The Iliad
security as is apt to take its place in civilized times, but that
consciousness of a natural bond among the families of men which gives
a fellow-feeling to whole clans and nations, and thus enlists their
affections in behalf of those time-honoured representatives of their
ancient blood, in whose success they feel a personal interest? Hence
the delight when we recognize an act of nobility or justice in our
hereditary princes
“‘Tuque prior, tu parce genus qui ducis Olympo,
Projice tela manu _sanguis meus_’
“So strong is this feeling, that it regains an engrafted influence even
when history witnesses that vast convulsions have rent and weakened it
and the Celtic feeling towards the Stuarts has been rekindled in our
own days towards the granddaughter of George the Third of Hanover.
“Somewhat similar may be seen in the disposition to idolize those
great lawgivers of man’s race, who have given expression, in the
immortal language of song, to the deeper inspirations of our
nature. The thoughts of Homer or of Shakespere are the universal
inheritance of the human race. In this mutual ground every man
meets his brother, they have been set forth by the providence of
God to vindicate for all of us what nature could effect, and that,
in these representatives of our race, we might recognize our common
benefactors.’—_Doctrine of the Incarnation_, pp. 9, 10.
[2] Εἰκος δέ μιν ἦν καὶ μνημόσυνα πάντων γράφεσθαι. Vit. Hom. in
Schweigh. Herodot. t. iv. p. 299, sq. § 6. I may observe that this
Life has been paraphrased in English by my learned young friend
Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, and appended to my prose translation of the
Odyssey. The present abridgement however, will contain all that is of
use to the reader, for the biographical value of the treatise is most
insignificant.
[3] _I.e._ both of composing and reciting verses for as Blair
observes, “The first poets sang their own verses.” Sextus Empir. adv.
Mus. p. 360 ed. Fabric. Οὐ ἀμελει γέ τοι καὶ οἰ ποιηταὶ μελοποιοὶ
λέγονται, καὶ τὰ Ὁμήρου ἕπη τὸ πάλαι πρὸς λύραν ἤδετο.
“The voice,” observes Heeren, “was always accompanied by some
instrument. The bard was provided with a harp on which he played a
prelude, to elevate and inspire his mind, and with which he
accompanied the song when begun. His voice probably preserved a medium
between singing and recitation; the words, and not the melody were
regarded by the listeners, hence it was necessary for him to remain
intelligible to all. In countries where nothing similar is found, it
is difficult to represent such scenes to the mind; but whoever has had
an opportunity of listening to the improvisation of Italy, can easily
form an idea of Demodocus and Phemius.”—_Ancient Greece_, p. 94.
[4] “Should it not be, since _my_ arrival? asks Mackenzie, observing
that “poplars can hardly live so long”. But setting aside the fact
that we must not expect consistency in a mere romance, the ancients
had a superstitious belief in the great age of trees which grew near
places consecrated by the presence of gods and great men. See Cicero
de Legg II I, sub init., where he speaks of the plane tree under which
Socrates used to walk and of the tree at Delos, where Latona gave
birth to Apollo. This passage is referred to by Stephanus of
Byzantium, _s. v._ N. T. p. 490, ed. de Pinedo. I omit quoting any of
the dull epigrams ascribed to Homer for, as Mr. Justice Talfourd
rightly observes, “The authenticity of these fragments depends upon
that of the pseudo Herodotean Life of Homer, from which they are
taken.” Lit of Greece, pp. 38 in Encycl. Metrop. Cf. Coleridge,
Classic Poets, p. 317.
[5] It is quoted as the work of Cleobulus, by Diogenes Laert. Vit.
Cleob. p. 62, ed. Casaub.
[6] I trust I am justified in employing this as an equivalent for the
Greek λέσχαι.
[7] Ὡς εἰ τοὺς Ὁμήρους δόξει τρέφειν αὐτοῖς, ὅμιλον πολλόν τε και
ἀχρεοῖν ἕξουσιν. ἐι τεῦθεν δὲ και τοὔνομα Ὁμηρος ἐπεκράτησε τῷ
Μελησιγενεῖ ἀπὸ τῆς συμφορης. οἱ γὰρ Κυμαῖοι τοὺς τυφλοὺς Ὁμήρους
λέγουσιν. Vit. Hom. _l. c._ p. 311. The etymology has been condemned
by recent scholars. See Welcker, Epische Cyclus, p. 127, and
Mackenzie’s note, p. xiv.
[8] Θεστορίδης, θνητοῖσιν ἀνωἷστων πολεών περ, οὐδὲν ἀφραστότερον
πέλεται νόου ἀνθρώποισιν. Ibid. p. 315. During his stay at Phocœa,
Homer is said to have composed the Little Iliad, and the Phocœid. See
Muller’s Hist. of Lit., vi. § 3. Welcker, _l. c._ pp. 132, 272, 358,
sqq., and Mure, Gr. Lit. vol. ii. p. 284, sq.
[9] This is so pretty a picture of early manners and hospitality, that
it is almost a pity to find that it is obviously a copy from the
Odyssey. See the fourteenth book. In fact, whoever was the author of
this fictitious biography, he showed some tact in identifying Homer
with certain events described in his poems, and in eliciting from them
the germs of something like a personal narrative.
[10] Διὰ λόγων ἐστιῶντο. A common metaphor. So Plato calls the parties
conversing δαιτύμονες, or ἐστιάτορες, Tim. i. p. 522 A. Cf. Themist.
Orat. vi. p. 168, and xvi. p. 374, ed. Petav. So διηγήμασι σοφοῖς ὁμοῦ
καὶ τερπνοῖς ἡδίω τὴν θοινην τοῖς ἑστιωμένοις ἐποίει, Choricius in
Fabric. Bibl. Gr. T. viii. P. 851. λόγοις γὰρ ἑστίᾳ, Athenæus vii p
275, A.
[11] It was at Bolissus, and in the house of this Chian citizen, that
Homer is said to have written the Batrachomyomachia, or Battle of the
Frogs and Mice, the Epicichlidia, and some other minor works.
[12] Chandler, Travels, vol. i. p. 61, referred to in the Voyage
Pittoresque dans la Grèce, vol. i. P. 92, where a view of the spot is
given of which the author candidly says,— “Je ne puis répondre d’une
exactitude scrupuleuse dans la vue générale que j’en donne, car étant
allé seul pour l’examiner je perdis mon crayon, et je fus obligé de
m’en fier à ma mémoire. Je ne crois cependant pas avoir trop à me
plaindre d’elle en cette occasion.”
[13] A more probable reason for this companionship, and for the
character of Mentor itself, is given by the allegorists, viz.: the
assumption of Mentor’s form by the guardian deity of the wise Ulysses,
Minerva. The classical reader may compare Plutarch, Opp. t. ii. p.
880; _Xyland_. Heraclid. Pont. Alleg. Hom. p. 531-5, of Gale’s Opusc.
Mythol. Dionys. Halic. de Hom. Poes. c. 15; Apul. de Deo Socrat. s. f.
[14] Vit. Hom. § 28.
[15] The riddle is given in Section 35. Compare Mackenzie’s note, p.
xxx.
[16] Heeren’s Ancient Greece, p. 96.
[17] Compare Sir E. L. Bulwer’s Caxtons v. i. p. 4.
[18] Pericles and Aspasia, Letter lxxxiv., Works, vol ii. p. 387.
[19] Quarterly Review, No. lxxxvii., p. 147.
[20] Viz., the following beautiful passage, for the translation of
which I am indebted to Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. 286.
“Origias, farewell! and oh! remember me
Hereafter, when some stranger from the sea,
A hapless wanderer, may your isle explore,
And ask you, maid, of all the bards you boast,
Who sings the sweetest, and delights you most
Oh! answer all,—‘A blind old man and poor
Sweetest he sings—and dwells on Chios’ rocky shore.’”
_See_ Thucyd. iii, 104.
[21] Longin., de Sublim., ix. § 26. Ὅθεν ἐν τῇ Ὀδυσσείᾳ παρεικάσαι τις
ἂν καταδυομένῳ τὸν Ὅμηρον ἡλίῳ, οδ δίχα τῆς σφοδρότητος παραμένει το
μέγεθος.
[22] See Tatian, quoted in Fabric. Bibl. Gr. v. II t. ii. Mr.
Mackenzie has given three brief but elaborate papers on the different
writers on the subject, which deserve to be consulted. See Notes and
Queries, vol. v. pp. 99, 171, and 221. His own views are moderate, and
perhaps as satisfactory, on the whole, as any of the hypotheses
hitherto put forth. In fact, they consist in an attempt to blend those
hypotheses into something like consistency, rather than in advocating
any individual theory.
[23] Letters to Phileleuth; Lips.
[24] Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 191, sqq.
[25] It is, indeed not easy to calculate the height to which the
memory may be cultivated. To take an ordinary case, we might refer to
that of any first rate actor, who must be prepared, at a very short
warning, to ‘rhapsodize,’ night after night, parts which when laid
together, would amount to an immense number of lines. But all this is
nothing to two instances of our own day. Visiting at Naples a
gentleman of the highest intellectual attainments, and who held a
distinguished rank among the men of letters in the last century, he
informed us that the day before he had passed much time in examining a
man, not highly educated, who had learned to repeat the whole
Gierusalemme of Tasso, not only to recite it consecutively, but also
to repeat those stanzas in utter defiance of the sense, either
forwards or backwards, or from the eighth line to the first,
alternately the odd and even lines—in short, whatever the passage
required; the memory, which seemed to cling to the words much more
than to the sense, had it at such perfect command, that it could
produce it under any form. Our informant went on to state that this
singular being was proceeding to learn the Orlando Furioso in the same
manner. But even this instance is less wonderful than one as to which
we may appeal to any of our readers that happened some twenty years
ago to visit the town of Stirling, in Scotland. No such person can
have forgotten the poor, uneducated man Blind Jamie who could actually
repeat, after a few minutes consideration any verse required from any
part of the Bible—even the obscurest and most unimportant enumeration
of mere proper names not excepted. We do not mention these facts as
touching the more difficult part of the question before us, but facts
they are; and if we find so much difficulty in calculating the extent
to which the mere memory may be cultivated, are we, in these days of
multifarious reading, and of countless distracting affairs, fair
judges of the perfection to which the invention and the memory
combined may attain in a simpler age, and among a more single minded
people?—Quarterly Review, _l. c._, p. 143, sqq.
Heeren steers between the two opinions, observing that, “The
Dschungariade of the Calmucks is said to surpass the poems of Homer
in length, as much as it stands beneath them in merit, and yet it
exists only in the memory of a people which is not unacquainted
with writing. But the songs of a nation are probably the last
things which are committed to writing, for the very reason that
they are remembered.”— _Ancient Greece_. p. 100.
[26] Vol. II p. 198, sqq.
[27] Quarterly Review, _l. c._, p. 131 sq.
[28] Betrachtungen über die Ilias. Berol. 1841. See Grote, p. 204.
Notes and Queries, vol. v. p. 221.
[29] Prolegg. pp. xxxii., xxxvi., &c.
[30] Vol. ii. p. 214 sqq.
[31] “Who,” says Cicero, de Orat. iii. 34, “was more learned in that
age, or whose eloquence is reported to have been more perfected by
literature than that of Peisistratus, who is said first to have
disposed the books of Homer in the order in which we now have them?”
Compare Wolf’s Prolegomena 33, §.
[32] “The first book, together with the eighth, and the books from the
eleventh to the twenty-second inclusive, seems to form the primary
organization of the poem, then properly an Achilleïs.”—Grote, vol. ii.
p. 235
[33] K. R. H. Mackenzie, Notes and Queries, p. 222 sqq.
[34] See his Epistle to Raphelingius, in Schroeder’s edition, 4to.,
Delphis, 1728.
[35] Ancient Greece, p. 101.
[36] The best description of this monument will be found in Vaux’s
“Antiquities of the British Museum,” p. 198 sq. The monument itself
(Towneley Sculptures, No. 123) is well known.
[37] Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. 276.
[38] Preface to her Homer.