The Iliad
action, and lose their readers in an unreasonable length of time. Nor
is it only in the main design that they have been unable to add to his
invention, but they have followed him in every episode and part of
story. If he has given a regular catalogue of an army, they all draw up
their forces in the same order. If he has funeral games for Patroclus,
Virgil has the same for Anchises, and Statius (rather than omit them)
destroys the unity of his actions for those of Archemorus. If Ulysses
visit the shades, the Æneas of Virgil and Scipio of Silius are sent
after him. If he be detained from his return by the allurements of
Calypso, so is Æneas by Dido, and Rinaldo by Armida. If Achilles be
absent from the army on the score of a quarrel through half the poem,
Rinaldo must absent himself just as long on the like account. If he
gives his hero a suit of celestial armour, Virgil and Tasso make the
same present to theirs. Virgil has not only observed this close
imitation of Homer, but, where he had not led the way, supplied the
want from other Greek authors. Thus the story of Sinon, and the taking
of Troy, was copied (says Macrobius) almost word for word from
Pisander, as the loves of Dido and Æneas are taken from those of Medea
and Jason in Apollonius, and several others in the same manner.
To proceed to the allegorical fable—If we reflect upon those
innumerable knowledges, those secrets of nature and physical philosophy
which Homer is generally supposed to have wrapped up in his allegories,
what a new and ample scene of wonder may this consideration afford us!
How fertile will that imagination appear, which was able to clothe all
the properties of elements, the qualifications of the mind, the virtues
and vices, in forms and persons, and to introduce them into actions
agreeable to the nature of the things they shadowed! This is a field in
which no succeeding poets could dispute with Homer, and whatever
commendations have been allowed them on this head, are by no means for
their invention in having enlarged his circle, but for their judgment
in having contracted it. For when the mode of learning changed in the
following ages, and science was delivered in a plainer manner, it then
became as reasonable in the more modern poets to lay it aside, as it
was in Homer to make use of it. And perhaps it was no unhappy
circumstance for Virgil, that there was not in his time that demand
upon him of so great an invention as might be capable of furnishing all
those allegorical parts of a poem.
The marvellous fable includes whatever is supernatural, and especially
the machines of the gods. If Homer was not the first who introduced the
deities (as Herodotus imagines) into the religion of Greece, he seems
the first who brought them into a system of machinery for poetry, and
such a one as makes its greatest importance and dignity: for we find
those authors who have been offended at the literal notion of the gods,
constantly laying their accusation against Homer as the chief support
of it. But whatever cause there might be to blame his machines in a
philosophical or religious view, they are so perfect in the poetic,
that mankind have been ever since contented to follow them: none have
been able to enlarge the sphere of poetry beyond the limits he has set:
every attempt of this nature has proved unsuccessful; and after all the
various changes of times and religions, his gods continue to this day
the gods of poetry.
We come now to the characters of his persons; and here we shall find no
author has ever drawn so many, with so visible and surprising a
variety, or given us such lively and affecting impressions of them.
Every one has something so singularly his own, that no painter could
have distinguished them more by their features, than the poet has by
their manners. Nothing can be more exact than the distinctions he has
observed in the different degrees of virtues and vices. The single
quality of courage is wonderfully diversified in the several characters
of the Iliad. That of Achilles is furious and intractable; that of
Diomede forward, yet listening to advice, and subject to command; that
of Ajax is heavy and self-confiding; of Hector, active and vigilant:
the courage of Agamemnon is inspirited by love of empire and ambition;
that of Menelaus mixed with softness and tenderness for his people: we
find in Idomeneus a plain direct soldier; in Sarpedon a gallant and
generous one. Nor is this judicious and astonishing diversity to be
found only in the principal quality which constitutes the main of each
character, but even in the under parts of it, to which he takes care to
give a tincture of that principal one. For example: the main characters
of Ulysses and Nestor consist in wisdom; and they are distinct in this,
that the wisdom of one is artificial and various, of the other natural,
open, and regular. But they have, besides, characters of courage; and
this quality also takes a different turn in each from the difference of
his prudence; for one in the war depends still upon caution, the other
upon experience. It would be endless to produce instances of these
kinds. The characters of Virgil are far from striking us in this open
manner; they lie, in a great degree, hidden and undistinguished; and,
where they are marked most evidently affect us not in proportion to
those of Homer. His characters of valour are much alike; even that of
Turnus seems no way peculiar, but, as it is, in a superior degree; and
we see nothing that differences the courage of Mnestheus from that of
Sergestus, Cloanthus, or the rest. In like manner it may be remarked of
Statius’s heroes, that an air of impetuosity runs through them all; the
same horrid and savage courage appears in his Capaneus, Tydeus,
Hippomedon, &c. They have a parity of character, which makes them seem
brothers of one family. I believe when the reader is led into this
tract of reflection, if he will pursue it through the epic and tragic
writers, he will be convinced how infinitely superior, in this point,
the invention of Homer was to that of all others.
The speeches are to be considered as they flow from the characters;
being perfect or defective as they agree or disagree with the manners,
of those who utter them. As there is more variety of characters in the
Iliad, so there is of speeches, than in any other poem. “Everything in
it has manner” (as Aristotle expresses it), that is, everything is
acted or spoken. It is hardly credible, in a work of such length, how
small a number of lines are employed in narration. In Virgil the
dramatic part is less in proportion to the narrative, and the speeches
often consist of general reflections or thoughts, which might be
equally just in any person’s mouth upon the same occasion. As many of
his persons have no apparent characters, so many of his speeches escape
being applied and judged by the rule of propriety. We oftener think of
the author himself when we read Virgil, than when we are engaged in
Homer, all which are the effects of a colder invention, that interests
us less in the action described. Homer makes us hearers, and Virgil
leaves us readers.
If, in the next place, we take a view of the sentiments, the same
presiding faculty is eminent in the sublimity and spirit of his
thoughts. Longinus has given his opinion, that it was in this part
Homer principally excelled. What were alone sufficient to prove the
grandeur and excellence of his sentiments in general, is, that they
have so remarkable a parity with those of the Scripture. Duport, in his
Gnomologia Homerica, has collected innumerable instances of this sort.
And it is with justice an excellent modern writer allows, that if
Virgil has not so many thoughts that are low and vulgar, he has not so
many that are sublime and noble; and that the Roman author seldom rises
into very astonishing sentiments where he is not fired by the Iliad.
If we observe his descriptions, images, and similes, we shall find the
invention still predominant. To what else can we ascribe that vast
comprehension of images of every sort, where we see each circumstance
of art, and individual of nature, summoned together by the extent and
fecundity of his imagination to which all things, in their various
views presented themselves in an instant, and had their impressions
taken off to perfection at a heat? Nay, he not only gives us the full
prospects of things, but several unexpected peculiarities and side
views, unobserved by any painter but Homer. Nothing is so surprising as
the descriptions of his battles, which take up no less than half the
Iliad, and are supplied with so vast a variety of incidents, that no
one bears a likeness to another; such different kinds of deaths, that
no two heroes are wounded in the same manner, and such a profusion of
noble ideas, that every battle rises above the last in greatness,
horror, and confusion. It is certain there is not near that number of
images and descriptions in any epic poet, though every one has assisted
himself with a great quantity out of him; and it is evident of Virgil
especially, that he has scarce any comparisons which are not drawn from
his master.
If we descend from hence to the expression, we see the bright
imagination of Homer shining out in the most enlivened forms of it. We
acknowledge him the father of poetical diction; the first who taught
that “language of the gods” to men. His expression is like the
colouring of some great masters, which discovers itself to be laid on
boldly, and executed with rapidity. It is, indeed, the strongest and
most glowing imaginable, and touched with the greatest spirit.
Aristotle had reason to say, he was the only poet who had found out
“living words;” there are in him more daring figures and metaphors than
in any good author whatever. An arrow is “impatient” to be on the wing,
a weapon “thirsts” to drink the blood of an enemy, and the like, yet
his expression is never too big for the sense, but justly great in
proportion to it. It is the sentiment that swells and fills out the
diction, which rises with it, and forms itself about it, for in the
same degree that a thought is warmer, an expression will be brighter,
as that is more strong, this will become more perspicuous; like glass
in the furnace, which grows to a greater magnitude, and refines to a
greater clearness, only as the breath within is more powerful, and the
heat more intense.
To throw his language more out of prose, Homer seems to have affected
the compound epithets. This was a sort of composition peculiarly proper
to poetry, not only as it heightened the diction, but as it assisted
and filled the numbers with greater sound and pomp, and likewise
conduced in some measure to thicken the images. On this last
consideration I cannot but attribute these also to the fruitfulness of
his invention, since (as he has managed them) they are a sort of
supernumerary pictures of the persons or things to which they were
joined. We see the motion of Hector’s plumes in the epithet
Κορυθαίολος, the landscape of Mount Neritus in that of Εἰνοσίφυλλος,
and so of others, which particular images could not have been insisted
upon so long as to express them in a description (though but of a
single line) without diverting the reader too much from the principal
action or figure. As a metaphor is a short simile, one of these
epithets is a short description.
Lastly, if we consider his versification, we shall be sensible what a
share of praise is due to his invention in that also. He was not
satisfied with his language as he found it settled in any one part of
Greece, but searched through its different dialects with this
particular view, to beautify and perfect his numbers he considered
these as they had a greater mixture of vowels or consonants, and