The Iliad of Homer - Homer
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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.
AESCULAPIUS.
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 AEolia, was, at an early
period, the seat of frequent immigrations from various parts of Greece.
Among the immigrants was Menapolus, the son of Ithagenes. Although poor,
he married, and the result of the union was a girl named Critheis. The
girl was left an orphan at an early age, under the guardianship of
Cleanax, of Argos. It is to the indiscretion of this maiden that we "are
indebted for so much happiness." Homer was the first fruit of her juvenile
frailty, and received the name of Melesigenes, from having been born near
the river Meles, in Boeotia, whither Critheis had been transported in
order to save her reputation.
"At this time," continues our narrative, "there lived at Smyrna a man
named Phemius, a teacher of literature and music, who, not being married,
engaged Critheis to manage his household, and spin the flax he received as
the price of his scholastic labours. So satisfactory was her performance
of this task, and so modest her conduct, that he made proposals of
marriage, declaring himself, as a further inducement, willing to adopt her
son, who, he asserted, would become a clever man, if he were carefully
brought up."
They were married; careful cultivation ripened the talents which nature
had bestowed, and Melesigenes soon surpassed his schoolfellows in every
attainment, and, when older, rivalled his preceptor in wisdom. Phemius
died, leaving him sole heir to his property, and his mother soon followed.
Melesigenes carried on his adopted father's school with great success,
exciting the admiration not only of the inhabitants of Smyrna, but also of
the strangers whom the trade carried on there, especially in the
exportation of corn, attracted to that city. Among these visitors, one
Mentes, from Leucadia, the modern Santa Maura, who evinced a knowledge and
intelligence rarely found in those times, persuaded Melesigenes to close
his school, and accompany him on his travels. He promised not only to pay
his expenses, but to furnish him with a further stipend, urging, that,
"While he was yet young, it was fitting that he should see with his own
eyes the countries and cities which might hereafter be the subjects of his
discourses." Melesigenes consented, and set out with his patron,
"examining all the curiosities of the countries they visited, and
informing himself of everything by interrogating those whom he met." We
may also suppose, that he wrote memoirs of all that he deemed worthy of
preservation(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.