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The Iliad by Homer 1899 |
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The
Iliad by Homer
1899
Translated by Alexander Pope
with notes by the Rev
Theodore Alois Buckley M.A.,
F.S.A. & Flaxman's Designs
About the
Author:
Homer
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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 Æolia, 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
Æneid 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,
bold, rough old
English;--far be it
from, us to hold up his
translation as
what a translation of
Homer might be. But we
can still dismiss Pope's
Iliad to the hands of
our readers, with the
consciousness that they
must
have read a very great
number of books before
they have read its
fellow.
As to the Notes
accompanying the present
volume, they are drawn
up without
pretension, and mainly
with the view of helping
the general reader.
Having
some little time since
translated all the works
of Homer for another
publisher, I might have
brought a large amount
of accumulated matter,
sometimes of a critical
character, to bear upon
the text. But Pope's
version was no field for
such a display; and my
purpose was to touch
briefly on antiquarian
or mythological
allusions, to notice
occasionally
some departures from the
original, and to give a
few parallel passages
from our English Homer,
Milton. In the latter
task I cannot pretend to
novelty, but I trust
that my other
annotations, while
utterly disclaiming
high scholastic views,
will be found to convey
as much as is wanted; at
least, as far as the
necessary limits of
these volumes could be
expected
to admit. To write a
commentary on Homer is
not my present aim; but
if I
have made Pope's
translation a little
more entertaining and
instructive to
a mass of miscellaneous
readers, I shall
consider my wishes
satisfactorily
accomplished.
THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY
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