grammatical forms. Nothing is more difficult than to assign
the degree of weight to be given to such facts. The difference
of subject between the two poems is so great that it leads to
the most striking differences of detail, especially in the vocabulary.
For instance, the word φόβος, which in Homer means
“flight in battle” (not “fear”), occurs thirty-nine times in
the Iliad, and only once in the Odyssey; but then there are
no battles in the Odyssey. Again, the verb ῥήγνυμι, “to
break,” occurs forty-eight times in the Iliad, and once in
the Odyssey,—the reason being that it is constantly used of
breaking the armour of an enemy, the gate of a city, the hostile
ranks, &c. Once more, the word σκότος, “darkness,” occurs
fourteen times in the Iliad, once in the Odyssey. But in every
one of the fourteen places it is used of “darkness” coming
over the sight of a fallen warrior. On the other side, if words
such as ἀσάμινθος, “a bath,” χέρνιψ, “a basin for the hands,”
λέσχη, “a place to meet and talk,” &c., are peculiar to the
Odyssey, we have only to remember that the scene in the Iliad
is hardly ever laid within any walls except those of a tent.
These examples will show that mere statistics of the occurrence
of words prove little, and that we must begin by looking to the
subject and character of each poem. When we do so, we at
once find ourselves in the presence of differences of the broadest
kind. The Iliad is much more historical in tone and character.
The scene of the poem is a real place, and the poet sings (as
Ulysses says of Demodocus) as though he had been present
himself, or had heard from one who had been. The supernatural
element is confined to an interference of the gods, which to the
common eye hardly disturbs the natural current of affairs.
The Odyssey, on the contrary, is full of the magical and romantic—“speciosa
miracula,” as Horace called them. Moreover, these
marvels—which in their original form are doubtless as old as
anything in the Iliad, since in fact they are part of the vast
stock of popular tales (Märchen) diffused all over the world—are
mixed up in the Odyssey with the heroes of the Trojan war.
This has been especially noticed in the case of the story of
Polyphemus, one that is found in many countries, and in versions
which cannot all be derived from Homer. W. Grimm has pointed
out that the behaviour of Ulysses in that story is senseless and
foolhardy, utterly beneath the wise and much-enduring Ulysses
of the Trojan war. The reason is simple; he is not the Ulysses
of the Trojan war, but a being of the same world as Polyphemus
himself—the world of giants and ogres. The question then is—How
long must the name of Ulysses have been familiar in the
legend (Sage) of Troy before it made its way into the tales of
giants and ogres (Märchen), where the poet of the Odyssey
found it?
Again, the Trojan legend has itself received some extension between the time of the Iliad and that of the Odyssey. The story of the Wooden Horse is not only unknown to the Iliad, but is of a kind which we can hardly imagine the poet of the Iliad admitting. The part taken by Neoptolemus seems also to be a later addition. The tendency to amplify and complete the story shows itself still more in the Cyclic poets. Between the Iliad and these poets the Odyssey often occupies an intermediate position.
This great and significant change in the treatment of the heroic legends is accompanied by numerous minor differences (such as the ancients remarked) in belief, in manners and institutions, and in language. These differences bear out the inference that the Odyssey is of a later age. The progress of reflection is especially shown in the higher ideas entertained regarding the gods. The turbulent Olympian court has almost disappeared. Zeus has acquired the character of a supreme moral ruler; and although Athena and Poseidon are adverse influences in the poem, the notion of a direct contest between them is scrupulously avoided. The advance of morality is shown in the more frequent use of terms such as “just” (δίκαιος), “piety” (ὁσίη), “insolence” (ὕβρις), “god-fearing” (θεουδής), “pure” (ἁγνός); and also in the plot of the story, which is distinctly a contest between right and wrong. In matters bearing upon the arts of life it is unsafe to press the silence of the Iliad. We may note, however, the difference between the house of Priam, surrounded by distinct dwellings for his many sons and daughters, and the houses of Ulysses and Alcinous, with many chambers under a single roof. The singer, too, who is so prominent a figure in the Odyssey can hardly be thought to be absent from the Iliad merely because the scene is laid in a camp.
Style of Homer.—A few words remain to be said on the style and general character of the Homeric poems, and on the comparisons which may be made between Homer and analogous poetry in other countries.
The cardinal qualities of the style of Homer have been pointed out once for all by Matthew Arnold. “The translator of Homer,” he says, “should above all be penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his author—that he is eminently rapid; that he is eminently plain and direct, both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his words; that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought, that is, in his matter and ideas; and, finally, that he is eminently noble” (On Translating Homer, p. 9).
The peculiar rapidity of Homer is due in great measure to his use of the hexameter verse. It is characteristic of early literature that the evolution of the thought—that is, the grammatical form of the sentence—is guided by the structure of the verse; and the correspondence which consequently obtains between the rhythm and the grammar—the thought being given out in lengths, as it were, and these again divided by tolerably uniform pauses—produces a swift flowing movement, such as is rarely found when the periods have been constructed without direct reference to the metre. That Homer possesses this rapidity without falling into the corresponding faults—that is, without becoming either “jerky” or monotonous—is perhaps the best proof of his unequalled poetical skill. The plainness and directness, both of thought and of expression, which characterize Homer were doubtless qualities of his age; but the author of the Iliad (like Voltaire, to whom Arnold happily compares him) must have possessed the national gift in a surpassing degree. The Odyssey is in this respect perceptibly below the level of the Iliad.
Rapidity or ease of movement, plainness of expression and plainness of thought, these are not the distinguishing qualities of the great epic poets—Virgil, Dante, Milton. On the contrary, they belong rather to the humbler epico-lyrical school for which Homer has been so often claimed. The proof that Homer does not belong to that school—that his poetry is not in any true sense “ballad-poetry”—is furnished by the higher artistic structure of his poems (already discussed), and as regards style by the fourth of the qualities distinguished by Arnold—the quality of nobleness. It is his noble and powerful style, sustained through every change of idea and subject, that finally separates Homer from all forms of “ballad-poetry” and “popular epic.”[1]
But while we are on our guard against a once common error, we may recognize the historical connexion between the Iliad and Odyssey and the “ballad” literature which undoubtedly preceded them in Greece. It may even be admitted that the swift-flowing movement, and the simplicity of thought and style, which we admire in the Iliad are an inheritance from the earlier “lays”—the κλέα ἀνδρῶν such as Achilles and Patroclus sang to the lyre in their tent. Even the metre—the hexameter verse—may be assigned to them. But between these lays and Homer we must place the cultivation of epic poetry as an art.[2] The pre-Homeric lays doubtless furnished the elements of such a poetry—the alphabet, so to speak, of the art; but they must have been refined and transmuted before they formed poems like the Iliad and Odyssey.
A single example will illustrate this. In the scene on the walls of Troy, in the third book of the Iliad, after Helen has pointed out Agamemnon, Ulysses and Ajax in answer to Priam’s
- ↑ “As a poet Homer must be acknowledged to excel Shakespeare in the truth, the harmony, the sustained grandeur, the satisfying completeness of his images” (Shelley, Essays, &c., i. 51, ed. 1852).
- ↑ “The old English balladist may stir Sir Philip Sidney’s heart like a trumpet, and this is much; but Homer, but the few artists in the grand style, can do more—they can refine the raw natural man, they can transmute him” (On Translating Homer, p. 61).
