Iliad E-Book

Homer

• Herausgeber: Synapse Publishing
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy (Ilium) by a coalition of Greek states, the Iliad tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. Although the story covers only a few weeks in the final year of the war, the Iliad mentions or alludes to many of the Greek legends about the siege; the earlier events, such as the gathering of warriors for the siege, the cause of the war, and related concerns tend to appear near the beginning. Then the epic narrative takes up events prophesied for the future, such as Achilles' imminent death and the fall of Troy, although the narrative ends before these events take place. The Iliad, with Odyssey, is the seminal literary work for all western culture: the epic poem that influenced the following literature for centuries.
Complete edition with an interactive table of contents.

Leseprobe

ILIAD

Homer

Translated by Alexander Pope

with notes by the Rev. Theodore Alois Buckley

© 2019 Synapse Publishing

By the same author in Synapse catalogue:

Odyssey

INTRODUCTION.

Scepticism is as much the result of knowledge, as knowledge is of

scepticism. To be content with what we at present know, is, for the most

part, to shut our ears against conviction; since, from the very gradual

character of our education, we must continually forget, and emancipate

ourselves from, knowledge previously acquired; we must set aside old

notions and embrace fresh ones; and, as we learn, we must be daily

unlearning something which it has cost us no small labour and anxiety to

acquire.

And this difficulty attaches itself more closely to an age in which

progress has gained a strong ascendency over prejudice, and in which

persons and things are, day by day, finding their real level, in lieu of

their conventional value. The same principles which have swept away

traditional abuses, and which are making rapid havoc among the revenues of

sinecurists, and stripping the thin, tawdry veil from attractive

superstitions, are working as actively in literature as in society. The

credulity of one writer, or the partiality of another, finds as powerful a

touchstone and as wholesome a chastisement in the healthy scepticism of a

temperate class of antagonists, as the dreams of conservatism, or the

impostures of pluralist sinecures in the Church. History and tradition,

whether of ancient or comparatively recent times, are subjected to very

different handling from that which the indulgence or credulity of former

ages could allow. Mere statements are jealously watched, and the motives

of the writer form as important an ingredient in the analysis of his

history, as the facts he records. Probability is a powerful and

troublesome test; and it is by this troublesome standard that a large

portion of historical evidence is sifted. Consistency is no less

pertinacious and exacting in its demands. In brief, to write a history, we

must know more than mere facts. Human nature, viewed under an induction of

extended experience, is the best help to the criticism of human history.

Historical characters can only be estimated by the standard which human

experience, whether actual or traditionary, has furnished. To form correct

views of individuals we must regard them as forming parts of a great

whole--we must measure them by their relation to the mass of beings by whom

they are surrounded, and, in contemplating the incidents in their lives or

condition which tradition has handed down to us, we must rather consider

the general bearing of the whole narrative, than the respective

probability of its details.

It is unfortunate for us, that, of some of the greatest men, we know

least, and talk most. Homer, Socrates, and Shakespere(1) have, perhaps,

contributed more to the intellectual enlightenment of mankind than any

other three writers who could be named, and yet the history of all three

has given rise to a boundless ocean of discussion, which has left us

little save the option of choosing which theory or theories we will

follow. The personality of Shakespere is, perhaps, the only thing in which

critics will allow us to believe without controversy; but upon everything

else, even down to the authorship of plays, there is more or less of doubt

and uncertainty. Of Socrates we know as little as the contradictions of

Plato and Xenophon will allow us to know. He was one of the _dramatis

personae_ in two dramas as unlike in principles as in style. He appears as

the enunciator of opinions as different in their tone as those of the

writers who have handed them down. When we have read Plato _or_ Xenophon,

we think we know something of Socrates; when we have fairly read and

examined both, we feel convinced that we are something worse than

ignorant.

It has been an easy, and a popular expedient, of late years, to deny the

personal or real existence of men and things whose life and condition were

too much for our belief. This system--which has often comforted the

religious sceptic, and substituted the consolations of Strauss for those

of the New Testament--has been of incalculable value to the historical

theorists of the last and present centuries. To question the existence of

Alexander the Great, would be a more excusable act, than to believe in

that of Romulus. To deny a fact related in Herodotus, because it is

inconsistent with a theory developed from an Assyrian inscription which no

two scholars read in the same way, is more pardonable, than to believe in

the good-natured old king whom the elegant pen of Florian has

idealized--_Numa Pompilius._

Scepticism has attained its culminating point with respect to Homer, and

the state of our Homeric knowledge may be described as a free permission

to believe any theory, provided we throw overboard all written tradition,

concerning the author or authors of the Iliad and Odyssey. What few

authorities exist on the subject, are summarily dismissed, although the

arguments appear to run in a circle. "This cannot be true, because it is

not true; and, that is not true, because it cannot be true." Such seems to

be the style, in which testimony upon testimony, statement upon statement,

is consigned to denial and oblivion.

It is, however, unfortunate that the professed biographies of Homer are

partly forgeries, partly freaks of ingenuity and imagination, in which

truth is the requisite most wanting. Before taking a brief review of the

Homeric theory in its present conditions, some notice must be taken of the

treatise on the Life of Homer which has been attributed to Herodotus.

According to this document, the city of Cumae in Ćolia, was, at an early

period, the seat of frequent immigrations from various parts of Greece.

Among the immigrants was Menapolus, the son of Ithagenes. Although poor,

he married, and the result of the union was a girl named Critheis. The

girl was left an orphan at an early age, under the guardianship of

Cleanax, of Argos. It is to the indiscretion of this maiden that we "are

indebted for so much happiness." Homer was the first fruit of her juvenile

frailty, and received the name of Melesigenes, from having been born near

the river Meles, in Boeotia, whither Critheis had been transported in

order to save her reputation.

"At this time," continues our narrative, "there lived at Smyrna a man

named Phemius, a teacher of literature and music, who, not being married,

engaged Critheis to manage his household, and spin the flax he received as

the price of his scholastic labours. So satisfactory was her performance

of this task, and so modest her conduct, that he made proposals of

marriage, declaring himself, as a further inducement, willing to adopt her

son, who, he asserted, would become a clever man, if he were carefully

brought up."

They were married; careful cultivation ripened the talents which nature

had bestowed, and Melesigenes soon surpassed his schoolfellows in every

attainment, and, when older, rivalled his preceptor in wisdom. Phemius

died, leaving him sole heir to his property, and his mother soon followed.

Melesigenes carried on his adopted father's school with great success,

exciting the admiration not only of the inhabitants of Smyrna, but also of

the strangers whom the trade carried on there, especially in the

exportation of corn, attracted to that city. Among these visitors, one

Mentes, from Leucadia, the modern Santa Maura, who evinced a knowledge and

intelligence rarely found in those times, persuaded Melesigenes to close

his school, and accompany him on his travels. He promised not only to pay

his expenses, but to furnish him with a further stipend, urging, that,

"While he was yet young, it was fitting that he should see with his own

eyes the countries and cities which might hereafter be the subjects of his

discourses." Melesigenes consented, and set out with his patron,

"examining all the curiosities of the countries they visited, and

informing himself of everything by interrogating those whom he met." We

may also suppose, that he wrote memoirs of all that he deemed worthy of

preservation(2) Having set sail from Tyrrhenia and Iberia, they reached

Ithaca. Here Melesigenes, who had already suffered in his eyes, became

much worse, and Mentes, who was about to leave for Leucadia, left him to

the medical superintendence of a friend of his, named Mentor, the son of

Alcinor. Under his hospitable and intelligent host, Melesigenes rapidly

became acquainted with the legends respecting Ulysses, which afterwards

formed the subject of the Odyssey. The inhabitants of Ithaca assert, that

it was here that Melesigenes became blind, but the Colophomans make their

city the seat of that misfortune. He then returned to Smyrna, where he

applied himself to the study of poetry.(3)

But poverty soon drove him to Cumae. Having passed over the Hermaean

plain, he arrived at Neon Teichos, the New Wall, a colony of Cumae. Here

his misfortunes and poetical talent gained him the friendship of one

Tychias, an armourer. "And up to my time," continued the author, "the

inhabitants showed the place where he used to sit when giving a recitation

of his verses, and they greatly honoured the spot. Here also a poplar

grew, which they said had sprung up ever since Melesigenes arrived".(4)

But poverty still drove him on, and he went by way of Larissa, as being

the most convenient road. Here, the Cumans say, he composed an epitaph on

Gordius, king of Phrygia, which has however, and with greater probability,

been attributed to Cleobulus of Lindus.(5)

Arrived at Cumae, he frequented the _converzationes_(6) of the old men,

and delighted all by the charms of his poetry. Encouraged by this

favourable reception, he declared that, if they would allow him a public

maintenance, he would render their city most gloriously renowned. They

avowed their willingness to support him in the measure he proposed, and

procured him an audience in the council. Having made the speech, with the

purport of which our author has forgotten to acquaint us, he retired, and

left them to debate respecting the answer to be given to his proposal.

The greater part of the assembly seemed favourable to the poet's demand,

but one man observed that "if they were to feed _Homers,_ they would be

encumbered with a multitude of useless people." "From this circumstance,"

says the writer, "Melesigenes acquired the name of Homer, for the Cumans

call blind men _Homers._"(7) With a love of economy, which shows how

similar the world has always been in its treatment of literary men, the

pension was denied, and the poet vented his disappointment in a wish that

Cumoea might never produce a poet capable of giving it renown and glory.

At Phocoea, Homer was destined to experience another literary distress.

One Thestorides, who aimed at the reputation of poetical genius, kept

Homer in his own house, and allowed him a pittance, on condition of the

verses of the poet passing in his name. Having collected sufficient poetry

to be profitable, Thestorides, like some would-be-literary publishers,

neglected the man whose brains he had sucked, and left him. At his

departure, Homer is said to have observed: "O Thestorides, of the many

things hidden from the knowledge of man, nothing is more unintelligible

than the human heart."(8)

Homer continued his career of difficulty and distress, until some Chian

merchants, struck by the similarity of the verses they heard him recite,

acquainted him with the fact that Thestorides was pursuing a profitable

livelihood by the recital of the very same poems. This at once determined

him to set out for Chios. No vessel happened then to be setting sail

thither, but he found one ready to Start for Erythrae, a town of Ionia,

which faces that island, and he prevailed upon the seamen to allow him to

accompany them. Having embarked, he invoked a favourable wind, and prayed

that he might be able to expose the imposture of Thestorides, who, by his

breach of hospitality, had drawn down the wrath of Jove the Hospitable.

At Erythrae, Homer fortunately met with a person who had known him in

Phocoea, by whose assistance he at length, after some difficulty, reached

the little hamlet of Pithys. Here he met with an adventure, which we will

continue in the words of our author. "Having set out from Pithys, Homer

went on, attracted by the cries of some goats that were pasturing. The

dogs barked on his approach, and he cried out. Glaucus (for that was the

name of the goat-herd) heard his voice, ran up quickly, called off his

dogs, and drove them away from Homer. For or some time he stood wondering

how a blind man should have reached such a place alone, and what could be

his design in coming. He then went up to him, and inquired who he was, and

how he had come to desolate places and untrodden spots, and of what he

stood in need. Homer, by recounting to him the whole history of his

misfortunes, moved him with compassion; and he took him, and led him to

his cot, and having lit a fire, bade him sup.(9)

"The dogs, instead of eating, kept barking at the stranger, according to

their usual habit. Whereupon Homer addressed Glaucus thus: O Glaucus, my

friend, prythee attend to my behest. First give the dogs their supper at

the doors of the hut: for so it is better, since, whilst they watch, nor

thief nor wild beast will approach the fold.

Glaucus was pleased with the advice, and marvelled at its author. Having

finished supper, they banqueted(10) afresh on conversation, Homer

narrating his wanderings, and telling of the cities he had visited.

At length they retired to rest; but on the following morning, Glaucus

resolved to go to his master, and acquaint him with his meeting with

Homer. Having left the goats in charge of a fellow-servant, he left Homer

at home, promising to return quickly. Having arrived at Bolissus, a place

near the farm, and finding his mate, he told him the whole story

respecting Homer and his journey. He paid little attention to what he

said, and blamed Glaucus for his stupidity in taking in and feeding maimed

and enfeebled persons. However, he bade him bring the stranger to him.

Glaucus told Homer what had taken place, and bade him follow him, assuring

him that good fortune would be the result. Conversation soon showed that

the stranger was a man of much cleverness and general knowledge, and the

Chian persuaded him to remain, and to undertake the charge of his

children.(11)

Besides the satisfaction of driving the impostor Thestorides from the

island, Homer enjoyed considerable success as a teacher. In the town of

Chios he established a school where he taught the precepts of poetry. "To

this day," says Chandler,(12) "the most curious remain is that which has

been named, without reason, the School of Homer. It is on the coast, at

some distance from the city, northward, and appears to have been an open

temple of Cybele, formed on the top of a rock. The shape is oval, and in

the centre is the image of the goddess, the head and an arm wanting. She

is represented, as usual, sitting. The chair has a lion carved on each

side, and on the back. The area is bounded by a low rim, or seat, and

about five yards over. The whole is hewn out of the mountain, is rude,

indistinct, and probably of the most remote antiquity."

So successful was this school, that Homer realised a considerable fortune.

He married, and had two daughters, one of whom died single, the other

married a Chian.

The following passage betrays the same tendency to connect the personages

of the poems with the history of the poet, which has already been

mentioned:--

"In his poetical compositions Homer displays great gratitude towards

Mentor of Ithaca, in the Odyssey, whose name he has inserted in his poem

as the companion of Ulysses,(13) in return for the care taken of him when

afflicted with blindness. He also testifies his gratitude to Phemius, who

had given him both sustenance and instruction."

His celebrity continued to increase, and many persons advised him to visit

Greece, whither his reputation had now extended. Having, it is said, made

some additions to his poems calculated to please the vanity of the

Athenians, of whose city he had hitherto made no mention,(14) he sent out

for Samos. Here being recognized by a Samian, who had met with him in

Chios, he was handsomely received, and invited to join in celebrating the

Apaturian festival. He recited some verses, which gave great satisfaction,

and by singing the Eiresione at the New Moon festivals, he earned a

subsistence, visiting the houses of the rich, with whose children he was

very popular.

In the spring he sailed for Athens, and arrived at the island of Ios, now

Ino, where he fell extremely ill, and died. It is said that his death

arose from vexation, at not having been able to unravel an enigma proposed

by some fishermen's children.(15)

Such is, in brief, the substance of the earliest life of Homer we possess,

and so broad are the evidences of its historical worthlessness, that it is

scarcely necessary to point them out in detail. Let us now consider some

of the opinions to which a persevering, patient, and learned--but by no

means consistent--series of investigations has led. In doing so, I profess

to bring forward statements, not to vouch for their reasonableness or

probability.

"Homer appeared. The history of this poet and his works is lost in

doubtful obscurity, as is the history of many of the first minds who have

done honour to humanity, because they rose amidst darkness. The majestic

stream of his song, blessing and fertilizing, flows like the Nile, through

many lands and nations; and, like the sources of the Nile, its fountains

will ever remain concealed."

Such are the words in which one of the most judicious German critics has

eloquently described the uncertainty in which the whole of the Homeric

question is involved. With no less truth and feeling he proceeds:--

"It seems here of chief importance to expect no more than the nature of

things makes possible. If the period of tradition in history is the region

of twilight, we should not expect in it perfect light. The creations of

genius always seem like miracles, because they are, for the most part,

created far out of the reach of observation. If we were in possession of

all the historical testimonies, we never could wholly explain the origin

of the Iliad and the Odyssey; for their origin, in all essential points,

must have remained the secret of the poet." (16)

From this criticism, which shows as much insight into the depths of human

nature as into the minute wire-drawings of scholastic investigation, let

us pass on to the main question at issue. Was Homer an individual?(17) or

were the Iliad and Odyssey the result of an ingenious arrangement of

fragments by earlier poets?

Well has Landor remarked: "Some tell us there were twenty Homers; some

deny that there was ever one. It were idle and foolish to shake the

contents of a vase, in order to let them settle at last. We are

perpetually labouring to destroy our delights, our composure, our devotion

to superior power. Of all the animals on earth we least know what is good

for us. My opinion is, that what is best for us is our admiration of good.

No man living venerates Homer more than I do." (18)

But, greatly as we admire the generous enthusiasm which rests contented

with the poetry on which its best impulses had been nurtured and fostered,

without seeking to destroy the vividness of first impressions by minute

analysis--our editorial office compels us to give some attention to the

doubts and difficulties with which the Homeric question is beset, and to

entreat our reader, for a brief period, to prefer his judgment to his

imagination, and to condescend to dry details.

Before, however, entering into particulars respecting the question of this

unity of the Homeric poems, (at least of the Iliad,) I must express my

sympathy with the sentiments expressed in the following remarks:--

"We cannot but think the universal admiration of its unity by the better,

the poetic age of Greece, almost conclusive testimony to its original

composition. It was not till the age of the grammarians that its primitive

integrity was called in question; nor is it injustice to assert, that the

minute and analytical spirit of a grammarian is not the best qualification

for the profound feeling, the comprehensive conception of an harmonious

whole. The most exquisite anatomist may be no judge of the symmetry of the

human frame: and we would take the opinion of Chantrey or Westmacott on

the proportions and general beauty of a form, rather than that of Mr.

Brodie or Sir Astley Cooper.

"There is some truth, though some malicious exaggeration, in the lines of

Pope.--

"'The critic eye--that microscope of wit

Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit,

How parts relate to parts, or they to whole

The body's harmony, the beaming soul,

Are things which Kuster, Burmann, Wasse, shall see,

When man's whole frame is obvious to a flea.'"(19)

Long was the time which elapsed before any one dreamt of questioning the

unity of the authorship of the Homeric poems. The grave and cautious

Thucydides quoted without hesitation the Hymn to Apollo,(20) the

authenticity of which has been already disclaimed by modern critics.

Longinus, in an oft quoted passage, merely expressed an opinion touching

the comparative inferiority of the Odyssey to the Iliad,(21) and, among a

mass of ancient authors, whose very names(22) it would be tedious to

detail, no suspicion of the personal non-existence of Homer ever arose. So

far, the voice of antiquity seems to be in favour of our early ideas on

the subject; let us now see what are the discoveries to which more modern

investigations lay claim.

At the end of the seventeenth century, doubts had begun to awaken on the

subject, and we find Bentley remarking that "Homer wrote a sequel of songs

and rhapsodies, to be sung by himself, for small comings and good cheer,

at festivals and other days of merriment. These loose songs were not

collected together, in the form of an epic poem, till about Peisistratus'

time, about five hundred years after."(23)

Two French writers--Hedelin and Perrault--avowed a similar scepticism on the

subject; but it is in the "Scienza Nuova" of Battista Vico, that we first

meet with the germ of the theory, subsequently defended by Wolf with so

much learning and acuteness. Indeed, it is with the Wolfian theory that we

have chiefly to deal, and with the following bold hypothesis, which we

will detail in the words of Grote(24)--

"Half a century ago, the acute and valuable Prolegomena of F. A. Wolf,

turning to account the Venetian Scholia, which had then been recently

published, first opened philosophical discussion as to the history of the

Homeric text. A considerable part of that dissertation (though by no means

the whole) is employed in vindicating the position, previously announced

by Bentley, amongst others, that the separate constituent portions of the

Iliad and Odyssey had not been cemented together into any compact body and

unchangeable order, until the days of Peisistratus, in the sixth century

before Christ. As a step towards that conclusion, Wolf maintained that no

written copies of either poem could be shown to have existed during the

earlier times, to which their composition is referred; and that without

writing, neither the perfect symmetry of so complicated a work could have

been originally conceived by any poet, nor, if realized by him,

transmitted with assurance to posterity. The absence of easy and

convenient writing, such as must be indispensably supposed for long

manuscripts, among the early Greeks, was thus one of the points in Wolf's

case against the primitive integrity of the Iliad and Odyssey. By Nitzsch,

and other leading opponents of Wolf, the connection of the one with the

other seems to have been accepted as he originally put it; and it has been

considered incumbent on those who defended the ancient aggregate character

of the Iliad and Odyssey, to maintain that they were written poems from

the beginning.

"To me it appears, that the architectonic functions ascribed by Wolf to

Peisistratus and his associates, in reference to the Homeric poems, are

nowise admissible. But much would undoubtedly be gained towards that view

of the question, if it could be shown, that, in order to controvert it, we

were driven to the necessity of admitting long written poems, in the ninth

century before the Christian aera. Few things, in my opinion, can be more

improbable; and Mr. Payne Knight, opposed as he is to the Wolfian

hypothesis, admits this no less than Wolf himself. The traces of writing

in Greece, even in the seventh century before the Christian aera, are

exceedingly trifling. We have no remaining inscription earlier than the

fortieth Olympiad, and the early inscriptions are rude and unskilfully

executed; nor can we even assure ourselves whether Archilochus, Simonides

of Amorgus, Kallinus, Tyrtaeus, Xanthus, and the other early elegiac and

lyric poets, committed their compositions to writing, or at what time the

practice of doing so became familiar. The first positive ground which

authorizes us to presume the existence of a manuscript of Homer, is in the

famous ordinance of Solon, with regard to the rhapsodies at the

Panathenaea: but for what length of time previously manuscripts had

existed, we are unable to say.

"Those who maintain the Homeric poems to have been written from the

beginning, rest their case, not upon positive proofs, nor yet upon the

existing habits of society with regard to poetry--for they admit generally

that the Iliad and Odyssey were not read, but recited and heard,--but upon

the supposed necessity that there must have been manuscripts to ensure the

preservation of the poems--the unassisted memory of reciters being neither

sufficient nor trustworthy. But here we only escape a smaller difficulty

by running into a greater; for the existence of trained bards, gifted with

extraordinary memory, (25) is far less astonishing than that of long

manuscripts, in an age essentially non-reading and non-writing, and when

even suitable instruments and materials for the process are not obvious.

Moreover, there is a strong positive reason for believing that the bard

was under no necessity of refreshing his memory by consulting a

manuscript; for if such had been the fact, blindness would have been a

disqualification for the profession, which we know that it was not, as

well from the example of Demodokus, in the Odyssey, as from that of the

blind bard of Chios, in the Hymn to the Delian Apollo, whom Thucydides, as

well as the general tenor of Grecian legend, identifies with Homer

himself. The author of that hymn, be he who he may, could never have

described a blind man as attaining the utmost perfection in his art, if he

had been conscious that the memory of the bard was only maintained by

constant reference to the manuscript in his chest."

The loss of the digamma, that _crux_ of critics, that quicksand upon which

even the acumen of Bentley was shipwrecked, seems to prove beyond a doubt,

that the pronunciation of the Greek language had undergone a considerable

change. Now it is certainly difficult to suppose that the Homeric poems

could have suffered by this change, had written copies been preserved. If

Chaucer's poetry, for instance, had not been written, it could only have

come down to us in a softened form, more like the effeminate version of

Dryden, than the rough, quaint, noble original.

"At what period," continues Grote, "these poems, or indeed any other Greek

poems, first began to be written, must be matter of conjecture, though

there is ground for assurance that it was before the time of Solon. If, in

the absence of evidence, we may venture upon naming any more determinate

period, the question a once suggests itself, What were the purposes which,

in that state of society, a manuscript at its first commencement must have

been intended to answer? For whom was a written Iliad necessary? Not for

the rhapsodes; for with them it was not only planted in the memory, but

also interwoven with the feelings, and conceived in conjunction with all

those flexions and intonations of voice, pauses, and other oral artifices

which were required for emphatic delivery, and which the naked manuscript

could never reproduce. Not for the general public--they were accustomed to

receive it with its rhapsodic delivery, and with its accompaniments of a

solemn and crowded festival. The only persons for whom the written Iliad

would be suitable would be a select few; studious and curious men; a class

of readers capable of analyzing the complicated emotions which they had

experienced as hearers in the crowd, and who would, on perusing the

written words, realize in their imaginations a sensible portion of the

impression communicated by the reciter. Incredible as the statement may

seem in an age like the present, there is in all early societies, and

there was in early Greece, a time when no such reading class existed. If

we could discover at what time such a class first began to be formed, we

should be able to make a guess at the time when the old epic poems were

first committed to writing. Now the period which may with the greatest

probability be fixed upon as having first witnessed the formation even of

the narrowest reading class in Greece, is the middle of the seventh

century before the Christian aera (B.C. 660 to B.C. 630), the age of

Terpander, Kallinus, Archilochus, Simonides of Amorgus, &c. I ground this

supposition on the change then operated in the character and tendencies of

Grecian poetry and music--the elegiac and the iambic measures having been

introduced as rivals to the primitive hexameter, and poetical compositions

having been transferred from the epical past to the affairs of present and

real life. Such a change was important at a time when poetry was the only

known mode of publication (to use a modern phrase not altogether suitable,

yet the nearest approaching to the sense). It argued a new way of looking

at the old epical treasures of the people as well as a thirst for new

poetical effect; and the men who stood forward in it, may well be

considered as desirous to study, and competent to criticize, from their

own individual point of view, the written words of the Homeric rhapsodies,

just as we are told that Kallinus both noticed and eulogized the Thebais

as the production of Homer. There seems, therefore, ground for

conjecturing that (for the use of this newly-formed and important, but

very narrow class), manuscripts of the Homeric poems and other old

epics,--the Thebais and the Cypria, as well as the Iliad and the

Odyssey,--began to be compiled towards the middle of the seventh century

(B.C. 1); and the opening of Egypt to Grecian commerce, which took place

about the same period, would furnish increased facilities for obtaining

the requisite papyrus to write upon. A reading class, when once formed,

would doubtless slowly increase, and the number of manuscripts along with

it; so that before the time of Solon, fifty years afterwards, both readers

and manuscripts, though still comparatively few, might have attained a

certain recognized authority, and formed a tribunal of reference against

the carelessness of individual rhapsodes."(26)

But even Peisistratus has not been suffered to remain in possession of the

credit, and we cannot help feeling the force of the following

observations--

"There are several incidental circumstances which, in our opinion,

throw some suspicion over the whole history of the Peisistratid

compilation, at least over the theory, that the Iliad was cast

into its present stately and harmonious form by the directions of

the Athenian ruler. If the great poets, who flourished at the

bright period of Grecian song, of which, alas! we have inherited

little more than the fame, and the faint echo, if Stesichorus,

Anacreon, and Simonides were employed in the noble task of

compiling the Iliad and Odyssey, so much must have been done to

arrange, to connect, to harmonize, that it is almost incredible,

that stronger marks of Athenian manufacture should not remain.

Whatever occasional anomalies may be detected, anomalies which no

doubt arise out of our own ignorance of the language of the

Homeric age, however the irregular use of the digamma may have

perplexed our Bentleys, to whom the name of Helen is said to have

caused as much disquiet and distress as the fair one herself among

the heroes of her age, however Mr. Knight may have failed in

reducing the Homeric language to its primitive form; however,

finally, the Attic dialect may not have assumed all its more

marked and distinguishing characteristics--still it is difficult to

suppose that the language, particularly in the joinings and

transitions, and connecting parts, should not more clearly betray

the incongruity between the more ancient and modern forms of

expression. It is not quite in character with such a period to

imitate an antique style, in order to piece out an imperfect poem

in the character of the original, as Sir Walter Scott has done in

his continuation of Sir Tristram.

"If, however, not even such faint and indistinct traces of

Athenian compilation are discoverable in the language of the

poems, the total absence of Athenian national feeling is perhaps

no less worthy of observation. In later, and it may fairly be

suspected in earlier times, the Athenians were more than

ordinarily jealous of the fame of their ancestors. But, amid all

the traditions of the glories of early Greece embodied in the

Iliad, the Athenians play a most subordinate and insignificant

part. Even the few passages which relate to their ancestors, Mr.

Knight suspects to be interpolations. It is possible, indeed, that

in its leading outline, the Iliad may be true to historic fact,

that in the great maritime expedition of western Greece against

the rival and half-kindred empire of the Laomedontiadae, the

chieftain of Thessaly, from his valour and the number of his

forces, may have been the most important ally of the Peloponnesian

sovereign; the preeminent value of the ancient poetry on the

Trojan war may thus have forced the national feeling of the

Athenians to yield to their taste. The songs which spoke of their

own great ancestor were, no doubt, of far inferior sublimity and

popularity, or, at first sight, a Theseid would have been much

more likely to have emanated from an Athenian synod of compilers

of ancient song, than an Achilleid or an Olysseid. Could France

have given birth to a Tasso, Tancred would have been the hero of

the Jerusalem. If, however, the Homeric ballads, as they are

sometimes called, which related the wrath of Achilles, with all

its direful consequences, were so far superior to the rest of the

poetic cycle, as to admit no rivalry,--it is still surprising, that

throughout the whole poem the _callida junctura_ should never

betray the workmanship of an Athenian hand, and that the national

spirit of a race, who have at a later period not inaptly been

compared to our self admiring neighbours, the French, should

submit with lofty self denial to the almost total exclusion of

their own ancestors--or, at least, to the questionable dignity of

only having produced a leader tolerably skilled in the military

tactics of his age."(27)

To return to the Wolfian theory. While it is to be confessed, that Wolf's

objections to the primitive integrity of the Iliad and Odyssey have never

been wholly got over, we cannot help discovering that they have failed to

enlighten us as to any substantial point, and that the difficulties with

which the whole subject is beset, are rather augmented than otherwise, if

we admit his hypothesis. Nor is Lachmann's(28) modification of his theory

any better. He divides the first twenty-two books of the Iliad into

sixteen different songs, and treats as ridiculous the belief that their

amalgamation into one regular poem belongs to a period earlier than the

age of Peisistratus. This, as Grote observes, "explains the gaps and

contradictions in the narrative, but it explains nothing else." Moreover,

we find no contradictions warranting this belief, and the so-called

sixteen poets concur in getting rid of the following leading men in the

first battle after the secession of Achilles: Elphenor, chief of the

Euboeans; Tlepolemus, of the Rhodians; Pandarus, of the Lycians; Odius, of

the Halizonians; Pirous and Acamas, of the Thracians. None of these heroes

again make their appearance, and we can but agree with Colonel Mure, that

"it seems strange that any number of independent poets should have so

harmoniously dispensed with the services of all six in the sequel." The

discrepancy, by which Pylaemenes, who is represented as dead in the fifth

book, weeps at his son's funeral in the thirteenth, can only be regarded

as the result of an interpolation.

Grote, although not very distinct in stating his own opinions on the

subject, has done much to clearly show the incongruity of the Wolfian

theory, and of Lachmann's modifications with the character of

Peisistratus. But he has also shown, and we think with equal success, that

the two questions relative to the primitive unity of these poems, or,

supposing that impossible, the unison of these parts by Peisistratus, and

not before his time, are essentially distinct. In short, "a man may

believe the Iliad to have been put together out of pre-existing songs,

without recognising the age of Peisistratus as the period of its first

compilation." The friends or literary _employes_ of Peisistratus must have

found an Iliad that was already ancient, and the silence of the

Alexandrine critics respecting the Peisistratic "recension," goes far to

prove, that, among the numerous manuscripts they examined, this was either

wanting, or thought unworthy of attention.

"Moreover," he continues, "the whole tenor of the poems themselves

confirms what is here remarked. There is nothing, either in the Iliad or

Odyssey, which savours of modernism, applying that term to the age of

Peisistratus--nothing which brings to our view the alterations brought

about by two centuries, in the Greek language, the coined money, the

habits of writing and reading, the despotisms and republican governments,

the close military array, the improved construction of ships, the

Amphiktyonic convocations, the mutual frequentation of religious

festivals, the Oriental and Egyptian veins of religion, &c., familiar to

the latter epoch. These alterations Onomakritus, and the other literary

friends of Peisistratus, could hardly have failed to notice, even without

design, had they then, for the first time, undertaken the task of piecing

together many self existent epics into one large aggregate. Everything in

the two great Homeric poems, both in substance and in language, belongs to

an age two or three centuries earlier than Peisistratus. Indeed, even the

interpolations (or those passages which, on the best grounds, are

pronounced to be such) betray no trace of the sixth century before Christ,

and may well have been heard by Archilochus and Kallinus--in some cases

even by Arktinus and Hesiod--as genuine Homeric matter(29) As far as the

evidences on the case, as well internal as external, enable us to judge,

we seem warranted in believing that the Iliad and Odyssey were recited

substantially as they now stand (always allowing for paitial divergences

of text and interpolations) in 776 B.C., our first trustworthy mark of

Grecian time; and this ancient date, let it be added, as it is the

best-authenticated fact, so it is also the most important attribute of the

Homeric poems, considered in reference to Grecian history; for they thus

afford us an insight into the anti-historical character of the Greeks,

enabling us to trace the subsequent forward march of the nation, and to

seize instructive contrasts between their former and their later

condition."(30)

On the whole, I am inclined to believe, that the labours of Peisistratus

were wholly of an editorial character, although, I must confess, that I

can lay down nothing respecting the extent of his labours. At the same

time, so far from believing that the composition or primary arrangement of

these poems, in their present form, was the work of Peisistratus, I am

rather persuaded that the fine taste and elegant mind of that Athenian(31)

would lead him to preserve an ancient and traditional order of the poems,

rather than to patch and re-construct them according to a fanciful

hypothesis. I will not repeat the many discussions respecting whether the

poems were written or not, or whether the art of writing was known in the

time of their reputed author. Suffice it to say, that the more we read,

the less satisfied we are upon either subject.

I cannot, however, help thinking, that the story which attributes the

preservation of these poems to Lycurgus, is little else than a version of

the same story as that of Peisistratus, while its historical probability

must be measured by that of many others relating to the Spartan Confucius.

I will conclude this sketch of the Homeric theories, with an attempt, made

by an ingenious friend, to unite them into something like consistency. It

is as follows:--

"No doubt the common soldiers of that age had, like the common

sailors of some fifty years ago, some one qualified to 'discourse

in excellent music' among them. Many of these, like those of the

negroes in the United States, were extemporaneous, and allusive to

events passing around them. But what was passing around them? The

grand events of a spirit-stirring war; occurrences likely to

impress themselves, as the mystical legends of former times had

done, upon their memory; besides which, a retentive memory was

deemed a virtue of the first water, and was cultivated accordingly

in those ancient times. Ballads at first, and down to the

beginning of the war with Troy, were merely recitations, with an

intonation. Then followed a species of recitative, probably with

an intoned burden. Tune next followed, as it aided the memory

considerably.

"It was at this period, about four hundred years after the war,

that a poet flourished of the name of Melesigenes, or Moeonides,

but most probably the former. He saw that these ballads might be

made of great utility to his purpose of writing a poem on the

social position of Hellas, and, as a collection, he published

these lays, connecting them by a tale of his own. This poem now

exists, under the title of the 'Odyssea.' The author, however, did

not affix his own name to the poem, which, in fact, was, great

part of it, remodelled from the archaic dialect of Crete, in which

tongue the ballads were found by him. He therefore called it the

poem of Homeros, or the Collector; but this is rather a proof of

his modesty and talent, than of his mere drudging arrangement of

other people's ideas; for, as Grote has finely observed, arguing

for the unity of authorship, 'a great poet might have re-cast

pre-existing separate songs into one comprehensive whole; but no

mere arrangers or compilers would be competent to do so.'

"While employed on the wild legend of Odysseus, he met with a

ballad, recording the quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon. His noble

mind seized the hint that there presented itself, and the

Achilleis(32) grew under his hand. Unity of design, however,

caused him to publish the poem under the same pseudonyme as his

former work: and the disjointed lays of the ancient bards were

joined together, like those relating to the Cid, into a chronicle

history, named the Iliad. Melesigenes knew that the poem was

destined to be a lasting one, and so it has proved; but, first,

the poems were destined to undergo many vicissitudes and

corruptions, by the people who took to singing them in the

streets, assemblies, and agoras. However, Solon first, and then

Peisistratus, and afterwards Aristoteles and others, revised the

poems, and restored the works of Melesigenes Homeros to their

original integrity in a great measure."(33)

Having thus given some general notion of the strange theories which have

developed themselves respecting this most interesting subject, I must

still express my conviction as to the unity of the authorship of the

Homeric poems. To deny that many corruptions and interpolations disfigure

them, and that the intrusive hand of the poetasters may here and there

have inflicted a wound more serious than the negligence of the copyist,

would be an absurd and captious assumption, but it is to a higher

criticism that we must appeal, if we would either understand or enjoy

these poems. In maintaining the authenticity and personality of their one

author, be he Homer or Melesigenes, _quocunque nomine vocari eum jus

fasque sit,_ I feel conscious that, while the whole weight of historical

evidence is against the hypothesis which would assign these great works to

a plurality of authors, the most powerful internal evidence, and that

which springs from the deepest and most immediate impulse of the soul,

also speaks eloquently to the contrary.

The minutiae of verbal criticism I am far from seeking to despise. Indeed,

considering the character of some of my own books, such an attempt would

be gross inconsistency. But, while I appreciate its importance in a

philological view, I am inclined to set little store on its aesthetic

value, especially in poetry. Three parts of the emendations made upon

poets are mere alterations, some of which, had they been suggested to the

author by his Maecenas or Africanus, he would probably have adopted.

Moreover, those who are most exact in laying down rules of verbal

criticism and interpretation, are often least competent to carry out their

own precepts. Grammarians are not poets by profession, but may be so _per

accidens._ I do not at this moment remember two emendations on Homer,

calculated to substantially improve the poetry of a passage, although a

mass of remarks, from Herodotus down to Loewe, have given us the history

of a thousand minute points, without which our Greek knowledge would be

gloomy and jejune.

But it is not on words only that grammarians, mere grammarians, will

exercise their elaborate and often tiresome ingenuity. Binding down an

heroic or dramatic poet to the block upon which they have previously

dissected his words and sentences, they proceed to use the axe and the

pruning knife by wholesale, and inconsistent in everything but their wish

to make out a case of unlawful affiliation, they cut out book after book,

passage after passage, till the author is reduced to a collection of

fragments, or till those, who fancied they possessed the works of some

great man, find that they have been put off with a vile counterfeit got up

at second hand. If we compare the theories of Knight, Wolf, Lachmann, and

others, we shall feel better satisfied of the utter uncertainty of

criticism than of the apocryphal position of Homer. One rejects what

another considers the turning-point of his theory. One cuts a supposed

knot by expunging what another would explain by omitting something else.

Nor is this morbid species of sagacity by any means to be looked upon as a

literary novelty. Justus Lipsius, a scholar of no ordinary skill, seems to

revel in the imaginary discovery, that the tragedies attributed to Seneca

are by _four_ different authors.(34) Now, I will venture to assert, that

these tragedies are so uniform, not only in their borrowed phraseology--a

phraseology with which writers like Boethius and Saxo Grammaticus were

more charmed than ourselves--in their freedom from real poetry, and last,

but not least, in an ultra-refined and consistent abandonment of good

taste, that few writers of the present day would question the capabilities

of the same gentleman, be he Seneca or not, to produce not only these, but

a great many more equally bad. With equal sagacity, Father Hardouin

astonished the world with the startling announcement that the Ćneid of

Virgil, and the satires of Horace, were literary deceptions. Now, without

wishing to say one word of disrespect against the industry and

learning--nay, the refined acuteness--which scholars, like Wolf, have

bestowed upon this subject, I must express my fears, that many of our

modern Homeric theories will become matter for the surprise and

entertainment, rather than the instruction, of posterity. Nor can I help

thinking, that the literary history of more recent times will account for

many points of difficulty in the transmission of the Iliad and Odyssey to

a period so remote from that of their first creation.

I have already expressed my belief that the labours of Peisistratus were

of a purely editorial character; and there seems no more reason why

corrupt and imperfect editions of Homer may not have been abroad in his

day, than that the poems of Valerius Flaccus and Tibullus should have

given so much trouble to Poggio, Scaliger, and others. But, after all, the

main fault in all the Homeric theories is, that they demand too great a

sacrifice of those feelings to which poetry most powerfully appeals, and

which are its most fitting judges. The ingenuity which has sought to rob

us of the name and existence of Homer, does too much violence to that

inward emotion, which makes our whole soul yearn with love and admiration

for the blind bard of Chios. To believe the author of the Iliad a mere

compiler, is to degrade the powers of human invention; to elevate

analytical judgment at the expense of the most ennobling impulses of the

soul; and to forget the ocean in the contemplation of a polypus. There is

a catholicity, so to speak, in the very name of Homer. Our faith in the

author of the Iliad may be a mistaken one, but as yet nobody has taught us

a better.

While, however, I look upon the belief in Homer as one that has nature

herself for its mainspring; while I can join with old Ennius in believing

in Homer as the ghost, who, like some patron saint, hovers round the bed

of the poet, and even bestows rare gifts from that wealth of imagination

which a host of imitators could not exhaust,--still I am far from wishing

to deny that the author of these great poems found a rich fund of

tradition, a well-stocked mythical storehouse from whence he might derive

both subject and embellishment. But it is one thing to _use_ existing

romances in the embellishment of a poem, another to patch up the poem

itself from such materials. What consistency of style and execution can be

hoped for from such an attempt? or, rather, what bad taste and tedium will

not be the infallible result?

A blending of popular legends, and a free use of the songs of other bards,

are features perfectly consistent with poetical originality. In fact, the

most original writer is still drawing upon outward impressions--nay, even

his own thoughts are a kind of secondary agents which support and feed the

impulses of imagination. But unless there be some grand pervading

principle--some invisible, yet most distinctly stamped archetypus of the

great whole, a poem like the Iliad can never come to the birth. Traditions

the most picturesque, episodes the most pathetic, local associations

teeming with the thoughts of gods and great men, may crowd in one mighty

vision, or reveal themselves in more substantial forms to the mind of the

poet; but, except the power to create a grand whole, to which these shall

be but as details and embellishments, be present, we shall have nought but

a scrap-book, a parterre filled with flowers and weeds strangling each

other in their wild redundancy: we shall have a cento of rags and tatters,

which will require little acuteness to detect.

Sensible as I am of the difficulty of disproving a negative, and aware as

I must be of the weighty grounds there are for opposing my belief, it

still seems to me that the Homeric question is one that is reserved for a

higher criticism than it has often obtained. We are not by nature intended

to know all things; still less, to compass the powers by which the

greatest blessings of life have been placed at our disposal. Were faith no

virtue, then we might indeed wonder why God willed our ignorance on any

matter. But we are too well taught the contrary lesson; and it seems as

though our faith should be especially tried touching the men and the

events which have wrought most influence upon the condition of humanity.

And there is a kind of sacredness attached to the memory of the great and

the good, which seems to bid us repulse the scepticism which would

allegorize their existence into a pleasing apologue, and measure the

giants of intellect by an homeopathic dynameter.

Long and habitual reading of Homer appears to familiarize our thoughts

even to his incongruities; or rather, if we read in a right spirit and

with a heartfelt appreciation, we are too much dazzled, too deeply wrapped

in admiration of the whole, to dwell upon the minute spots which mere

analysis can discover. In reading an heroic poem we must transform

ourselves into heroes of the time being, we in imagination must fight over

the same battles, woo the same loves, burn with the same sense of injury,

as an Achilles or a Hector. And if we can but attain this degree of

enthusiasm (and less enthusiasm will scarcely suffice for the reading of

Homer), we shall feel that the poems of Homer are not only the work of one

writer, but of the greatest writer that ever touched the hearts of men by

the power of song.

And it was this supposed unity of authorship which gave these poems their

powerful influence over the minds of the men of old. Heeren, who is

evidently little disposed in favour of modern theories, finely observes:--

"It was Homer who formed the character of the Greek nation. No

poet has ever, as a poet, exercised a similar influence over his

countrymen. Prophets, lawgivers, and sages have formed the

character of other nations; it was reserved to a poet to form that

of the Greeks. This is a feature in their character which was not

wholly erased even in the period of their degeneracy. When

lawgivers and sages appeared in Greece, the work of the poet had

already been accomplished; and they paid homage to his superior

genius. He held up before his nation the mirror, in which they

were to behold the world of gods and heroes no less than of feeble

mortals, and to behold them reflected with purity and truth. His

poems are founded on the first feeling of human nature; on the

love of children, wife, and country; on that passion which

outweighs all others, the love of glory. His songs were poured

forth from a breast which sympathized with all the feelings of

man; and therefore they enter, and will continue to enter, every

breast which cherishes the same sympathies. If it is granted to

his immortal spirit, from another heaven than any of which he

dreamed on earth, to look down on his race, to see the nations

from the fields of Asia to the forests of Hercynia, performing

pilgrimages to the fountain which his magic wand caused to flow;

if it is permitted to him to view the vast assemblage of grand, of

elevated, of glorious productions, which had been called into

being by means of his songs; wherever his immortal spirit may

reside, this alone would suffice to complete his happiness."(35)

Can we contemplate that ancient monument, on which the "Apotheosis of

Homer"(36) is depictured, and not feel how much of pleasing association,

how much that appeals most forcibly and most distinctly to our minds, is

lost by the admittance of any theory but our old tradition? The more we

read, and the more we think--think as becomes the readers of Homer,--the

more rooted becomes the conviction that the Father of Poetry gave us this

rich inheritance, whole and entire. Whatever were the means of its

preservation, let us rather be thankful for the treasury of taste and

eloquence thus laid open to our use, than seek to make it a mere centre

around which to drive a series of theories, whose wildness is only

equalled by their inconsistency with each other.

As the hymns, and some other poems usually ascribed to Homer, are not

included in Pope's translation, I will content myself with a brief account

of the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, from the pen of a writer who has done

it full justice(37):--

"This poem," says Coleridge, "is a short mock-heroic of ancient

date. The text varies in different editions, and is obviously

disturbed and corrupt to a great degree; it is commonly said to

have been a juvenile essay of Homer's genius; others have

attributed it to the same Pigrees, mentioned above, and whose

reputation for humour seems to have invited the appropriation of

any piece of ancient wit, the author of which was uncertain; so

little did the Greeks, before the age of the Ptolemies, know or

care about that department of criticism employed in determining

the genuineness of ancient writings. As to this little poem being

a youthful prolusion of Homer, it seems sufficient to say that

from the beginning to the end it is a plain and palpable parody,

not only of the general spirit, but of the numerous passages of

the Iliad itself; and even, if no such intention to parody were

discernible in it, the objection would still remain, that to

suppose a work of mere burlesque to be the primary effort of

poetry in a simple age, seems to reverse that order in the

development of national taste, which the history of every other

people in Europe, and of many in Asia, has almost ascertained to

be a law of the human mind; it is in a state of society much more

refined and permanent than that described in the Iliad, that any

popularity would attend such a ridicule of war and the gods as is

contained in this poem; and the fact of there having existed three

other poems of the same kind attributed, for aught we can see,

with as much reason to Homer, is a strong inducement to believe

that none of them were of the Homeric age. Knight infers from the

usage of the word deltos, "writing tablet," instead of diphthera,

"skin," which, according to Herod. 5, 58, was the material

employed by the Asiatic Greeks for that purpose, that this poem

was another offspring of Attic ingenuity; and generally that the

familiar mention of the cock (v. 191) is a strong argument against

so ancient a date for its composition."

Having thus given a brief account of the poems comprised in Pope's design,

I will now proceed to make a few remarks on his translation, and on my own

purpose in the present edition.

Pope was not a Grecian. His whole education had been irregular, and his

earliest acquaintance with the poet was through the version of Ogilby. It

is not too much to say that his whole work bears the impress of a

disposition to be satisfied with the general sense, rather than to dive

deeply into the minute and delicate features of language. Hence his whole

work is to be looked upon rather as an elegant paraphrase than a

translation. There are, to be sure, certain conventional anecdotes, which

prove that Pope consulted various friends, whose classical attainments

were sounder than his own, during the undertaking; but it is probable that

these examinations were the result rather of the contradictory versions

already existing, than of a desire to make a perfect transcript of the

original. And in those days, what is called literal translation was less

cultivated than at present. If something like the general sense could be

decorated with the easy gracefulness of a practised poet; if the charms of

metrical cadence and a pleasing fluency could be made consistent with a

fair interpretation of the poet's meaning, his _words_ were less jealously

sought for, and those who could read so good a poem as Pope's Iliad had

fair reason to be satisfied.

It would be absurd, therefore, to test Pope's translation by our own

advancing knowledge of the original text. We must be content to look at it

as a most delightful work in itself,--a work which is as much a part of

English literature as Homer himself is of Greek. We must not be torn from

our kindly associations with the old Iliad, that once was our most

cherished companion, or our most looked-for prize, merely because

Buttmann, Loewe, and Liddell have made us so much more accurate as to

amphikupellon being an adjective, and not a substantive. Far be it from us

to defend the faults of Pope, especially when we think of Chapman's fine,