The World of Homer
historic Greece, that the great Olympians are highly honoured, but that
ghost-worship, ignored by Homer, is prevalent. From the seventh century
onwards the possession of tombs of heroes, and of miracle-working
relics of heroes, their bones, is essential to the well-being of
cities. Finally, living men are freely divinised. Thus chthonic as
distinct from Olympian worship, while it is ignored by Homer (whose
theory of the state of the dead renders it impossible) gets practically
the upper hand in historic Greece, though in the Aegean religion it is
inconspicuous, and in Homer it is absent.
Thus Homer stands apart in religion from the world that preceded and
the world that followed him.
The solitary passage in which the _Iliad_ recognises sacrifice to a
dead man, a hero, is in the description of the case of Erechtheus _in
Athens_. In the temple of Athene "the Athenians worship him with bulls
and rams as the years return in their courses."[12]
Owing, perhaps, to Homer's consistent avoidance of everything Ionian,
he never speaks of the Mysteries of Eleusis, in Attica, celebrated
in the Ionian Hymn to Demeter, or of the Attic Thesmophoria or the
Brauronia, or, indeed, of any mysteries. These are now understood to
have begun in savage and barbarous magical rites for the benefit of the
objects of the food supply; or in initiatory ceremonies: both practices
are still common among all the lower races; and agricultural magic
still survives in European folklore, and we have the initiations of
Freemasonry.
The rites of Eleusis, Athens, and of Artemis Orthia among the Dorians
of Sparta are of immense antiquity in their origins. The magic may
have been practised in Attica, in Homer's time, and, as folklore, may
have existed in the rural classes among the Achaean states. If so,
Homer has no interest in the matter, none in initiations. But both
magic and initiations were sanctioned by the State in Attica and Dorian
Sparta, in historic Hellas.
The two deities who chiefly presided over mysteries were Demeter and
Dionysus. Demeter "has no real personality in Homer," says Mr. Leaf,
"except in _Odyssey,_ v. 125," where we merely hear that she lay with
Iasion in a thrice ploughed fallow field, and that Zeus slew Iasion
with a thunderbolt. Dionysus, again, to quote Mr. Leaf, is only
mentioned in _Iliad_, xiv. 325, in the "Leporello Catalogue" of the
amours of Zeus, and in doubtful passages of the _Odyssey_ (xi. 325).
He is the son of Semele, and a golden cup is a gift of his. Finally,
and most to the purpose, in _Iliad_, vi. 130-140, Diomede tells the
story of Lycurgus, a Thracian king, who beat the nymphs, the nurses of
Dionysus, with an ox-goad, and frightened Dionysus into the deeps of
the sea. Zeus blinded Lycurgus, and he did not last long. This tale is
regarded as a late and pious interpolation, because the whole scene is
looked on as in crying contradiction with the events of _Iliad_, Book
v. For proof that there is no inconsistency at all, see "The Great
Discrepancies."
We must be very anxious to find "late" things in Homer, if we say that
the passage about Dionysus in _Iliad_, vi., "dates from the very last
part of the Epic period," namely, perhaps, from the seventh century
B.C. It may be true that "the great religious movement" connected with
Dionysus "spread over Greece apparently in the seventh century."[13]
But it is more probable that the "movement" was especially taken up
by literature, Orphic poetry, at that period, for I am unaware that
we have any historical evidence, as in Herodotus, for the religious
furies and homicidal ferocities of the women in the seventh century.
These, all the stories of the sanguinary frenzy of the sex, their
endeavours to "interview" kings, and tear them to tatters, are thrown
back into legendary times. Nobody can tell how ancient the legends are,
but it seems to be generally admitted that Dionysus and his rites are
of "Indo-European" but not of Greek origin. His mother was Semele, and
Kretschmer would connect Semele "with a Phrygian root, _zemel_," which
occurs on Phrygian tombstones in curses directed against any one who
should violate the tombs. The word Kretschmer interprets as meaning
"earth." So Semele would be the earth goddess.[14]
Be it so, Phrygian _Zemel_, the earth, is Greek Semele, the
earth-mother of the son of the sky, Zeus. But "Dionysus in Greek
mythology is closely connected with Thrace," and Lycurgus, the enemy
of Dionysus in _Iliad_, vi., is a Thracian king. Now "the result of
recent philological inquiries is to show a close connection between the
Thracian and Phrygian tongues, which are found to be both Aryan."[15]
Again, Attica, if ever her legends deviate into truth, was closely
connected with Thrace; and Homer himself treats the Thracian Chersonese
as an ally of Troy,[16] and Rhesus brings in his levies.[17]
There is no reason in the world why so great a sennachie as Homer, who
knew as many tales from all quarters as Widsith in the Anglo-Saxon
poem, should not know a Thracian tale about Lycurgus and Dionysus and
his mother, Earth.[18] Nothing prevented Homer from knowing a myth of
a people whom he knew--the Thracians--very long before the seventh
century.
Homer has not a good word for the cowardly Dionysus. Still, Zeus
patronises him; he is a god, though he never appears among Homer's
Olympians. To his mysteries, as to those of Eleusis (is it not
in Attica?) Homer does not allude. He mentions no mysteries, no
initiations, no hocus-pocus; these things were for Attica, and for
historic Greece.
The ethical _religion_ of Homer apart from his mythology is excellent,
a good faith to live and die in. His gods, when religiously regarded,
sanction all that is best in Achaean morals, and disapprove of all that
is evil in human conduct, as a general rule. But Homeric _mythology_
is manifestly another thing: in the stories told of the gods, they
practise most of the sins which they punish in mankind. Mythology would
cease to be _mythology_ if it became consistent, but religion can never
fail to be consistent while it expresses the highest and purest ethical
ideas associated with a sense of their approval by a being or beings
more than mortal. This note is again and again struck by Homer; and it
can never fail to awaken a responsive thrill in all who feel, or have
ever felt, the ethico-religious emotion.
Let me here give but one example. It is impossible for men to
understand the mystery of an omnipotent and loving Being in a world of
pain and ruin. Homer is as conscious of the insoluble problem as we
are--and Zeus is conscious of it. In the great assembly of all gods,
from Apollo and Athene to the nymphs of rivers, well-heads, and grassy
water-meadows, at the moment when the final strife is set between
Hector and Achilles, Zeus says, "Even in their perishing have I regard
unto them."[19] The Father pities but he cannot save--there is some
insuperable obstacle between his omnipotence and the end which he
desires.
Such is the _religious_ thought of Homer, while in his _mythical_
thought Zeus is a humorous hot-tempered father of a family, who
delights to tease, and finds as much diversion as Mr. Bennett did in
the absurdities of his wife and children.
The Achaean mind, like the mind of any savage who recognises an All
Father, has brooded over the sacred beings of religion in every mood,
the most serious and the most frivolous; every conceivable reflection
of every age, early or later, has entered into a conglomerate of
yearning desire for the gods, of fear of the gods' wrath, of absurd
legends concerning the gods, of broadly humorous glances at them as
members of a great whimsical family; and there are guesses at the
enjoyments of divine people, so powerful, so irresponsible, and so far
from spiritual; for the gods are not spirits, but beings compact of a
subtler matter than our perishable flesh and blood and bone.
Thus the gods, in moments of human seriousness, are the guardians of
Homer's highest ethical ideals; while for purposes of romance and
diverting narrative they are examples of all the vices which he most
detests and despises, and of a score of human foibles which he never
illustrates in the persons of his heroic men and women. His mortal
ladies never cuff and scold, like the village women whom he once
glances at, shrieking forth their quarrel in the centre of the village
street. But it is in public that Hera and Athene scold or cuff. The
nearest approach to this treatment of sacred beings may perhaps be
found in the broad waggeries of our late English mystery plays, like
those of Cain and of the Shepherds of Bethlehem. An even better example
is the ancient carol, _The Bitter Withy_, with the cruel cunning
and crime attributed to Jesus Christ, and the story of His whipping
by "Mary mild." Achaean humour is never so free as in its treatment
of things which are also handled, in another mood, with the highest
religious regard. Nobody, perhaps, has seriously credited Homer with
"a purpose," the purpose of enforcing the serious things of ethics
touched with religion, and, at the same time, of laughing popular
mythology away. The notion seems far too modern and too subtle; yet if
Homer had entertained that inconceivable purpose, he could hardly have
written otherwise than he did write,--to the extreme perplexity of
Greek and later "educationists."[20]
It is not necessary to discuss the chronique scandaleuse of Olympus;
the stories of the amours of Zeus, the intrigues of Aphrodite, the
jealousy of Hera, the domestic misfortunes of Hephaestus. Nor is this
the place to show how this mythological element inevitably crystalised
round a great figure like that of Zeus the father of men. But it seems
well to point out that while, in playful moods, the Achaean genius wove
a cycle of gross fabliaux around the Olympians, in serious moments
men regarded them not sceptically but with perfect seriousness and
devoutness. Though men or women conscious of a fault will say that
Atê infatuated them, or that Aphrodite thrust them into temptation,
nevertheless the gods work for righteousness. Men in the Epics have
the strongest sense of dependence on them. They are the givers of good
and evil. "Though thou be very strong, yet that, I ween, is a gift to
thee of God," says Agamemnon to Achilles. The oath of truce, in Iliad,
iii., which, when broken, seals the fate of Troy, is sanctioned by
Zeus, the Sun, Rivers, Earth, and they that "in the underworld punish
men dead, whosoever sweareth falsely."[21] In a later oath[22] "they"
are the Erinnyes, who also punish sins within the family. We hear of
no such posthumous punishments in Hades, when Odysseus goes thither
in _Odyssey_, Book xi. The men whom he sees being punished, Tityus,
Tantalus, and Sisyphus, have all offended the gods _in person_;[23]
and manifestly to call gods as witnesses to an oath, and then to be
forsworn, is to insult the gods, whether this be the explanation of the
threatened posthumous punishment or not.[24] The promise of Zeus is an
example to men, it can never be broken (_Iliad_, i. 526-527). "Father
Zeus will be no helper of liars," and Achilles "hates a lie like the
gates of Hades."
Penitence for wrongs done is recognised, "prayers of penitence are
daughters of great Zeus, halting and wrinkled and of eyes askance, that
have their task to go in the steps of Sin" (Atê). When the injured man
will not listen to the penitence of him who did the wrong, the prayers
of the penitent return to Zeus, and beseech him that the hard man "may
fall, and pay the price."[25] It was because Achilles refused to accept
the penitence of Agamemnon that _he_ "paid the price," the death of
Patroclus.
In the _Odyssey_ the ethical aspect of the gods is perhaps more