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Title: The Garotters
Author: William D. Howells
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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 or 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 introduction 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 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 AEolia 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.
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 Colophonians make their city the seat of that misfortune.
He then returned
to Smyrna,
where he applied himself
to the study of poetry.
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,"
continues 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."
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.
Arrived at Cumae,
he frequented the conversaziones 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 gloriouslv 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."
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 Cumae might never produce a poet capable of giving it renown and glory.
At Phocaea 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."
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 Phocaea,
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 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.
"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 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."
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,
"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,
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,
he set 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.
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."
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?
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."
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.'
"
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,
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;
and,
among a mass of ancient authors,
whose very names 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."
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:--
"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,
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 onlv 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 at 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,
Simenides 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),
manuscripis of the Homeric poems and other old epics,--the Thebaïs and the Cypria,
as well as the Iliad and the Odyssey,--began
to be compiled towards the middle of the seventh century B.C.
I;
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 Solôn,
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 rhapsodies."
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 pre-eminent 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 Odysseid.
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."
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 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,
"ex-plains 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;
Odins,
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.
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 partial 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."
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 would lead him
to preserve an ancient and traditional order of the poems,
rather than
to patch and reconstruct 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 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."
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.
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 AEneid 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 con- templation 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 homaeopathic 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."
Can we contemplate that ancient monument,
on which the
"Apotheosis of Homer"
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:--
"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 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 /deltoz/,
"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 /amphikipellon/ 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.
THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY.
Christ Church.
THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER BOOK I ARGUMENT.
MINERVA'S DESCENT
to ITHACA.
The poem opens within forty eight days of the arrival of Ulysses in his dominions.
He had now remained seven years in the Island of Calypso,
when the gods assembled in council,
proposed the method of his departure from thence and his return
to his native country.
For this purpose it is concluded
to send Mercury
to Calypso,
and Pallas immediately descends
to Ithaca.
She holds a conference
with Telemachus,
in the shape of Mantes,
king of Taphians;
in which she advises him
to take a journey in quest of his father Ulysses,
to Pylos and Sparta,
where Nestor and Menelaus yet reigned;
then,
after having visibly displayed her divinity,
disappears.
The suitors of Penelope make great entertainments,
and riot in her palace till night.
Phemius sings
to them the return of the Grecians,
till Penelope puts a stop
to the song.
Some words arise between the suitors and Telemachus,
who summons the council
to meet the day following.
The man
for wisdom's various arts renown'd,
Long exercised in woes,
O Muse! resound;
Who,
when his arms had wrought the destined fall Of sacred Troy,
and razed her heaven-built wall,
Wandering from clime
to clime,
observant stray'd,
Their manners noted,
and their states survey'd,
On stormy seas unnumber'd toils he bore,
Safe
with his friends
to gain his natal shore:
Vain toils! their impious folly dared
to prey On herds devoted
to the god of day;
The god vindictive doom'd them never more
(Ah,
men unbless'd!)
to touch that natal shore.
Oh,
snatch some portion of these acts from fate,
Celestial Muse! and
to our world relate.
Now at their native realms the Greeks arrived;
All who the wars of ten long years survived;
And
'scaped the perils of the gulfy main.
Ulysses,
sole of all the victor train,
An exile from his dear paternal coast,
Deplored his absent queen and empire lost.
Calypso in her caves constrain'd his stay,
With sweet,
reluctant,
amorous delay;
In vain-for now the circling years disclose The day predestined
to reward his woes.
At length his Ithaca is given by fate,
Where yet new labours his arrival wait;
At length their rage the hostile powers restrain,
All but the ruthless monarch of the main.
But now the god,
remote,
a heavenly guest,
In AEthiopia graced the genial feast
(A race divided,
whom
with sloping rays The rising and descending sun surveys);
There on the world's extremest verge revered
with hecatombs and prayer in pomp preferr'd,
Distant he lay:
while in the bright abodes Of high Olympus,
Jove convened the gods:
The assembly thus the sire supreme address'd,
AEgysthus'
fate revolving in his breast,
Whom young Orestes
to the dreary coast Of Pluto sent,
a blood-polluted ghost.
"Perverse mankind! whose wills,
created free,
Charge all their woes on absolute degree;
All
to the dooming gods their guilt translate,
And follies are miscall'd the crimes of fate.
When
to his lust AEgysthus gave the rein,
Did fate,
or we,
the adulterous act constrain?
Did fate,
or we,
when great Atrides died,
Urge the bold traitor
to the regicide?
Hermes I sent,
while yet his soul remain'd Sincere from royal blood,
and faith profaned;
To warn the wretch,
that young Orestes,
grown
to manly years,
should re-assert the throne.
Yet,
impotent of mind,
and uncontroll'd,
He plunged into the gulf which Heaven foretold."
Here paused the god;
and pensive thus replies Minerva,
graceful
with her azure eyes:
"O thou! from whom the whole creation springs,
The source of power on earth derived
to kings! His death was equal
to the direful deed;
So may the man of blood be doomed
to bleed! But grief and rage alternate wound my breast
for brave Ulysses,
still by fate oppress'd.
Amidst an isle,
around whose rocky shore The forests murmur,
and the surges roar,
The blameless hero from his wish'd-for home A goddess guards in her enchanted dome;
(Atlas her sire,
to whose far-piercing eye The wonders of the deep expanded lie;
The eternal columns which on earth he rears End in the starry vault,
and prop the spheres).
By his fair daughter is the chief confined,
Who soothes
to dear delight his anxious mind;
Successless all her soft caresses prove,
To banish from his breast his country's love;
To see the smoke from his loved palace rise,
While the dear isle in distant prospect lies,
With what contentment could he close his eyes! And will Omnipotence neglect
to save The suffering virtue of the wise and brave?
Must he,
whose altars on the Phrygian shore
with frequent rites,
and pure,
avow'd thy power,
Be doom'd the worst of human ills
to prove,
Unbless'd,
ahandon'd
to the wrath of Jove?"
"Daughter! what words have pass'd thy lips unweigh'd!
(Replied the Thunderer
to the martial maid;)
Deem not unjustly by my doom oppress'd,
Of human race the wisest and the best.
Neptune,
by prayer repentant rarely won,
Afflicts the chief,
to avenge his giant son,
Whose visual orb Ulysses robb'd of light;
Great Polypheme,
of more than mortal might?
Him young Thousa bore
(the bright increase Of Phorcys,
dreaded in the sounds and seas);
Whom Neptune eyed
with bloom of beauty bless'd,
And in his cave the yielding nymph compress'd
for this the god constrains the Greek
to roam,
A hopeless exile from his native home,
From death alone exempt - but cease
to mourn;
Let all combine
to achieve his wish'd return;
Neptune atoned,
his wrath shall now refrain,
Or thwart the synod of the gods in vain."
"Father and king adored!"
Minerva cried,
"Since all who in the Olympian bower reside Now make the wandering Greek their public care,
Let Hermes
to the Atlantic isle repair;
Bid him,
arrived in bright Calypso's court,
The sanction of the assembled powers report:
That wise Ulysses
to his native land Must speed,
obedient
to their high command.
Meantime Telemachus,
the blooming heir Of sea-girt Ithaca,
demands my care;
'Tis mine
to form his green,
unpractised years In sage debates;
surrounded
with his peers,
To save the state,
and timely
to restrain The bold intrusion of the suitor-train;
Who crowd his palace,
and
with lawless power His herds and flocks in feastful rites devour.
To distant Sparta,
and the spacious waste Of Sandy Pyle,
the royal youth shall haste.
There,
warm
with filial love,
the cause inquire That from his realm retards his god-like sire;
Delivering early
to the voice of fame The promise of a green immortal name."
She said:
the sandals of celestial mould,
Fledged
with ambrosial plumes,
and rich
with gold,
Surround her feet:
with these sublime she sails The aerial space,
and mounts the winged gales;
O'er earth and ocean wide prepared
to soar,
Her dreaded arm a beamy javelin bore,
Ponderous and vast:
which,
when her fury burns,
Proud tyrants humbles,
and whole hosts o'erturns.
From high Olympus prone her flight she bends,
And in the realms of Ithaca descends,
Her lineaments divine,
the grave disguise Of Mentes'
form conceal'd from human eyes
(Mentes,
the monarch of the Taphian land);
A glittering spear waved awful in her hand.
There in the portal placed,
the heaven-born maid Enormous riot and misrule survey'd.
On hides of beeves,
before the palace gate
(Sad spoils of luxury),
the suitors sate.
With rival art,
and ardour in their mien,
At chess they vie,
to captivate the queen;
Divining of their loves.
Attending nigh,
A menial train the flowing bowl supply.
Others,
apart,
the spacious hall prepare,
And form the costly feast
with busy care.
There young Telemachus,
his bloomy face Glowing celestial sweet,
with godlike grace Amid the circle shines:
but hope and fear
(Painful vicissitude!)
his bosom tear.
Now,
imaged in his mind,
he sees restored In peace and joy the people's rightful lord;
The proud oppressors fly the vengeful sword.
While his fond soul these fancied triumphs swell'd,
The stranger guest the royal youth beheld;
Grieved that a visitant so long should wait Unmark'd,
unhonour'd,
at a monarch's gate;
Instant he flew
with hospitable haste,
And the new friend
with courteous air embraced.
"Stranger,
whoe'er thou art,
securely rest,
Affianced in my faith,
a ready guest;
Approach the dome,
the social banquet share,
And then the purpose of thy soul declare."
Thus affable and mild,
the prince precedes,
And
to the dome the unknown celestial leads.
The spear receiving from the hand,
he placed Against a column,
fair
with sculpture graced;
Where seemly ranged in peaceful order stood Ulysses'
arms now long disused
to blood.
He led the goddess
to the sovereign seat,
Her feet supported
with a stool of state
(A purple carpet spread the pavement wide);
Then drew his seat,
familiar,
to her side;
Far from the suitor-train,
a brutal crowd,
With insolence,
and wine,
elate and loud:
Where the free guest,
unnoted,
might relate,
If haply conscious,
of his father's fate.
The golden ewer a maid obsequious brings,
Replenish'd from the cool,
translucent springs;
With copious water the bright vase supplies A silver laver of capacious size;
They wash.
The tables in fair order spread,
They heap the glittering canisters
with bread:
Viands of various kinds allure the taste,
Of choicest sort and savour,
rich repast! Delicious wines the attending herald brought;
The gold gave lustre
to the purple draught.
Lured
with the vapour of the fragrant feast,
In rush'd the suitors
with voracious haste;
Marshall'd in order due,
to each a sewer Presents,
to bathe his hands,
a radiant ewer.
Luxurious then they feast.
Observant round Gay stripling youths the brimming goblets crown'd.
The rage of hunger quell'd,
they all advance And form
to measured airs the mazy dance;
To Phemius was consign'd the chorded lyre,
Whose hand reluctant touch'd the warbling wire;
Phemius,
whose voice divine could sweetest sing High strains responsive
to the vocal string.
Meanwhile,
in whispers
to his heavenly guest His indignation thus the prince express'd:
"Indulge my rising grief,
whilst these
(my friend)
With song and dance the pompous revel end.
Light is the dance,
and doubly sweet the lays,
When
for the dear delight another pays.
His treasured stores those cormarants consume,
Whose bones,
defrauded of a regal tomb And common turf,
lie naked on the plain,
Or doom'd
to welter in the whelming main.
Should he return,
that troop so blithe and bold,
With purple robes inwrought,
and stiff
with gold,
Precipitant in fear would wing their flight,
And curse their cumbrous pride's unwieldy weight.
But ah,
I dream!-the appointed hour is fled.
And hope,
too long
with vain delusion fed,
Deaf
to the rumour of fallacious fame,
Gives
to the roll of death his glorious name!
with venial freedom let me now demand Thy name,
thy lineage,
and paternal land;
Sincere from whence began thy course,
recite,
And
to what ship I owe the friendly freight?
Now first
to me this visit dost thou deign,
Or number'd in my father's social train?
All who deserved his choice he made his own,
And,
curious much
to know,
he far was known."
"My birth I boast
(the blue-eyed virgin cries)
From great Anchialus,
renown'd and wise;
Mentes my name;
I rule the Taphian race,
Whose bounds the deep circumfluent waves embrace;
A duteous people,
and industrious isle,
To naval arts inured,
and stormy toil.
Freighted
with iron from my native land,
I steer my voyage
to the Brutian strand
to gain by commerce,
for the labour'd mass,
A just proportion of refulgent brass.
Far from your capital my ship resides At Reitorus,
and secure at anchor rides;
Where waving groves on airy Neign grow,
Supremely tall and shade the deeps below.
Thence
to revisit your imperial dome,
An old hereditary guest I come;
Your father's friend.
Laertes can relate Our faith unspotted,
and its early date;
Who,
press'd
with heart-corroding grief and years,
To the gay court a rural shed pretors,
Where,
sole of all his train,
a matron sage Supports
with homely fond his drooping age,
With feeble steps from marshalling his vines Returning sad,
when toilsome day declines.
"With friendly speed,
induced by erring fame,
To hail Ulysses'
safe return I came;
But still the frown of some celestial power
with envious joy retards the blissful hour.
Let not your soul be sunk in sad despair;
He lives,
he breathes this heavenly vital air,
Among a savage race,
whose shelfy bounds
with ceaseless roar the foaming deep surrounds.
The thoughts which roll within my ravish'd breast,
To me,
no seer,
the inspiring gods suggest;
Nor skill'd nor studious,
with prophetic eye
to judge the winged omens of the sky.
Yet hear this certain speech,
nor deem it vain;
Though adamantine bonds the chief restrain,
The dire restraint his wisdom will defeat,
And soon restore him
to his regal seat.
But generous youth! sincere and free declare,
Are you,
of manly growth,
his royal heir?
For sure Ulysses in your look appears,
The same his features,
if the same his years.
Such was that face,
on which I dwelt
with joy Ere Greece assembled stemm'd the tides
to Troy;
But,
parting then
for that detested shore,
Our eyes,
unhappy?
never greeted more."
"To prove a genuine birth
(the prince replies)
On female truth assenting faith relies.
Thus manifest of right,
I build my claim Sure-founded on a fair maternal fame,
Ulysses'
son:
but happier he,
whom fate Hath placed beneath the storms which toss the great! Happier the son,
whose hoary sire is bless'd
with humble affluence,
and domestic rest! Happier than I,
to future empire born,
But doom'd a father's wretch'd fate
to mourn!"
To whom,
with aspect mild,
the guest divine:
"Oh true descendant of a sceptred line! The gods a glorious fate from anguish free
to chaste Penelope's increase decree.
But say,
yon jovial troops so gaily dress'd,
Is this a bridal or a friendly feast?
Or from their deed I rightlier may divine,
Unseemly flown
with insolence and wine?
Unwelcome revellers,
whose lawless joy Pains the sage ear,
and hurts the sober eye."
"Magnificence of old
(the prince replied)
Beneath our roof
with virtue could reside;
Unblamed abundance crowned the royal board,
What time this dome revered her prudent lord;
Who now
(so Heaven decrees)
is doom'd
to mourn,
Bitter constraint,
erroneous and forlorn.
Better the chief,
on Ilion's hostile plain,
Had fall'n surrounded
with his warlike train;
Or safe return'd,
the race of glory pass'd,
New
to his friends'
embrace,
and breathed his last! Then grateful Greece
with streaming eyes would raise,
Historic marbles
to record his praise;
His praise,
eternal on the faithful stone,
Had
with transmissive honour graced his son.
Now snatch'd by harpies
to the dreary coast.
Sunk is the hero,
and his glory lost;
Vanish'd at once! unheard of,
and unknown! And I his heir in misery alone.
Nor
for a dear lost father only flow The filial tears,
but woe succeeds
to woe
to tempt the spouseless queen
with amorous wiles Resort the nobles from the neighbouring isles;
From Samos,
circled
with the Ionian main,
Dulichium,
and Zacynthas'
sylvan reign;
Ev'n
with presumptuous hope her bed
to ascend,
The lords of Ithaca their right pretend.
She seems attentive
to their pleaded vows,
Her heart detesting what her ear allows.
They,
vain expectants of the bridal hour,
My stores in riotous expense devour.
In feast and dance the mirthful months employ,
And meditate my doom
to crown their joy."
With tender pity touch'd,
the goddess cried:
"Soon may kind Heaven a sure relief provide,
Soon may your sire discharge the vengeance due,
And all your wrongs the proud oppressors rue! Oh! in that portal should the chief appear,
Each hand tremendous
with a brazen spear,
In radiant panoply his limbs incased
(For so of old my fathers court he graced,
When social mirth unbent his serious soul,
O'er the full banquet,
and the sprightly bowl);
He then from Ephyre,
the fair domain Of Ilus,
sprung from Jason's royal strain,
Measured a length of seas,
a toilsome length,
in vain.
For,
voyaging
to learn the direful art
to taint
with deadly drugs the barbed dart;
Observant of the gods,
and sternly just,
Ilus refused
to impart the baneful trust;
With friendlier zeal my father's soul was fired,
The drugs he knew,
and gave the boon desired.
Appear'd he now
with such heroic port,
As then conspicuous at the Taphian court;
Soon should you boasters cease their haughty strife,
Or each atone his guilty love
with life.
But of his wish'd return the care resign,
Be future vengeance
to the powers divine.
My sentence hear:
with stern distaste avow'd,
To their own districts drive the suitor-crowd;
When next the morning warms the purple east,
Convoke the peerage,
and the gods attest;
The sorrows of your inmost soul relate;
And form sure plans
to save the sinking state.
Should second love a pleasing flame inspire,
And the chaste queen connubial rights require;
Dismiss'd
with honour,
let her hence repair
to great Icarius,
whose paternal care Will guide her passion,
and reward her choice
with wealthy dower,
and bridal gifts of price.
Then let this dictate of my love prevail:
Instant,
to foreign realms prepare
to sail,
To learn your father's fortunes;
Fame may prove,
Or omen'd voice
(the messenger of Jove),
Propitious
to the search.
Direct your toil Through the wide ocean first
to sandy Pyle;
Of Nestor,
hoary sage,
his doom demand:
Thence speed your voyage
to the Spartan strand;
For young Atrides
to the Achaian coast Arrived the last of all the victor host.
If yet Ulysses views the light,
forbear,
Till the fleet hours restore the circling year.
But if his soul hath wing'd the destined flight,
Inhabitant of deep disastrous night;
Homeward
with pious speed repass the main,
To the pale shade funereal rites ordain,
Plant the fair column o'er the vacant grave,
A hero's honours let the hero have.
With decent grief the royal dead deplored,
For the chaste queen select an equal lord.
Then let revenge your daring mind employ,
By fraud or force the suitor train destroy,
And starting into manhood,
scorn the boy.
Hast thou not heard how young Orestes,
fired
with great revenge,
immortal praise acquired?
His virgin-sword AEgysthus'
veins imbrued;
The murderer fell,
and blood atoned
for blood.
O greatly bless'd
with every blooming grace!
with equal steps the paths of glory trace;
Join
to that royal youth's your rival name,
And shine eternal in the sphere of fame.
But my associates now my stay deplore,
Impatient on the hoarse-resounding shore.
Thou,
heedful of advice,
secure proceed;
My praise the precept is,
be thine the deed.
"The counsel of my friend
(the youth rejoin'd)
Imprints conviction on my grateful mind.
So fathers speak
(persuasive speech and mild)
Their sage experience
to the favourite child.
But,
since
to part,
for sweet refection due,
The genial viands let my train renew;
And the rich pledge of plighted faith receive,
Worthy the air of Ithaca
to give."
"Defer the promised boon
(the goddess cries,
Celestial azure brightening in her eyes),
And let me now regain the Reithrian port;
From Temese return'd,
your royal court I shall revisit,
and that pledge receive;
And gifts,
memorial of our friendship,
leave."
Abrupt,
with eagle-speed she cut the sky;
Instant invisible
to mortal eye.
Then first he recognized the ethereal guest;
Wonder and joy alternate fire his breast;
Heroic thoughts,
infused,
his heart dilate;
Revolving much his father's doubtful fate.
At length,
composed,
he join'd the suitor-throng;
Hush'd in attention
to the warbled song.
His tender theme the charming lyrist chose.
Minerva's anger,
and the dreadful woes Which voyaging from Troy the victors bore,
While storms vindictive intercept the store.
The shrilling airs the vaulted roof rebounds,
Reflecting
to the queen the silver sounds.
With grief renew'd the weeping fair descends;
Their sovereign's step a virgin train attends:
A veil,
of richest texture wrought,
she wears,
And silent
to the joyous hall repairs.
There from the portal,
with her mild command,
Thus gently checks the minstrel's tuneful hand:
"Phemius! let acts of gods,
and heroes old,
What ancient bards in hall and bower have told,
Attemper'd
to the lyre,
your voice employ;
Such the pleased ear will drink
with silent joy.
But,
oh! forbear that dear disastrous name,
To sorrow sacred,
and secure of fame;
My bleeding bosom sickens at the sound,
And every piercing note inflicts a wound."
"Why,
dearest object of my duteous love,
(Replied the prince,)
will you the bard reprove?
Oft,
Jove's ethereal rays
(resistless fire)
The chanters soul and raptured song inspire Instinct divine?
nor blame severe his choice,
Warbling the Grecian woes
with heart and voice;
For novel lays attract our ravish'd ears;
But old,
the mind
with inattention hears:
Patient permit the sadly pleasing strain;
Familiar now
with grief,
your tears refrain,
And in the public woe forget your own;
You weep not
for a perish'd lord alone.
What Greeks new wandering in the Stygian gloom,
Wish your Ulysses shared an equal doom! Your widow'd hours,
apart,
with female toil And various labours of the loom beguile;
There rule,
from palace-cares remote and free;
That care
to man belongs,
and most
to me."
Mature beyond his years,
the queen admires His sage reply,
and
with her train retires.
Then swelling sorrows burst their former bounds,
With echoing grief afresh the dome resounds;
Till Pallas,
piteous of her plaintive cries,
In slumber closed her silver-streaming eyes.
Meantime,
rekindled at the royal charms,
Tumultuous love each beating bosom warms;
Intemperate rage a wordy war began;
But bold Telemachus assumed the man.
"Instant
(he cried)
your female discord end,
Ye deedless boasters! and the song attend;
Obey that sweet compulsion,
nor profane
with dissonance the smooth melodious strain.
Pacific now prolong the jovial feast;
But when the dawn reveals the rosy east,
I,
to the peers assembled,
shall propose The firm resolve,
I here in few disclose;
No longer live the cankers of my court;
All
to your several states
with speed resort;
Waste in wild riot what your land allows,
There ply the early feast,
and late carouse.
But if,
to honour lost,
'tis still decreed
for you my bowl shall flow,
my flock shaIl bleed;
Judge and revenge my right,
impartial Jove! By him and all the immortal thrones above
(A sacred oath),
each proud oppressor slain,
Shall
with inglorious gore this marble stain."
Awed by the prince,
thus haughty,
bold,
and young,
Rage gnaw'd the lip,
and wonder chain'd the tongue.
Silence at length the gay Antinous broke,
Constrain'd a smile,
and thus ambiguous spoke:
"What god
to your untutor'd youth affords This headlong torrent of amazing words?
May Jove delay thy reign,
and cumber late So bright a genius
with the toils of state!"
"Those toils
(Telemachus serene replies)
Have charms,
with all their weight,
t'allure the wise.
Fast by the throne obsequious fame resides,
And wealth incessant rolls her golden tides.
Nor let Antinous rage,
if strong desire Of wealth and fame a youthful bosom fire:
Elect by Jove,
his delegate of sway,
With joyous pride the summons I'd obey.
Whene'er Ulysses roams the realm of night,
Should factious power dispute my lineal right,
Some other Greeks a fairer claim may plead;
To your pretence their title would precede.
At least,
the sceptre lost,
I still should reign Sole o'er my vassals,
and domestic train."
To this Eurymachus:
"To Heaven alone Refer the choice
to fill the vacant throne.
Your patrimonial stores in peace possess;
Undoubted,
all your filial claim confess:
Your private right should impious power invade,
The peers of Ithaca would arm in aid.
But say,
that stranger guest who late withdrew,
What and from whence?
his name and lineage shew.
His grave demeanour and majestic grace Speak him descended of non vulgar race:
Did he some loan of ancient right require,
Or came forerunner of your sceptr'd sire?"
"Oh son of Polybus!"
the prince replies,
"No more my sire will glad these longing eyes;
The queen's fond hope inventive rumour cheers,
Or vain diviners'
dreams divert her fears.
That stranger-guest the Taphian realm obeys,
A realm defended
with encircling seas.
Mentes,
an ever-honour'd name,
of old High in Ulysses'
social list enroll'd."
Thus he,
though conscious of the ethereal guest,
Answer'd evasive of the sly request.
Meantime the lyre rejoins the sprightly lay;
Love-dittied airs,
and dance,
conclude the day But when the star of eve
with golden light Adorn'd the matron brow of sable night,
The mirthful train dispersing quit the court,
And
to their several domes
to rest resort.
A towering structure
to the palace join'd;
To this his steps the thoughtful prince inclined:
In his pavilion there,
to sleep repairs;
The lighted torch,
the sage Euryclea bears
(Daughter of Ops,
the just Pisenor's son,
For twenty beeves by great Laertes won;
In rosy prime
with charms attractive graced,
Honour'd by him,
a gentle lord and chaste,
With dear esteem:
too wise,
with jealous strife
to taint the joys of sweet connubial life.
Sole
with Telemachus her service ends,
A child she nursed him,
and a man attends).
Whilst
to his couch himself the prince address'd,
The duteous dame received the purple vest;
The purple vest
with decent care disposed,
The silver ring she pull'd,
the door reclosed,
The bolt,
obedient
to the silken cord,
To the strong staple's inmost depth restored,
Secured the valves.
There,
wrapped in silent shade,
Pensive,
the rules the goddess gave he weigh'd;
Stretch'd on the downy fleece,
no rest he knows,
And in his raptured soul the vision glows.
BOOK II.
ARGUMENT.
THE COUNCIL OF ITHACA.
Telemachus in the assembly of the lords of Ithaca complains of the injustice done him by the suitors,
and insists upon their departure from his palace;
appealing
to the princes,
and exciting the people
to declare against them.
The suitors endeavour
to justify their stay,
at least till he shall send the queen
to the court of Icarius her father;
which he refuses.
There appears a prodigy of two eagles in the sky,
whick an augur expounds
to the ruin of the suitors.
Telemachus the demands a vessel
to carry him
to Pylos and Sparta,
there
to inquire of his father's fortunes.
Pallas,
in the shape of Mentor
(an ancient friend of Ulysses),
helps him
to a ship,
assists him in preparing necessaries
for the voyage,
and embarks
with him that night;
which concludes the second day from the opening of the poem.
The scene continues in the palace of Ulysses,
in Ithaca.
Now reddening from the dawn,
the morning ray Glow'd in the front of heaven,
and gave the day The youthful hero,
with returning light,
Rose anxious from the inquietudes of night.
A royal robe he wore
with graceful pride,
A two-edged falchion threaten'd by his side,
Embroider'd sandals glitter'd as he trod,
And forth he moved,
majestic as a god.
Then by his heralds,
restless of delay,
To council calls the peers:
the peers obey.
Soon as in solemn form the assembly sate,
From his high dome himself descends in state.
Bright in his hand a ponderous javelin shined;
Two dogs,
a faithful guard,
attend behind;
Pallas
with grace divine his form improves,
And gazing crowds admire him as he moves,
His father's throne he fill'd;
while distant stood The hoary peers,
and aged wisdom bow'd.
'Twas silence all.
At last AEgyptius spoke;
AEgyptius,
by his age and sorrow broke;
A length of days his soul
with prudence crown'd,
A length of days had bent him
to the ground.
His eldest hope in arms
to Ilion came,
By great Ulysses taught the path
to fame;
But
(hapless youth)
the hideous Cyclops tore His quivering limbs,
and quaff'd his spouting gore.
Three sons remain'd;
to climb
with haughty fires The royal bed,
Eurynomus aspires;
The rest
with duteous love his griefs assuage,
And ease the sire of half the cares of age.
Yet still his Antiphus he loves,
he mourns,
And,
as he stood,
he spoke and wept by turns,
"Since great Ulysses sought the Phrygian plains,
Within these walls inglorious silence reigns.
Say then,
ye peers! by whose commands we meet?
Why here once more in solemn council sit?
Ye young,
ye old,
the weighty cause disclose:
Arrives some message of invading foes?
Or say,
does high necessity of state Inspire some patriot,
and demand debate?
The present synod speaks its author wise;
Assist him,
Jove,
thou regent of the skies!"
He spoke.
Telemachus
with transport glows,
Embraced the omen,
and majestic rose
(His royal hand the imperial sceptre sway'd);
Then thus,
addressing
to AEgyptius,
said:
"Reverend old man! lo here confess'd he stands By whom ye meet;
my grief your care demands.
No story I unfold of public woes,
Nor bear advices of impending foes:
Peace the blest land,
and joys incessant crown:
Of all this happy realm,
I grieve alone.
For my lost sire continual sorrows spring,
The great,
the good;
your father and your king.
Yet more;
our house from its foundation bows,
Our foes are powerful,
and your sons the foes;
Hither,
unwelcome
to the queen,
they come;
Why seek they not the rich Icarian dome?
If she must wed,
from other hands require The dowry:
is Telemachus her sire?
Yet through my court the noise of revel rings,
And waste the wise frugality of kings.
Scarce all my herds their luxury suffice;
Scarce all my wine their midnight hours supplies.
Safe in my youth,
in riot still they grow,
Nor in the helpless orphan dread a foe.
But come it will,
the time when manhood grants More powerful advocates than vain complaints.
Approach that hour! insufferable wrong Cries
to the gods,
and vengeance sleeps too long.
Rise then,
ye peers!
with virtuous anger rise;
Your fame revere,
but most the avenging skies.
By all the deathless powers that reign above,
By righteous Themis and by thundering Jove
(Themis,
who gives
to councils,
or denies Success;
and humbles,
or confirms the wise),
Rise in my aid! suffice the tears that flow
for my lost sire,
nor add new woe
to woe.
If e'er he bore the sword
to strengthen ill,
Or,
having power
to wrong,
betray'd the will,
On me,
on me your kindled wrath assuage,
And bid the voice of lawless riot rage.
If ruin
to your royal race ye doom,
Be you the spoilers,
and our wealth consume.
Then might we hope redress from juster laws,
And raise all Ithaca
to aid our cause:
But while your sons commit the unpunish'd wrong,
You make the arm of violence too strong."
While thus he spoke,
with rage and grief he frown'd,
And dash'd the imperial sceptre
to the ground.
The big round tear hung trembling in his eye:
The synod grieved,
and gave a pitying sigh,
Then silent sate - at length Antinous burns
with haughty rage,
and sternly thus returns:
"O insolence of youth! whose tongue affords Such railing eloquence,
and war of words.
Studious thy country's worthies
to defame,
Thy erring voice displays thy mother's shame.
Elusive of the bridal day,
she gives Fond hopes
to all,
and all
with hopes deceives.
Did not the sun,
through heaven's wide azure roll'd,
For three long years the royal fraud behold?
While she,
laborious in delusion,
spread The spacious loom,
and mix'd the various thread:
Where as
to life the wondrous figures rise,
Thus spoke the inventive queen,
with artful sighs:
"Though cold in death Ulysses breathes no more,
Cease yet awhile
to urge the bridal hour:
Cease,
till
to great Laertes I bequeath A task of grief,
his ornaments of death.
Lest when the Fates his royal ashes claim,
The Grecian matrons taint my spotless fame;
When he,
whom living mighty realms obey'd,
Shall want in death a shroud
to grace his shade.'
"Thus she:
at once the generous train complies,
Nor fraud mistrusts in virtue's fair disguise.
The work she plied;
but,
studious of delay,
By night reversed the labours of the day.
While thrice the sun his annual journey made,
The conscious lamp the midnight fraud survey'd;
Unheard,
unseen,
three years her arts prevail;
The fourth her maid unfolds the amazing tale.
We saw,
as unperceived we took our stand,
The backward labours of her faithless hand.
Then urged,
she perfects her illustrious toils;
A wondrous monument of female wiles!
"But you,
O peers! and thou,
O prince! give ear
(I speak aloud,
that every Greek may hear):
Dismiss the queen;
and if her sire approves Let him espouse her
to the peer she loves:
Bid instant
to prepare the bridal train,
Nor let a race of princes wait in vain.
Though
with a grace divine her soul is blest,
And all Minerva breathes within her breast,
In wondrous arts than woman more renown'd,
And more than woman
with deep wisdom crown'd;
Though Tyro nor Mycene match her name,
Not great Alemena
(the proud boasts of fame);
Yet thus by heaven adorn'd,
by heaven's decree She shines
with fatal excellence,
to thee:
With thee,
the bowl we drain,
indulge the feast,
Till righteous heaven reclaim her stubborn breast.
What though from pole
to pole resounds her name! The son's destruction waits the mother's fame:
For,
till she leaves thy court,
it is decreed,
Thy bowl
to empty and thy flock
to bleed."
While yet he speaks,
Telemachus replies:
"Ev'n nature starts,
and what ye ask denies.
Thus,
shall I thus repay a mother's cares,
Who gave me life,
and nursed my infant years! While sad on foreign shores Ulysses treads.
Or glides a ghost
with unapparent shades;
How
to Icarius in the bridal hour Shall I,
by waste undone,
refund the dower?
How from my father should I vengeance dread! How would my mother curse my hated head! And while In wrath
to vengeful fiends she cries,
How from their hell would vengeful fiends arise! Abhorr'd by all,
accursed my name would grow,
The earth's disgrace,
and human-kind my foe.
If this displease,
why urge ye here your stay?
Haste from the court,
ye spoilers,
haste away:
Waste in wild riot what your land allows,
There ply the early feast,
and late carouse.
But if
to honour lost,
'tis still decreed
for you my howl shall flow,
my flocks shall bleed;
Judge,
and assert my right,
impartial Jove! By him,
and all the immortal host above
(A sacred oath),
if heaven the power supply,
Vengeance I vow,
and
for your wrongs ye die."
With that,
two eagles from a mountain's height By Jove's command direct their rapid flight;
Swift they descend,
with wing
to wing conjoin'd,
Stretch their broad plumes,
and float upon the wind.
Above the assembled peers they wheel on high,
And clang their wings,
and hovering beat the sky;
With ardent eyes the rival train they threat,
And shrieking loud denounce approaching fate.
They cuff,
they tear;
their cheeks and neck they rend,
And from their plumes huge drops of blood descend;
Then sailing o'er the domes and towers,
they fly,
Full toward the east,
and mount into the sky.
The wondering rivals gaze,
with cares oppress'd,
And chilling horrors freeze in every breast,
Till big
with knowledge of approaching woes,
The prince of augurs,
Halitherses,
rose:
Prescient he view'd the aerial tracks,
and drew A sure presage from every wing that flew.
"Ye sons
(he cried)
of Ithaca,
give ear;
Hear all! but chiefly you,
O rivals! hear.
Destruction sure o'er all your heads impends Ulysses comes,
and death his steps attends.
Nor
to the great alone is death decreed;
We and our guilty Ithaca must bleed.
Why cease we then the wrath of heaven
to stay?
Be humbled all,
and lead,
ye great! the way.
For lo?
my words no fancied woes relate;
I speak from science and the voice of fate.
"When great Ulysses sought the Phrygian shores
to shake
with war proud Ilion's lofty towers,
Deeds then undone me faithful tongue foretold:
Heaven seal'd my words,
and you those deeds behold.
I see
(I cried)
his woes,
a countless train;
I see his friends o'erwhelm'd beneath the main;
How twice ten years from shore
to shore he roams:
Now twice ten years are past,
and now he comes!"
To whom Eurymachus--"Fly,
dotard fly,
With thy wise dreams,
and fables of the sky.
Go prophesy at home,
thy sons advise:
Here thou art sage in vain--I better read the skies Unnumber'd birds glide through the aerial way;
Vagrants of air,
and unforeboding stray.
Cold in the tomb,
or in the deeps below,
Ulysses lies;
oh wert thou laid as low! Then would that busy head no broils suggest,
For fire
to rage Telemachus'
breast,
From him some bribe thy venal tongue requires,
And interest,
not the god,
thy voice inspires.
His guideless youth,
if thy experienced age Mislead fallacious into idle rage,
Vengeance deserved thy malice shall repress.
And but augment the wrongs thou would'st redress,
Telemachus may bid the queen repair
to great Icarius,
whose paternal care Will guide her passion,
and reward her choice
with wealthy dower,
and bridal gifts of price.
Till she retires,
determined we remain,
And both the prince and augur threat in vain:
His pride of words,
and thy wild dream of fate,
Move not the brave,
or only move their hate,
Threat on,
O prince! elude the bridal day.
Threat on,
till all thy stores in waste decay.
True,
Greece affords a train of lovely dames,
In wealth and beauty worthy of our flames:
But never from this nobler suit we cease;
For wealth and beauty less than virtue please."
To whom the youth:
"Since then in vain I tell My numerous woes,
in silence let them dwell.
But Heaven,
and all the Greeks,
have heard my wrongs;
To Heaven,
and all the Greeks,
redress belongs;
Yet this I ask
(nor be it ask'd in vain),
A bark
to waft me o'er the rolling main,
The realms of Pyle and Sparta
to explore,
And seek my royal sire from shore
to shore;
If,
or
to fame his doubtful fate be known,
Or
to be learn'd from oracles alone,
If yet he lives,
with patience I forbear,
Till the fleet hours restore the circling year;
But if already wandering in the train Of empty shades,
I measure back the main,
Plant the fair column o'er the mighty dead,
And yield his consort
to the nuptial bed."
He ceased;
and while abash'd the peers attend,
Mentor arose,
Ulysses'
faithful friend:
(When fierce in arms he sought the scenes of war,
"My friend
(he cried),
my palace be thy care;
Years roll'd on years my godlike sire decay,
Guard thou his age,
and his behests obey."
Stern as he rose,
he cast his eyes around,
That flash'd
with rage;
and as spoke,
he frown'd,
"O never,
never more let king be just,
Be mild in power,
or faithful
to his trust! Let tyrants govern
with an iron rod,
Oppress,
destroy,
and be the scourge of God;
Since he who like a father held his reign,
So soon forgot,
was just and mild in vain! True,
while my friend is grieved,
his griefs I share;
Yet now the rivals are my smallest care:
They
for the mighty mischiefs they devise,
Ere