The Iliad by Homer Epic poetry

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Iliad of Homer by Homer



This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license



Title: The Iliad of Homer

Author: Homer

Release Date: September 2006 [Ebook #6130]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO 8859-1


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ILIAD OF HOMER***





The Iliad of Homer


Translated by Alexander Pope,

with notes by the
Rev. Theodore Alois Buckley, M.A., F.S.A.

and

Flaxman's Designs.

1899





CONTENTS


INTRODUCTION.
POPE'S PREFACE TO THE ILIAD OF HOMER
BOOK I.
BOOK II.
BOOK III.
BOOK IV.
BOOK V.
BOOK VI.
BOOK VII.
BOOK VIII.
BOOK IX.
BOOK X.
BOOK XI.
BOOK XII.
BOOK XIII.
BOOK XIV.
BOOK XV.
BOOK XVI.
BOOK XVII.
BOOK XVIII.
BOOK XIX.
BOOK XX.
BOOK XXI.
BOOK XXII.
BOOK XXIII.
BOOK XXIV.
CONCLUDING NOTE.





ILLUSTRATIONS


HOMER INVOKING THE MUSE.
MARS.
MINERVA REPRESSING THE FURY OF ACHILLES.
THE DEPARTURE OF BRISEIS FROM THE TENT OF ACHILLES.
THETIS CALLING BRIAREUS TO THE ASSISTANCE OF JUPITER.
THETIS ENTREATING JUPITER TO HONOUR ACHILLES.
VULCAN.
JUPITER.
THE APOTHEOSIS OF HOMER.
JUPITER SENDING THE EVIL DREAM TO AGAMEMNON.
NEPTUNE.
VENUS, DISGUISED, INVITING HELEN TO THE CHAMBER OF PARIS.
VENUS PRESENTING HELEN TO PARIS.
VENUS.
Map, titled "Graeciae Antiquae".
THE COUNCIL OF THE GODS.
Map of the Plain of Troy.
VENUS, WOUNDED IN THE HAND, CONDUCTED BY IRIS TO MARS.
OTUS AND EPHIALTES HOLDING MARS CAPTIVE.
DIOMED CASTING HIS SPEAR AT MARS.
JUNO.
HECTOR CHIDING PARIS.
THE MEETING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.
BOWS AND BOW CASE.
IRIS.
HECTOR AND AJAX SEPARATED BY THE HERALDS.
GREEK AMPHORA--WINE VESSELS.
JUNO AND MINERVA GOING TO ASSIST THE GREEKS.
THE HOURS TAKING THE HORSES FROM JUNO'S CAR.
THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES.
PLUTO.
THE EMBASSY TO ACHILLES.
GREEK GALLEY.
PROSERPINE.
ACHILLES.
DIOMED AND ULYSSES RETURNING WITH THE SPOILS OF RHESUS.
THE DESCENT OF DISCORD.
HERCULES.
POLYDAMAS ADVISING HECTOR.
GREEK ALTAR.
NEPTUNE RISING FROM THE SEA.
GREEK EARRINGS.
SLEEP ESCAPING FROM THE WRATH OF JUPITER.
GREEK SHIELD.
BACCHUS.
AJAX DEFENDING THE GREEK SHIPS.
CASTOR AND POLLUX.
Buckles.
DIANA.
SLEEP AND DEATH CONVEYING THE BODY OF SARPEDON TO LYCIA.
ÆSCULAPIUS.
FIGHT FOR THE BODY OF PATROCLUS.
VULCAN FROM AN ANTIQUE GEM.
THETIS ORDERING THE NEREIDS TO DESCEND INTO THE SEA.
JUNO COMMANDING THE SUN TO SET.
TRIPOD.
THETIS AND EURYNOME RECEIVING THE INFANT VULCAN.
VULCAN AND CHARIS RECEIVING THETIS.
THETIS BRINGING THE ARMOUR TO ACHILLES.
HERCULES.
THE GODS DESCENDING TO BATTLE.
CENTAUR.
ACHILLES CONTENDING WITH THE RIVERS.
THE BATH.
ANDROMACHE FAINTING ON THE WALL.
THE FUNERAL PILE OF PATROCLUS.
CERES.
HECTOR'S BODY AT THE CAR OF ACHILLES.
THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS.
IRIS ADVISES PRIAM TO OBTAIN THE BODY OF HECTOR.
FUNERAL OF HECTOR.





INTRODUCTION.


Scepticism is as much the result of knowledge, as knowledge is of
scepticism. To be content with what we at present know, is, for the most
part, to shut our ears against conviction; since, from the very gradual
character of our education, we must continually forget, and emancipate
ourselves from, knowledge previously acquired; we must set aside old
notions and embrace fresh ones; and, as we learn, we must be daily
unlearning something which it has cost us no small labour and anxiety to
acquire.

And this difficulty attaches itself more closely to an age in which
progress has gained a strong ascendency over prejudice, and in which
persons and things are, day by day, finding their real level, in lieu of
their conventional value. The same principles which have swept away
traditional abuses, and which are making rapid havoc among the revenues of
sinecurists, and stripping the thin, tawdry veil from attractive
superstitions, are working as actively in literature as in society. The
credulity of one writer, or the partiality of another, finds as powerful a
touchstone and as wholesome a chastisement in the healthy scepticism of a
temperate class of antagonists, as the dreams of conservatism, or the
impostures of pluralist sinecures in the Church. History and tradition,
whether of ancient or comparatively recent times, are subjected to very
different handling from that which the indulgence or credulity of former
ages could allow. Mere statements are jealously watched, and the motives
of the writer form as important an ingredient in the analysis of his
history, as the facts he records. Probability is a powerful and
troublesome test; and it is by this troublesome standard that a large
portion of historical evidence is sifted. Consistency is no less
pertinacious and exacting in its demands. In brief, to write a history, we
must know more than mere facts. Human nature, viewed under an induction of
extended experience, is the best help to the criticism of human history.
Historical characters can only be estimated by the standard which human
experience, whether actual or traditionary, has furnished. To form correct
views of individuals we must regard them as forming parts of a great
whole--we must measure them by their relation to the mass of beings by whom
they are surrounded, and, in contemplating the incidents in their lives or
condition which tradition has handed down to us, we must rather consider
the general bearing of the whole narrative, than the respective
probability of its details.

It is unfortunate for us, that, of some of the greatest men, we know
least, and talk most. Homer, Socrates, and Shakespere(1) have, perhaps,
contributed more to the intellectual enlightenment of mankind than any
other three writers who could be named, and yet the history of all three
has given rise to a boundless ocean of discussion, which has left us
little save the option of choosing which theory or theories we will
follow. The personality of Shakespere is, perhaps, the only thing in which
critics will allow us to believe without controversy; but upon everything
else, even down to the authorship of plays, there is more or less of doubt
and uncertainty. Of Socrates we know as little as the contradictions of
Plato and Xenophon will allow us to know. He was one of the _dramatis
personae_ in two dramas as unlike in principles as in style. He appears as
the enunciator of opinions as different in their tone as those of the
writers who have handed them down. When we have read Plato _or_ Xenophon,
we think we know something of Socrates; when we have fairly read and
examined both, we feel convinced that we are something worse than
ignorant.

It has been an easy, and a popular expedient, of late years, to deny the
personal or real existence of men and things whose life and condition were
too much for our belief. This system--which has often comforted the
religious sceptic, and substituted the consolations of Strauss for those
of the New Testament--has been of incalculable value to the historical
theorists of the last and present centuries. To question the existence of
Alexander the Great, would be a more excusable act, than to believe in
that of Romulus. To deny a fact related in Herodotus, because it is
inconsistent with a theory developed from an Assyrian inscription which no
two scholars read in the same way, is more pardonable, than to believe in
the good-natured old king whom the elegant pen of Florian has
idealized--_Numa Pompilius._

Scepticism has attained its culminating point with respect to Homer, and
the state of our Homeric knowledge may be described as a free permission
to believe any theory, provided we throw overboard all written tradition,
concerning the author or authors of the Iliad and Odyssey. What few
authorities exist on the subject, are summarily dismissed, although the
arguments appear to run in a circle. "This cannot be true, because it is
not true; and, that is not true, because it cannot be true." Such seems to
be the style, in which testimony upon testimony, statement upon statement,
is consigned to denial and oblivion.

It is, however, unfortunate that the professed biographies of Homer are
partly forgeries, partly freaks of ingenuity and imagination, in which
truth is the requisite most wanting. Before taking a brief review of the
Homeric theory in its present conditions, some notice must be taken of the
treatise on the Life of Homer which has been attributed to Herodotus.

According to this document, the city of Cumae in Æolia, was, at an early
period, the seat of frequent immigrations from various parts of Greece.
Among the immigrants was Menapolus, the son of Ithagenes. Although poor,
he married, and the result of the union was a girl named Critheis. The
girl was left an orphan at an early age, under the guardianship of
Cleanax, of Argos. It is to the indiscretion of this maiden that we "are
indebted for so much happiness." Homer was the first fruit of her juvenile
frailty, and received the name of Melesigenes, from having been born near
the river Meles, in Boeotia, whither Critheis had been transported in
order to save her reputation.

"At this time," continues our narrative, "there lived at Smyrna a man
named Phemius, a teacher of literature and music, who, not being married,
engaged Critheis to manage his household, and spin the flax he received as
the price of his scholastic labours. So satisfactory was her performance
of this task, and so modest her conduct, that he made proposals of
marriage, declaring himself, as a further inducement, willing to adopt her
son, who, he asserted, would become a clever man, if he were carefully
brought up."

They were married; careful cultivation ripened the talents which nature
had bestowed, and Melesigenes soon surpassed his schoolfellows in every
attainment, and, when older, rivalled his preceptor in wisdom. Phemius
died, leaving him sole heir to his property, and his mother soon followed.
Melesigenes carried on his adopted father's school with great success,
exciting the admiration not only of the inhabitants of Smyrna, but also of
the strangers whom the trade carried on there, especially in the
exportation of corn, attracted to that city. Among these visitors, one
Mentes, from Leucadia, the modern Santa Maura, who evinced a knowledge and
intelligence rarely found in those times, persuaded Melesigenes to close
his school, and accompany him on his travels. He promised not only to pay
his expenses, but to furnish him with a further stipend, urging, that,
"While he was yet young, it was fitting that he should see with his own
eyes the countries and cities which might hereafter be the subjects of his
discourses." Melesigenes consented, and set out with his patron,
"examining all the curiosities of the countries they visited, and
informing himself of everything by interrogating those whom he met." We
may also suppose, that he wrote memoirs of all that he deemed worthy of
preservation(2) Having set sail from Tyrrhenia and Iberia, they reached
Ithaca. Here Melesigenes, who had already suffered in his eyes, became
much worse, and Mentes, who was about to leave for Leucadia, left him to
the medical superintendence of a friend of his, named Mentor, the son of
Alcinor. Under his hospitable and intelligent host, Melesigenes rapidly
became acquainted with the legends respecting Ulysses, which afterwards
formed the subject of the Odyssey. The inhabitants of Ithaca assert, that
it was here that Melesigenes became blind, but the Colophomans make their
city the seat of that misfortune. He then returned to Smyrna, where he
applied himself to the study of poetry.(3)

But poverty soon drove him to Cumae. Having passed over the Hermaean
plain, he arrived at Neon Teichos, the New Wall, a colony of Cumae. Here
his misfortunes and poetical talent gained him the friendship of one
Tychias, an armourer. "And up to my time," continued the author, "the
inhabitants showed the place where he used to sit when giving a recitation
of his verses, and they greatly honoured the spot. Here also a poplar
grew, which they said had sprung up ever since Melesigenes arrived".(4)

But poverty still drove him on, and he went by way of Larissa, as being
the most convenient road. Here, the Cumans say, he composed an epitaph on
Gordius, king of Phrygia, which has however, and with greater probability,
been attributed to Cleobulus of Lindus.(5)

Arrived at Cumae, he frequented the _converzationes_(6) of the old men,
and delighted all by the charms of his poetry. Encouraged by this
favourable reception, he declared that, if they would allow him a public
maintenance, he would render their city most gloriously renowned. They
avowed their willingness to support him in the measure he proposed, and
procured him an audience in the council. Having made the speech, with the
purport of which our author has forgotten to acquaint us, he retired, and
left them to debate respecting the answer to be given to his proposal.

The greater part of the assembly seemed favourable to the poet's demand,
but one man observed that "if they were to feed _Homers,_ they would be
encumbered with a multitude of useless people." "From this circumstance,"
says the writer, "Melesigenes acquired the name of Homer, for the Cumans
call blind men _Homers._"(7) With a love of economy, which shows how
similar the world has always been in its treatment of literary men, the
pension was denied, and the poet vented his disappointment in a wish that
Cumoea might never produce a poet capable of giving it renown and glory.

At Phocoea, Homer was destined to experience another literary distress.
One Thestorides, who aimed at the reputation of poetical genius, kept
Homer in his own house, and allowed him a pittance, on condition of the
verses of the poet passing in his name. Having collected sufficient poetry
to be profitable, Thestorides, like some would-be-literary publishers,
neglected the man whose brains he had sucked, and left him. At his
departure, Homer is said to have observed: "O Thestorides, of the many
things hidden from the knowledge of man, nothing is more unintelligible
than the human heart."(8)

Homer continued his career of difficulty and distress, until some Chian
merchants, struck by the similarity of the verses they heard him recite,
acquainted him with the fact that Thestorides was pursuing a profitable
livelihood by the recital of the very same poems. This at once determined
him to set out for Chios. No vessel happened then to be setting sail
thither, but he found one ready to Start for Erythrae, a town of Ionia,
which faces that island, and he prevailed upon the seamen to allow him to
accompany them. Having embarked, he invoked a favourable wind, and prayed
that he might be able to expose the imposture of Thestorides, who, by his
breach of hospitality, had drawn down the wrath of Jove the Hospitable.

At Erythrae, Homer fortunately met with a person who had known him in
Phocoea, by whose assistance he at length, after some difficulty, reached
the little hamlet of Pithys. Here he met with an adventure, which we will
continue in the words of our author. "Having set out from Pithys, Homer
went on, attracted by the cries of some goats that were pasturing. The
dogs barked on his approach, and he cried out. Glaucus (for that was the
name of the goat-herd) heard his voice, ran up quickly, called off his
dogs, and drove them away from Homer. For or some time he stood wondering
how a blind man should have reached such a place alone, and what could be
his design in coming. He then went up to him, and inquired who he was, and
how he had come to desolate places and untrodden spots, and of what he
stood in need. Homer, by recounting to him the whole history of his
misfortunes, moved him with compassion; and he took him, and led him to
his cot, and having lit a fire, bade him sup.(9)

"The dogs, instead of eating, kept barking at the stranger, according to
their usual habit. Whereupon Homer addressed Glaucus thus: O Glaucus, my
friend, prythee attend to my behest. First give the dogs their supper at
the doors of the hut: for so it is better, since, whilst they watch, nor
thief nor wild beast will approach the fold.

Glaucus was pleased with the advice, and marvelled at its author. Having
finished supper, they banqueted(10) afresh on conversation, Homer
narrating his wanderings, and telling of the cities he had visited.

At length they retired to rest; but on the following morning, Glaucus
resolved to go to his master, and acquaint him with his meeting with
Homer. Having left the goats in charge of a fellow-servant, he left Homer
at home, promising to return quickly. Having arrived at Bolissus, a place
near the farm, and finding his mate, he told him the whole story
respecting Homer and his journey. He paid little attention to what he
said, and blamed Glaucus for his stupidity in taking in and feeding maimed
and enfeebled persons. However, he bade him bring the stranger to him.

Glaucus told Homer what had taken place, and bade him follow him, assuring
him that good fortune would be the result. Conversation soon showed that
the stranger was a man of much cleverness and general knowledge, and the
Chian persuaded him to remain, and to undertake the charge of his
children.(11)

Besides the satisfaction of driving the impostor Thestorides from the
island, Homer enjoyed considerable success as a teacher. In the town of
Chios he established a school where he taught the precepts of poetry. "To
this day," says Chandler,(12) "the most curious remain is that which has
been named, without reason, the School of Homer. It is on the coast, at
some distance from the city, northward, and appears to have been an open
temple of Cybele, formed on the top of a rock. The shape is oval, and in
the centre is the image of the goddess, the head and an arm wanting. She
is represented, as usual, sitting. The chair has a lion carved on each
side, and on the back. The area is bounded by a low rim, or seat, and
about five yards over. The whole is hewn out of the mountain, is rude,
indistinct, and probably of the most remote antiquity."

So successful was this school, that Homer realised a considerable fortune.
He married, and had two daughters, one of whom died single, the other
married a Chian.

The following passage betrays the same tendency to connect the personages
of the poems with the history of the poet, which has already been
mentioned:--

"In his poetical compositions Homer displays great gratitude towards
Mentor of Ithaca, in the Odyssey, whose name he has inserted in his poem
as the companion of Ulysses,(13) in return for the care taken of him when
afflicted with blindness. He also testifies his gratitude to Phemius, who
had given him both sustenance and instruction."

His celebrity continued to increase, and many persons advised him to visit
Greece, whither his reputation had now extended. Having, it is said, made
some additions to his poems calculated to please the vanity of the
Athenians, of whose city he had hitherto made no mention,(14) he sent out
for Samos. Here being recognized by a Samian, who had met with him in
Chios, he was handsomely received, and invited to join in celebrating the
Apaturian festival. He recited some verses, which gave great satisfaction,
and by singing the Eiresione at the New Moon festivals, he earned a
subsistence, visiting the houses of the rich, with whose children he was
very popular.

In the spring he sailed for Athens, and arrived at the island of Ios, now
Ino, where he fell extremely ill, and died. It is said that his death
arose from vexation, at not having been able to unravel an enigma proposed
by some fishermen's children.(15)

Such is, in brief, the substance of the earliest life of Homer we possess,
and so broad are the evidences of its historical worthlessness, that it is
scarcely necessary to point them out in detail. Let us now consider some
of the opinions to which a persevering, patient, and learned--but by no
means consistent--series of investigations has led. In doing so, I profess
to bring forward statements, not to vouch for their reasonableness or
probability.

"Homer appeared. The history of this poet and his works is lost in
doubtful obscurity, as is the history of many of the first minds who have
done honour to humanity, because they rose amidst darkness. The majestic
stream of his song, blessing and fertilizing, flows like the Nile, through
many lands and nations; and, like the sources of the Nile, its fountains
will ever remain concealed."

Such are the words in which one of the most judicious German critics has
eloquently described the uncertainty in which the whole of the Homeric
question is involved. With no less truth and feeling he proceeds:--

"It seems here of chief importance to expect no more than the nature of
things makes possible. If the period of tradition in history is the region
of twilight, we should not expect in it perfect light. The creations of
genius always seem like miracles, because they are, for the most part,
created far out of the reach of observation. If we were in possession of
all the historical testimonies, we never could wholly explain the origin
of the Iliad and the Odyssey; for their origin, in all essential points,
must have remained the secret of the poet." (16)

From this criticism, which shows as much insight into the depths of human
nature as into the minute wire-drawings of scholastic investigation, let
us pass on to the main question at issue. Was Homer an individual?(17) or
were the Iliad and Odyssey the result of an ingenious arrangement of
fragments by earlier poets?

Well has Landor remarked: "Some tell us there were twenty Homers; some
deny that there was ever one. It were idle and foolish to shake the
contents of a vase, in order to let them settle at last. We are
perpetually labouring to destroy our delights, our composure, our devotion
to superior power. Of all the animals on earth we least know what is good
for us. My opinion is, that what is best for us is our admiration of good.
No man living venerates Homer more than I do." (18)

But, greatly as we admire the generous enthusiasm which rests contented
with the poetry on which its best impulses had been nurtured and fostered,
without seeking to destroy the vividness of first impressions by minute
analysis--our editorial office compels us to give some attention to the
doubts and difficulties with which the Homeric question is beset, and to
entreat our reader, for a brief period, to prefer his judgment to his
imagination, and to condescend to dry details.

Before, however, entering into particulars respecting the question of this
unity of the Homeric poems, (at least of the Iliad,) I must express my
sympathy with the sentiments expressed in the following remarks:--

"We cannot but think the universal admiration of its unity by the better,
the poetic age of Greece, almost conclusive testimony to its original
composition. It was not till the age of the grammarians that its primitive
integrity was called in question; nor is it injustice to assert, that the
minute and analytical spirit of a grammarian is not the best qualification
for the profound feeling, the comprehensive conception of an harmonious
whole. The most exquisite anatomist may be no judge of the symmetry of the
human frame: and we would take the opinion of Chantrey or Westmacott on
the proportions and general beauty of a form, rather than that of Mr.
Brodie or Sir Astley Cooper.

"There is some truth, though some malicious exaggeration, in the lines of
Pope.--

"'The critic eye--that microscope of wit
Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit,
How parts relate to parts, or they to whole
The body's harmony, the beaming soul,
Are things which Kuster, Burmann, Wasse, shall see,
When man's whole frame is obvious to a flea.'"(19)

Long was the time which elapsed before any one dreamt of questioning the
unity of the authorship of the Homeric poems. The grave and cautious
Thucydides quoted without hesitation the Hymn to Apollo,(20) the
authenticity of which has been already disclaimed by modern critics.
Longinus, in an oft quoted passage, merely expressed an opinion touching
the comparative inferiority of the Odyssey to the Iliad,(21) and, among a
mass of ancient authors, whose very names(22) it would be tedious to
detail, no suspicion of the personal non-existence of Homer ever arose. So
far, the voice of antiquity seems to be in favour of our early ideas on
the subject; let us now see what are the discoveries to which more modern
investigations lay claim.

At the end of the seventeenth century, doubts had begun to awaken on the
subject, and we find Bentley remarking that "Homer wrote a sequel of songs
and rhapsodies, to be sung by himself, for small comings and good cheer,
at festivals and other days of merriment. These loose songs were not
collected together, in the form of an epic poem, till about Peisistratus'
time, about five hundred years after."(23)

Two French writers--Hedelin and Perrault--avowed a similar scepticism on the
subject; but it is in the "Scienza Nuova" of Battista Vico, that we first
meet with the germ of the theory, subsequently defended by Wolf with so
much learning and acuteness. Indeed, it is with the Wolfian theory that we
have chiefly to deal, and with the following bold hypothesis, which we
will detail in the words of Grote(24)--

"Half a century ago, the acute and valuable Prolegomena of F. A. Wolf,
turning to account the Venetian Scholia, which had then been recently
published, first opened philosophical discussion as to the history of the
Homeric text. A considerable part of that dissertation (though by no means
the whole) is employed in vindicating the position, previously announced
by Bentley, amongst others, that the separate constituent portions of the
Iliad and Odyssey had not been cemented together into any compact body and
unchangeable order, until the days of Peisistratus, in the sixth century
before Christ. As a step towards that conclusion, Wolf maintained that no
written copies of either poem could be shown to have existed during the
earlier times, to which their composition is referred; and that without
writing, neither the perfect symmetry of so complicated a work could have
been originally conceived by any poet, nor, if realized by him,
transmitted with assurance to posterity. The absence of easy and
convenient writing, such as must be indispensably supposed for long
manuscripts, among the early Greeks, was thus one of the points in Wolf's
case against the primitive integrity of the Iliad and Odyssey. By Nitzsch,
and other leading opponents of Wolf, the connection of the one with the
other seems to have been accepted as he originally put it; and it has been
considered incumbent on those who defended the ancient aggregate character
of the Iliad and Odyssey, to maintain that they were written poems from
the beginning.

"To me it appears, that the architectonic functions ascribed by Wolf to
Peisistratus and his associates, in reference to the Homeric poems, are
nowise admissible. But much would undoubtedly be gained towards that view
of the question, if it could be shown, that, in order to controvert it, we
were driven to the necessity of admitting long written poems, in the ninth
century before the Christian aera. Few things, in my opinion, can be more
improbable; and Mr. Payne Knight, opposed as he is to the Wolfian
hypothesis, admits this no less than Wolf himself. The traces of writing
in Greece, even in the seventh century before the Christian aera, are
exceedingly trifling. We have no remaining inscription earlier than the
fortieth Olympiad, and the early inscriptions are rude and unskilfully
executed; nor can we even assure ourselves whether Archilochus, Simonides
of Amorgus, Kallinus, Tyrtaeus, Xanthus, and the other early elegiac and
lyric poets, committed their compositions to writing, or at what time the
practice of doing so became familiar. The first positive ground which
authorizes us to presume the existence of a manuscript of Homer, is in the
famous ordinance of Solon, with regard to the rhapsodies at the
Panathenaea: but for what length of time previously manuscripts had
existed, we are unable to say.

"Those who maintain the Homeric poems to have been written from the
beginning, rest their case, not upon positive proofs, nor yet upon the
existing habits of society with regard to poetry--for they admit generally
that the Iliad and Odyssey were not read, but recited and heard,--but upon
the supposed necessity that there must have been manuscripts to ensure the
preservation of the poems--the unassisted memory of reciters being neither
sufficient nor trustworthy. But here we only escape a smaller difficulty
by running into a greater; for the existence of trained bards, gifted with
extraordinary memory, (25) is far less astonishing than that of long
manuscripts, in an age essentially non-reading and non-writing, and when
even suitable instruments and materials for the process are not obvious.
Moreover, there is a strong positive reason for believing that the bard
was under no necessity of refreshing his memory by consulting a
manuscript; for if such had been the fact, blindness would have been a
disqualification for the profession, which we know that it was not, as
well from the example of Demodokus, in the Odyssey, as from that of the
blind bard of Chios, in the Hymn to the Delian Apollo, whom Thucydides, as
well as the general tenor of Grecian legend, identifies with Homer
himself. The author of that hymn, be he who he may, could never have
described a blind man as attaining the utmost perfection in his art, if he
had been conscious that the memory of the bard was only maintained by
constant reference to the manuscript in his chest."

The loss of the digamma, that _crux_ of critics, that quicksand upon which
even the acumen of Bentley was shipwrecked, seems to prove beyond a doubt,
that the pronunciation of the Greek language had undergone a considerable
change. Now it is certainly difficult to suppose that the Homeric poems
could have suffered by this change, had written copies been preserved. If
Chaucer's poetry, for instance, had not been written, it could only have
come down to us in a softened form, more like the effeminate version of
Dryden, than the rough, quaint, noble original.

"At what period," continues Grote, "these poems, or indeed any other Greek
poems, first began to be written, must be matter of conjecture, though
there is ground for assurance that it was before the time of Solon. If, in
the absence of evidence, we may venture upon naming any more determinate
period, the question a once suggests itself, What were the purposes which,
in that state of society, a manuscript at its first commencement must have
been intended to answer? For whom was a written Iliad necessary? Not for
the rhapsodes; for with them it was not only planted in the memory, but
also interwoven with the feelings, and conceived in conjunction with all
those flexions and intonations of voice, pauses, and other oral artifices
which were required for emphatic delivery, and which the naked manuscript
could never reproduce. Not for the general public--they were accustomed to
receive it with its rhapsodic delivery, and with its accompaniments of a
solemn and crowded festival. The only persons for whom the written Iliad
would be suitable would be a select few; studious and curious men; a class
of readers capable of analyzing the complicated emotions which they had
experienced as hearers in the crowd, and who would, on perusing the
written words, realize in their imaginations a sensible portion of the
impression communicated by the reciter. Incredible as the statement may
seem in an age like the present, there is in all early societies, and
there was in early Greece, a time when no such reading class existed. If
we could discover at what time such a class first began to be formed, we
should be able to make a guess at the time when the old epic poems were
first committed to writing. Now the period which may with the greatest
probability be fixed upon as having first witnessed the formation even of
the narrowest reading class in Greece, is the middle of the seventh
century before the Christian aera (B.C. 660 to B.C. 630), the age of
Terpander, Kallinus, Archilochus, Simonides of Amorgus, &c. I ground this
supposition on the change then operated in the character and tendencies of
Grecian poetry and music--the elegiac and the iambic measures having been
introduced as rivals to the primitive hexameter, and poetical compositions
having been transferred from the epical past to the affairs of present and
real life. Such a change was important at a time when poetry was the only
known mode of publication (to use a modern phrase not altogether suitable,
yet the nearest approaching to the sense). It argued a new way of looking
at the old epical treasures of the people as well as a thirst for new
poetical effect; and the men who stood forward in it, may well be
considered as desirous to study, and competent to criticize, from their
own individual point of view, the written words of the Homeric rhapsodies,
just as we are told that Kallinus both noticed and eulogized the Thebais
as the production of Homer. There seems, therefore, ground for
conjecturing that (for the use of this newly-formed and important, but
very narrow class), manuscripts of the Homeric poems and other old
epics,--the Thebais and the Cypria, as well as the Iliad and the
Odyssey,--began to be compiled towards the middle of the seventh century
(B.C. 1); and the opening of Egypt to Grecian commerce, which took place
about the same period, would furnish increased facilities for obtaining
the requisite papyrus to write upon. A reading class, when once formed,
would doubtless slowly increase, and the number of manuscripts along with
it; so that before the time of Solon, fifty years afterwards, both readers
and manuscripts, though still comparatively few, might have attained a
certain recognized authority, and formed a tribunal of reference against
the carelessness of individual rhapsodes."(26)

But even Peisistratus has not been suffered to remain in possession of the
credit, and we cannot help feeling the force of the following
observations--


"There are several incidental circumstances which, in our opinion,
throw some suspicion over the whole history of the Peisistratid
compilation, at least over the theory, that the Iliad was cast
into its present stately and harmonious form by the directions of
the Athenian ruler. If the great poets, who flourished at the
bright period of Grecian song, of which, alas! we have inherited
little more than the fame, and the faint echo, if Stesichorus,
Anacreon, and Simonides were employed in the noble task of
compiling the Iliad and Odyssey, so much must have been done to
arrange, to connect, to harmonize, that it is almost incredible,
that stronger marks of Athenian manufacture should not remain.
Whatever occasional anomalies may be detected, anomalies which no
doubt arise out of our own ignorance of the language of the
Homeric age, however the irregular use of the digamma may have
perplexed our Bentleys, to whom the name of Helen is said to have
caused as much disquiet and distress as the fair one herself among
the heroes of her age, however Mr. Knight may have failed in
reducing the Homeric language to its primitive form; however,
finally, the Attic dialect may not have assumed all its more
marked and distinguishing characteristics--still it is difficult to
suppose that the language, particularly in the joinings and
transitions, and connecting parts, should not more clearly betray
the incongruity between the more ancient and modern forms of
expression. It is not quite in character with such a period to
imitate an antique style, in order to piece out an imperfect poem
in the character of the original, as Sir Walter Scott has done in
his continuation of Sir Tristram.

"If, however, not even such faint and indistinct traces of
Athenian compilation are discoverable in the language of the
poems, the total absence of Athenian national feeling is perhaps
no less worthy of observation. In later, and it may fairly be
suspected in earlier times, the Athenians were more than
ordinarily jealous of the fame of their ancestors. But, amid all
the traditions of the glories of early Greece embodied in the
Iliad, the Athenians play a most subordinate and insignificant
part. Even the few passages which relate to their ancestors, Mr.
Knight suspects to be interpolations. It is possible, indeed, that
in its leading outline, the Iliad may be true to historic fact,
that in the great maritime expedition of western Greece against
the rival and half-kindred empire of the Laomedontiadae, the
chieftain of Thessaly, from his valour and the number of his
forces, may have been the most important ally of the Peloponnesian
sovereign; the preeminent value of the ancient poetry on the
Trojan war may thus have forced the national feeling of the
Athenians to yield to their taste. The songs which spoke of their
own great ancestor were, no doubt, of far inferior sublimity and
popularity, or, at first sight, a Theseid would have been much
more likely to have emanated from an Athenian synod of compilers
of ancient song, than an Achilleid or an Olysseid. Could France
have given birth to a Tasso, Tancred would have been the hero of
the Jerusalem. If, however, the Homeric ballads, as they are
sometimes called, which related the wrath of Achilles, with all
its direful consequences, were so far superior to the rest of the
poetic cycle, as to admit no rivalry,--it is still surprising, that
throughout the whole poem the _callida junctura_ should never
betray the workmanship of an Athenian hand, and that the national
spirit of a race, who have at a later period not inaptly been
compared to our self admiring neighbours, the French, should
submit with lofty self denial to the almost total exclusion of
their own ancestors--or, at least, to the questionable dignity of
only having produced a leader tolerably skilled in the military
tactics of his age."(27)


To return to the Wolfian theory. While it is to be confessed, that Wolf's
objections to the primitive integrity of the Iliad and Odyssey have never
been wholly got over, we cannot help discovering that they have failed to
enlighten us as to any substantial point, and that the difficulties with
which the whole subject is beset, are rather augmented than otherwise, if
we admit his hypothesis. Nor is Lachmann's(28) modification of his theory
any better. He divides the first twenty-two books of the Iliad into
sixteen different songs, and treats as ridiculous the belief that their
amalgamation into one regular poem belongs to a period earlier than the
age of Peisistratus. This, as Grote observes, "explains the gaps and
contradictions in the narrative, but it explains nothing else." Moreover,
we find no contradictions warranting this belief, and the so-called
sixteen poets concur in getting rid of the following leading men in the
first battle after the secession of Achilles: Elphenor, chief of the
Euboeans; Tlepolemus, of the Rhodians; Pandarus, of the Lycians; Odius, of
the Halizonians; Pirous and Acamas, of the Thracians. None of these heroes
again make their appearance, and we can but agree with Colonel Mure, that
"it seems strange that any number of independent poets should have so
harmoniously dispensed with the services of all six in the sequel." The
discrepancy, by which Pylaemenes, who is represented as dead in the fifth
book, weeps at his son's funeral in the thirteenth, can only be regarded
as the result of an interpolation.

Grote, although not very distinct in stating his own opinions on the
subject, has done much to clearly show the incongruity of the Wolfian
theory, and of Lachmann's modifications with the character of
Peisistratus. But he has also shown, and we think with equal success, that
the two questions relative to the primitive unity of these poems, or,
supposing that impossible, the unison of these parts by Peisistratus, and
not before his time, are essentially distinct. In short, "a man may
believe the Iliad to have been put together out of pre-existing songs,
without recognising the age of Peisistratus as the period of its first
compilation." The friends or literary _employes_ of Peisistratus must have
found an Iliad that was already ancient, and the silence of the
Alexandrine critics respecting the Peisistratic "recension," goes far to
prove, that, among the numerous manuscripts they examined, this was either
wanting, or thought unworthy of attention.

"Moreover," he continues, "the whole tenor of the poems themselves
confirms what is here remarked. There is nothing, either in the Iliad or
Odyssey, which savours of modernism, applying that term to the age of
Peisistratus--nothing which brings to our view the alterations brought
about by two centuries, in the Greek language, the coined money, the
habits of writing and reading, the despotisms and republican governments,
the close military array, the improved construction of ships, the
Amphiktyonic convocations, the mutual frequentation of religious
festivals, the Oriental and Egyptian veins of religion, &c., familiar to
the latter epoch. These alterations Onomakritus, and the other literary
friends of Peisistratus, could hardly have failed to notice, even without
design, had they then, for the first time, undertaken the task of piecing
together many self existent epics into one large aggregate. Everything in
the two great Homeric poems, both in substance and in language, belongs to
an age two or three centuries earlier than Peisistratus. Indeed, even the
interpolations (or those passages which, on the best grounds, are
pronounced to be such) betray no trace of the sixth century before Christ,
and may well have been heard by Archilochus and Kallinus--in some cases
even by Arktinus and Hesiod--as genuine Homeric matter(29) As far as the
evidences on the case, as well internal as external, enable us to judge,
we seem warranted in believing that the Iliad and Odyssey were recited
substantially as they now stand (always allowing for paitial divergences
of text and interpolations) in 776 B.C., our first trustworthy mark of
Grecian time; and this ancient date, let it be added, as it is the
best-authenticated fact, so it is also the most important attribute of the
Homeric poems, considered in reference to Grecian history; for they thus
afford us an insight into the anti-historical character of the Greeks,
enabling us to trace the subsequent forward march of the nation, and to
seize instructive contrasts between their former and their later
condition."(30)

On the whole, I am inclined to believe, that the labours of Peisistratus
were wholly of an editorial character, although, I must confess, that I
can lay down nothing respecting the extent of his labours. At the same
time, so far from believing that the composition or primary arrangement of
these poems, in their present form, was the work of Peisistratus, I am
rather persuaded that the fine taste and elegant mind of that Athenian(31)
would lead him to preserve an ancient and traditional order of the poems,
rather than to patch and re-construct them according to a fanciful
hypothesis. I will not repeat the many discussions respecting whether the
poems were written or not, or whether the art of writing was known in the
time of their reputed author. Suffice it to say, that the more we read,
the less satisfied we are upon either subject.

I cannot, however, help thinking, that the story which attributes the
preservation of these poems to Lycurgus, is little else than a version of
the same story as that of Peisistratus, while its historical probability
must be measured by that of many others relating to the Spartan Confucius.

I will conclude this sketch of the Homeric theories, with an attempt, made
by an ingenious friend, to unite them into something like consistency. It
is as follows:--


"No doubt the common soldiers of that age had, like the common
sailors of some fifty years ago, some one qualified to 'discourse
in excellent music' among them. Many of these, like those of the
negroes in the United States, were extemporaneous, and allusive to
events passing around them. But what was passing around them? The
grand events of a spirit-stirring war; occurrences likely to
impress themselves, as the mystical legends of former times had
done, upon their memory; besides which, a retentive memory was
deemed a virtue of the first water, and was cultivated accordingly
in those ancient times. Ballads at first, and down to the
beginning of the war with Troy, were merely recitations, with an
intonation. Then followed a species of recitative, probably with
an intoned burden. Tune next followed, as it aided the memory
considerably.

"It was at this period, about four hundred years after the war,
that a poet flourished of the name of Melesigenes, or Moeonides,
but most probably the former. He saw that these ballads might be
made of great utility to his purpose of writing a poem on the
social position of Hellas, and, as a collection, he published
these lays, connecting them by a tale of his own. This poem now
exists, under the title of the 'Odyssea.' The author, however, did
not affix his own name to the poem, which, in fact, was, great
part of it, remodelled from the archaic dialect of Crete, in which
tongue the ballads were found by him. He therefore called it the
poem of Homeros, or the Collector; but this is rather a proof of
his modesty and talent, than of his mere drudging arrangement of
other people's ideas; for, as Grote has finely observed, arguing
for the unity of authorship, 'a great poet might have re-cast
pre-existing separate songs into one comprehensive whole; but no
mere arrangers or compilers would be competent to do so.'

"While employed on the wild legend of Odysseus, he met with a
ballad, recording the quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon. His noble
mind seized the hint that there presented itself, and the
Achilleis(32) grew under his hand. Unity of design, however,
caused him to publish the poem under the same pseudonyme as his
former work: and the disjointed lays of the ancient bards were
joined together, like those relating to the Cid, into a chronicle
history, named the Iliad. Melesigenes knew that the poem was
destined to be a lasting one, and so it has proved; but, first,
the poems were destined to undergo many vicissitudes and
corruptions, by the people who took to singing them in the
streets, assemblies, and agoras. However, Solon first, and then
Peisistratus, and afterwards Aristoteles and others, revised the
poems, and restored the works of Melesigenes Homeros to their
original integrity in a great measure."(33)


Having thus given some general notion of the strange theories which have
developed themselves respecting this most interesting subject, I must
still express my conviction as to the unity of the authorship of the
Homeric poems. To deny that many corruptions and interpolations disfigure
them, and that the intrusive hand of the poetasters may here and there
have inflicted a wound more serious than the negligence of the copyist,
would be an absurd and captious assumption, but it is to a higher
criticism that we must appeal, if we would either understand or enjoy
these poems. In maintaining the authenticity and personality of their one
author, be he Homer or Melesigenes, _quocunque nomine vocari eum jus
fasque sit,_ I feel conscious that, while the whole weight of historical
evidence is against the hypothesis which would assign these great works to
a plurality of authors, the most powerful internal evidence, and that
which springs from the deepest and most immediate impulse of the soul,
also speaks eloquently to the contrary.

The minutiae of verbal criticism I am far from seeking to despise. Indeed,
considering the character of some of my own books, such an attempt would
be gross inconsistency. But, while I appreciate its importance in a
philological view, I am inclined to set little store on its aesthetic
value, especially in poetry. Three parts of the emendations made upon
poets are mere alterations, some of which, had they been suggested to the
author by his Maecenas or Africanus, he would probably have adopted.
Moreover, those who are most exact in laying down rules of verbal
criticism and interpretation, are often least competent to carry out their
own precepts. Grammarians are not poets by profession, but may be so _per
accidens._ I do not at this moment remember two emendations on Homer,
calculated to substantially improve the poetry of a passage, although a
mass of remarks, from Herodotus down to Loewe, have given us the history
of a thousand minute points, without which our Greek knowledge would be
gloomy and jejune.

But it is not on words only that grammarians, mere grammarians, will
exercise their elaborate and often tiresome ingenuity. Binding down an
heroic or dramatic poet to the block upon which they have previously
dissected his words and sentences, they proceed to use the axe and the
pruning knife by wholesale, and inconsistent in everything but their wish
to make out a case of unlawful affiliation, they cut out book after book,
passage after passage, till the author is reduced to a collection of
fragments, or till those, who fancied they possessed the works of some
great man, find that they have been put off with a vile counterfeit got up
at second hand. If we compare the theories of Knight, Wolf, Lachmann, and
others, we shall feel better satisfied of the utter uncertainty of
criticism than of the apocryphal position of Homer. One rejects what
another considers the turning-point of his theory. One cuts a supposed
knot by expunging what another would explain by omitting something else.

Nor is this morbid species of sagacity by any means to be looked upon as a
literary novelty. Justus Lipsius, a scholar of no ordinary skill, seems to
revel in the imaginary discovery, that the tragedies attributed to Seneca
are by _four_ different authors.(34) Now, I will venture to assert, that
these tragedies are so uniform, not only in their borrowed phraseology--a
phraseology with which writers like Boethius and Saxo Grammaticus were
more charmed than ourselves--in their freedom from real poetry, and last,
but not least, in an ultra-refined and consistent abandonment of good
taste, that few writers of the present day would question the capabilities
of the same gentleman, be he Seneca or not, to produce not only these, but
a great many more equally bad. With equal sagacity, Father Hardouin
astonished the world with the startling announcement that the Æneid of
Virgil, and the satires of Horace, were literary deceptions. Now, without
wishing to say one word of disrespect against the industry and
learning--nay, the refined acuteness--which scholars, like Wolf, have
bestowed upon this subject, I must express my fears, that many of our
modern Homeric theories will become matter for the surprise and
entertainment, rather than the instruction, of posterity. Nor can I help
thinking, that the literary history of more recent times will account for
many points of difficulty in the transmission of the Iliad and Odyssey to
a period so remote from that of their first creation.

I have already expressed my belief that the labours of Peisistratus were
of a purely editorial character; and there seems no more reason why
corrupt and imperfect editions of Homer may not have been abroad in his
day, than that the poems of Valerius Flaccus and Tibullus should have
given so much trouble to Poggio, Scaliger, and others. But, after all, the
main fault in all the Homeric theories is, that they demand too great a
sacrifice of those feelings to which poetry most powerfully appeals, and
which are its most fitting judges. The ingenuity which has sought to rob
us of the name and existence of Homer, does too much violence to that
inward emotion, which makes our whole soul yearn with love and admiration
for the blind bard of Chios. To believe the author of the Iliad a mere
compiler, is to degrade the powers of human invention; to elevate
analytical judgment at the expense of the most ennobling impulses of the
soul; and to forget the ocean in the contemplation of a polypus. There is
a catholicity, so to speak, in the very name of Homer. Our faith in the
author of the Iliad may be a mistaken one, but as yet nobody has taught us
a better.

While, however, I look upon the belief in Homer as one that has nature
herself for its mainspring; while I can join with old Ennius in believing
in Homer as the ghost, who, like some patron saint, hovers round the bed
of the poet, and even bestows rare gifts from that wealth of imagination
which a host of imitators could not exhaust,--still I am far from wishing
to deny that the author of these great poems found a rich fund of
tradition, a well-stocked mythical storehouse from whence he might derive
both subject and embellishment. But it is one thing to _use_ existing
romances in the embellishment of a poem, another to patch up the poem
itself from such materials. What consistency of style and execution can be
hoped for from such an attempt? or, rather, what bad taste and tedium will
not be the infallible result?

A blending of popular legends, and a free use of the songs of other bards,
are features perfectly consistent with poetical originality. In fact, the
most original writer is still drawing upon outward impressions--nay, even
his own thoughts are a kind of secondary agents which support and feed the
impulses of imagination. But unless there be some grand pervading
principle--some invisible, yet most distinctly stamped archetypus of the
great whole, a poem like the Iliad can never come to the birth. Traditions
the most picturesque, episodes the most pathetic, local associations
teeming with the thoughts of gods and great men, may crowd in one mighty
vision, or reveal themselves in more substantial forms to the mind of the
poet; but, except the power to create a grand whole, to which these shall
be but as details and embellishments, be present, we shall have nought but
a scrap-book, a parterre filled with flowers and weeds strangling each
other in their wild redundancy: we shall have a cento of rags and tatters,
which will require little acuteness to detect.

Sensible as I am of the difficulty of disproving a negative, and aware as
I must be of the weighty grounds there are for opposing my belief, it
still seems to me that the Homeric question is one that is reserved for a
higher criticism than it has often obtained. We are not by nature intended
to know all things; still less, to compass the powers by which the
greatest blessings of life have been placed at our disposal. Were faith no
virtue, then we might indeed wonder why God willed our ignorance on any
matter. But we are too well taught the contrary lesson; and it seems as
though our faith should be especially tried touching the men and the
events which have wrought most influence upon the condition of humanity.
And there is a kind of sacredness attached to the memory of the great and
the good, which seems to bid us repulse the scepticism which would
allegorize their existence into a pleasing apologue, and measure the
giants of intellect by an homeopathic dynameter.

Long and habitual reading of Homer appears to familiarize our thoughts
even to his incongruities; or rather, if we read in a right spirit and
with a heartfelt appreciation, we are too much dazzled, too deeply wrapped
in admiration of the whole, to dwell upon the minute spots which mere
analysis can discover. In reading an heroic poem we must transform
ourselves into heroes of the time being, we in imagination must fight over
the same battles, woo the same loves, burn with the same sense of injury,
as an Achilles or a Hector. And if we can but attain this degree of
enthusiasm (and less enthusiasm will scarcely suffice for the reading of
Homer), we shall feel that the poems of Homer are not only the work of one
writer, but of the greatest writer that ever touched the hearts of men by
the power of song.

And it was this supposed unity of authorship which gave these poems their
powerful influence over the minds of the men of old. Heeren, who is
evidently little disposed in favour of modern theories, finely observes:--


"It was Homer who formed the character of the Greek nation. No
poet has ever, as a poet, exercised a similar influence over his
countrymen. Prophets, lawgivers, and sages have formed the
character of other nations; it was reserved to a poet to form that
of the Greeks. This is a feature in their character which was not
wholly erased even in the period of their degeneracy. When
lawgivers and sages appeared in Greece, the work of the poet had
already been accomplished; and they paid homage to his superior
genius. He held up before his nation the mirror, in which they
were to behold the world of gods and heroes no less than of feeble
mortals, and to behold them reflected with purity and truth. His
poems are founded on the first feeling of human nature; on the
love of children, wife, and country; on that passion which
outweighs all others, the love of glory. His songs were poured
forth from a breast which sympathized with all the feelings of
man; and therefore they enter, and will continue to enter, every
breast which cherishes the same sympathies. If it is granted to
his immortal spirit, from another heaven than any of which he
dreamed on earth, to look down on his race, to see the nations
from the fields of Asia to the forests of Hercynia, performing
pilgrimages to the fountain which his magic wand caused to flow;
if it is permitted to him to view the vast assemblage of grand, of
elevated, of glorious productions, which had been called into
being by means of his songs; wherever his immortal spirit may
reside, this alone would suffice to complete his happiness."(35)


Can we contemplate that ancient monument, on which the "Apotheosis of
Homer"(36) is depictured, and not feel how much of pleasing association,
how much that appeals most forcibly and most distinctly to our minds, is
lost by the admittance of any theory but our old tradition? The more we
read, and the more we think--think as becomes the readers of Homer,--the
more rooted becomes the conviction that the Father of Poetry gave us this
rich inheritance, whole and entire. Whatever were the means of its
preservation, let us rather be thankful for the treasury of taste and
eloquence thus laid open to our use, than seek to make it a mere centre
around which to drive a series of theories, whose wildness is only
equalled by their inconsistency with each other.

As the hymns, and some other poems usually ascribed to Homer, are not
included in Pope's translation, I will content myself with a brief account
of the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, from the pen of a writer who has done
it full justice(37):--


"This poem," says Coleridge, "is a short mock-heroic of ancient
date. The text varies in different editions, and is obviously
disturbed and corrupt to a great degree; it is commonly said to
have been a juvenile essay of Homer's genius; others have
attributed it to the same Pigrees, mentioned above, and whose
reputation for humour seems to have invited the appropriation of
any piece of ancient wit, the author of which was uncertain; so
little did the Greeks, before the age of the Ptolemies, know or
care about that department of criticism employed in determining
the genuineness of ancient writings. As to this little poem being
a youthful prolusion of Homer, it seems sufficient to say that
from the beginning to the end it is a plain and palpable parody,
not only of the general spirit, but of the numerous passages of
the Iliad itself; and even, if no such intention to parody were
discernible in it, the objection would still remain, that to
suppose a work of mere burlesque to be the primary effort of
poetry in a simple age, seems to reverse that order in the
development of national taste, which the history of every other
people in Europe, and of many in Asia, has almost ascertained to
be a law of the human mind; it is in a state of society much more
refined and permanent than that described in the Iliad, that any
popularity would attend such a ridicule of war and the gods as is
contained in this poem; and the fact of there having existed three
other poems of the same kind attributed, for aught we can see,
with as much reason to Homer, is a strong inducement to believe
that none of them were of the Homeric age. Knight infers from the
usage of the word deltos, "writing tablet," instead of diphthera,
"skin," which, according to Herod. 5, 58, was the material
employed by the Asiatic Greeks for that purpose, that this poem
was another offspring of Attic ingenuity; and generally that the
familiar mention of the cock (v. 191) is a strong argument against
so ancient a date for its composition."


Having thus given a brief account of the poems comprised in Pope's design,
I will now proceed to make a few remarks on his translation, and on my own
purpose in the present edition.

Pope was not a Grecian. His whole education had been irregular, and his
earliest acquaintance with the poet was through the version of Ogilby. It
is not too much to say that his whole work bears the impress of a
disposition to be satisfied with the general sense, rather than to dive
deeply into the minute and delicate features of language. Hence his whole
work is to be looked upon rather as an elegant paraphrase than a
translation. There are, to be sure, certain conventional anecdotes, which
prove that Pope consulted various friends, whose classical attainments
were sounder than his own, during the undertaking; but it is probable that
these examinations were the result rather of the contradictory versions
already existing, than of a desire to make a perfect transcript of the
original. And in those days, what is called literal translation was less
cultivated than at present. If something like the general sense could be
decorated with the easy gracefulness of a practised poet; if the charms of
metrical cadence and a pleasing fluency could be made consistent with a
fair interpretation of the poet's meaning, his _words_ were less jealously
sought for, and those who could read so good a poem as Pope's Iliad had
fair reason to be satisfied.

It would be absurd, therefore, to test Pope's translation by our own
advancing knowledge of the original text. We must be content to look at it
as a most delightful work in itself,--a work which is as much a part of
English literature as Homer himself is of Greek. We must not be torn from
our kindly associations with the old Iliad, that once was our most
cherished companion, or our most looked-for prize, merely because
Buttmann, Loewe, and Liddell have made us so much more accurate as to
amphikupellon being an adjective, and not a substantive. Far be it from us
to defend the faults of Pope, especially when we think of Chapman's fine,
bold, rough old English;--far be it from, us to hold up his translation as
what a translation of Homer _might_ be. But we can still dismiss Pope's
Iliad to the hands of our readers, with the consciousness that they must
have read a very great number of books before they have read its fellow.

As to the Notes accompanying the present volume, they are drawn up without
pretension, and mainly with the view of helping the general reader. Having
some little time since translated all the works of Homer for another
publisher, I might have brought a large amount of accumulated matter,
sometimes of a critical character, to bear upon the text. But Pope's
version was no field for such a display; and my purpose was to touch
briefly on antiquarian or mythological allusions, to notice occasionally
_some_ departures from the original, and to give a few parallel passages
from our English Homer, Milton. In the latter task I cannot pretend to
novelty, but I trust that my other annotations, while utterly disclaiming
high scholastic views, will be found to convey as much as is wanted; at
least, as far as the necessary limits of these volumes could be expected
to admit. To write a commentary on Homer is not my present aim; but if I
have made Pope's translation a little more entertaining and instructive to
a mass of miscellaneous readers, I shall consider my wishes satisfactorily
accomplished.

THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY.

_Christ Church._





POPE'S PREFACE TO THE ILIAD OF HOMER


Homer is universally allowed to have had the greatest invention of any
writer whatever. The praise of judgment Virgil has justly contested with
him, and others may have their pretensions as to particular excellences;
but his invention remains yet unrivalled. Nor is it a wonder if he has
ever been acknowledged the greatest of poets, who most excelled in that
which is the very foundation of poetry. It is the invention that, in
different degrees, distinguishes all great geniuses: the utmost stretch of
human study, learning, and industry, which masters everything besides, can
never attain to this. It furnishes art with all her materials, and without
it judgment itself can at best but "steal wisely:" for art is only like a
prudent steward that lives on managing the riches of nature. Whatever
praises may be given to works of judgment, there is not even a single
beauty in them to which the invention must not contribute: as in the most
regular gardens, art can only reduce beauties of nature to more
regularity, and such a figure, which the common eye may better take in,
and is, therefore, more entertained with. And, perhaps, the reason why
common critics are inclined to prefer a judicious and methodical genius to
a great and fruitful one, is, because they find it easier for themselves
to pursue their observations through a uniform and bounded walk of art,
than to comprehend the vast and various extent of nature.

Our author's work is a wild paradise, where, if we cannot see all the
beauties so distinctly as in an ordered garden, it is only because the
number of them is infinitely greater. It is like a copious nursery, which
contains the seeds and first productions of every kind, out of which those
who followed him have but selected some particular plants, each according
to his fancy, to cultivate and beautify. If some things are too luxuriant
it is owing to the richness of the soil; and if others are not arrived to
perfection or maturity, it is only because they are overrun and oppressed
by those of a stronger nature.

It is to the strength of this amazing invention we are to attribute that
unequalled fire and rapture which is so forcible in Homer, that no man of
a true poetical spirit is master of himself while he reads him. What he
writes is of the most animated nature imaginable; every thing moves, every
thing lives, and is put in action. If a council be called, or a battle
fought, you are not coldly informed of what was said or done as from a
third person; the reader is hurried out of himself by the force of the
poet's imagination, and turns in one place to a hearer, in another to a
spectator. The course of his verses resembles that of the army he
describes,

Hoid' ar' isan hosei te puri chthon pasa nemoito.

"They pour along like a fire that sweeps the whole earth before it." It
is, however, remarkable, that his fancy, which is everywhere vigorous, is
not discovered immediately at the beginning of his poem in its fullest
splendour: it grows in the progress both upon himself and others, and
becomes on fire, like a chariot-wheel, by its own rapidity. Exact
disposition, just thought, correct elocution, polished numbers, may have
been found in a thousand; but this poetic fire, this "vivida vis animi,"
in a very few. Even in works where all those are imperfect or neglected,
this can overpower criticism, and make us admire even while we disapprove.
Nay, where this appears, though attended with absurdities, it brightens
all the rubbish about it, till we see nothing but its own splendour. This
fire is discerned in Virgil, but discerned as through a glass, reflected
from Homer, more shining than fierce, but everywhere equal and constant:
in Lucan and Statius it bursts out in sudden, short, and interrupted
flashes: In Milton it glows like a furnace kept up to an uncommon ardour
by the force of art: in Shakspeare it strikes before we are aware, like an
accidental fire from heaven: but in Homer, and in him only, it burns
everywhere clearly and everywhere irresistibly.

I shall here endeavour to show how this vast invention exerts itself in a
manner superior to that of any poet through all the main constituent parts
of his work: as it is the great and peculiar characteristic which
distinguishes him from all other authors.

This strong and ruling faculty was like a powerful star, which, in the
violence of its course, drew all things within its vortex. It seemed not
enough to have taken in the whole circle of arts, and the whole compass of
nature, to supply his maxims and reflections; all the inward passions and
affections of mankind, to furnish his characters: and all the outward
forms and images of things for his descriptions: but wanting yet an ampler
sphere to expatiate in, he opened a new and boundless walk for his
imagination, and created a world for himself in the invention of fable.
That which Aristotle calls "the soul of poetry," was first breathed into
it by Homer, I shall begin with considering him in his part, as it is
naturally the first; and I speak of it both as it means the design of a
poem, and as it is taken for fiction.

Fable may be divided into the probable, the allegorical, and the
marvellous. The probable fable is the recital of such actions as, though
they did not happen, yet might, in the common course of nature; or of such
as, though they did, became fables by the additional episodes and manner
of telling them. Of this sort is the main story of an epic poem, "The
return of Ulysses, the settlement of the Trojans in Italy," or the like.
That of the Iliad is the "anger of Achilles," the most short and single
subject that ever was chosen by any poet. Yet this he has supplied with a
vaster variety of incidents and events, and crowded with a greater number
of councils, speeches, battles, and episodes of all kinds, than are to be
found even in those poems whose schemes are of the utmost latitude and
irregularity. The action is hurried on with the most vehement spirit, and
its whole duration employs not so much as fifty days. Virgil, for want of
so warm a genius, aided himself by taking in a more extensive subject, as
well as a greater length of time, and contracting the design of both
Homer's poems into one, which is yet but a fourth part as large as his.
The other epic poets have used the same practice, but generally carried it
so far as to superinduce a multiplicity of fables, destroy the unity of
action, and lose their readers in an unreasonable length of time. Nor is
it only in the main design that they have been unable to add to his
invention, but they have followed him in every episode and part of story.
If he has given a regular catalogue of an army, they all draw up their
forces in the same order. If he has funeral games for Patroclus, Virgil
has the same for Anchises, and Statius (rather than omit them) destroys
the unity of his actions for those of Archemorus. If Ulysses visit the
shades, the Æneas of Virgil and Scipio of Silius are sent after him. If he
be detained from his return by the allurements of Calypso, so is Æneas by
Dido, and Rinaldo by Armida. If Achilles be absent from the army on the
score of a quarrel through half the poem, Rinaldo must absent himself just
as long on the like account. If he gives his hero a suit of celestial
armour, Virgil and Tasso make the same present to theirs. Virgil has not
only observed this close imitation of Homer, but, where he had not led the
way, supplied the want from other Greek authors. Thus the story of Sinon,
and the taking of Troy, was copied (says Macrobius) almost word for word
from Pisander, as the loves of Dido and Æneas are taken from those of
Medea and Jason in Apollonius, and several others in the same manner.

To proceed to the allegorical fable--If we reflect upon those innumerable
knowledges, those secrets of nature and physical philosophy which Homer is
generally supposed to have wrapped up in his allegories, what a new and
ample scene of wonder may this consideration afford us! How fertile will
that imagination appear, which as able to clothe all the properties of
elements, the qualifications of the mind, the virtues and vices, in forms
and persons, and to introduce them into actions agreeable to the nature of
the things they shadowed! This is a field in which no succeeding poets
could dispute with Homer, and whatever commendations have been allowed
them on this head, are by no means for their invention in having enlarged
his circle, but for their judgment in having contracted it. For when the
mode of learning changed in the following ages, and science was delivered
in a plainer manner, it then became as reasonable in the more modern poets
to lay it aside, as it was in Homer to make use of it. And perhaps it was
no unhappy circumstance for Virgil, that there was not in his time that
demand upon him of so great an invention as might be capable of furnishing
all those allegorical parts of a poem.

The marvellous fable includes whatever is supernatural, and especially the
machines of the gods. If Homer was not the first who introduced the
deities (as Herodotus imagines) into the religion of Greece, he seems the
first who brought them into a system of machinery for poetry, and such a
one as makes its greatest importance and dignity: for we find those
authors who have been offended at the literal notion of the gods,
constantly laying their accusation against Homer as the chief support of
it. But whatever cause there might be to blame his machines in a
philosophical or religious view, they are so perfect in the poetic, that
mankind have been ever since contented to follow them: none have been able
to enlarge the sphere of poetry beyond the limits he has set: every
attempt of this nature has proved unsuccessful; and after all the various
changes of times and religions, his gods continue to this day the gods of
poetry.

We come now to the characters of his persons; and here we shall find no
author has ever drawn so many, with so visible and surprising a variety,
or given us such lively and affecting impressions of them. Every one has
something so singularly his own, that no painter could have distinguished
them more by their features, than the poet has by their manners. Nothing
can be more exact than the distinctions he has observed in the different
degrees of virtues and vices. The single quality of courage is wonderfully
diversified in the several characters of the Iliad. That of Achilles is
furious and intractable; that of Diomede forward, yet listening to advice,
and subject to command; that of Ajax is heavy and self-confiding; of
Hector, active and vigilant: the courage of Agamemnon is inspirited by
love of empire and ambition; that of Menelaus mixed with softness and
tenderness for his people: we find in Idomeneus a plain direct soldier; in
Sarpedon a gallant and generous one. Nor is this judicious and astonishing
diversity to be found only in the principal quality which constitutes the
main of each character, but even in the under parts of it, to which he
takes care to give a tincture of that principal one. For example: the main
characters of Ulysses and Nestor consist in wisdom; and they are distinct
in this, that the wisdom of one is artificial and various, of the other
natural, open, and regular. But they have, besides, characters of courage;
and this quality also takes a different turn in each from the difference
of his prudence; for one in the war depends still upon caution, the other
upon experience. It would be endless to produce instances of these kinds.
The characters of Virgil are far from striking us in this open manner;
they lie, in a great degree, hidden and undistinguished; and, where they
are marked most evidently affect us not in proportion to those of Homer.
His characters of valour are much alike; even that of Turnus seems no way
peculiar, but, as it is, in a superior degree; and we see nothing that
differences the courage of Mnestheus from that of Sergestus, Cloanthus, or
the rest, In like manner it may be remarked of Statius's heroes, that an
air of impetuosity runs through them all; the same horrid and savage
courage appears in his Capaneus, Tydeus, Hippomedon, &c. They have a
parity of character, which makes them seem brothers of one family. I
believe when the reader is led into this tract of reflection, if he will
pursue it through the epic and tragic writers, he will be convinced how
infinitely superior, in this point, the invention of Homer was to that of
all others.

The speeches are to be considered as they flow from the characters; being
perfect or defective as they agree or disagree with the manners, of those
who utter them. As there is more variety of characters in the Iliad, so
there is of speeches, than in any other poem. "Everything in it has
manner" (as Aristotle expresses it), that is, everything is acted or
spoken. It is hardly credible, in a work of such length, how small a
number of lines are employed in narration. In Virgil the dramatic part is
less in proportion to the narrative, and the speeches often consist of
general reflections or thoughts, which might be equally just in any
person's mouth upon the same occasion. As many of his persons have no
apparent characters, so many of his speeches escape being applied and
judged by the rule of propriety. We oftener think of the author himself
when we read Virgil, than when we are engaged in Homer, all which are the
effects of a colder invention, that interests us less in the action
described. Homer makes us hearers, and Virgil leaves us readers.

If, in the next place, we take a view of the sentiments, the same
presiding faculty is eminent in the sublimity and spirit of his thoughts.
Longinus has given his opinion, that it was in this part Homer principally
excelled. What were alone sufficient to prove the grandeur and excellence
of his sentiments in general, is, that they have so remarkable a parity
with those of the Scripture. Duport, in his Gnomologia Homerica, has
collected innumerable instances of this sort. And it is with justice an
excellent modern writer allows, that if Virgil has not so many thoughts
that are low and vulgar, he has not so many that are sublime and noble;
and that the Roman author seldom rises into very astonishing sentiments
where he is not fired by the Iliad.

If we observe his descriptions, images, and similes, we shall find the
invention still predominant. To what else can we ascribe that vast
comprehension of images of every sort, where we see each circumstance of
art, and individual of nature, summoned together by the extent and
fecundity of his imagination to which all things, in their various views
presented themselves in an instant, and had their impressions taken off to
perfection at a heat? Nay, he not only gives us the full prospects of
things, but several unexpected peculiarities and side views, unobserved by
any painter but Homer. Nothing is so surprising as the descriptions of his
battles, which take up no less than half the Iliad, and are supplied with
so vast a variety of incidents, that no one bears a likeness to another;
such different kinds of deaths, that no two heroes are wounded in the same
manner, and such a profusion of noble ideas, that every battle rises above
the last in greatness, horror, and confusion. It is certain there is not
near that number of images and descriptions in any epic poet, though every
one has assisted himself with a great quantity out of him; and it is
evident of Virgil especially, that he has scarce any comparisons which are
not drawn from his master.

If we descend from hence to the expression, we see the bright imagination
of Homer shining out in the most enlivened forms of it. We acknowledge him
the father of poetical diction; the first who taught that "language of the
gods" to men. His expression is like the colouring of some great masters,
which discovers itself to be laid on boldly, and executed with rapidity.
It is, indeed, the strongest and most glowing imaginable, and touched with
the greatest spirit. Aristotle had reason to say, he was the only poet who
had found out "living words;" there are in him more daring figures and
metaphors than in any good author whatever. An arrow is "impatient" to be
on the wing, a weapon "thirsts" to drink the blood of an enemy, and the
like, yet his expression is never too big for the sense, but justly great
in proportion to it. It is the sentiment that swells and fills out the
diction, which rises with it, and forms itself about it, for in the same
degree that a thought is warmer, an expression will be brighter, as that
is more strong, this will become more perspicuous; like glass in the
furnace, which grows to a greater magnitude, and refines to a greater
clearness, only as the breath within is more powerful, and the heat more
intense.

To throw his language more out of prose, Homer seems to have affected the
compound epithets. This was a sort of composition peculiarly proper to
poetry, not only as it heightened the diction, but as it assisted and
filled the numbers with greater sound and pomp, and likewise conduced in
some measure to thicken the images. On this last consideration I cannot
but attribute these also to the fruitfulness of his invention, since (as
he has managed them) they are a sort of supernumerary pictures of the
persons or things to which they were joined. We see the motion of Hector's
plumes in the epithet Korythaiolos, the landscape of Mount Neritus in that
of Einosiphyllos, and so of others, which particular images could not have
been insisted upon so long as to express them in a description (though but
of a single line) without diverting the reader too much from the principal
action or figure. As a metaphor is a short simile, one of these epithets
is a short description.

Lastly, if we consider his versification, we shall be sensible what a
share of praise is due to his invention in that also. He was not satisfied
with his language as he found it settled in any one part of Greece, but
searched through its different dialects with this particular view, to
beautify and perfect his numbers he considered these as they had a greater
mixture of vowels or consonants, and accordingly employed them as the
verse required either a greater smoothness or strength. What he most
affected was the Ionic, which has a peculiar sweetness, from its never
using contractions, and from its custom of resolving the diphthongs into
two syllables, so as to make the words open themselves with a more
spreading and sonorous fluency. With this he mingled the Attic
contractions, the broader Doric, and the feebler Æolic, which often
rejects its aspirate, or takes off its accent, and completed this variety
by altering some letters with the licence of poetry. Thus his measures,
instead of being fetters to his sense, were always in readiness to run
along with the warmth of his rapture, and even to give a further
representation of his notions, in the correspondence of their sounds to
what they signified. Out of all these he has derived that harmony which
makes us confess he had not only the richest head, but the finest ear in
the world. This is so great a truth, that whoever will but consult the
tune of his verses, even without understanding them (with the same sort of
diligence as we daily see practised in the case of Italian operas), will
find more sweetness, variety, and majesty of sound, than in any other
language of poetry. The beauty of his numbers is allowed by the critics to
be copied but faintly by Virgil himself, though they are so just as to
ascribe it to the nature of the Latin tongue: indeed the Greek has some
advantages both from the natural sound of its words, and the turn and
cadence of its verse, which agree with the genius of no other language.
Virgil was very sensible of this, and used the utmost diligence in working
up a more intractable language to whatsoever graces it was capable of,
and, in particular, never failed to bring the sound of his line to a
beautiful agreement with its sense. If the Grecian poet has not been so
frequently celebrated on this account as the Roman, the only reason is,
that fewer critics have understood one language than the other. Dionysius
of Halicarnassus has pointed out many of our author's beauties in this
kind, in his treatise of the Composition of Words. It suffices at present
to observe of his numbers, that they flow with so much ease, as to make
one imagine Homer had no other care than to transcribe as fast as the
Muses dictated, and, at the same time, with so much force and inspiriting
vigour, that they awaken and raise us like the sound of a trumpet. They
roll along as a plentiful river, always in motion, and always full; while
we are borne away by a tide of verse, the most rapid, and yet the most
smooth imaginable.

Thus on whatever side we contemplate Homer, what principally strikes us is
his invention. It is that which forms the character of each part of his
work; and accordingly we find it to have made his fable more extensive and
copious than any other, his manners more lively and strongly marked, his
speeches more affecting and transported, his sentiments more warm and
sublime, his images and descriptions more full and animated, his
expression more raised and daring, and his numbers more rapid and various.
I hope, in what has been said of Virgil, with regard to any of these
heads, I have no way derogated from his character. Nothing is more absurd
or endless, than the common method of comparing eminent writers by an
opposition of particular passages in them, and forming a judgment from
thence of their merit upon the whole. We ought to have a certain knowledge
of the principal character and distinguishing excellence of each: it is in
that we are to consider him, and in proportion to his degree in that we
are to admire him. No author or man ever excelled all the world in more
than one faculty; and as Homer has done this in invention, Virgil has in
judgment. Not that we are to think that Homer wanted judgment, because
Virgil had it in a more eminent degree; or that Virgil wanted invention,
because Homer possessed a larger share of it; each of these great authors
had more of both than perhaps any man besides, and are only said to have
less in comparison with one another. Homer was the greater genius, Virgil
the better artist. In one we most admire the man, in the other the work.
Homer hurries and transports us with a commanding impetuosity; Virgil
leads us with an attractive majesty; Homer scatters with a generous
profusion; Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence; Homer, like the
Nile, pours out his riches with a boundless overflow; Virgil, like a river
in its banks, with a gentle and constant stream. When we behold their
battles, methinks the two poets resemble the heroes they celebrate. Homer,
boundless and resistless as Achilles, bears all before him, and shines
more and more as the tumult increases; Virgil, calmly daring, like Æneas,
appears undisturbed in the midst of the action; disposes all about him,
and conquers with tranquillity. And when we look upon their machines,
Homer seems like his own Jupiter in his terrors, shaking Olympus,
scattering the lightnings, and firing the heavens: Virgil, like the same
power in his benevolence, counselling with the gods, laying plans for
empires, and regularly ordering his whole creation.

But after all, it is with great parts, as with great virtues, they
naturally border on some imperfection; and it is often hard to distinguish
exactly where the virtue ends, or the fault begins. As prudence may
sometimes sink to suspicion, so may a great judgment decline to coldness;
and as magnanimity may run up to profusion or extravagance, so may a great
invention to redundancy or wildness. If we look upon Homer in this view,
we shall perceive the chief objections against him to proceed from so
noble a cause as the excess of this faculty.

Among these we may reckon some of his marvellous fictions, upon which so
much criticism has been spent, as surpassing all the bounds of
probability. Perhaps it may be with great and superior souls, as with
gigantic bodies, which, exerting themselves with unusual strength, exceed
what is commonly thought the due proportion of parts, to become miracles
in the whole; and, like the old heroes of that make, commit something near
extravagance, amidst a series of glorious and inimitable performances.
Thus Homer has his "speaking horses;" and Virgil his "myrtles distilling
blood;" where the latter has not so much as contrived the easy
intervention of a deity to save the probability.

It is owing to the same vast invention, that his similes have been thought
too exuberant and full of circumstances. The force of this faculty is seen
in nothing more, than in its inability to confine itself to that single
circumstance upon which the comparison is grounded: it runs out into
embellishments of additional images, which, however, are so managed as not
to overpower the main one. His similes are like pictures, where the
principal figure has not only its proportion given agreeable to the
original, but is also set off with occasional ornaments and prospects. The
same will account for his manner of heaping a number of comparisons
together in one breath, when his fancy suggested to him at once so many
various and correspondent images. The reader will easily extend this
observation to more objections of the same kind.

If there are others which seem rather to charge him with a defect or
narrowness of genius, than an excess of it, those seeming defects will be
found upon examination to proceed wholly from the nature of the times he
lived in. Such are his grosser representations of the gods; and the
vicious and imperfect manners of his heroes; but I must here speak a word
of the latter, as it is a point generally carried into extremes, both by
the censurers and defenders of Homer. It must be a strange partiality to
antiquity, to think with Madame Dacier,(38) "that those times and manners
are so much the more excellent, as they are more contrary to ours." Who
can be so prejudiced in their favour as to magnify the felicity of those
ages, when a spirit of revenge and cruelty, joined with the practice of
rapine and robbery, reigned through the world: when no mercy was shown but
for the sake of lucre; when the greatest princes were put to the sword,
and their wives and daughters made slaves and concubines? On the other
side, I would not be so delicate as those modern critics, who are shocked
at the servile offices and mean employments in which we sometimes see the
heroes of Homer engaged. There is a pleasure in taking a view of that
simplicity, in opposition to the luxury of succeeding ages: in beholding
monarchs without their guards; princes tending their flocks, and
princesses drawing water from the springs. When we read Homer, we ought to
reflect that we are reading the most ancient author in the heathen world;
and those who consider him in this light, will double their pleasure in
the perusal of him. Let them think they are growing acquainted with
nations and people that are now no more; that they are stepping almost
three thousand years back into the remotest antiquity, and entertaining
themselves with a clear and surprising vision of things nowhere else to be
found, the only true mirror of that ancient world. By this means alone
their greatest obstacles will vanish; and what usually creates their
dislike, will become a satisfaction.

This consideration may further serve to answer for the constant use of the
same epithets to his gods and heroes; such as the "far-darting Phoebus,"
the "blue-eyed Pallas," the "swift-footed Achilles," &c., which some have
censured as impertinent, and tediously repeated. Those of the gods
depended upon the powers and offices then believed to belong to them; and
had contracted a weight and veneration from the rites and solemn devotions
in which they were used: they were a sort of attributes with which it was
a matter of religion to salute them on all occasions, and which it was an
irreverence to omit. As for the epithets of great men, Mons. Boileau is of
opinion, that they were in the nature of surnames, and repeated as such;
for the Greeks having no names derived from their fathers, were obliged to
add some other distinction of each person; either naming his parents
expressly, or his place of birth, profession, or the like: as Alexander
the son of Philip, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Diogenes the Cynic, &c.
Homer, therefore, complying with the custom of his country, used such
distinctive additions as better agreed with poetry. And, indeed, we have
something parallel to these in modern times, such as the names of Harold
Harefoot, Edmund Ironside, Edward Longshanks, Edward the Black Prince, &c.
If yet this be thought to account better for the propriety than for the
repetition, I shall add a further conjecture. Hesiod, dividing the world
into its different ages, has placed a fourth age, between the brazen and
the iron one, of "heroes distinct from other men; a divine race who fought
at Thebes and Troy, are called demi-gods, and live by the care of Jupiter
in the islands of the blessed." Now among the divine honours which were
paid them, they might have this also in common with the gods, not to be
mentioned without the solemnity of an epithet, and such as might be
acceptable to them by celebrating their families, actions or qualities.

What other cavils have been raised against Homer, are such as hardly
deserve a reply, but will yet be taken notice of as they occur in the
course of the work. Many have been occasioned by an injudicious endeavour
to exalt Virgil; which is much the same, as if one should think to raise
the superstructure by undermining the foundation: one would imagine, by
the whole course of their parallels, that these critics never so much as
heard of Homer's having written first; a consideration which whoever
compares these two poets ought to have always in his eye. Some accuse him
for the same things which they overlook or praise in the other; as when
they prefer the fable and moral of the Æneis to those of the Iliad, for
the same reasons which might set the Odyssey above the Æneis; as that the
hero is a wiser man, and the action of the one more beneficial to his
country than that of the other; or else they blame him for not doing what
he never designed; as because Achilles is not as good and perfect a prince
as Æneas, when the very moral of his poem required a contrary character:
it is thus that Rapin judges in his comparison of Homer and Virgil. Others
select those particular passages of Homer which are not so laboured as
some that Virgil drew out of them: this is the whole management of
Scaliger in his Poetics. Others quarrel with what they take for low and
mean expressions, sometimes through a false delicacy and refinement,
oftener from an ignorance of the graces of the original, and then triumph
in the awkwardness of their own translations: this is the conduct of
Perrault in his Parallels. Lastly, there are others, who, pretending to a
fairer proceeding, distinguish between the personal merit of Homer, and
that of his work; but when they come to assign the causes of the great
reputation of the Iliad, they found it upon the ignorance of his times,
and the prejudice of those that followed: and in pursuance of this
principle, they make those accidents (such as the contention of the
cities, &c.) to be the causes of his fame, which were in reality the
consequences of his merit. The same might as well be said of Virgil, or
any great author whose general character will infallibly raise many casual
additions to their reputation. This is the method of Mons. de la Mott; who
yet confesses upon the whole that in whatever age Homer had lived, he must
have been the greatest poet of his nation, and that he may be said in his
sense to be the master even of those who surpassed him.(39)

In all these objections we see nothing that contradicts his title to the
honour of the chief invention: and as long as this (which is indeed the
characteristic of poetry itself) remains unequalled by his followers, he
still continues superior to them. A cooler judgment may commit fewer
faults, and be more approved in the eyes of one sort of critics: but that
warmth of fancy will carry the loudest and most universal applauses which
holds the heart of a reader under the strongest enchantment. Homer not
only appears the inventor of poetry, but excels all the inventors of other
arts, in this, that he has swallowed up the honour of those who succeeded
him. What he has done admitted no increase, it only left room for
contraction or regulation. He showed all the stretch of fancy at once; and
if he has failed in some of his flights, it was but because he attempted
everything. A work of this kind seems like a mighty tree, which rises from
the most vigorous seed, is improved with industry, flourishes, and
produces the finest fruit: nature and art conspire to raise it; pleasure
and profit join to make it valuable: and they who find the justest faults,
have only said that a few branches which run luxuriant through a richness
of nature, might be lopped into form to give it a more regular appearance.

Having now spoken of the beauties and defects of the original, it remains
to treat of the translation, with the same view to the chief
characteristic. As far as that is seen in the main parts of the poem, such
as the fable, manners, and sentiments, no translator can prejudice it but
by wilful omissions or contractions. As it also breaks out in every
particular image, description, and simile, whoever lessens or too much
softens those, takes off from this chief character. It is the first grand
duty of an interpreter to give his author entire and unmaimed; and for the
rest, the diction and versification only are his proper province, since
these must be his own, but the others he is to take as he finds them.

It should then be considered what methods may afford some equivalent in
our language for the graces of these in the Greek. It is certain no
literal translation can be just to an excellent original in a superior
language: but it is a great mistake to imagine (as many have done) that a
rash paraphrase can make amends for this general defect; which is no less
in danger to lose the spirit of an ancient, by deviating into the modern
manners of expression. If there be sometimes a darkness, there is often a
light in antiquity, which nothing better preserves than a version almost
literal. I know no liberties one ought to take, but those which are
necessary to transfusing the spirit of the original, and supporting the
poetical style of the translation: and I will venture to say, there have
not been more men misled in former times by a servile, dull adherence to
the letter, than have been deluded in ours by a chimerical, insolent hope
of raising and improving their author. It is not to be doubted, that the
fire of the poem is what a translator should principally regard, as it is
most likely to expire in his managing: however, it is his safest way to be
content with preserving this to his utmost in the whole, without
endeavouring to be more than he finds his author is, in any particular
place. It is a great secret in writing, to know when to be plain, and when
poetical and figurative; and it is what Homer will teach us, if we will
but follow modestly in his footsteps. Where his diction is bold and lofty,
let us raise ours as high as we can; but where his is plain and humble, we
ought not to be deterred from imitating him by the fear of incurring the
censure of a mere English critic. Nothing that belongs to Homer seems to
have been more commonly mistaken than the just pitch of his style: some of
his translators having swelled into fustian in a proud confidence of the
sublime; others sunk into flatness, in a cold and timorous notion of
simplicity. Methinks I see these different followers of Homer, some
sweating and straining after him by violent leaps and bounds (the certain
signs of false mettle), others slowly and servilely creeping in his train,
while the poet himself is all the time proceeding with an unaffected and
equal majesty before them. However, of the two extremes one could sooner
pardon frenzy than frigidity; no author is to be envied for such
commendations, as he may gain by that character of style, which his
friends must agree together to call simplicity, and the rest of the world
will call dulness. There is a graceful and dignified simplicity, as well
as a bold and sordid one; which differ as much from each other as the air
of a plain man from that of a sloven: it is one thing to be tricked up,
and another not to be dressed at all. Simplicity is the mean between
ostentation and rusticity.

This pure and noble simplicity is nowhere in such perfection as in the
Scripture and our author. One may affirm, with all respect to the inspired
writings, that the Divine Spirit made use of no other words but what were
intelligible and common to men at that time, and in that part of the
world; and, as Homer is the author nearest to those, his style must of
course bear a greater resemblance to the sacred books than that of any
other writer. This consideration (together with what has been observed of
the parity of some of his thoughts) may, methinks, induce a translator, on
the one hand, to give in to several of those general phrases and manners
of expression, which have attained a veneration even in our language from
being used in the Old Testament; as, on the other, to avoid those which
have been appropriated to the Divinity, and in a manner consigned to
mystery and religion.

For a further preservation of this air of simplicity, a particular care
should be taken to express with all plainness those moral sentences and
proverbial speeches which are so numerous in this poet. They have
something venerable, and as I may say, oracular, in that unadorned gravity
and shortness with which they are delivered: a grace which would be
utterly lost by endeavouring to give them what we call a more ingenious
(that is, a more modern) turn in the paraphrase.

Perhaps the mixture of some Graecisms and old words after the manner of
Milton, if done without too much affectation, might not have an ill effect
in a version of this particular work, which most of any other seems to
require a venerable, antique cast. But certainly the use of modern terms
of war and government, such as "platoon, campaign, junto," or the like,
(into which some of his translators have fallen) cannot be allowable;
those only excepted without which it is impossible to treat the subjects
in any living language.

There are two peculiarities in Homer's diction, which are a sort of marks
or moles by which every common eye distinguishes him at first sight; those
who are not his greatest admirers look upon them as defects, and those who
are, seemed pleased with them as beauties. I speak of his compound
epithets, and of his repetitions. Many of the former cannot be done
literally into English without destroying the purity of our language. I
believe such should be retained as slide easily of themselves into an
English compound, without violence to the ear or to the received rules of
composition, as well as those which have received a sanction from the
authority of our best poets, and are become familiar through their use of
them; such as "the cloud-compelling Jove," &c. As for the rest, whenever
any can be as fully and significantly expressed in a single word as in a
compounded one, the course to be taken is obvious.

Some that cannot be so turned, as to preserve their full image by one or
two words, may have justice done them by circumlocution; as the epithet
einosiphyllos to a mountain, would appear little or ridiculous translated
literally "leaf-shaking," but affords a majestic idea in the periphrasis:
"the lofty mountain shakes his waving woods." Others that admit of
different significations, may receive an advantage from a judicious
variation, according to the occasions on which they are introduced. For
example, the epithet of Apollo, hekaebolos or "far-shooting," is capable
of two explications; one literal, in respect of the darts and bow, the
ensigns of that god; the other allegorical, with regard to the rays of the
sun; therefore, in such places where Apollo is represented as a god in
person, I would use the former interpretation; and where the effects of
the sun are described, I would make choice of the latter. Upon the whole,
it will be necessary to avoid that perpetual repetition of the same
epithets which we find in Homer, and which, though it might be
accommodated (as has been already shown) to the ear of those times, is by
no means so to ours: but one may wait for opportunities of placing them,
where they derive an additional beauty from the occasions on which they
are employed; and in doing this properly, a translator may at once show
his fancy and his judgment.

As for Homer's repetitions, we may divide them into three sorts: of whole
narrations and speeches, of single sentences, and of one verse or
hemistitch. I hope it is not impossible to have such a regard to these, as
neither to lose so known a mark of the author on the one hand, nor to
offend the reader too much on the other. The repetition is not ungraceful
in those speeches, where the dignity of the speaker renders it a sort of
insolence to alter his words; as in the messages from gods to men, or from
higher powers to inferiors in concerns of state, or where the ceremonial
of religion seems to require it, in the solemn forms of prayers, oaths, or
the like. In other cases, I believe the best rule is, to be guided by the
nearness, or distance, at which the repetitions are placed in the
original: when they follow too close, one may vary the expression; but it
is a question, whether a professed translator be authorized to omit any:
if they be tedious, the author is to answer for it.

It only remains to speak of the versification. Homer (as has been said) is
perpetually applying the sound to the sense, and varying it on every new
subject. This is indeed one of the most exquisite beauties of poetry, and
attainable by very few: I only know of Homer eminent for it in the Greek,
and Virgil in the Latin. I am sensible it is what may sometimes happen by
chance, when a writer is warm, and fully possessed of his image: however,
it may reasonably be believed they designed this, in whose verse it so
manifestly appears in a superior degree to all others. Few readers have
the ear to be judges of it: but those who have, will see I have
endeavoured at this beauty.

Upon the whole, I must confess myself utterly incapable of doing justice
to Homer. I attempt him in no other hope but that which one may entertain
without much vanity, of giving a more tolerable copy of him than any
entire translation in verse has yet done. We have only those of Chapman,
Hobbes, and Ogilby. Chapman has taken the advantage of an immeasurable
length of verse, notwithstanding which, there is scarce any paraphrase
more loose and rambling than his. He has frequent interpolations of four
or six lines; and I remember one in the thirteenth book of the Odyssey,
ver. 312, where he has spun twenty verses out of two. He is often mistaken
in so bold a manner, that one might think he deviated on purpose, if he
did not in other places of his notes insist so much upon verbal trifles.
He appears to have had a strong affectation of extracting new meanings out
of his author; insomuch as to promise, in his rhyming preface, a poem of
the mysteries he had revealed in Homer; and perhaps he endeavoured to
strain the obvious sense to this end. His expression is involved in
fustian; a fault for which he was remarkable in his original writings, as
in the tragedy of Bussy d'Amboise, &c. In a word, the nature of the man
may account for his whole performance; for he appears, from his preface
and remarks, to have been of an arrogant turn, and an enthusiast in
poetry. His own boast, of having finished half the Iliad in less than
fifteen weeks, shows with what negligence his version was performed. But
that which is to be allowed him, and which very much contributed to cover
his defects, is a daring fiery spirit that animates his translation, which
is something like what one might imagine Homer himself would have writ
before he arrived at years of discretion.

Hobbes has given us a correct explanation of the sense in general; but for
particulars and circumstances he continually lops them, and often omits
the most beautiful. As for its being esteemed a close translation, I doubt
not many have been led into that error by the shortness of it, which
proceeds not from his following the original line by line, but from the
contractions above mentioned. He sometimes omits whole similes and
sentences; and is now and then guilty of mistakes, into which no writer of
his learning could have fallen, but through carelessness. His poetry, as
well as Ogilby's, is too mean for criticism.

It is a great loss to the poetical world that Mr. Dryden did not live to
translate the Iliad. He has left us only the first book, and a small part
of the sixth; in which if he has in some places not truly interpreted the
sense, or preserved the antiquities, it ought to be excused on account of
the haste he was obliged to write in. He seems to have had too much regard
to Chapman, whose words he sometimes copies, and has unhappily followed
him in passages where he wanders from the original. However, had he
translated the whole work, I would no more have attempted Homer after him
than Virgil: his version of whom (notwithstanding some human errors) is
the most noble and spirited translation I know in any language. But the
fate of great geniuses is like that of great ministers: though they are
confessedly the first in the commonwealth of letters, they must be envied
and calumniated only for being at the head of it.

That which, in my opinion, ought to be the endeavour of any one who
translates Homer, is above all things to keep alive that spirit and fire
which makes his chief character: in particular places, where the sense can
bear any doubt, to follow the strongest and most poetical, as most
agreeing with that character; to copy him in all the variations of his
style, and the different modulations of his numbers; to preserve, in the
more active or descriptive parts, a warmth and elevation; in the more
sedate or narrative, a plainness and solemnity; in the speeches, a fulness
and perspicuity; in the sentences, a shortness and gravity; not to neglect
even the little figures and turns on the words, nor sometimes the very
cast of the periods; neither to omit nor confound any rites or customs of
antiquity: perhaps too he ought to include the whole in a shorter compass
than has hitherto been done by any translator who has tolerably preserved
either the sense or poetry. What I would further recommend to him is, to
study his author rather from his own text, than from any commentaries, how
learned soever, or whatever figure they may make in the estimation of the
world; to consider him attentively in comparison with Virgil above all the
ancients, and with Milton above all the moderns. Next these, the
Archbishop of Cambray's Telemachus may give him the truest idea of the
spirit and turn of our author; and Bossu's admirable Treatise of the Epic
Poem the justest notion of his design and conduct. But after all, with
whatever judgment and study a man may proceed, or with whatever happiness
he may perform such a work, he must hope to please but a few; those only
who have at once a taste of poetry, and competent learning. For to satisfy
such a want either, is not in the nature of this undertaking; since a mere
modern wit can like nothing that is not modern, and a pedant nothing that
is not Greek.

What I have done is submitted to the public; from whose opinions I am
prepared to learn; though I fear no judges so little as our best poets,
who are most sensible of the weight of this task. As for the worst,
whatever they shall please to say, they may give me some concern as they
are unhappy men, but none as they are malignant writers. I was guided in
this translation by judgments very different from theirs, and by persons
for whom they can have no kindness, if an old observation be true, that
the strongest antipathy in the world is that of fools to men of wit. Mr.
Addison was the first whose advice determined me to undertake this task;
who was pleased to write to me upon that occasion in such terms as I
cannot repeat without vanity. I was obliged to Sir Richard Steele for a
very early recommendation of my undertaking to the public. Dr. Swift
promoted my interest with that warmth with which he always serves his
friend. The humanity and frankness of Sir Samuel Garth are what I never
knew wanting on any occasion. I must also acknowledge, with infinite
pleasure, the many friendly offices, as well as sincere criticisms, of Mr.
Congreve, who had led me the way in translating some parts of Homer. I
must add the names of Mr. Rowe, and Dr. Parnell, though I shall take a
further opportunity of doing justice to the last, whose good nature (to
give it a great panegyric), is no less extensive than his learning. The
favour of these gentlemen is not entirely undeserved by one who bears them
so true an affection. But what can I say of the honour so many of the
great have done me; while the first names of the age appear as my
subscribers, and the most distinguished patrons and ornaments of learning
as my chief encouragers? Among these it is a particular pleasure to me to
find, that my highest obligations are to such who have done most honour to
the name of poet: that his grace the Duke of Buckingham was not displeased
I should undertake the author to whom he has given (in his excellent
Essay), so complete a praise:

"Read Homer once, and you can read no more;
For all books else appear so mean, so poor,
Verse will seem prose: but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the books you need."

That the Earl of Halifax was one of the first to favour me; of whom it is
hard to say whether the advancement of the polite arts is more owing to
his generosity or his example: that such a genius as my Lord Bolingbroke,
not more distinguished in the great scenes of business, than in all the
useful and entertaining parts of learning, has not refused to be the
critic of these sheets, and the patron of their writer: and that the noble
author of the tragedy of "Heroic Love" has continued his partiality to me,
from my writing pastorals to my attempting the Iliad. I cannot deny myself
the pride of confessing, that I have had the advantage not only of their
advice for the conduct in general, but their correction of several
particulars of this translation.

I could say a great deal of the pleasure of being distinguished by the
Earl of Carnarvon; but it is almost absurd to particularize any one
generous action in a person whose whole life is a continued series of
them. Mr. Stanhope, the present secretary of state, will pardon my desire
of having it known that he was pleased to promote this affair. The
particular zeal of Mr. Harcourt (the son of the late Lord Chancellor) gave
me a proof how much I am honoured in a share of his friendship. I must
attribute to the same motive that of several others of my friends: to whom
all acknowledgments are rendered unnecessary by the privileges of a
familiar correspondence; and I am satisfied I can no way better oblige men
of their turn than by my silence.

In short, I have found more patrons than ever Homer wanted. He would have
thought himself happy to have met the same favour at Athens that has been
shown me by its learned rival, the University of Oxford. And I can hardly
envy him those pompous honours he received after death, when I reflect on
the enjoyment of so many agreeable obligations, and easy friendships,
which make the satisfaction of life. This distinction is the more to be
acknowledged, as it is shown to one whose pen has never gratified the
prejudices of particular parties, or the vanities of particular men.
Whatever the success may prove, I shall never repent of an undertaking in
which I have experienced the candour and friendship of so many persons of
merit; and in which I hope to pass some of those years of youth that are
generally lost in a circle of follies, after a manner neither wholly
unuseful to others, nor disagreeable to myself.






THE ILIAD.





BOOK I.


ARGUMENT.(40)

THE CONTENTION OF ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON.

In the war of Troy, the Greeks having sacked some of the neighbouring
towns, and taken from thence two beautiful captives, Chryseis and Briseis,
allotted the first to Agamemnon, and the last to Achilles. Chryses, the
father of Chryseis, and priest of Apollo, comes to the Grecian camp to
ransom her; with which the action of the poem opens, in the tenth year of
the siege. The priest being refused, and insolently dismissed by
Agamemnon, entreats for vengeance from his god; who inflicts a pestilence
on the Greeks. Achilles calls a council, and encourages Chalcas to declare
the cause of it; who attributes it to the refusal of Chryseis. The king,
being obliged to send back his captive, enters into a furious contest with
Achilles, which Nestor pacifies; however, as he had the absolute command
of the army, he seizes on Briseis in revenge. Achilles in discontent
withdraws himself and his forces from the rest of the Greeks; and
complaining to Thetis, she supplicates Jupiter to render them sensible of
the wrong done to her son, by giving victory to the Trojans. Jupiter,
granting her suit, incenses Juno: between whom the debate runs high, till
they are reconciled by the address of Vulcan.

The time of two-and-twenty days is taken up in this book: nine during the
plague, one in the council and quarrel of the princes, and twelve for
Jupiter's stay with the Æthiopians, at whose return Thetis prefers her
petition. The scene lies in the Grecian camp, then changes to Chrysa, and
lastly to Olympus.

Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumber'd, heavenly goddess, sing!
That wrath which hurl'd to Pluto's gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain;
Whose limbs unburied on the naked shore,
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore.(41)
Since great Achilles and Atrides strove,
Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove!(42)

Declare, O Muse! in what ill-fated hour(43)
Sprung the fierce strife, from what offended power
Latona's son a dire contagion spread,(44)
And heap'd the camp with mountains of the dead;
The king of men his reverent priest defied,(45)
And for the king's offence the people died.

For Chryses sought with costly gifts to gain
His captive daughter from the victor's chain.
Suppliant the venerable father stands;
Apollo's awful ensigns grace his hands
By these he begs; and lowly bending down,
Extends the sceptre and the laurel crown
He sued to all, but chief implored for grace
The brother-kings, of Atreus' royal race(46)

"Ye kings and warriors! may your vows be crown'd,
And Troy's proud walls lie level with the ground.
May Jove restore you when your toils are o'er
Safe to the pleasures of your native shore.
But, oh! relieve a wretched parent's pain,
And give Chryseis to these arms again;
If mercy fail, yet let my presents move,
And dread avenging Phoebus, son of Jove."

The Greeks in shouts their joint assent declare,
The priest to reverence, and release the fair.
Not so Atrides; he, with kingly pride,
Repulsed the sacred sire, and thus replied:

"Hence on thy life, and fly these hostile plains,
Nor ask, presumptuous, what the king detains
Hence, with thy laurel crown, and golden rod,
Nor trust too far those ensigns of thy god.
Mine is thy daughter, priest, and shall remain;
And prayers, and tears, and bribes, shall plead in vain;
Till time shall rifle every youthful grace,
And age dismiss her from my cold embrace,
In daily labours of the loom employ'd,
Or doom'd to deck the bed she once enjoy'd
Hence then; to Argos shall the maid retire,
Far from her native soil and weeping sire."

[Illustration: HOMER INVOKING THE MUSE.]

HOMER INVOKING THE MUSE.


The trembling priest along the shore return'd,
And in the anguish of a father mourn'd.
Disconsolate, not daring to complain,
Silent he wander'd by the sounding main;
Till, safe at distance, to his god he prays,
The god who darts around the world his rays.

"O Smintheus! sprung from fair Latona's line,(47)
Thou guardian power of Cilla the divine,(48)
Thou source of light! whom Tenedos adores,
And whose bright presence gilds thy Chrysa's shores.
If e'er with wreaths I hung thy sacred fane,(49)
Or fed the flames with fat of oxen slain;
God of the silver bow! thy shafts employ,
Avenge thy servant, and the Greeks destroy."

Thus Chryses pray'd.--the favouring power attends,
And from Olympus' lofty tops descends.
Bent was his bow, the Grecian hearts to wound;(50)
Fierce as he moved, his silver shafts resound.
Breathing revenge, a sudden night he spread,
And gloomy darkness roll'd about his head.
The fleet in view, he twang'd his deadly bow,
And hissing fly the feather'd fates below.
On mules and dogs the infection first began;(51)
And last, the vengeful arrows fix'd in man.
For nine long nights, through all the dusky air,
The pyres, thick-flaming, shot a dismal glare.
But ere the tenth revolving day was run,
Inspired by Juno, Thetis' godlike son
Convened to council all the Grecian train;
For much the goddess mourn'd her heroes slain.(52)
The assembly seated, rising o'er the rest,
Achilles thus the king of men address'd:

"Why leave we not the fatal Trojan shore,
And measure back the seas we cross'd before?
The plague destroying whom the sword would spare,
'Tis time to save the few remains of war.
But let some prophet, or some sacred sage,
Explore the cause of great Apollo's rage;
Or learn the wasteful vengeance to remove
By mystic dreams, for dreams descend from Jove.(53)
If broken vows this heavy curse have laid,
Let altars smoke, and hecatombs be paid.
So Heaven, atoned, shall dying Greece restore,
And Phoebus dart his burning shafts no more."

He said, and sat: when Chalcas thus replied;
Chalcas the wise, the Grecian priest and guide,
That sacred seer, whose comprehensive view,
The past, the present, and the future knew:
Uprising slow, the venerable sage
Thus spoke the prudence and the fears of age:

"Beloved of Jove, Achilles! would'st thou know
Why angry Phoebus bends his fatal bow?
First give thy faith, and plight a prince's word
Of sure protection, by thy power and sword:
For I must speak what wisdom would conceal,
And truths, invidious to the great, reveal,
Bold is the task, when subjects, grown too wise,
Instruct a monarch where his error lies;
For though we deem the