huddles with Nestor. Ulysses has an idea-Why send Achilles against Hector? Suppose by some accident Achilles is wounded. With Achilles known to be their best man, that would be disastrous.
If, on the other hand, someone other than Achilles is sent, and loses, it will still be taken for granted that Achilles would have won if he had fought. On the other hand, if the lesser man should win, not only would that be a terrific gain for the Greeks, but Achilles himself, suddenly finding himself in second place behind a new champion, would leave off his posturing and laziness and would buckle down to the serious business of fighting. Ulysses' advice is that they:
... make a lott'ry;
And by device let blockish Ajax draw
The sort to fight with Hector; among ourselves
Give him allowance for the better man,
For that will physic the great Myrmidon
Who broils in loud applause, and make him fall
His crest that prouder than blue Iris bends.
- Act I, scene iii, lines 373-79
At the start of Book Seven of the Iliad, Hector does challenge the Greek champions, though not with a silly make-believe excuse involving courtly love. Several Greek champions did accept the challenge, lots were drawn, and the choice did fall on Ajax, though Homer makes no mention of any device to do so.
As for the Myrmidons, they were a tribe in Phthia in southern Thessaly over whom Achilles ruled, hence the reference to him as "the great Myrmidon." The word seems to contain the Greek myrmex, meaning "ant," and the ancient mythmakers invented an explanation for this.
Aeacus, the grandfather of Achilles, ruled the small island of Aegina near Athens. Either it was not populated to begin