GIFT or Dr. Ifery Taylor HOMER'S ILIAD. WITH PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF THE FOUR LITERARY BIBLES. A COMMENTARY. BY DENTON i ,S"iN:ID.ER. ST. LOUIS, MO.: Sigma. ruisi.isiiiNO Co., 210 I'iue Street. (For Bale by A. C. McClurg & Co., BooksellerR, Chicago. III.) Entered according to Act of Congress, Bt D. J. SNIDER, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. la th^ year 1897. n;o'% CONTEJSTTS. Preliminary Survey of the Four Literary Bibles i-lxxvi Chap. I. The Eternal vs. the Ephemeral in Writing . . . i-xiii Chap. II. Literary Bibles . . xiii-Iii Chap. \\l. Orient and Occident lii-lxxvi Introduction to Homer 5-117 The Two Worlds in Homer — Upper and Lower 9-11 The Lower World iind its Conflicts 12-50 The Upper World and its Divisions 50-81 Homeric Ori<.nns 81-88 Homericlnterpretation .... 89-115 Invocation 115-117 -'50437 CONTENTS. Contents and Structure of the Iliad. I. First Wrath and Keconciliatioii of Achilles 118-441 1. Achilles in the Right — Books I-IX .... 118-353 2. Achilles in the Wrong — Books IX-XVIII . . . 353-422 3. Achilles Reconciled with the Leader — Books XVIII-XIX .... 423-441 II. Second Wrath and Recon- ciliation OF Achilles . . 442-484 \\ Achilles in the Right — Books XII-XXII . . . 442-458 2. Achilles in the Wrong — Books XXII-XXIV . . 45!»-471 3. Achilles Reconciled with the Trojans — Book XXIV . 471-484 Appendix 485-504 PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF THE FOUR LITERARY BIBLES. CHAP. I. THE ETEBNAL VS. THE EPHEMERAL. This survey we shall now send forth in advance of the detailed series of Commentaries, the object being to give to the reader an outlook over the field of Universal Literature in its highest products, which we shall call Literary Bibles. Two fundamental tendencies of the Written Word can be distinguished, which distinction may be taken as the starting-point, indicating to us, on the one hand, what is lasting, and on the other, what is transitory, in the realm of Letters. Thus takes place the most striking and signifi- cant fact in all writing, the grand bifurcation of the stream into tiik Etekxal Record of the Eternal and the Ephemeral Record of the (i) li PRELIMINARY SURVEY. Ephemeral. The one extreme culminates in Bibles of the World, the other in the modern nevvs[)aper. Between these two extremes lie the Fates of the Written Word. I. We have inherited a vast amount of writing from the ages, and the quantity is increasing every day. A selection has to be made, we cannot possibly read it all : in some way the best of it must be sifted out for us, if we are to know what is most excellent in Letters. Nor is this the iinality; when the choice has been made and we have before us what is best, it must be read and understood in a new way; it is not to be perused as an article in the last magazine, but requires an altogether different method of read- ing. The best books, to be adequately mastered, demand the best moments of the spirit working at its best. There are a good many signs at the present time that a fresh interest is beginning to be felt in Literature, that is, in Literature as the en- during record of what endures in this grand discipline of ours, called Human Life. Of ephemeral writing, the record of the moment, we are certainly having enough; it has its place, but it must be kept in its place, and not be allowed to throw the world of Letters into chaos. Our newspaper, multiplying by thousands and tens of thousands, has become the most fleeting object in this fleeting world of appearances; once it PEELIMINABY SURVEY. m lasted a week, more recently a clay, but in its latest form it holds out but the fragment of a day ; apparently it must continue the process till it be chopped up into the infinite divisibility of Time. With its briefness of life, its character changes; the shorter its stay, the more brightly it seeks to sport its wings in the sunshine ; it becomes the gay, the short-lived butterfly whose existence is hardly more than a rapid streak of wild color flashing into nothingness. The whole tribe of butterflies vie with one another by gaudy tints and wide-expanding wings — these wings are always expanding wider and wider — to catch the distracted gaze of the public in a momentary flutter. The newspaper is indeed the child of the age and the fitting symbol there- of, the biggest bubble of the printed kind ever yet seen floating on the surface of the time- stream. The magazine is a little more solid than the newspaper, and seeks to maintain a monthly existence at least, often very precarious; still it seems to live in mortal terror of any writ of enduring value, and openly proclaims that the supreme peril of authorship is that of writing above the heads and not beneath the feet of the reader. Our novel, too, is chiefly engaged in chasing the butterfly, often catches him, and pins him down in the cabinet, there to remain for a while ; bnt this butterfly also soon dies, and. iv PBELIMINARY SURVEY. with colors faded, with brilliant scales brushed off or lying scattered about upon the floor, has, in his turn, to be swept out of doors into the rubbish heap. Such is the image of our changeful, variegated existence, reflected back to us in its most tran- sient tints by those three shifting mirrors, the newspaper, the magazine, and the novel. But in this world of fleeting appearances, is there nothing permanent, which seeks to cast its image too? Is there in us nothing of an enduring nature which longs to find utterance? We may fairlv consider it an advantage of our time over former times, that we have changeful ness itself set before us every day, like a death's head ; that we are compelled to see all the variations o'f human caprice, petty and monstrous, of our own neighborhood as well as of the entire earth ; that we, too, the humblest, must behold all the acci- dental bubbles, little and big, of the time-stream in its daily flow round the globe. It is a strange, strong lesson ; still, this froth of the time-stream put into writing is not Literature, and must not be allowed to usurp the name and function of Literature. Another demand is now growing loud, and must be heard ; indeed, it has never quite died out of the human breast, which in some trying moment will anxiously exclaim : Where is the writ that endureth, that both show- eth to man and hath in itself life everlasting? PEELIMINARY SURVEY. V If this transitory phase be all that there is in writing, then man himself is nought more, is the butterfly of a day, is, but the bubble bursting on the surface of the time-stream. We, then, have no real quarrel with the news- paper, but would acknowledge it gratefully in its field; besides, we wish to keep on good terms with it, else it may fly into our faces with its mighty wings and take to abusing us, who are indeed helpless. The newspaper has prodigious strength within its domain, and must be respected, nay applauded ; but outside of its domain, it has prodigious weakness, and that weakness is pretty well summed up in its vanity, when it begins to preach from its daily text: Behold, I am the new divinity of this lower world, the true Holy of Holies is my editorial sanctum ; verily I say unto you, I am the all in all, the beginning and end, and what is not in me is not at all. Surely the self-admiration of the newspaper is the yet un- paralleled thing of its kind on our earth. In spite of this loud evangel, we must at last turn away from it, which is but the ephemeral record of the Ephemeral, and we begin to ask after that other record which always has lived and always will live, the eternal record of the Eternal. Is there any such writ for us wander- ers, a writ having an immortal theme in form immortal? With such a demand beating strong in our hearts, we may be certain of coming VI PBELIMINABY SURVEY. sooner or later, upon a fact, a sympathetic fact we may call it, deeply responsive to our longing, and capable of giving us some fragment of that truth immutable which our souls are cravinir. II. If I were to select the most important cir- cumstance in the history of literature, perhaps one might say, in the history of the world, it would be this: Certain books have been written which the best men of the best ages pro- nounce to be the best. These men, therefore, have made a selection for us out of that written ocean called Books, and have come to a substan- tial agreement. Such is the fact before us now ; a consensus of the best in regard to what is best in human writing; a decision, we may further regard it, concerning the eternal truth in the realm of Letters, rendered by those most compe- tent to judge. Mark then, I do not make the decision, the most that I can do is to hear it and understand it; you do not make the decision, but I hope to get you to listen to it and weigh its significance. Nor can we annul it when once made; far beyond our power it lies, in the hands of another Tri- bunal, hard to point out or even mention by name. Still we may and ought to look into the grounds of such a decision and see its rationality, even if it has been rendered by the Supreme Judges of Literature, sitting in the Tribunal of the Ages. PBELIMINARY SURVEY. Vll To be sure there has always been heard some protest against the decision, as the Universe itself has to move along under the protest of some peo- ple. Homer has his Zoilus, Dante his Voltaire, Shakespeare hisEymer, and Goethe, though con- queror, is as yet in the smoke of his own battle, with enemies who are still keeping up a running fire. But the protesters serve a good purpose, they are a tonic which stirs admiration to defend itself and compels authority to show its reason. Moreover periods come which deny all great- ness — all Great Men, and all Great Books ; the human mind gets to be such a leveler that it seeks to level every mountain peak rising above its own prairies. I may emphasize here again, in order to pre- vent all misunderstanding, that I am not one of these judges, nor was I present when judgment was delivered, nor can I point out the individuals who constitute this High Court of Letters. I have only heard the decision as you all have doubtless, speaking with its own voice down through Time, and strangely winning obedience by the very fact of its utterance. No one man, indeed, could render such a decision, no one set of men in any given generation, no school of critics; it is a voice, the voice of the ages, de- claring: This is the most excellent thing that has yet been done on our planet. It becomes, therefore, a necessity at certain Vlll PBELIMINAEY SURVEY. times to look closely into this class of Great Books in order to feel their spirit anew. We must ascertain the law of their being and make it ours ; above all, we are to reach down to their common soul, and dwell there in communion with the master-spirits of Time. For they have certain agreements which connect them at last through all their diversity ; their oneness is the supreme fact about them, and we pay them the highest homage of Letters in bringing them together and tracing their law. We have an abiding faith stronger than any analytic criti- cism, that they must be somehow united into a common stream, which has its head waters in the earliest ages, and which has continued to flow through the historic succession of mankind with ever-increasing wealth and power, down to our own day. Other books may be good, may be very useful, may be indeed immortal ; but these have a distinctive character, they possess the final bloom of human excellence, theirs is not only a supremacy, but a consecration ; they are sacred treasures of the Race. Hence it comes that our attitude toward these Greatest Books of the World is different from our attitude towards other books. We must not be blind or superstitions, but we can be appreciative and reverential, without losing our judgment. It is certain that these greatest writings inspire a deep reverence for themselves. PRELIMINAEY SURVEY. ix which is felt not merely by one man, or by one set of men, but by all men who read and know them. A certain feeling of their infinite depth and of their truth always goes with them ; the vision of their author has in it a power of beholding in harmony with the all-seeing, crea- tive eye ; truly he shares in the glance of deity. The sources of these Books have some deep inti- mate connection with the sources of all things; both they and the world which they unfold go back to the same eternal fountain-heads. They have a peculiar stamp; they seem to mean and in reality do mean more than they say ; they have in themselves not merely the flower of the Present but the seed of the Future; they maybe understood by their own age, but they are always better understood by later ages; in fact they, the Great Books of the World, unfold with Time itself. They have in themselves the germ of Universal History also ; as man develops, so they develop into their higher significance; thus they must do, if they really represent man in their portraiture. An infinite possibility lies in them as in man, being a true image of him, not only in what he is, but in what he is to be. III. Hence dawns upon us the astonishing fact that every age finds the new meaning in the old poet, must find that, if it finds the truth of him at all. It is a most astonishing fact, I say, yet X PBELIMINARY SURVEY. true and deeply necessary, worthy of the best study and of reverent acceptance, though the ready critic is always at hand with his denial, even with his worn-out sneer that such new meaning is evolved not from the poet, but from the reader's or interpreter's inner consciousness. We must grant the critic that it does require a brain to see the meaning, though the meaning be also in the poet. This smart critic will grow satirically modest, and speak of that other per- son, so different from himself, who knows better what the poet wrote than the poet did himself. Such modest ignorance of the critic is not feigned, as we might suppose, but is a veritable reality ; he does not know that his pungent satire is severest against himself. For he seems unaware of the fact that this generation has seen more of Troy than the Trojans saw, knows more of the origin and history of the Greek tongue than the Greeks who spoke it, knows the signifi- cation of Homeric epithets which Homer himself did not know, and knows or may know Homeric poetry in a far deeper sense than the Poet who sang it or the people who heard it, knew or could have known. We look back from our vantage ground of three thousand years, and behold what it truly means written down in the Ages, in History, in Literature, in Human Development. Go beyond the consciousness of the poet we must, if we wish to see the reality PBELIMINAllY SURVEY. XI of what he sang. Another advantage our posi- tion has over the immediate vision of Homer ; we see the light of antecedent ages and of far-dis- tant countries beating upon those poems, the light of Aryan speech, of Hindoo Mythology, of Egyp- tain History. What is true of Homer is true of all supreme poets, and what is true of our knowl- edge of external facts about their works, is still truer of our knowledge of their inner spiritual fact, provided of course that we wish to get that knowledge. Some faith indeed it requires, and some thinking ; but it is all the better for calling for such a spiritual exercise. But be not deterred by that loud, pretentious voice calling from many a critical watch-tower through the land: Do not think, do not believe, do not know ; look, my ignorance is the true knowledge, still your hunger with my nothingness, and slake your thirst at my waters of negation. And yet we should keep our balance in this mat- ter, not running to one excess or the other. We are not to put fantastic meanings into the old poets, we are not to read into them allegories, moral, physical, or historical, where there are none. A danger of this sort exists. The best rule is to find the structure of a work first, and then rise from structure to idea. If we stray beyond the organic moyement of a poem, we are indeed astray. But do not abandon the idea, because it sometimes runs wild in wild brains; xii PBELimmABY SUE VET. remember that the Yes can be just as extrava- gant as the No. IV. And now, if I can carry you with me, our first act will be to transcend what lay in the pur- pose and consciousness of these authors — those who have written the greatest books of the world. First of all, we shall put them into a class by themselves, giving them a certain con- tinuity and connection ; we shall regard them as books of one Great Book or Bible. Instinctively do we bring them together, through a deep ne- cessity of theirs and of ours too, though their authors never intended it, just as little as Nature in her workshop intended to make the marble for a Greek temple. I find a good many people afraid lest they may see too much in Homer, in Shakespeare, and in other Great Books. They show a ner- vousness, a creeping anxiety, yes, a settled ter- ror lest, when they once fix their mighty intellects upon a subject, they may look deeper than the author himself looked. Well, such may be the case. But, on the whole, the other kind of fear is to be recommended — the fear lest we behold too little, lest we do not obtain all that is to be obtained. Keep the balance ; still do not be afraid of your ability to see, but rather of your inability. On this matter I may frankly give you the fruit of my experience: it is more likely that there is something in the PBELIMINABY SURVEY. xiu great poet which jou do not see, than that there is not something which you do see. Such is, however, the spirit of the time ; by goinor buck it goes forward. In the most exter- nal things it excavates, excavates old ruins and puts them together, constructs a history of Classic Art out of pitiful fragments, such as the Ancients themselves never knew it. It excavates old cities which are no longer visible even in their ruins, and finds out even the external forms of an antique world long since buried. What a his- tory of Troy before Priam has Schlieman given, certainly not known to those old Trojans, Hector's warriors ! CHAP. II. LITER ABY BIBLES. How shall we designate these Great Books of Literature? They form what may be conceived as the supreme literary succession, wherein man finds uttered the highest and worthiest thoughts and deeds of his species. They show forth the true Spiritual Hierarchy of Letters, regnant through an inner authority, and not through any external organization. No priesthood, no dogma, no church exactly, still, this grand literary suc- cession is a dominant influence in moulding the forms of the spirit ; it moves over from Orient to Occident, making a rainbow arch of poetry which connects two worlds by spanning Heaven. XIV PBELIMINABY SUBVEY. We can well affirm that the veneration which these Great Books call forth, is essentially biblical ; it may not be the same, but it corre- sponds to the feeling which we have for a sacred writing. We can hardly think of our being able to do without them; the world would have been diflerent, had they never been written. We shall, therefore, name them Bibles, broadening the sense of the word ; yet it is im- portant to distinguish the two classes of Bibles, which may be known as religious and literary. Religious Bibles have been a prime factor in the spiritual development of man ; but this second class belongs rather to what we call Literature, which they have created and perpetuated, hence they may be entitled Literary Bibles. But ere we proceed further on our journey, it will be worth while to reach down to the common fact which makes both kinds of Bibles one in spirit. They all seek to bring about a return of the soul from estrangement ; they move forward to reconciliation through the harmony of rhythm and song ;^. their end is the harmony of man, inner and outer, with himself and with the world. Their pre-supposition, therefore, is an alienation, some lapse or fall, from which springs the grand dualism in man's existence. This dualism, into which every human being is born, is just that which he is to overcome, thus bringing his life into unity, order, harmony. Nor is the deed PBELIMINABY SURVEY. XV done once and for all, every day it is to be done over, every day is the battle, and the victory or the defeat. The Great Books of the World, the Bibles of Mankind, are its most potent help in the struggle. I. Of the Literary Bibles four may be reason- ably counted and no more ; though we would fain introduce some other favorite books into such high company, we cannot well do it with- out breaking up our class. They begin with Europe in the very dawn of her existence; in fact, the first one of them may be said to usher in European life in its spiritual phase. This is ancient Homer, the well-head of our European stream, which, with all its present currents, counter-currents, and whirlpools, leads directly back to him. There he stands and is the begin- ning ; he really sings of the rise of the Occident, when we come to the heart of his work ; his sons: contains all the germs of our Western development. One will see in his Gods and their actions a prophecy of what has now become real, a grand Olympian prognostication of the supreme conquest of spirit over the material world, which is taking place in these days. Moreover, his two heroes are still heroes, typical men belonging to our time too, and revealing the ffround-work of all human character. On the whole, we shall have to say that Homer's work, including his two poems, is the most xvi PBELIMINABY SUB VET. important, if not the greatest of these Literary Bibles, as it originates them and gives the pattern. Still, Homer is heathen, we may call him the Heathen Poet, in whom European antiquity finds its best literary embodiment. Opposed to him we mast place the Christian Poet, Dante, who comes next in the order of time, and is the representative of an altogether distinct world. Christianity is now the principle of Europe and finds expression in its greatest book; Christianity organizes too an institution, the Church which includes every institution, both religious and secular. We now behold tbe whole secular world lying inside the Church, in her embraces whose warmth and persistency entitle her to the good name of Mother. The great theocracy seems on the point of being realized in the Occi- dent ; but havk ! not without deep mutterings and contradiction, which find voice in this very poem of Dante, though the Church be for him the all-controlling, all-saving instrument of man's redemption. The next Literary Bible was written by an English-speaking man, William Shakespeare, in whom we see a new epoch blooming with every flower of poetry, yet an epoch quite the reverse of the preceding Dantean time. That secular world which we just found nestling in the bosom of the Church, has cut loose from PBELIMINAEY SUEVEY. xvii its mother and thrown off the swaddling clothes of infancy; it has become filled with institutions which are now the foundation of man's spiritual existence here below ; the Church has receded into the background, or is at most but one element of this new Shakesperian world. Life, with all its variations and struggles, rests upon secular institutions. State and Family and Civilization ; these are the grand forms which encompass it, and make it possible; to these man is held accountable for his deed, and receives reward and punishment now, in immediate pres- ence of his act. Many are the strands of Shakes- peare's myriad-minded work; but the central one is this seculiar institutional life ; accordingly, he may here be called the Institutional Poet. To these there is now to be added the fourth Literary Bible, belonging to our own time, the last one which has appeared, written by a Ger- man, Goethe. Faust steps forward with his devil Mephistopheles, the modern devil, who de- nies the validity of both Church and secular Insti- tutions, denies in the sweep of his negation the whole spiritual world which man has unfolded in the ages, denies both Dante and Shakes- peare. It is a wonderful appearance, that devil in the dress of to-day ; an innermost part of ourselves, of our age he is, showing to us our fresh problem. It is clear that a new conscious- ness has dawned, that of the modern man with xviii PRELIMINABY SURVEY. his everlastinsr doubt seethinsj over into denial and nothingness ; Mephistopheles is the modern sneer realized in a world-destroying fiend, who in the end must destroy himself too. Thus he is seen to indicate the grand question of the time which is ; How shall man be saved from the an- nihilation which comes from his own denial? With Mephistopheles is coupled Faust, servant and the master. The latest poet has unfolded such a character, this Faust, one who takes up into himself, and then overcomes the negation in all of its phases and is restored to a new final harmony with the world. The last Literary Bible starts with the denial of all preceding Bibles and their worlds ; yes, it even gets back of Shakespeare and blasts the bed-rock of insti- tutions upon which he reposes; but it is also the new reconciliation with institutional life, now tested in all the fires of the Destroyer. Goethe may be said to include the other Bibles and their negation too ; he is the Universal Poet, till another greater than he arises with a new synthesis. II. All these Literary Bibles may be said to be woven out of two main strands: the free-act- ing, self-determined, destiny-building Individual on the one hand, on the other a Divine Order of the Universe around him and above him, in which he has to act and win his freedom and harmony. Given the Man, and the World into which he is PBELIMINARY SURVEY. xix to be fitted — such is the theme of our whole Occidental Literature worthy of mention. The poet sets forth the characters, the Heroes, he makes them the bearers of the problem of the time. Yet he also portrays the world-movement, into which the grand struggle is that the heroic individual adjust himself with insight and the deed. The Hero is to bear the burden of the Divine Order with toil, conflict, suffering; only thus does he free himself of his weakness and limitation, and become universal, truly a Hero. Let us glance for a moment at the first and last Heroes of these Literary Bibles, Achilles and Faust, the beginning and the end. Achilles gets angry, becomes estranged from his leader, his people, and his cause ; he moodily retires to his tent and lets the enemy conquer. What now is the Hero? Nothing; his best friend, Patro- clus, is slain, while he stands idly by. He must be reconciled with iiis leader, his people and his cause, in order to be Hero and to fulfill his heroic destiny. Such is the essential movement of the Iliad with its two Wraths and two Reconcilia- tions of the Hero. The first Literary Bible opens with the problem of the individual, it shows his scission internal and external, and points out the way of return and restoration. Thus it strikes the key-note of all Literature in its relation to the life of man. Recollect that Achilles does not, cannot perish in the Iliad, but XX PBELIMINABY SUBVEY. is reconciled, and the final reconciliation em- braces not only his own friends, the Greeks, but even his enemies, the Trojans. The latter may be, indeed, only a temporary truce, but it holds long enough to bring the poem to an end. In the last Literary Bible we find the last great character, creation of the poet yet also of his age, a character which in all its turns and sinuosities images most profoundly our time, both in its attainment and in its hope. Look at him there, near the end of his career, the aged Faust, standing on the brink of the chasm ; after one hundred years of bitter trial and struggle, he rises up a free man, upon a free soil, amid a free people. The very earth he has rescued from the elements and transformed, he has freed him- self from servitude, from that worst of all possible forms of slavery — from his own nega- tive spirit. Like Achilles, he has in his way become harmonious with himself and with the supreme order of the world ; he has emancipated a city, a people, till they are like himself, free in soul and in act, millions of Fausts recreated in his own image, they too free men, upon a free soil, and ready to make other men free. What further ? It is the last word of our last Literary Bible and perchance of our century; the aged Faust speaks it, is happy — and dies on the spot; thus we witness the new tragedy of fulfillment, not the old tragedy of weakness and wickedness — of PBELIMINABY SUBVEY. xxi the spirit bursting the bounds of finitude, and not crushed by its own limits. Man is not to cut the knot of destiny through death, but to master it through life, till he becomes a free man, upon a free earth, amid free beings. Here we may note the vicarious nature of all the great characters of the Literary Bibles, They suffer for us, they undergo their terrible ordeal ft)r the reader or hearer, who can thereby have the same experience ideally, and thus be saved from having it really. Dante descended to Hell for me and for you, if we penetrate to the meaning of his dolorous journey ; old Ulysses wandered long and endured much on land and sea for our sake, for the millions of sympathetic readers after his time, reaching possibly into mill- ions of years. So too Faust and the rest. To be sure, we must read the Literary Bibles in the right way, to get this discipline, which is truly the grand purification, the catharsis of the great Deed uttered in the noble Word. We may be permitted once more to affirm strongly that it is a characteristic of the Literary Bibles that they bear in them the seeds of the Future, which seem to grow with Time. The Great Book must unfold with the ages, and every period will see in it a deeper mouning. It is not temporal, but eternal; it has the abiding princi- ple of the world in it, and cannot perish, but like the earth it ever blooms anew witii the new xxii PBELIMINABY SURVEY. spring. That is, the unconscious undeveloped side which is in these Books shoots up into fresh reality with the new-born time, and is then first identified. The old poet must always have the new commentary and a new significance in the new epoch and in the new land. In recent years one has often heard of the hundred best Books in English Literature and read lists of them drawn up by various men of authority in the Republic of Letters. Still English Literature has no hundred best books, one best only it can show, its name is Shakes- peare. No hundred best books can be found in European Literature, but four best, which stand on a general level of excellence, all other books being below such level. To be sure some books are better than others, there are many degrees of excellence ; a few books attain a very high degree, none the highest except the four desig- nated. Still further, nobod}' can read a hundred best books in the best way, there is not the time in human life. The few books, rightly chosen and rightly read, contain the essence of all. The statement, however, must be emphasized that the literary Bible refuses to yield its secret to the listless, tired, or amusement-seeking reader, above all to the modern rapid reader with his newspaper glance. in. The earnest student having felt the unity in all Great Literature, will next seek to ascer" PRELIMINARY SURVEY. xxiii tain some of the salient characteristics of its representatives, these Literary Bibles, and to place them in their true relation to our modern spirit. They certainly take a high view of the dignity of man ; they assume the individual as a self-governing, self-contained being, as one who must act in the presence of his own, transcend- ent, we may say, infinite worth, and be held responsible for his action. They do indeed teach man's redemption, but upon this earth and in this life, and with the help of himself. The reconciliation is to be attained here below, with the certainty that it is thus eternally at- tained; the battle of life is the great battle in which is the supreme victory, not so much the battle of death. Each period has its fall of man, his new lapse springing from the new trial ; but it seeks also the means of his new salvation, which the Bible of the period reveals. The theme is, the worth of man, and his ability to dis- enthrall himself, not as a selfish being who is to get rid of a little trouble and so be at ease, but as a universal person, whose highest function is to place himself in harmony with the Divine Order of the World, to be a string of that instrument which vibrates with the music of the Universe. Moreover, this earth is to partake of his re- generation ; he is to transform it, mould it over anew, fill it with an institutional life all his own; he is indeed to make it heaven. Thus it is trans- xxiv FBELIMINABY 8UBVEY. muted into the image of human spirit, and for the first time truly becomes the dwelling-place of rational man, his own worthiest temple; which old biblical prophecies are in these days being fulfilled in unexpected ways. Nature is to be made into an implement, filled with his purpose ; instead of standing over aojainst him in hostile attitude, she is to become transparent to his in- tellio-ence and laden with his will. Such is the chief word, spoken in manifold ways by these Literary Bibles of the Occident, basing them- selves upon man as the self-determined, rational being who is at last to conquer completely a home for himself upon this earth, not only physically, but also spiritually. The Gods, the Goddesses, Heaven and Hell, old institutions and mighty struggles of heroes are but so many in- dications, so many prophecies of that time, dim, yet genuine, yea, visible to the glance of the poets, the makers of the Literary Bibles. A free being within and without is the very soul and scope of their work — a being to whom nature is no longer the barrier but the willing assistant. IV. Such is a faint glimpse of the primordial idea of the Literary Bibles, which must be brought out of its dark abysmal recess and shown forth in clearest letters of living light to the vision and soul of man. The first grand means whereby it is unfolded into tangible shape PEELIMINAEY SURVEY. xxv and expression is the Mythus, the great original Word wherein what is dee[)est in the human heart bursts into speech. Every one of these Literary Bibles moves upon a Mythus, which is a profound necessity of its being, and which is not a mere lying fable, but the sincerest truth. Some account of the Gods, still more the life of Heroes and Great Men, flowing down through generation upon generation, and bearing in its stream their burden of thought and of lorrow, becomes a Mythus, which speaks dimly and vaguely at first, the character, deeds, hopes and struggles of a people or race. But it is the birth of speech and of all art, the first attempt of man to image his inner spiritual nature unto himself. The Mythus is indeed a wonderful thing, once it was sacred to the primitive human soul ; it is never made by one man, but by a whole people, possibly by the whole race. It floats down from immemorial agres through the hearts of millions of men, throbbing to its recital; there it re- mains, half hidden, half visible, mostly in frag- ments ; still it is treasured in their hearts. There it lies, or vaguely floats, till the Poet appears gifted with the vision of the Muse and l)eholds it; above the claim of all men it is his, he fi.-hcs it out of that dark stream of tradition, fa.'^hions it anew, and pours into it the mighty soul of himself together with the spirit of his time. It would almost seem as if the Mythus xxvi PBELIMINABY SUBVEY. had to ripen, a milleimial fruit ; thousands of years it remains a germ, or in crude condition; still it is preserved in that most adamantine of all fortresses, the hearts of a people. Not till it has been watered by the tears of joy and sorrow of so many myriads of human hearts, is it ready ; then on a certain day the sun looks out, the fruit is mature and is plucked, forever after to be enjoyed by all the world as a perfect thing of its kind. The Mythus is the story of man, it contains some image of his fall and of his rise. It takes him and plunges him at once into alienation ; it gives him long trials and desperate struggles; then it restores him to peace and harmony. Many wanderings, tribulations, deep estrange- ment we behold, till the reconciliation comes through his own work ; all the while the hero must endure a life of suffering, under which he manfully bears up, an exemplar to his race. The Mythus is indeed the mighty Word, which, like all words, even the humblest which are written, record a rise out of nature into spirit ; each single word which I now utter has in its own history such a rise. Every word is in small what the Mythus is in large ; it is a story, the story of man, his one story, out of which all other stories, fables, novels, adventures, poems, worthy of any notice must spring; the Mythus, however varied, is at bottom this one story of PBELIMINABY SURVEY. xxvii man, and as such is the primal utterance, the original crude material, of the Literary Bible. Many good people are afraid of having their Sacred Books called a Mythu-s, lest this may mean that these are a falsehood, or at most an idle romance. But the true view is that a Bible can not well be anything else ex- cept a Mythus, that is one of its supreme qualities. People wish the story to have once happened just as it has been narrated, to be a so-called historical fact. Far better is it if it has happened a thousand times, is always happening, and will continue to happen forever. Did Adam fall that one particular time, actually and literally eating the forbidden fruit? It may be, but the weightier matter is, that he has fallen millions of times since, is falling every day. Such is the important part of the fact, and that which makes the first story of the Fall a most true account, so true that it has its place, in one form or other, in all Bibles, both Re- ligious and Literary. I would not care, nor you either, if our Adam fell that one time which was never repeated; indeed, if such were the case, he had been long since forgotten by his posterity, who are still largely made up of fall- ing Adams. V. The Mythiis is, therefore, the original crude material of the Great Book: it springs up a product of Nature, out of the hearts of a peo- xxviii PBELIMINABY SURVEY. pie, grows, changes, and undergoes many a trans- formation with the centuries. In this natural condition it is taken by the Builder, the Poet, who bows, cuts, carves, and fits it together into a wonderful temple. Thus it is no longer the rude native forest of wood, the mountain of marble hidden in the earth, not the wild jungle of tangled luxuriance — it becomes a well-ordered, carefully-constructed work of architecture. The Poet is the Builder from the first, but the crude product of Nature is given him in the Mythus, he cannot build from nothing. This brings before us the next notable fact concerning these Literary Bibles, they all have a mighty archi- tectonic character ; they are built of many diverse, yet harmonious parts, jointed together into a final unity. Out of the parts looks the one plan, the one thought, though they be but parts; as out of window, arch, tower, column, looks the one vast cathedral, the ultimate form, yet just therein shooting into thousandfold forms, which make it truly an artistic structure. It is one of the most important as well as one of the most difficult matters connected with the Great Book, this secret of its construction. Criticism has sometimes barely mentioned the fact that there is such a thing, but has never unfolded what it is ; I know of not one, I shall not say successful but even persistent attempt to reveal the inherent structure of any one of our PRELIMINAEY SURVEY. xxix four Literary Bibles. Untold quantities have been written on them, they have been picked to pieces, torn violently asunder, particularly this is the case with Homer; but put organically together I have not yet seen them. Indeed the criticism of to-day is strongly inclined to deny the architectural principle ; if the plan be pointed out, the cry will be heard: "You are making the Poet introspective, you are ascribing things to him which he never knew ; he is not reflective, but instinctive." But instinct may be, indeed must be organizing and architectonic, witness the bird, the beaver. Another builder, the little bee, poetical in his way, too, is even mathematic ; his cell, built by instinct, is geomet- rical and can be measured; yet the fact of men- suration is not inconsistent with his instinctive procedure. God geometrizes, says an old philos- opher; so does Nature, so docs the Poet in his way; in order to understand them, we too must have in us a little geometry. Much stress, therefore, do we put upon struc- ture, though criticism and interpretation, in accord with the tendency of the time be disor- ganizing, anti-structural, negative. If the de- stroying critic can smite the Great Book into chaos, is he not a mightier man than its author? For outside of chaos such a critic is indeed nothing, but in it he is better than anybody else, better than even the maker of a Literary Bible. XXX PRELIMINARY SURVEY. The purpose, and we hope the instinct, of the present work is an organizing one; we shall seek to set forth the constructive spirit which has built these Literary Bibles; being truly cathedrals, not as outer edifices of stone, but as inner spiritual structures. They are all wonderful spe- cimens of architecture; each, however perfect in itself, belongs to a whole, and reveals itself as belonging to a whole. A vast but complete edi- fice, not to be looked through in a day, but'tobe lovingly studied many days, even years : first come its details, which, however, must be traced back to the one fountain-head ; it has the one supreme effect when finished, yet with thousands of smaller effects, which must be regarded by themselves, but which must be also fitted into the totality. The unity of the work is the ordi- nary name of this final, all-pervading power in it, being its one soul, its one body too, with all its diversities. Never can there be a true appreciation of the Great Books of Literature without knowing them as organisms; we must see the Whole in them, before we can truly see the parts ; the work was built with that Whole in mind as the organizing center ; in an unconscious way it was done probably, still, there is the fine- wrought organism of which we must reach the meaning consciously. Thus Art has arisen, it springs from the instinct of the builder who feels the oneness of his edifice PBELIMINABY SUSVEY. xxxi through all his work ; into the white-hot center of his conception he fuses his entire material, and pours forth even the stones of the temple like a fluid mass, into the new structure. In such man- ner it speaks with one voice, it presents itself to you as a unit. Not rude heaps of material do we find then, not even piles of fine-cut stone sym- metrically arranged, with mere gravity for their cohesive principle. Such stones we look at with pleasure, with inspiration possibly; they are necessary to the building, but they are not the building till they are seized by the organizing idea, and put into their place in the supreme edifice. I should say it is our first duty to get back into the structure of a great poem, to see how it holds together by its own inner law, for we may be certain that the literary Bible is held together by another art than that of the book- binder. There is a question which to many a reader keeps coming up in this connection: the Poet never had any such plan in his head, why do you at this lite day foist it upon him? It is true that the Poet may not have consciously in- tended any such thought; still it is quite the same mutter to us, provided the thought be really there. Indeed our chief duty herein is to translate the unconscious thought of the afore- time into the conscious thought of the present; how are we to understand that old way of think- xxxii PBELIMINARY SURVEY. ing, unless we make some such translation ? The burden of the soul is not the same now as then ; at least it has not the same form of expression ; we can know it and feel it only by translating its utterance into ours. Much complaint has been made that the Poet intended no such thing, or was not conscious of what we say be means. He never is fully, cannot be; it is the very essence of a true interpretation or criticism to include the instinctive effort of the Poet, making all appear which is in him, translating the un- conscious into the conscious. The architectonic principle is the inner power which first builds and then holds the edifice together; it is one of the distinctive things belonging to the Literary Bible in contrast to the Eeligious Bible. The latter is in the main of a fragmentary character ; a verse, a chapter or a single book, now upon this subject, now upon that; with history, para- ble, doctrine, ceremonial intermingled ; every thing is set down in momentary inspiration, or by pressing necessity, without the unifying feeling of the builder. The word, whatever it be, is spoken and must be put down just then and there; the result is, the whole is a mass, not a structure, a vast pile of material, not a well- arranged temple. Many stones lie there, very beautiful stones perchance, but the reader him- self must build them into some system ; if he PRELIMINABY SURVEY. xxxm make a house out of them at all. Still another way lies opened to him ; he may take the house which somebody else has built out of those primitive stones, and live in that; which house he can easily find, it is called in the dialect of our time and creed the Church. Thus rises the religious Hierarchy, an organization which puts together and completes into a vast cathedral or holy edifice those biblical fragments. It is not my design, nor should it be yours, to censure this absence of structural principle in the Sacred Books ; we can but note the fact and say, thus it has been and thus it must be; it is certainly a necessity and probably an advantage to them as religious books. The saying is well known that Architecture is frozen music, the Cathedral is a mighty anthem suddenly shooting into crystals. The converse of the image may also be stated, that music is architecture in movement, the cathedral melts into sound composing a vast and complex har- mony. But in a far stronger sense is the archi- tecture of a great poem not frozen, it is fluid, it swells, and falls, and pours ; a fluid cathedral it is in which all is set in motion to the musical time-beat, like a hymn which echoes through aisles, arches, chapels and starts the ancient stones and silent statues of saints to throbbing. The whole structure flows of its own nature into song, still it remains a structure, strictly organized, xxxiv PRELIMINARY SURVEY. never disappearing in an ocean of sound, built by long years of endeavor, and fused together by the union of toilsome thought and exalted inspiration. VI. Therewith we come to a new stage of the Mythus; from being a structure it passes over into a song; it takes the form of rhythm and music, its utterance sings itself into being. Mark well the fact and its significance; the Lit- erary Bibles are all poetry, they move in a measured rise and fall, and they cannot move otherwise. It is one of the main insights per- taining to their character, that they are of necessity song; their theme must clothe itself in melody and thus appear in the world of sense; then they become fountains of beauty as well as fountains of knowledge. The heart-beat in them must have a corresponding outer verse- beat ; take this away, they would seem to have no heart. Nothing can be more natural than the song of these Bibles ; it pours forth spon- taneous, full, apparently making its own meas- ure as it flows along ; it is not forced into any pre-arranged metrical scheme, but seems to follow its own law which brings it into a per- fect order. That spontaneity which always pro- duces order and not chaos is the characteristic of their song; it is that which sets us throb- bing in unison with their notes, and absorbs us into their harmony. It is the voice of the PRELIMINARY SURVEY. xxxv world sinsfing ; a world-throb too is felt in that measured rhythmic flow. Deepest knowledge of man and of his destiny lies in the Literary Bibles ; but there is more, to knowledge is joined beauty in its musical utterance; the eternal word is always set to its own music. It has been said that whatever has music in it must be good; wrong, sin, violence are discord- ant ; even external language, when musical, has its worth, as we all know ; it cannot grate upon the ear with dissonance, and may in a superficial way attune the soul for a time to a happier mood. Still the so-called harmonious versification is a trivial mutter; it looks to the outer and not to the inner for the master to give the time-beat, and seems unaware that the theme must make the music, and not the music the theme. The song must out of its own fullness break into melody ; this melodious expression springs from the sub- ject, is its true movement. We have said above that the Mythus in its essence passes from a fall to a restoration, that is, it moves out of a dis- sonance to a harmony ; the very movement of it is musical, going forward to unity and to the final solace of the struggling hero ; such is the theme, such too must be the soul of the Poet who is filled with the theme. Harmony is the end and ultimate attainment of the whole work, which is to be attuned by this all-pervad- ing concordant purpose ; even the jarring parts xxxvi PBELIMINABY SURVEY. with their discords are to be resolved into this unison. So we must feel that the Mythus itself is musical, and can find adequate utterance in music alone, that is, in the music of speech ; the Literary Bible, true to the nature of its subject sings itself to a harmonious close. But it is not external harmony, or musical versification which can be thought of in this connection : it is a world throbbing into language, the entire being of man struggling into the harmony of iiecon- ciliation, and leaving along the path of its strugo;le a line of victorious sons:. It will no longer surprise us that all the Literary Bibles are poems. There is unspeak- able power in this mystery of rhythm, an inner tendency to it in all things. Language falls into rhythm of its own impulse, when it rises and truly touches the heart of a great theme. It would appear that the word in its genuine utterance must become musical, its supreme function being to express what is musical. Con- sider the material of speech; it lies in crude masses, in the hopeless chaos of prose, a stubborn conglomerate of chance and caprice ; lo, the fire of genius touches the desperate stuff, and the gold begins to run, runs always to a tune. The words of their own accord drop into place and keep time ; there is some power behind their movement, some unseen master who appears to be marshalling their array. Language becomes PBELIMINAEY SURVEY. xxxvil enraptured, perfectly clear, fluid, transparent, so transparent that you seem to see only the mean- ing, 3'ou forget that a man is speaking. The grand current carries you along and sets you to its own harmony, for there is always the melodi- ous undertone, which, like a true accompaninent, you may not specially hoar unless you try, but which attunes the whole movement. Such music becomes the voice of Time in which all things are whirled onward to a certain regular rhythm — enormous pulsations of the universal heart with which your heart beats in accord. That recurrent beat which is called meter is a true and indispen- sable part of expression; Nature has given it, there is a sea-beat, a beat in falling waters, in the mighty cataract, an earth-beat too. The Great Bocjks have caught this universal throb, and express it in external speech by measured syllables ; I cannot conceive how they cohld be great unless thev had this beat too, this vast harmonious wave upon which all things seem to be dancing, or moving in subtle vibration. Yet they have it in very diftercnt manners, the rhythmical flow varies with the time, the age; as the ocean varies in its swell by storms, by changes of coast, by changes of the moon. Still it is the swell of the ocean; and these Books are ultimately alike in all their fluctuations ; they arc alike too in the fact that they put nuisic into its true place, as the accom- xxxvill PRE LIMITARY SURVEY. paniment, not the sunogaie of thought ; their swell buoys up the soul, heavy-laden with a world, and makes it ride into heaven at last, the abode of reconciliation. VII. These Literary Bibles, therefore, have a feeling of Art which on the whole the religious Bibles have not; the latter do not show that structural sense which pervades the former; they are in the main amorphous, not smelted into one ordered, consistent work which hangs well together. Doubtless they contain many single beauties of expression ; yet they are not works of art, these in the true sense of the word belonjr to the Western world, were born with the Euro- pean consciousness ; indeed we might almost say, they began with the poems of Homer. Art is the utterance of the beautiful, Art demands the beautiful for its ovvn sake, knowing it is also good; but the East seems not fully to know the beautiful, at least not in the Occidental sense. In our own time there has been a great, almost abnormal development of the taste for Art, quite running parallel to the development of the in- dustrial spirit of our age. The very excess and extravagance of this tendency indicates that the need is deep and genuine ; there is hardly a farm house in the West which does not show some little touch of it, and certainly for the better. The movement in Art has quite come PBELIMINARY SURVEY. xxxix up to the religious movement of the time; it has something to say, which religion does not say, apparently. Art transforms this sensuous world about us into the image of the spiritual ; our material life and its pursuits in tliis manner attain their first transfiguration and are relieved of their grossness. This pursuit of Art is a true instinct of ours, whereby we attempt to rise out of a mere commercial existence ; a material age breaking its limits and ascending into a realm above itself, is the significance of Art to-day ; thus we are declaring that we shall never be content to rest simply in the dross of gain and money. Nature is to bo subdued, and we are doing it; we make her satisfy our bodily wants in the most wonderful ways; one step further, and we shall make her satisfy our soul's wants. Art, fairly the product, and certainly the incul- cation of these Literary Bibles, is doing much and will do more toward transmuting our earthly surrounding into the true abode of man. VII. We may next ask about the author of the Literary Bible; his personality cannot fail to be of interest. We find that there is an instinctive effort in all mankind to know him ; his biography forms one of the chief items of Literary History. The smallest, most insignifi- cant fact of his private life becomes of impor- tance to us; the cut of his coat, the color of his xl PRELIMINARY SURVEY. eyes, his little crotchets and habits — we wish to see them all, in order to place before us the image of the man. Hundreds, thousands of years after his death old records are ransacked, musty libraries are read to the dregs in order to glean some small fact about that wonderful person. Often to no purpose; the individual feature of the man is lost forever, but there remains his book which preserves the immortal part of him. This love of biography which we see in the people has a deep and noble root; it is the attempt to get acquainted with the Great Men of the race personally, to be with them as they eat, drink, sleep, since it is felt that even the smallest things must in some degree reflect their greatness. Their universal life they have left us in their Books, and it is of the Gods ; their particular life we must see too, for that is of mortals. So we seek both phases ; indeed to make the intimate personal acquaintance of a Great Man, particu- larly after his long disappearance from his earthly habitation, we may reckon as the chief delight and solace of our own terrestrial sojourn. The author of the Literary Bible, as he appears among men, is in ev^y way a notable man; the most notable man, on the whole, which our Occidental World has produced. Yes, the most notable man ; we shall have to place him, after some inner protest possibly, above the greatest man of action, above statesman, conqueror, PBELIMINABY SURVEY. xli ruler ; being much above any other kind of writer. We shall be compelled to say, Behold, he is the culmination; that height he stands on where the supreme thought just overtops the supreme deed ; to write a Literary Bible is the complete final bloom of our human kind. The qualities of the person are the qualities of his work; it is the highest thing which is allotted to man to do. Universality he has; all men are in him, or in so far as they are not in him, they ought not to be at all. The purest efflores- cence of Reason, and the most perfect; to what shall we compare him? His soul and his voice he makes into an instrument upon which all mankind play and therein find expression ; while just in such unuiversal gift he remains most truly himself. That voice seems not to belong to an individual, but is the voice of the World-Spirit ; when it wishes to say a word in the course of centuries, it chooses him to say that word. Yet this is just his special character : to have such an all-embracing voice, which declares and resumes the thought and work of his race up to his date. It may be said that if one understands fully these Great Books, he has little use for other books; the latter are but echoes, repetitions, interpretations of that one voice which sings primordially through the Literary Bibles, and which the World-Spirit calls upon to speak when a true word is necessary among men. The xlii PBELIMINABY SURVEY. wisdom of the world is contained in its Literary Bibles. All other writings are but a small matter comparatively ; they must be at last burnt up, if not by the sudden torch of a Caliph Omar, then by some slower but no less effectual fire; the vast rubbish of erudition will make or is even now making a conflaofration whereof the fate of the Alexandrian Library is but a typical instance. It seems pitiless to say that other books have no serious purpose of life, that the best are broken, impure sherds of that purest perfect vase, fitful low strains of that supreme music, and hence are to be tolerated till they can be dispensed with. Often the thought comes up: What is to be done with the enormous and ever-increasing mass of books, a worldful of them, not to be read by mortal man any more? Time will have to answer with the old Mohamme- dan: if they disagree with our Greek Book, burn them up as heretical ; if they agree, burn them up as useless ; at any rate burn them up. The Great Book, however, will be preserved, and with it the name of the Author. It is a strange fact that he, just he should be selected out of the millions and milliards who are born and die ; he is the chosen one, behold the sign and the proof of it. Chosen by whom? That matter I shall not undertake to investigate in this place ; I can only affirm that I had no part in the choosing so far as I know. Nor is it PBELIMINAEY SURVEY. xliii every day, nor every century even, that such a selection is made; of a sudden a human voice speaks in its own moment, prompted by some spirit back of Time and controlling the same; then there is silence on that height for ages. A wonderful speech it has, altogether different from other kinds of utterance; but we shall not attempt to ascertain the law which governs the appearance of such speech ; it has doubtless several times to speak 3'et, when the law may be ascertained. Universality we said, is its author's trait, yet not in the form of pure thought which is uttered without color or feeling ; he puts a prodigious power into his words, fills them with passion, pity, indignation ; world-heaving heart-beats are in his expressions. An invisible might moves in his speech, and around it, which is not he but something which possesses him and makes him the instrument of utterance. That petty indi- viduality of his chafes at its confinement in flesh, it seems shaken, battered, storm-tossed ; it swells, upheaves, as if a volcano were in the breast, breaking out into red lava-speech. What is like the great speaker in his Titanic mood? The universal spirit is seeking ex- pression through him with desperate struggle ; behold the mighty convulsion, the convulsion of a world which is endeavoring to squeeze itself into human speech through that little mouth, xliv PBELIMINABY SURVEY. and thus be a real visible thing to men forever. The individual seems not to be speaking longer, it is the voice of the All and in wrath. A demon possesses the man, the demon of the time, and will make itself heard, thrusting itself into language; the universal spirit of the time with all its feeling, passion, wickedness, good- ness. Often the person is to be pitied who has to give himself up to such obsession ; he has not a happy time, his friends have not, his wife has not. This we call his genius or controlling spirit, aught which is greater than he, who must write as it dictates, must give his body and his heart up to that terrific energy. Happiness is the price which the Great Man pays for his greatness, happiness of himself and of everybody around him ; he is a man torn all to pieces for the time being, in his demonic struggle. One thing only is worse ; that is a refusal to bear the burden and do the work ; the demon then becomes a devil, the destroyer, and rends its victim from within. All Literary Bibles have this demonic element lying in their very nature ; it is the wrath of the Universe because this has to become finite, and uttered, it is the struggle of the World- Spirit in its attempt to cramp itself into the limits of human speech; it is the elemental force in a man's utterance far greater than the man. Thus it makes itself felt as some enormous energy behind and beyond all expression; you PRELIMINARY SURVEY. xlv feel that there is aught in the word mightier than the word, whereby the latter is enabled to tell its mission in its very inadequacy. To get the secret of such writing, human ingenuity has labored long in vain, has even built artificial structures to reach the Olympian height. But the demon is master and is not to be mastered; it is not rhetoric, not beautiful figures, not well- balanced periods, not harmonious versification. I find that it does not deem the supreme end of style to be the writing of a grammatical sentence ; it violates the rule and defies the grammarian, declaring itself to be above grammar — rex super grammaticam . Whereat the schoolmaster with cranium of granite has been known to reprove the demon, exclaiming, " Out upon thee ; thou art all wrong, I know better than thou." Still the demon has not gone out of its way, and after a short tussle has swallowed the schoolmaster. Indeed we are now inclined to ask of any writer, as the first test of his calling: Has he any demon within him? If he has not, then he has nothing enduring to say of a literary kind, he is the idle sport of his own words ; but if he has, he is the master of speech which shows itself a pliant instrument in his hands. Ragged, torn, disjointed, it is the true imago of that universal energy which has gotten hold of him and is seek- ing to make him its mouth-piece. He is sunk in the thing to be said ; his struggles and up- xlvi PBELIMINABT SURVEY. heavals of expression are the demon's, not some artificial elegance or spurious rant of imitation. Not always in wrath, however, is the demon; sometimes it is calm, but it is the ocean in calm; its power is felt even in repose. One loves this calmness of the Great Books, often coming after hurricanes and tempests; the heart is drawn into it irresistibly and is soothed. Moreover the demon is to be tamed, this is one of the duties of its possessor ; thus its power is not crippled or destroyed, but made to do i*s effectual work in the words. Of all the Great Authors Goethe came in the end to have the best-trained demon ; yet from the volcanic outbursts of Werflier to the calm misfhtiness of the hiter Meisfei' and the later Faust lie many years of discipline. In the Lit- erary Bible there always is this elemental power ; they show us worlds being born and being de- stroyed, the storms and struggles thereof, with the transition to peace; it is not a vicious power, though we call it demonic ; the passion of a whole Universe, not of one man, it often tears the scribe, tears the speech perchance, still this is the way in which it has to express itself. IX. The Literary Bible is the mightiest effort of human speech; a language puts forth one such flower which is the first and the last. No tongue can boast of two Literarv Bibles ; one of them seems to exhaust the possibilities of a lan- guage ; in a single supreme effort the work is PEELIMINARY SURVEY. xlvii born, but the mother tongue can never bring to liofht another such son. The Great Books establish speech, if they do not create it ; they fix into permanency what was before uncertain and transitory ; some floating dialect of the peo- ple thereby becomes a classic tongue. Countless inferior books now follow in that tongue ; the first one, however, contains them all in essence. Quite the first product of Greek speech is Homer, a Literary Bible; for this reason and none other Greek is spoken to this day. Dante gave fixity to the Italian ; what Shakespeare and Goethe have done in more modern times and with more advanced languages has been plainly of the same nature. A Literary Bible calls into being the inner capabilities of a tongue, which otherwise remains undeveloped and perishes. Speech, therefore, is not only unfolded, it is also made eternal by these Literary Bibles. A most important fact, this immortality of some languages while others die. The very words become sacred and are preserved, since they express what is sacred and must continue to exist. But not as a dead tongue, dried and laid up iu dictionaries, nor as the artificial lan- guage of a caste or priesthood, does the speech of Literary Bibles endure; on the contrary it remains living, spontaneous ; the language of each of these Bibles is spoken to-day by the people, is their heart's most direct utterance. xlviii PBELIMIN'AEY SUB VET. Latin has perished as a living tongue, it never brought forth a Literary Bible, which is both the sign and the preserver of the vitality of speech. Even the Church could not save Latin ; no Hierarchy can keep a tongue alive, but a Literary Bible can. Greek, the language of Homer, far older than Latin, lives with new activity, pouring forth, in many turns of the old poet, from the hearts of millions at this moment. Thus speech is immortalized, not simply embalmed ; how can that pass away which tells to man his profoundest truth? The tongue which bears in it the revela- tion of what is deepest and best in the human soul, is a vital entity, it cannot pass away ; but if it has no such message to man, it has no right to live, cannot live. Many tongues have perished and left scarcely a mark; all shall perish that have not the vitality to send forth the perennial well-head of living speech, a Literary Bible. We have said that there were four of these Bibles, written in four different tongues. Yet these tongues show a unity even in grammatical structure; all four are descended from a com- mon mother, the ancient Aryan speech. Far back in Asia they were one-, hardly in Europe; we now can see them separating from the origi- nal stock and becoming many; we can to a de- gree reconstruct and hear again that primitive tongue. This unity of speech is a marvel which PBELIMINABY SURVEY. xlix we have recently discovered, it leads to many conclusions of deep significance, among which is that we know more of Homer's dialect and its affinities that he did himself. What Greek ever dreamed of his connection with the Persian whom he fought so long and so desperately ? Yet he was related by blood to that Oriental man ; we read in his own language what he himself never could read, his origin, his kinship, the history of his institutions, the account of his separation from the East. Unless we read deeper into Greek than the Greek ever dreamed of, we have not gone far in Hellenic learning; unless we read into Homer more profound meanings than Homer ever knew of, we understand but little of the poet. In the German, English and Italian of to-day we can catch the ground-tones of the old common tongue, which the Greek too spoke at a remote period, long before Homer. In our Lit- erary Bibles, therefore, we discover far down one speech, actually one language, of which the four are dialects. We thus find that grammar leads back to the unity of our Literary Bibles ; sink deep into them, even thbir speech, the outer garment in which they are clothed, proclaims them to be one. Corresponding to this oneness of speech is their oneness of spirit; in all four is a common soul, if we reach down into them and partake of their true nature. Instinctively men have classed 1 PRELIMINARY SUB VET. them together already ; but instinct ought to be raised to knowledge. Comparative Philology has settled this unity of speech beyond all cavil ; there ought to be a Comparative Criticism which would determine the unity of the four Literary Bibles. A common spirit pervades them; many principles, myth, music, structure, speech, they have in similar manners; the very name declares their unity. Their difference is to be seen in their oneness; they are four, it is true, but the deeper fact is, they are one. We have above implied that Modern Greek is simply a phase or dialect of Ancient Greek, while Italian is a different tongue from the Latin, with its own linguistic law, though a daughter of the Latin. It will not do, there- fore, to say that the Greek tongue of to-day differs from old Greek as the Italian differs from Latin. The trunk of the old Latin tree is dead, has been dead these many hundred years, though from its seed have sprung a number of vigorous independent trees ; but the old Greek trunk is still alive, and Modern Greek is simply one of its branches. The present writer on landing in the Piraeus a few years ago, was accosted by a Greek hack-driver with the words: Thelete Hamaxan? Ancient Homeric words which Nausicaa would have used and understood, for her vehicle too is called a Hamaxa in the Odyssey. Have we then PBELIMINABY SURVEY. U actually arrived at Phgeacia? No, we are not lost in the past, nor in cloudland; the most solid reality in presence of the traveler in Greece to-day is immortal Greek speech, the same living fountain (with some new channels of course) as flowed 3,000 years ago in Homer's time. In spite of all differences, therefore, Greek, Italian, English and German are one tongue at bottom, ofi'shoots of the one great Aryan trunk of speech, reaching out of the Orient to Europe, even across the Ocean to America. The ances- tor of Goethe could well have been the next- door neighbor of the ancestor of Homer far back somewhere in Highlands of Asia ; both might have been poets and have sung in unison rude hymns to Dyaus and Indra, whereof the Vedas may still preserve some stray fragment. Or we may bring together that wonderful quar- tette of primeval Arya, the four progenitors of our four Greatest Poets, and listen to their prelude in the twilight of time. Or we may carry the unity still higher, and behold the one ances- tor of Greek Homer, Italian Dante, English Shakespeare and German Goethe, and conceive him as the first possessor of the divine spark of Highest Song, which reappears in his Aryan children at diverse periods in the passing ages. Somehow all four must have had the same primeval father. lii PBELIMINABY SURVEY. CHAP. III. OBI E NT AND OCCIDENT. The deepest dualism in the history of the race, so far as that history is known, is its division into Orient and Occident. This division mirrors itself supremely in two kinds of writing, the Religious and the Literary Bibles. Homer, liv- ing somewhere near the geographical line of separation between Europe and Asia, and author of the first Literary Bible, sings instinctively of the grand scission between Orient and Occident, and unconsciously heralds the rise of the Occi- dent. Still we must see that the Literary Bibles are also religious in their way, though doing without the dogma, the priest, the chnrch, the visible ecclesiastical organization — products of the Religious Bibles in one form or other. The spirit of the Literary Bibles manifests what may be considered the Universal Religion, which can be formulated in words, yet without their having the so-called sanction of a Holy Writ for the people. We shall try to set forth the funda- mental principle common to both kinds of Bibles, as well as the characteristic difference, hinting the unity, as well as showing the sepa- ration of the Orient and Occident. I. In this human life there are two vast streams of being in tireless movement, flowing forwatd PRELIMINARY SURVEY. liii in action, opposition, harmony. On the one the individual is borne witli resistless might; whither it goes, it is b<;:iring him, moving onwards with Time and in Time; all men it carries ou its bosom till they sink in it — a mighty world-em- bracing ocean-stream on whose bosom humanity lies floating. Yet, we must go beyond the image and see that this is something more than a stream, it has a unity in itself, an individuality of its own ; it is a spiritual being, with its own purpose which it is realizing, it has the supreme reason of the world, nay personality. The Indi- vidual may resist it, may antagonize it, may try to swim against the current with face turned up- stream, still he is borne on by it, and can njake hardly an eddy in the mighty current. But there is another stream which the Individ- ual has in him, is all his own, which in himself he bears and in which he is not borne; he, the puny mortal, has his own ocean-stream, rushing, whirl- ing within him. This too is something far more than a stream, it is also a spirit, has reason and that indestructible impenetrable unit of personality ; it has tendency, purpose, character, it is himself in his tireless movement. Such are the two worlds of man, the one which he carries in him, and the one in which he is carried, both immortal ; a double life which it is just the human vocation to live ; a dualism world-deep, whence comes all the discord or all the harmony of existence, liv PEELIMINABY SURVEY. The two are naturally in opposition, the one is the All whereof I am the merest fragment or bubble ; the other is mine and mine alone; both in origin are mutually exclusive, if not antago- nistic. They start in contradiction, which may grow deeper and deeper to bitterest grinding enmity; then we behold the man and the world in the death-conflict; which will be the victor? Alas, there cannot be much doubt, the battle has been repeated too often, is repeated many times to-day before our eyes. Through this primal state of war man must come to peace with the world and its control, if there be for him any salvation. Still no man can escape this struggle, it is the original price which he pays for being a man, or, if you please, the penalty for separate independ- ent existence. By the very fact of my being born as this Individual do I stand in opposition to the universal spirit, and am no longer one with the world-movement. Birth, no fault of my own, whelms me into this conflict which is the conflict of conflicts, the perennial source of all conflicts. Not without deepest glance into the truth of things has Birth been regarded as a Lapse, a great Fall, the grand original Sin. The mythus of woman, of Eve, of Pandora, first joined to man, is portrayed as an evil for the same cause; the sexual relation, whereby the Individual is reproduced and thrown millions PRELFMINAEY SUBVEY. Iv upon millions of times, into this conflict, is re- garded as the crowning woe of creation. Thus the deepest of all chasms, that between the World and the Individual, yawns for the poor babe at birth, and grows wider with the years. Unhappiness, hopelessness, death is the result unless there be some means to bridge the abyss and let the wretched being pass out of his alien- ation to harmony. Whoever will show the way to unite the two warring sides, and conduct the lacerated spirit to a realm of peace and recon- ciliation is a hero of the race, one ever to be remembered and celebrated. It may be said that the first duty of every man born into this conflict, is to harmonize it, and to live in a clear happy unity with himself and the world. In one way or other it is his life task, which he must be working at, dumbly and un- consciously often, in mighty wfath and pessimis- tic hate often. Still he is working at it when he thinks not, when he intends not. In the deepest sense he can do nought else ; the humble hiborer in the field, sowing his crop and expect- ing the harvest is trying to adjust himself to that great world outside of himself, whose movement he but dimly comprehends, yet with which he has to put himself into harmony, in the bitter sweat of his brow. Toil, the simplest toil, is l)ut the eifort to overcome the dualism between man and the world. Ivi PBELIMINABY SUBVEY. Man must, however, have help, spiritual help of some kind, if he is to make much progress in his endeavor, particularly if he is to make much progress toward intellectual harmony. For that purpose the word is spoken to him, the spiritual word; it may be weak, uncertain, partially false, still it is a help. But that word may be supreme, final, for its time the whole truth ; then it becomes sacred, and it makes a Holy Book, a Bible, ever to be revered as the chief boon to struggling mortals. It solves the conflict, it overcomes the first birth by a second one, by a regeneration whereby the Individual is born out of his isolation into the universal spirit, is baptized in the worM- stream, and thenceforward in happy concord participates in the Divine Order. I say it is the function of all Books to do this — it is the very purpose and essence of Literature. Not all Books are written with this end in view, many seek just the opposite end, very few attain it supremely. Still, Literature perpet- ually works out this reconciliation between man and the world in some phase, often very faintly I know, often while denying the very object of its existence. But the Great Books make up the deficiency, they perform the work supremely, for once and for all, in a given epoch of time. They must, however, at certain periods be re-written ; the outer garment becomes faded, PRELIMINARY SURVEY. Ivii indistinct, having been worn so long by the World-Spirit, which must have a new vesture in accord with the new time. Yet the old is still preserved therein ; ultimately we discern the same soul, the same solution of the same diffi- culty. The Written Word is still trying to reconcile the Individual with the World, to show him how to fit into the supreme governing order of thinscs ; it is still seekincr to bring him to see under revolution, pain, calamity, the working- out of what is eternal and true. Though the new Bible be written, the old ones of both kinds are to be kept and treasured ; indeed they are to be studied afresh in the light of the new time and are to be brought into harmony therewith. All of them together show the complete development of man and the com- l)lete history of the grand human discipline in a complete form of expression. Each individual of true culture must be all of them, and the entire man can be seen only in these greatest works of his race. Such is the purpose of all Bibles, both relig- ious and literary; they are to point out the way of the great reconciliation, that between God and Man, between the World and the Individual, between Time and Eternity. All Bibles do this supremely for their people and age, and to a degree for their race; it is hence the chief aspira- tion of men to find them, if they are hidden. Iviii PBELIMINAMY SUBVEY. and to appropriate them when found. This aspiration has led the ardent scholar to the Orient, in order to bring to light its buried treasures, its Great Books. The result has been a new overrunning and conquest of the East by the West. II. It is the Orient which has given us the Religious Bibles ; indeed all expression of truth in the East has a tendency to become religious ; the secular life of man is but an unreal phantom which soon vanishes. The Great Books of the East are Sacred Books, sent from God, who utters his word direct unto his people; that word is therefore a hallowed word, and is to be obeyed without question as the divine utterance ; assent of the inner man by way of intelligence would not seem to be so necessary. The whole fabric of human existence, social, domestic, political, is regulated by these Holy Books with much intri- cate ceremonial ; the world is cast into a divinely appointed mould therein revealed ; the individual is nought in himself, but only as he casts himself into this mould of the Gods, whereby he may catch, like a passing gossamer, a momentary gleam of their radiance. It is well known that freedom was not born in the Orient and cabnot thrive there ; repression within and without the man is the divine behest. God is in the East, there he rises with the sun in all his glory; but he is not yet reconciled with freedom, that inner sun which PBELIMINABY SUBVEY. Ux rises in the individual and illumines there the dark world. In other words the theocratic and autocratic consciousness is fundamental in the Oriental mind. These Sacred Books once written, have re- mained sacred, and will remain sacred for all time ; it is a work once done for the race, and done forever. That is the Oriental contribution ; from the East our West has received these Sacred Books, which are ours too ; we have declared by every act of devotion that they belong to us, and that we cannot do without them. The culture of the East, still necessary to make us complete men, comes to us mainly in this holy form; it is indispensable to-day, being the first culture of humanity, ever renewed and ever to be renewed in each individual. We also belong to the Orient, and have a part of our spiritual de- mesne there ; our religion is derived thence, our physical descent, doubtless goes back to Asia ; the world had its beginning there, the spiritual world of which we are the heirs ; we cannot for- get our origin pointing back to that oldest land which gave to us the conception of God. The conception of God — think wh;it that signifies ! One may well call it the nurse of humanity; without it we cannot conceive of man as man; in one way or other he has been unfolding this conception of God from the beginning, and has not yet exhausted the subject by any means. Ix PBELIMINABY SUB VET. It is not at all well to despise the Orient and its gift ; nor, on the other hand, do we need to overvalue it. It gave us God, the divine World- Ruler, but could not give us freedom, the inner Self-Ruler. Let us repeat, then, these Sacred Books of the East are ours, we must keep them and cherish them as a precious heritage ; so we are doing, I think, amid all our fluctuations and ques- tionings. Indeed we cannot cast them from us ; they give the religious thread to man and to history; but it is plain that this is not the sole thread of our Western world, we must have freedom too, we must have a secular life as well as a religious one. The individual must be filled with the divine and thus saved, not crushed or absorbed by it; man belongs to the Here also, and not simply to the Beyond. The Oriental stream runs through us still, and will continue ; but to it is joined an Occidental stream which is peculiarly our own. The two currents have rolled through Europe's history side by side, in conflict often, often in harmony; still they have remained and must remain together, making amid all the foam and fury of dashing waves and whirling eddies one great river which never stops its flow toward the goal. God and Freedom we must have, in agreement if possible; if not, then in struggle. To recon- cile the two is always a task ; it is a task imposed FBELIMINABY SUBVEl. Ixi anew upon every human soul, which can only therein attain to harmony on this turbulent sur- face of wild terrestrial waters. After all, Prov- idence and Free Will in some form remain the problem which the rational being has most deeply within him, tearing him asunder, or unit- ing him into the complete man ; to throw away one side or the other, or to deny either is no solution. These two threads, both of them, under many diverse shapes make up the spiritual life of the individual and also bring about the eter- nal movement of history; in particular they are the content of the Literary Bibles. III. To these general statements concerning the Orient, there may be found special exceptions. It is said, for instance, by some writers, that Buddhism, the religion of a fourth of the human race, has no God. I hope not, in fact the state- ment is strongly denied by other writers. But so much may be said : Buddhism has not realized freedom, institutional freedom ; and the indi- vidual vanishes in the Nirvana, whatever that be. In this rcsi)ect its outcome seems to be pretty much the same as that of its great antagonistic religion, Brahmanism. On the other hand, the Chinese are sometimes said to equal if not sur- pass all peoples " in the possession of freedom and self-government." I hope so, but I utterly fail to see the sisriis in their institutions, in their progress, in their self-activity. Counter-currents Ixii PBELIMINAIiY SURVEY. there may be in the great* stream, still it has one tendency and one goal. The Orient, then, with its Sacred Books fur- nishes one strand of our spiritual being, feeding it and keeping it alive with a divinely paternal care. But the Occident furnishes the second great strand of our spiritual being, and this too, has found utterance in Great Books, which are not sacred but secular, having no external divine sanction, but working through their own power of illumination. Authority is not their watch- word, but freedom. Still we are not to forget that all these Great Books of Peoples have a common principle out of which they grow and which is the tap-root of the Tree of Life. They all in one way or other start with a deep alienation from the Highest ; they take man as a fallen being, fallen from a divine state which is the pre-supposition of his present es- tranged, discordant existence. With that aliena- tion is intimately connected the beginning of things ; to man is joined woman, source of evil, for evil seems to spring from the sexual dualism ; as if the creation of man means his fall, means some deep descent from God, some unfathomable estrangement from the spirit divine. At any rate here we all are, in trouble the profoundest; we have fallen, fallen from the skies, our former home ; now we must toil and burrow in the dirt; glance up at the heavens, look down upon the PBELIMINABY SURVEY. Ixiii earth, and mark the vast separation ; so great is our separation from our true estate. From deity, then, we have tumbled, an entire world; but the question of all questions is. How shall we ever get back again? It is the purpose of all Bibles and Great Books to answer just this question ; they undertake to tell man how to recover from his alienation, and be re- stored; all Bibles both Religious and Literary seek to perform this task, and therein have their greatest significance. The salvation of man it is often called, his return out of estrangement, and his restoration to the Highest. IV. If we inquire into the distinctive methods of these two kinds of Books, we remark that the Religious Bible lays stress not upon the Now, so much as the Hereafter, and it proposes to con- trol man's present deed by his future condition. It says that the individual must live here for that which is to be; this life is but a preparation for the life beyond. It assumes that man acts not so much from the inherent worthiness of the deed, as from the terrors or the glories of the existence to come. One day we shall surely die, the sun we shall look upon for the last time, the earth will swim out of our sight and we shall enter upon a new career: What is to become of us then? Such is the first and last question of re- ligion, which it seeks to answer, and upon such answer to base the life of man in this world, Ixiv PHELIMINAEY SUBVEY. as well as to settle his condition in the next. Our temporal stay on this side of eternity is to be adjusted to the behest of the Eelig- ious Bible and of its Priesthood who organize the whole earth anew to the end of salva- tion hereafter. The future life is the main pillar of the grand religious edifice; punishment and re- ward in the other world are the instruments of divine government in this world. A great and worthy endeavor is that, if rightly understood ; it is not a mere hierachy of cunning, resting upon de- ception and superstition, that is no solution of its appearance and lastingness among men. It is an honest attempt to make real to the heart and imag- ination that what man does lasts forever, that the human deed is the soul's perpetual environment, clinging to the doer through time, and passing with him into eternity. Which conception, still of chief weight with the people, has been trans- mitted to us from the Orient, and forms the main content of its Religious Bibles. It is a very significant fact that the West has never produced a Religious Bible in this high sense of the word ; Joe Smith's Mormon book is about the best we have been able to do in that line. I doubt if the West would receive one now, one of its own, if the same were written ; cer- tainly it has made none. Still it has ac- cepted some of those of the Orient, notably two of Hebrew origin. But these seem no PBELIMINAEY SURVEY. Ixv longer to satisfy us fully, we find ourselves going back to the East for more, where they seem to exist in great abundance. A distin- guished Orientalist, Mr. Max Muller, has pro- posed to give and is giving to us a number of these Sacred Books of the East in English trans- lation ; a selection of them, it seems, in some forty or fifty large octavo volumes. Biblical reading is not on the decline with us, as some- times asserted; rather it has enormously in- creased, till it seeks to devour all Bibles, and make them our own. But think of it ; so many Bibles, each one of them genuine to millions of people, nay, some of them to hundreds of mill- ions of people; now comes this last attempt which looks to making them genuine to the entire human race. These Bibles, too, have many points of similarity so that learned men have sought to trace them, one from another. Still they remain many; truly the East is the home of Religious Bibles ; with it we need not try to compete in this respect. I do not say that all these Sacred Books are equally good, they are not probably. Indeed for me personally the most of them were not written, that is clear ; they lie, to a large extent, outside of my taste and needs, perchance outside of my spiritual horizon. Even the poetry, the groat epics, the Mahabharata, is not in my range. Yet it is the greatest poem in the Universe to the Ixvi PBELIMINARY SURVEY. Hindoo myriads, and has been for some thirty centuries, it is said. The Vedic hymns will not sing much poetry into me, and the Vendidad worshiping light, leaves in me a streak of dark- ness. It is my fault, or rather deficiency ; my vote, I am well aware, does not count in this matter. Still every man can appreciate the grand historic fact of these Books, and their place in human development. Such appreciation is our object at present. Not the Hebrew Holy Book alone, then, has its page lighted up before us now, but others which have had even a greater influence upon the human race, if the number of human beings and the years of that influence are counted. What has given consolation and furthered righte- ousness to the milliards of Asia for thousands of years, is a great and affecting document to read and consider. Again the conquered East turns to the West and conquers the same spiritually, quite as much as it is conquered. I do not see why these Sacred Books should not be esteemed an incalculable gain to the totality of mankind, being all of them revelations of the Divine in spirit, having too a certain common principle and unity beneath all difference. The oneness of humanity, the common destiny of man is imaged, is uttered, is preached in them ; I should say the sermon preached from all of them is far more beautiful, truer, more religious. PRELIMINARY SURVEY. Ixvii than the sermon which can be preached from any one of them. Through them the religion of humanity is no longer a vague philosophical dream, or a cloak for irreligion, but becomes a reality, positive, practical, with the very records of it lying before us. We have seen in our time what may be called a new conquest of the East by the West — a con- quest of far greater importance than that of Alexander or that of Rome in antiquity. It is still going on, it has but just begun, we may say; its first harvest has been barely reaped, with the promise of many more harvests before that deep fertile soil approaches exhaustion. The ancient conquest was one of violence; yet it opened the way for a greater thing than itself; the spirit of the East united with the West and bore its supreme fruit in the Gospel of Peace. But this new conquest is not of violence but of knowledge from the start; the new missionary spirit, our modern investigation, has found in the East the material of its greatest religious achieve- ment; it has unlocked the Religious Bibles, of which wo have before spoken. All the Sacred Books of the Orient are now thrown open to the world, to be read by every human being who may find spiritual edification therein ; and ail the religion which sprang from them is being placed at the service of the whole race of man. This I esteem, the greatest religious gift of recent Ixviii PRELIMINABY SURVEY. times, ill spite of the scoffer on the one hand, or the bigot on the other. V. Though the religious achievement be great, science has performed almost as great a work in I he realm of Oriental language. That unity of humanity, lit up strongly in the emotion and imagination by the Religious Bibles, becomes in linguistic science a verified knowledge, a demon- strable fact. The Sanscrit with its cognate tongues has bridged Europe and Asia, has bound the two warring continents together by a cord which can never be again broken. Truly lan- guage is putting a mighty hoop around the Earth, and holds it together spiritually at this moment. The common descent of the Aryan race in the East and West is the greatest fact of our cen- tury, the supreme scientific achievement of modern times; small, very small and vanishing does Napoleon seem beside it. By its light we have to read all language anew, in it we now see a history of man, of the remote childhood of our race, a history of pre-historic man, and all his origins in political, social, religious life. A glance backward into the abysm of Time a single word now gives, which one hundred years ago all the languages of Earth did not convey. This is purely an intellectual conquest ; the Oriental wave comes rolling upon the West again, as in the earliest Aryan migration to Europe ; but what a difi'erence ! Now it is science which PBELIMINABY SUBVEY. Ixix constructs a new world from speech in re-con- structing the old one ; makes a simple sound tell a tale of thousands of years, a tale of consan- guinities, of separations, of long endurances ; sees in one vocable the movement and develop- ment of the race. And this story of strange fascination has bnt just begun ; it has hardly yet had its supremely Great Man, to give it harmony and completeness; some hundreds of years will yet pass before it can well draw toward a conclusion. » But even now its voice is unmistakable ; it calls to all peoples. East and West, with one speech, it tells of one origin, it has at the foundation l)ut one religion, and it prays to but one God. Laden with this total heritage of the race, our West must still continue its course ; it will hardly go back to the East, rather it will go forward to the East, to its most ancient sources ; one of its chief duties will be to carry thither, to the home of Religious Bibles, its own Literary Bibles. Then will the fabled Earth-serpent have put its tail into its month. It was a poet who made the grand flight of imagination bridging the world with human speech, building a veritable bridge from Orient to Occident out of the old roots of man's words. And yet it is a structure solider than adamant and more lasting. Such was that airy bridge of the poet, Frederick Schlegol, more romantic Ixx PBELIMINABY /SURVEY. than all his other romanticism, yet far truer. After him came an army of science, the great common soldiery of grammarians, philologers, lexicographers, who have worked with colossal industry, filling out that plan with the granite of facts, day by day filling out the airy structure till it now is getting to be one vast arch stretch- ing across from Orient to Occident, on which every plodding mule can pass over, where formerly only the wings of the poet could soar. Thus poetry always flies ahead of prose, and lays down the lines, gives the Type or Idea, which prose must build out to reality. Yonder railroad train ran through a man's brain, long before it ran over the face of the earth. Great is the democracy of science, but poetry even in these leveling days, remains an aristocrat. VI. It is thus that we behold the unity of speech revealed by science, but in a far stronger and deeper sense it is revealed by Literature. If a single word may be made to image so much, what shall we say to the great Cathedrals built of these words like so many single stones? It may be said that only in such a structure do words reach their full fruition, only when built into the literary temples of the race. Their end is not to make a dictionary or grammar, even a Comparative Grammar, but to make a Bible. It is true that each word may be and is likely to be that very Bible in miniature ; but into the min- PBELIMINABY SUBVEY. Ixxi iatiire temple we cannot so well enter and wor- ship. It must utter distinctly the destiny of man on the theater of this world, not merely in the one word, but in all the words, with each in its proper place in the grand pile of architecture. But the West has had another, or at least an additional, mission; a new view of the world has arisen and has expressed itself in a new way and in a new kind of Great Book. This terrestrial life of ours begins to have sig- nificance ; it is no longer to be absorbed into the divine, rather the divine is to be absorbed into it. The Greeks gave the start, the Gods came down to Earth and mingled freely among men, indeed were very human themselves both in their strength and weakness. Nature was transformed into the deity, but the deity, on the other hand, took up his abode in Nature, finding therein his adequate expression and satisfaction. Hints of this change may be found in the East; but the first great utterance of it, announcing the birth of a new world, amid the travail of war and the suffering of heroes, is heard in Homer. With him, as has been already said, a new order of Bibles arises, the Occident opens, and Litera- ture is born. The Great Books which belong to the West have been literary ; not sacred, but secular ; looking: not so much to the Hereafter as to the Here, with the assurance that if man always takes Ixxii PBELIMINABY 8UEVEY. care of this moment now intrusted to him, the future moment will take care of itself. Literature begins in song as the imagre of man's ideal secular existence; parallel to Literature History also begins with the West, as the faithful record of man's real existence, which in the Orient was not deemed worthy of beinoj recorded to any great extent. For if man be contemptible, a mere worm burrowing a day in the earth, or a mere mote flitting momentarily in the sunbeam, what can be the use of settinor down in writing his deeds? History in any true sense can not be where man's secular life is of so little moment as in the Orient, nor can there arise from such a soil what may be called Literary Bibles, which also deal with that same life, though in a differ- ent way from History. These books, therefore, are not sacred, in the Oriental sense; they are human, secular, grasping into the thick of our daily existence, of our temporal affairs. Yet life is not taken by them in its grossness or in its merely sensuous manifestation, but is trans- figured into being the bearer of something higher, the question of them being : How shall man here below, in this very moment of Time, live a universal Ijfe, though occupied with busi- ness, with making a living, with all sorts of finite terrestrial matters? VH. If we have succeeded in our argument, we have now won our starting-point for the PRELIMINARY SURVEY. Ixxiii Literature of the Occident, whose supreme movement is revealed in the Four Literary Bibles. Homer begins the separation between East and ^A'est, and is the first poet and prophet of Occidental Letters and Civilization; with Homer, therefore, we shall begin this Com- mentary. The reader of the preceding survey has doubt- less had a multitude of interrogations shooting through his mind, chief of which is probably this : What about the other Great Books of the West, some of which have been even more pop- ular than any of your Literary Bibles? The Englishman will insist upon including Milton, possibly Chaucer; indeed he will proclaim him- self ready to furnish all four and more too. The average German will rub his eyes and wonder at the omission of " our Schiller," certainly more popular than Goethe in the common fatherland. The Italian is not satisfied with having Dante as the sole representative of his people, he will claim a first place for Tasso, possibly for Ariosto; indeed he will point out the fact that his country has the true Big Four (I gran Quattri) already set apart, named and assigned to the highest peak of Parnassus. The friend of the Greeks will manifest decided scruples amid all of Homer's glory, and demand with some impatience : Where, then, are you going to put iEschylus with his Prometheus, with his Ixxiv PBELIMINABY SUBVEY. Oresteia? Is Sophocles also to be thrown *out, not to speak of others? The Latin humanist will hardly fail to make an epigram upon the omission of Virgil. But the loudest chorus of dissent and possibly of execration will come from the French and the Francophilists: What, is France, the literary nation par excellence, not to have a Literary Bible? The Spaniard, too, will be apt to show some indignation in rejecting a list which does not include Cervantes or Calderon, and he will probably have sympathizers from other nationalties. Undoubtedly these questions suggest an im- portant problem and demand serious- considera- tion. At present, however, we can only reaffirm that we did not make the list, or have a hand in the decision ; we have simply heard the judg- ment, and are seeking to understand the grounds of it, and are setting them forth as impartially as human infirmity may permit. Everybody has the right of challenging the decision of even the Tribunal of the Ages, and of putting up his own opinion in opposition. Everybody too has the right of protesting that the author has not heard the decision aright, or is not reporting it correctly. It is clear, however, that another volume would be needed to investigate the Second Class of Great Books, very great indeed and limited in number, yet falling short of the worth of the PRELIMINARY SURVEY. Ixxv greatest. What is the difference between the Four and those which come next? Even a Third Class begins to muke its appearance and to insist upon some recognition. Thus a task of colossal magnitude looms up in misty outline, nothing less than the due ordering and classification of all Literature according to the highest test of merit. From such a task we shall at present have to turn away, and direct the reader's attention for a moment to the Commentary on the Literary Bibles. The plan of this work, formed many years ago, is now substantially completed, and em- braces nine volumes in the following order: — I. Commentary on Homer's Iliad. II. " Homer's Odyssey. HI. " Dante's Inferno. IV. " Dante's Purgatorio and Paradiso. V. '• Shakespeare's Tragedies. VI. " Shakespeare's Comedies. VH. " Shakespeare's Histories. VIH. " Goethe's Faust. First Part. IX. '* Goethe's Faust. Second Part. Each of these volumes is independent, yet they all are links in the chain of the literary Ixxvi PRELIMINABY SURVEY. continuity stretching through the Occident. They seek to show the unity of Literature, while giving full validity to each separate work. The tenth volume, of which a hint has already been dropped, can be added when it and the tirae are ripe. At present, however, it will have to remain a possibility. II^TR OB VCTION. It will hardly be denied that the first great lit- erary product of the world is the poems of Homer. They are the beginning of what we call Letters : a fact of the very highest import to those who look to that branch of human endeavor, not for entertainment merely, but for a guiding light of life. Homer is the creative book of Litera- ture ; all books of that sort look back to him as parent, particularly the poetical books, which are the best. It may be said that every age, as its literary effort deepens, will find a deeper signifi- cance in him, and musthaveanew comment upon his works. So it is and must continue to be not only with Homer but with every great book; the new time will reveal in it the new meaning ; it un- folds with the ao;es. The important question, therefore, must come up to the earnest student, What is it to know truly the Homeric Poems? Their variety of sug- gestion is great and fascinating, and has called forth many special departments of learning; eru- dition has burrowed into them, and constructed vast underground la])yrinths, in which one is al- ways in danger of getting lost. These labyrin- (5) 6 INTRODUCTION. thine passages have, in the first place, no end; a life-time will not suffice to explore them ; in tlie next place, they have no light, being always in caverns out of the path of the sun. Every new spiritual time must avoid them and reveal the old poems afresh for its own behoof; not in the dark- ness of erudition, but in the sunlight of the poet must the true seeker take up his abode. Assuredly the matter of first import is compre- hension of the thing in hand; one must penetrate to the spiritual principle of the work, reach down into the very soul of its maker and commune with the same. We have not grasped any product till we become a sharer in the creative activity which made it, and so pass with it into its being. This deep intimacy with the Poet is his revelation to us; before our eyes we must behold his world rise up from the deep and take on form. Let us enter his workshop and follow the generative thought as it bursts into reality, and thrills and throbs into harmonious utterance. In such man- ner we seek to realize this old song, to make it our own, till it becomes an instinctive part of our nature, singing through us into our own daily life. Then we may be said to recognize the soul of Homer, being transformed into some image of him ourselves; w^e have entered into kinship with him; we fraternize joyfully with his strangest shapes, and look in wonder through his remotest glimpses. INTRODUCTION. 7 Doubtless the rarest kind of knowledge always is to know what true knowledge is. It is so often mistaken for Opinion, Conjecture, Information, Learning, and other uncertain and impure forms of human brain-work, that one is inclined to turn away from every new word, particularly if it be on an old theme. Only too frequently is such distrust justified. A mountain of commentary has been heaped around all the great works of Literature, till their light seems to go out in the darkness of illustration. We often know so much about the thing that we do not know the thing itself, cannot know it; erudition has swathed it in such dense, obscure folds that ignorance seems a blessing — indeed, a veritable illumination. Around and about the matter, never directly to the heart of it, do our learned guides keep us straying so long that we have at last to dismiss them and go on by ourselves as best we can. Knowledge, if this be such, is certainly getting into great straits, so encompassed with uncertain phantasms that she scarce knows herself, being in deep doubt whether she be not a phantasm too. Thus we often hear men speak in wrath and desperation, thus we may sometimes speak our- selves; still, wrath is hasty, and complaint is weakness. With all his shortcomings, we can- not do without our Interpreter; he is truly a priest in that mighty Literary Hierarchy which arose with the fiist ji^reat book of Letters, this 8 INTRODUCTION. Homer, and has extended its spiritual sway down to our present age with an ever-increasing power and blessing. The Interpreter has a function, too, in this time of ours, indispensable ; it may be very humble, or very elevated; he may be erudite merely, which is something ; but his high- est destiny is to be a spiritual guide, leading us back to those perennial well-heads of human cult- ure called Literary Bibles, and teaching us to be again what their authors, the best and deepest souls of our race, have been, and thus to be truly ourselves the heirs of Time. The Interpreter, then, has his parish, if not his church; a word, weighty, even beautiful, is given him to speak — the word of connection between what is discon- nected; the word of light where there is dark- ness ; the word of harmony where, on the surface at least, are seen only inconsistency, contradic- tion, confusion. A golden word, uniting ever where otherwise is separation, it makes head, heart, and even voice into an instrument upon which the old Poet seems to be playing again, yet attuned to a modern key-note. Such is a hint of the ideal Interpreter, from whom the real one is likely to be quite different. If we now turn to the Iliad, we must first seek for its creative thought, and thought can be at- tained in one way only, namely, by thinking. We shall have to wrestle with an idea, and, further- more, witness that idea unfolding: into the mem- INTBODUCTION. 9 bers of the poem. This brings us to the organism of the work, which is to be carefully analyzed, and then recombined into unity. Thus we get its structure, or architectonic relations, which constitute the framework upon which its life hangs and moves to its end. This life of the poem comes through individuals, whose charac- ters are to be penetrated and brought in harmo- nious relation with one another, and with the entire work. Thought, organization, characters, must be first separated by reflection, then re- united into the Whole, which is thereafter to sink int"0 our feelings, into oiir life, and become a part of our instinct. Thus the Homeric world is ours, not through the head alone, but through the heart, and we have passed into our complete Greek in- heritance. I. The Hiad is a series of dualisms, beginning with that deepest one of all, the dualism between the human and divine. But it is also a series of reconciliations: it masters its conflicts, and trans- forms them to harmony. Mark the Gods; they are infinite, yet forever dropping down into the finite, which is the image of the poem, and of the entire Greek consciousness. But, on the other hand, through this finite side of the Gods we get a glance into their infinite nature; this glance is the all-important gift in the student, which he is 10 INTRODUCTION. to bring with him if he is to look into the old poet's world. It peeps through the divine limit- ations into the illimitable; it sees beyond the quarrels and struggles of Olympus, and beholds the reconciling element of the divinities; the poetic glance it is which the Homeric man must have had by nature as the birthright of his age, but which requires some training to recover on our part. To it the Gods become transparent ; their strife, passions, jealousies, shortcomings, are but the outer shell, through which the divine image must be seen; this glance is the flash which spans with a bridge of light the chasm of Homer's dualisms. The first and most important of these dualisms is that between Men and Gods. There is an Upper World, the realm of divinity; there is a Lower World, the sphere of human action. Every- where in Homer these two worlds are seen mov- ing alongside of each other, intermingling, separating, communing; through every Greek soul a terrestrial and a heavenly stream is pour- ing, often in conflict and rage, but finally in placidity and peace. The main insight is that both these worlds, though distinct to the outer eye, are one to true vision, to that poetic glance which beholds harmonies. The Gods must be seen to be in man, otherwise he is a mere puppet in the hands of external powers, whereby he loses his freedom. INTB OD UC TION. 1 1 But the Gods must be seen to be outside of man just as well, otherwise they lose their divinity, being merely some thought or caprice of an in- dividual. The poem is a poem of freedom, such has been the faith of the genuine reader in all ages; yet it is also a poem of providence, which providence perpetually hovers over it, and directs it. But its providence fits into freedom, such is its deepest harinony; the Gods are both in the man and in the world ; they are the true essence of the human soul on the one hand, and the true reality of existence on the other. Thus the mighty dualism between INIen and Gods vanishes; the two opposing sides of it pass into one supreme harmony in this grand Homeric Hymn of the Universe. It may be truly affirmed that the highest test of the appreciation of Homer is to see this unity of the Upper and Lower Worlds as they stand in his books. Still further, it is necessary to see out of the finite manifestations of the Gods, out of their follies and weaknesses, into their uni- versal significance. Nor must this be grasped as an esoteric doctrine in Homer, as some learned men have done; it is simply the natural meaning which, however, requires the poetic vision in order to be truly beheld. Without the connect- ino- glimpse. Homer remains a dualism — indeed, a chaos of Gods and Men capriciously tumbling amid one another. 12 INTRODUCTION. n. We may now pass to consider this Lower World, in which there is transpiring a conflict of prodigious significance — the conflict between the Greeks and Trojans. These two peoples are much alike, with the same customs mainly, with the same relisrion and language; it is clear that they belong to the same stock; both are Hellenic. Yet, in this unity of the two, a decided difference has shown itself; their tendencies are, in fact, quite opposite ; the Greeks are Hellenes with face turned towards the West, the Trojans are Hellenes with face turned towards the East. We behold the primitive differentiation of the Hellenic race, and the strugo-le of the two sides ; it is the first record of that struggle which is the soul of the Greek world: Occident versus Orient. The spiritual separation of Hellas from the East, passing into complete opposition, is the key-note which Homer strikes in the Iliad; it is the great fountain of Greek legend, and the inspiring prin- ciple of Greek history. Nay, this conflict is, perhaps, the chief epoch of the World's History, exhibiting the transition out of the East to the West; and the old poem is the earliest bngle-call of war to the peoples of Europe for the defense and preservation of the European heritage. But what is the principle at stake in this long, INTRODUCTION. 13 desperate contest? Au adequate answer to this question involves much : indeed, a new transla- tion of Homer ; not, however, of his Greek tongue into Enghsh, but of his Greelt soul into English. The Poet has often stated the object of the war to be the recovery of Helen, who was the most beautiful of Greek women, also the wife of a Greek king, Menelaus. She has been taken from country and home by a Trojan, who will not give her back to Hellas. The entire Greek world of the West at once arms itself for her restoration, which, after ten years' struggle, they accomplish. Nor is it to be forgotten that they were more united upon the Trojan War than upon the Per- sian War, or any other deed of their history. The muster-roll of Greek peoples fighting Troy in Homer is larger than the muster-roll of Greek peoples fighting Persia in Herodotus. In their own judgment, as revealed by this act, their very destiny depended upon the recovery of Helen. So different is the Greek view from our way of regarding such a woman that we are forced to ask, What does it all mean? What does Helen stand for to the Greeks? That she represents something deep within them, the very deepest, is indicated by the great sacrifice which they made for her sake. She must bo their principle, their heart of hearts; her story is the story, al- ready hinted, of the Occident against the Orient. The fight before Troy for her possession is the U INTRODUCTION. fight of the Greeks for the very soul of their ex- istence; indeed, the matter goes much deeper, as we here can see who look back over the tract of Time ; it is the fight for the future inheritance of the race, the question therein propounded being, Which of these two contestants, Greek or Asiatic, shall be the bearer of civilization to that new. European world now being born? The Greek claimed it, and won it, both in legend and in his- tory, valiantly defending it both at Troy and at Marathon. It is true that there is a much easier way of looking at this affair of Helen. We may regard it merely as a story which Homer employed to amuse his listeners, and to get his bread; he in- tended it as a pretty tale and nothing more, and we must not go beyond his consciousness. All of which simply destroys the poet, as the maker of a Literary Bible, who must also be a seer, and build wiser than he knows. Again, the fact of the abduction of Helen may be taken as literal ; women were often stolen in early times, as we gather from other testimony than Homer; in mythical ages it was a common event, often cele- brated in legend and song. But the difiiculty re- mains. How is it that this story has lived, and still lives, after millions of more entertaining stories have sunk out of sight? Nay, how is it that this story still puts forth new flowers and bears new fruit, like the tree of Time itself? But INTR OD UC TION. 1 5 yesterday a new book, a new poem, came out upon Helen of Troy ; to-morrow another will ap- pear. There can only be one reason; it has the most permanent, universal theme ; it has within it not merely the heart of Greece throbbing itself into deepest seductive harmonies, but of Europe, of the whole West. This universality of its theme must be grasped if we are to understand the poem. Some men of learning and insight have thought that the story of Helen may be confined to the Greek cities of Asia Minor, which stood, as it were, on the battle-line, and were always en- gaged in a struggle with Oriental powers. There was a vast settlement of Greek colonies along the eastern shore of the Archipelago, which had this question perpetually before them: Shall we re- main Hellenic or become Oriental? Shall our Helen be Greek or Trojan? Throughout the his- tory of Greece this same problem runs, with deep, heroic heart-beats: How shall we free Greeks re- store to liberty our enslaved brothers in Asia? This enfranchisement of the Asiatic Greek was the object of the Athenian League, the ambition of Agesilaus, the pretext of Alexander. Well may it be said that the first thing in Greek le- gend, the last thing in Greek history, is this story of Helen. Much, indeed, she meant to the Greek cities of Asia Minor, where the Trojan battle was perpetu- ally fought over anew ; still she has a far wider, 1 G INTB OD UC TION. Id fact, a universal meaning. The great sacred word connected with her name is restoration; she must be restored to country and family — that is, to a true, institutional life out of that ambigu- ous Trojan condition. One may well see in this fact a hint of the redemption of the woman from her Oriental state, and of her elevation into a worthy life in the family, which belongs to the West. Nor is the hint of morality left out, which is the subjection of the sensuous nature of man to the rational; wherein Helen's career shows both the error and the correction. Paris must perish, Troy must be destroyed: both have violated the great moral injunction and stand in the way of restoration. Finally, after the Trojan struggle, Helen became the image of the new Greek world, which sprang from it, in which the senses are filled with the spiritual life of Greece, and represent the same; it is the realm of beauty in which Helen is the ideal of Art, and which em- bodies the preceding principles and conflicts of Greek existence to the vision. This new European world of Institutions, Morals, and Art is the deep- hidden foundation of Helen's story, which foun- dation we must excavate in thought and bring to sunlight, like the buried walls of Troy and MycenjB, if we are truly to comprehend the mat- ter. And still, long after ancient Hellas has passed away, she remains the Greek ideal for us mod- INTR OD UC TION. 1 7 erns. Our last world-poet, Goethe, in rivalry with his elder brother, the first world-poet, has re-incarnated Helen in his great poem Faust, and thus she has had her second grand epiphany in our own time. Assuredly it would be the greatest absurdity to sacrifice thousands of human beings for one merely, unless that one in some way represented what was truest and best in the thousands. Many wives, we may suppose, lost their all for that one wife Helen. But she is what they all are; the loss of her is the loss of every Greek woman, and man too. Her restoration is their restoration; so the Greeks feel throughout this poem ; they must ttdve Troy and restore Helen, else they are not Greeks. Prosaic modern peoples fight for their flag; thus they too have their symbol for which they die. But the Greek flag was Helen, most beautiful of symbols — indeed, just the sym- bol of beauty. We also stake thousands of lives for the life of one citizen who has been wrono^ed by a foreign nation. In the one we have to see the all ; if not see, then feel in the most practical sort of manner. Helen, therefore, is the image of Hellenic spirit, of all that Greece means to mankind and to itself. She is the soul of the Greek world, and the form of it too ; both in her are blended into one supreme beautiful vision of the ideal. Her restoration is, consequently, the most impor- 2 18 INTB OB UC TION. tant of terrestrial matters; it means civilization, freedom, the home; it means, too, Art, which now springs into existence in every direction — in sculpture, painting, poetry; springs just out of this Iliad^ and the return of Helen which is the theme of it. But we must look to the Odijs- seij for the outcome ; there we see Helen restored ; hence in this, as well as in many other respects, it is the fulfillment of the Iliad. Most deeply we must make this feeling ours; if Helen had not been restored, there could have been no Homer, no Homeric theme of song, no Homeric soul to sing; indeed, no Greek world. We must, therefore, get rid of that idea of Helen which represents her merely as a shapely voluptuous woman, with the demoniac power of fasciiiatinj; and maddenino; mankind throuo;h the 00,0 senses. She is not the gorgeous Egyptian harlot, not Cleopatra, else she were already the Oriental enchantress whom there would be no need of stealing. On the contrary she is Greek, and re- mains Greek even in Troy, in estrangement. She has the fatal gift of sensuous charm, but with it the counterstroke which brings recovery. In her lies the terapt^ation, the conflict, the fall, the repentance, the restoration. The complete human cycle of experience Helen passes through; in the besinniuo: beautiful innocence; then the great alienation with long captivity in the Trojan walls ; then the intense desire for return to home INTR OD UG TION. 1 9 and countiy, with the final reconciliation. The war before Troy is fought to release her from thralldom, and her thralldom is both inner and outer. All this is told by Homer, not as an ab- straction, but as the livino: deed of the livinir person. The dualism in the soul of Helen, which is to be overcome, is the dualism between Greek and Trojan, which is also to be overcome. So our Aryan race upon the plain of Troy has split again as it once split far back in the high- lands of middle Asia, long antecedent to History, upon the same question, Orient or Occident, in its earliest germ. The one party stayed behind in the Orient, became Oriental, and there they are yet ; the other party set their face toward the West, advanced slowly to the boundary of the seas, doubtless with many wanderings, dissen- sions, and separations. But this Western party, or a fragment of it, has a second great separa- tion, far more important than the first, and far more decisive; at the crossing into Europe it is our Hellenic branch which appears and divides within itself ; it too has to settle anew that pri- meval question, Orient or Occident, right on the line of the transition into the West. This transi- tion is a physical one, but also a spiritual one, which is the chief fact of it ; it has, moreover, got a voice now, most wonderful, melodious, sounding down to this day. That first struggle in the heart of Asia remained inarticulate, or at 20 INTBODUCTION. most a wild, confused murmur of dim vocables which the philologist tries painfully to read ; but this second strufjsfle on the borderland bursts into splendid articulation of heroic song, as the separation is made forever from the Asiatic world. Listen to the Iliad singing the first and clearest note of the conflict which lasted while Greece lasted, lasts to this day. Paris of legend, Xerxes of history, came against the West; Agamemnon of legend, Alexander of history, went against the East; it is all one theme, making a world-epos, one in Universal History, one in the human heart. Here, as elsewhere, the heart-beat and the world- beat make one music, heard still in all true poetry, heard most distinctly, if not most pro- foundly, in this earliest Book of Literature. HI. Such is the great external conflict, as we may call it, the parties to which are the Greeks and Trojans. But this outer struggle strikes into the heart of each contending. host, and there becomes an in- ternal conflict; each side thus finds within itself a separation into two parties. In Troy we catch repeated glimpses of the two sides, in wrangling and bitter opposition; in the Greek camp the strife within stands quite on a par with the fight- ing without. Both are alike ; in both there is the same som-ce of trouble ; the grand external INTR OD UG TION. 2 1 conflict is tnmsformed to au internal one, as is certain to happen in a time of war ; passing into each of the opposing sides, it becomes the mov- ing principle of all their factions and partisan- ship. Thus the great struggle, which is the soul of the war, renews itself in each of the opposing forces, imaging itself in inner dissension as well as in outer war. This double scission we may trace a little in detail. First, let us consider the Trojans. At once we see them to be divided into two parties, vehement, even rancorous, which may be called the peace party and the war party. They meet repeatedly and deliberate ; the vital question is : shall Helen be restored? The Trojans are by no means a unit upon the matter ; the one side will keep the beautiful woman, will sunder wife from husband, will defy the Greeks and their principle ; this is the war party, headed by Paris, connived at, if not supported by Priam, the king; it is clearly the controlling influence in Troy. They are opposed by the peace party, led by Hector and Antenor, who favor the surrender of Helen to the Greeks, and thus hope to get rid of the war. But this party does not, and cannot pre- vail : it is the Greek element in Troy, really maintaining a Greek view against tlic Oriental tendency of the Trojans. Thus we behold an inner reflection of the great external conflict within the walls, in fact, within the hearts of the 22 INTRODUCTION. hostile people; each Trojan miin, to whichever party he belongs, must have some dim struggle in himself, whereof the outer real picture is the combat of heroes before the gates of the city. The wrong of Helen has gone within, and there makes a war also — a war in every Trojan heart. We may next turn to the internal troubles of the Greeks, who are also divided into two parties. They are all agreed that Helen must be restored by ten years' war if need be; but a new differ- ence has arisen peculiar to the Hellenic character. The Heroic Individual, Achilles, has been dis- honored by the man in power, the supreme com- mander, Agamemnon; heroism is distained by authority. What can heroism do but retire in anger from all participation in combat, and let the Greeks see what they are without their hero? This scission gives the theme of the Iliad, which is the wrath of Achilles; out of such material the poem can be made, out of the wrath of the best man, which, however, must be overcome before Troy or any other city can be taken. That is, the Hero, the Great Man, must be conciliated and re- stored to his place of supreme honor; he is al- together the stoutest link in the whole chain of the Greek enterprise; indeed, his is always the first place in the World's History. So, in this earliest literary book, there must spring up the question about the significance of the Hero ; with him dishonored it is not worth while to restore INTE OD UC TI ON. 23 Helen, not worth while for Greece to be. Such is the decree of Zeus the Highest, written in red letters of battle : first, give buck honor due to the heroic man, then you can recover the beauti- ful woman through his heroism ; but what is the value of possessing her with him degraded? The cause of Achilles is, therefore, at bottom, the cause of Helen ; he, the first of Greek men, striving to restore the first of Greek women, is injured in his honor by a wanton act of authority ; the wrong done by the Trojans to the woman now finds its parallel in the wrong done by the Greeks to the man. Indeed, this injury goes to the very heart of the conflict ; the special form of the wrong, the taking of Briseis, is like in character to the taking of Helen ; Achilles calls Briseis his beloved wife, though " the captive of my spear." The Greek commander is thus seen to commit the very offense for which he and his Greek armament are seeking to punish the Trojans. In his own deed must be read his penalty ; the Greek cause, too, is now at war with itself, which is just the ground of this internal strife ; the Cap- tain makes all the Greeks sharers to a degree in the wrong which they have come to avenge. Such is the inner contradiction which has arisen in the Greek camp, and which Zeus uuist elimi- nate before Helen can be saved, being at ^ complete variance with her restoration. This dissonance, which lies deep in the Greek soul, 24 INTR OD UC TION. must be brought back to harmony; the instru- mentality is the wrath of Achilles, the theme of the poem ; this wrath, also, is a dissonance which must be got rid of, when tho discordant Greeks, made harmonious once more, will have victory. In such manner we behold that first great dual- ism repeating itself, perpetuating itself in deeds on both sides, imaging itself in all hearts, Greek and Trojan. The Rape of Helen was that which originated the external war between Greeks and Trojans ; it divided the Trojans into two hostile parties ; it was the same cause essentially which produced the quarrel in the Greek camp between Achilles and Agamemnon. Thus the Helen ques- tion is supreme ; it makes the parties in Troy as well as among the Greeks. The conflict is, in- deed, in every soul on both sides ; it is the mighty dissonance of the age, which it is just the duty of these valiant Greek warriors to harmonize, in- ternally as well as externally. It is the problem of the whole Hellenic people; the story of Helen is the representation of it; each Greek before Troy is, in reality, fighting this dualism in him- self, in his own side, in his race. A double, indeed a triple conflict, therefore ; all phases of which we see come out with intense fflow in the grand embodiment of the nation, the Hero Achilles. INTBODUCTION. 25 IV. The inner Greek scission has been men- tioned; namely, the quarrel between the two leading men ; it is this which produces the Iliad with its special theme and its special line of events as distinguished from the entire Trojan War, whereof the poem occupies but a few daj's. This inner scission must be healed, then the ex- ternal conflict will end in the fall of Troy and the return of Helen. The Greek Hero must lay aside his wrath and be reconciled with his own people; then he will slay the Trojan Hero, after which there will follow a second reconciliation, even with the enemy. But ere all these things transpire there is to be a grand experience, which the world may well ponder. The Greek people are to wrestle with this problem: Can we do without our Hero and take Troy? No, we can- not, is the thousandfold answer echoing from many fierce battles on the Trojan plain ; Ave can- not do without our Achilles ; there can be no real conquest of Troy unless he be present and in honor. Such is the one side of this experience, bitter, sanguinary, spelling out in blood its deep lesson to mortal men. But the other side is not Avanting; the Hero is to find out somewhat too. Can he do Avitliout his people, Avithout liis cause in which he can be heroic? By no means; he is 26 INTRODUCTION. Hero only as he takes his place and fights in the desperate front rank of battle ; out of his place, sulking in his tent, he is not Hero, in fact is a nobody ; he is much less than a mediocre man who still fights, though in mediocre fashion. Thus even the Hero reduces himself with great celerity to zero. But he is the person upon whom the eye rests; the central figure of the poem is this Heroic Man ; who is to teach so much and to be taught so much. The problem of individuality it may be called; each human being may see himself in this portraiture; he too must find out that only as he takes his place in the ranks and fights, is ho any- thing in the world ; for, if he persists in getting along without the world, the world will persist in getting along without him. It is better to be reconciled, far better; take the example of Achilles, the toughest, most unyielding granitic character that was ever portrayed ; still he yielded, yielded twice, to the astonishment, per- haps, but certainly to the deep edification of all mankind. This, then, is the theme which calls the Iliad into being ; the Heroic Individual in his double Wrath and double Reconciliation. Therewith the entire organism of the poem is suggested, to which we may now give a little study. The first Wrath and Reconciliation em- braces what was above called the internal conflict of the Greek army, the quarrel between Agemem- INTRODUCTION. 27 non and Achilles, till the two are reconciled (Books 1-19). The Hero is dishonored by hav- ing his prize in war taken from him, his beloved prize, the fair Briseis, whom he intended to make his wedded wife, equal in rank with Helen. In such manner is his heroic personality disgraced ; wrath is his response to the insult, and not till he sees that his wrath destroys his heroship, and that he, the Great Man, is no longer reflected in the deeds of the Greeks, does he cease from an- ger, changing internally, and restoring his broken relations with his people. Such is the first grand division of the Iliad, of which we must clearly make two subdivisions if we would see the whole poem in its organic struct- ure. These subdivisions we may call Achilles in the Right (Books 1-9) and Achilles in the Wrong (Books 9-19), designating them from the attitude of the Hero, around whom the action turns. The first subdivision shows Achilles, as the injured one, and the attempt of the Greeks to get along without him, their best man. They begin the battle afresh ; they bring forward all the lesser men, who are the valiant warriors after Achilles and who now have their grand opportunity; they speak boldly and fight bravely. But it is of no avail; the very soul has gone out of the Greeks in the absence of their Hero; him they must bring back at all hazards. Accordingly, the embassy is 28 INTB OB UC TION. sent to the wrathful chieftaia, ample restitution is offered, and the grand apology ; he is fully ac- knowledo-ed Hero. Thus honor is satisfied, but, in spite of everything, there remains the wrath, the heroic wrath, but now empty, devoid of all just ground. Henceforward he is the implacable sore- head ; he refuses to fit himself into the order of the world by being reconciled with authority, for even the Gods, as Phoenix says, are placable. Here the second subdivision of this First Part beofins, showingr Achilles in the wrong, for his right is now turned to a wrong. He permits the great Hellenic cause, of which he is the Hero, to be defeated ; he, the grand protector of his friends, allows those friends to perish, whereof the cul- mination is reached in the death of Patroclus, his dearest friend. It is clear that thus he is no longer the Hero ; his honor has turned to dis- honor; wrath, seeking to vindicate the worth of the individual, has destroyed it. Then comes his insight into the bitter truth of his conduct, fol- lowed by passionate repentance ; he is now ready for reconciliation with the Greeks and Ajramem- non. Such is the mighty change in the Hero ; an internal change it is, and means a transformation of the man, indicating what true heroism is ; there is an enemy within more defiant than any enemy without, and there is here a conquest greater than that of Troy — the conquest of himself. Hector was easily vanquished by Achilles, but Achilles IXTRODUCTION. 29 vanquished by Achilles is the grandest spectacle of the Iliad; it is the turniiig-poiut of the poem; henceforth we may pronounce him a new man. Yet not complete : another Wrath rises within him, which must also be reconciled; it now turns against the Trojans, passing from the inter- nal to the external enemy. This introduces us to the Second \Yrath and Reconciliation of the Hero, constituting the sec- ond grand division of the Iliad. It is the Tro- jans who have brought disgrace and sorrow upon him through the loss of his friends. He used Hector and Troy as the instruments of his First Wrath ; but his new insight is that such a course ends in undoing himself. The ironv of his deed has given him the hardest counter-stroke. Achilles brought calamity upon the Greeks for the sake of honor, but just this calamity has in a deeper sense come home to him also as the chief Greek man, and has dishonored him with a new dis- honor. This second dishonor calls forth a second wrath ; not yet has he risen above auger into the realm of harmony. So he has learned much, but is now to learn more still ; true to his character, he will march forth against the foe, as he pre- viously withdrew to his tent. Again, too, he car- ries his just wrath against an external enemy into the realm of wrong ; he may kill Hector, but not maltreat his dead body; thus he violates the ordi- nance of the Gods, at least of Zeus the Highest, 30 INTB OB UC TION. who is ultimately over both Greeks and Trojans. This he is to see ; it is his second great insight and conquest of implacable wrath. So we have the Second Reconciliation, not with the Greek, but with the Trojan; a deeper note seems touched therein than in the Fiist Reconcilia- tion. Achilles must destroy the destroyer of his friend and of his people ; then his honor is satis- fied, and he is again the supreme Hero when Hector is shiin. He has now reached the cul- mination of his fiojhtinof; he has broujrht Hector to lie in death with Patroclus, the friend. Still he rages ; it is, however, an empty rage, being against a corpse, which can be no longer a foe; it is a wrath without reason, like that continued wrath after the Embassy, whereby honor turned to dishonor. It is, moreover, a wrong, a viola- tion done to the Gods, even to Zeus the Highest. But he changes a second time within, and is pla- cable towards the foe; it is his highest harmony to place himself in accord with the Gods, who decree the restoration of Hector's body. It is the last and supreme deed of the Hero, a new self-conquest, wherewith the Iliad ends. But the war is not ended, nor can it end at such a point. Achilles cannot take Troy; the principle of the great conflict is not his so much as his own heroic individuality. He can bring matters to the highest point of heroism, he can destroy the heroic man of the enemy, but those INTE OD UC TION. 3 1 walls before him he cannot scale; the Trojan War, involving the principle of Orient against Oc- cident, he cannot end. Such is the limit of the Hero. But that final scene is surpassingly beauti- ful, great, tender ; the two slain warriors, Greek and Trojan, are lying in the equality of death; never again will they raise hand against one an- other, or against any foe ; they are reconciled by the last umpire of all strug-o-le. Hector and Patroclus, enemies in life, receive in death equal treatment from the overruling Gods, and Achilles, in heart and in act, accepts their decree, and passes out of our view forever. In such manner our poem seizes the most trans- cendent of all earthly relations, that between the Hero and his people ; each tries to do without the other. Behold the results. It is an ever-recur- ring theme of the World's History ; fateful is the state which has not its Hero in its ranks ; wretched , utterly worthless, is the Hero displaced from his work. His people must give him unstinted honor, such is their greatest glory ; but he must do his duty; he must be reconciled both with friend and foe in the end. He has to learn to come down from his lofty selfhood, and to be subordinated to his country and to the Gods; only in this self- surrender docs he truly become a hero, the em- bodiment of the Divine on earth. For why docs he exist, the Heroic Individual? To be the ter- restrial image of the Highest — to save his people 32 INTB OD UC TION. and to honor the Gods; thus, the mighty indi- vidual is brought under what is universal, and reaches his true destiny. Such is the experience of Achilles; he has to find out that he, the Hero, does not belong to himself ; if, in his wrath, he builds up a wall around himself to exclude his people, he has made a gigantic fortress, but he is the prisoner, and in the worst sort of captivity. He has to learn that his heroship is not his abso- lute posse>:sion, not his' per.-^onal chattel against all the world ; it has no being except in its own sacrifice. On the other hand, the people, too, have their lesson; they think that they can do without him, disre^ardino: or forgetting him; they must be brought back to a new reverence for him, by war, defeat, by ten thousand scourges plied upon their recreant backs by the unseen avengers, guardians of Heroic Men. But not merely in the greatest world-historical affairs do we note the perennial existence of this problem of Achilles; it is seen in the smallest matters of daily life, wherever men are associated together. Every person has in him something of the Hero, or wish to be Hero, is an Achilles in his own little realm; usually, too, his heroship is not appreciated, and he withdraws in wrath from this circle or that enterprise, saying secretly or openly to those remaining: You will see what you are without me — you will miss me. Still the heavens fall not, the sun returns in glory, and the world INTB OD UC TION. 3 3 moves on without apparent disturbance ; nay, the little circle, or the little enterprise, tiniest of sub- lunary things, may find another hero. Thus the lesson reaches down to the humblest — a burnino- but healthful experience. The problem of the individual it was called above, because it seems to be connected with the very nature of indi- viduality ; every human being must settle it wisely or unwisely, making his life noble or wretched, the question being: How shall I, this separate, independent piece of free agency, sensitiveness, and self-sufficiency, with a world in me all my own, fit into the universal order of things? Not assuredly by withdrawal, by self-exclusion; the microcosm must bo made to link into the macro- cosm; that is just your life-duty. The very strength of the individuality makes the character mighty, and the reconciliation deep ; an indiffer- ent person has little to yield and little to receive. It is the great man alone who can make a ""reat mistake; it requires a Napoleon to produce a Moscow retreat ; a small man is able to make only a small mistake. The recovery of the great man from error is great in proportion, and he be- comes the Hero; still, the humblest man has his Iliad, in which there is lived, if not recorded, his Wrath and, it is to be hoped, his Reconciliation. Wonderful is the work of the old poet who has taken just this character for his Hero, which nuisL image men while men last ; an eternal, neviT- 3 34 JNTB OD UC TION. wearying theme, co-terminous with the very ex- istence of the Individual. The first change of Achilles within, casting away his wrath, is great; perhaps even greater is the second change, when he takes the Trojan enemy into the fold of reconciliaticm, though it be but temporary. For he sees that he violates the Gods, who are above both Greeks and Tro- jans, when he outrages the dead form of Hector ; he assails the instinctive feeling of humanity when there is no need, for the conflict with an enemy ceases with death, and is reconciled by the God. Thus both sides unite in Zeus; the Hero leads the way, and bridges the last and deepest chasm ; there is the unity of Olympus above, there is the unity of Greeks and Trojans below, both of which are again one unity. Such is the final solution and harmony of the conflict portrayed in the poem ; we may truly say that the unity of the Iliad is its very soul. We are now ready to see clearly the course of the poem in all its sinuosities. It runs on the lines of Achilles' development throughout, yet sweeps into its folds and windings the whole Trojan war. Like the great rivers of the world, its channel is not a straight cut to the sea, but its waters reach there in full volume nevertheless, and the navigator upon its bosom has only to keep his craft in its current to be borne to the true destination. INTBODUCTION. 35 The movement of the Iliad, is then, essentially the movement of Achilles. The Trojan war is the grand outer setting, the world-historical event, in which the Hero is to reveal himself; he is not there for it, but it is there for him. The poem is, accordingly, an Achilleid rather than an Iliad; in fact an Iliad, or historic account of the Trojan war from beginning to end, would pro- dace no poem. This must show the development of the Individual, in Spirit, not the development of History in Time. Thus we have a complete cycle of the Hero's experience; it is this spiritual cycle of the human being which rounds off the poem to unity. The true poetic conception can- not start with the first attack on Troy and end with the destruction of the city ; that would only make prose. On the contrary, it must seize as its theme the heroic individual, his right, his wrong, his reconciliation. The cycle of the spirit's trial and triumph is the main thing to ancient Homer; the events woven into this cycle are secondary. Indeed, the poem does not end with the death of the Hero, though this is often foreshadowed. He is not tragic, but is mediated, and the Iliad itself is a poem of mediation. It carries him for- ward to the very highest point of reconcilement, and ti]cu drops him; he vanishes from the scene, when he has reached, not his greatest outer, but his greatest inner victory ; that is not the conquest 36 INTBODUCTION. of Hector, but the conquest of himself, the mastery of his hist wrath and his harmony with the Olympian order of Zeus. One feels sad for those critics who would have the Iliad end with Achilles standing over his fallen foe and doing the bloody work of wrath ; they have never met the old bard soul to soul. Nor do we wish to see Achilles longer, after that last book, hero though he be; let him l)e sent off and not return, he might get angry again, and perish without recon- ciliation. All great Literature has followed the Iliad on these lines, must follow it, notthroughimitation, but through necessity. Poetry as distinct from History has its eye upon the development of the Individual in a certain series of events. The true Greek comes out in this first work of Homer; in- dividuality is the ground-movement of his poem, and it is his problem as well as that of the Hellenic world. What a prophetic, time-arching rainbow of poetry ! This old Iliad, rightly seen into, answers the question : What is true individuality ? We shall now try to throw these general thoughts on structure into a tabular statement, which will give a total survey of the architecture of the Iliad, as it lies in bright Southern sunlight revealing the clear simple outlines of a Greek temple. I. First cycle of the Wrath and Reconciliation of the Hero, now manifested toward the Greeks, INTEODUCTION. 37 his own people. The Hero inactive, aloof from the war, but always standing in the background, as the person chiefly concerned, and as the one with whom the others have to be compared. The grand opportunity and call for the lesser heroes, who are brought into the foreground one after another. The local heroes of all Greece inter- woven into thcgreat national poem, in the absence of the universal Hero, and their heroship graded by their deeds in comparison. Thus a general picture of the war, of its cause and purport, of the Greeks and Trojans, is unfolded. (Books 1-19.) a. Achilles in the Rio;ht. Agamemnon vio- lates the Hero's honor, nullifies his own cause by his deed, then leads his people to battle without their Hero. Special discipline of the Greeks along with the Leader. (Books 1-9.) b. Achilles in the Wrong. He refuses recon- ciliation, spurns the marks of honor shown by the greatest Greeks, refuses scornfully all offers of restitution and amity from the Leader. Special discipline of the Hero, reaching its culmination in the death of his friend Patroclus. (Books 9- 18.) c. Achilles breaks down in his first Wrath, relents and is reconciled with the Leader and his people. (Books 18 and 19.) But tin's is only a preparation for the new Wrath which has been enkindled. 38 INTRODUCTION' . II. Second cycle of the Wrath and Reconcilia- tion of the Hero, now manifested toward the Trojans, his enemies. The Hero active, making himself the center of battle, and taking his [)lace in the foreground of the war. The lesser heroes quite withdrawn. (Books 19-24, ) a. Achilles in the Right. He assails and de- stroys the enemies and destroyers of his friends, and of the Greek world, his deeds culminating in the death of Hector, the Trojan Hero. (Books 19-22.) b. Achilles in the Wrong. His wrath again drives him to viohition, he maltreats the dead body of Hector against the instinct of a com- mon humanity and the will of Zeus. (Books 22-24.) c. Achilles is reconciled with the Trojans, re- ceiving Priam, king and father, in his tent, and giving up Hector, and finally, making the truce, with which the Iliad ends. (Book 24.) Still there is something in Troy with which there can be no compromise. Helen is detained in the Trojan walls, without her restoration no peace is possible. Thus it has been often affirmed in the course of the poem; thus it must continue to be affirmed. But Hector, the enemy, is now to have funeral honors from his people equal to those of the friend, Patroclus ; Achilles has granted the truce for just that purpose. There- with the career of the hero in the poem has come INTRODUCTION. 39 to an end, ho has reached his second and highest reconciliation. The iirst thing we observe in this structural outline, is the perfect symmetry of the two Parts; each runs through the same phases of the Hero's discipline: right, wrong, reconciliation. Each gives the fundamental cycle of individual expe- rience in dealing with the world. Both are one thought at bottom ; both must have sprung from one brain. Here we have the true primary and secondary lliad^ yet both are one Iliad. Yet there are very important differences be- tween the two Parts. The Hero in the First Part is passive, turned back into himself in sullen wrath, essentially unheroic without the man-making deed. In the Second Part he is active, turned outward to the world in fierce conflict, heroic through the deed. Most brilliant is the contrast with himself in these two Parts; the first is a long preparation for the second. But both the inac- tive and the active Achilles runs to excess with that intense temperament of his; in doing and in not doing he drives forward to transjjression. His chief glory is that he recognizes his error, wheels about and transforms his conduct ; thus he, the wrathful, impetuous, proud spirit, adds to the conquest of the external foe a greater triumph, namely the victory over himself — a conquest of the victor by the victor. This intense inner experience of a human soul 40 INTBODUGTION. is found in the Iliad, amid all its outer clash of arms ; the still small voice of the spirit must be heard singing through the furious activity of the Hero, and making itself finally the main ut- terance of the poem. But this meaning must be grasped, not as a secret doctrine on the one hand, nor as an open allegory on the other. The poet seizes the deed, the living action of the man, and the record of this deed must be seen, not as a mere empty story, but as the deepest soulful ex- perience of life. The Iliad is the most objective of all poetry, but it is just as strongly subjective ; in fact, the tsvo traits are symmetrical counter- parts of one Whole. V. With the poet's portraiture of Achilles there enters the conception of character and its devel- opment. The idea of man transcending his limit- ations and unfolding into his ideal nature is the basis of all lofty characterization; he must be shown approximating perfectibility, though he may never quite reach it. Achilles recovers from his anger and is reconciled, does so twice; his glory is to rise out of his finitude and make real in his conduct his infinite nature. The characters of the Iliad constitute a living gallery of human beings, whose existence we never question, whose identity we recognize as distinctly INTBODUCTION. 41 as that of our next neighbor. We may say that the poem gives the first great lesson in characteriza- tion ; it is not an abstraction, but a living deed — the whole of it, from beginning to end. To image men afresh, not in outward shape, but in their in- ward soul, is a great idea, the greatest in Litera- ture, perhaps; it is a new creation of man to a degree, showing him spiritually transparent to all eyes that can see. Such a feat performed suc- cessfully makes the essence of a Literary Book, revealing the inner springs of human conduct as they break forth into action. The idea of char- acter in its true development seems to have been given to us by Homer; from this Iliad we may build a world, and fill it with typical men, such as must always be in every phase of society. In this, as in other mentionable cases, Literature has followed in the ancient Homeric path ; in- deed, it must remain in the same, to be at all. The Poet has clearly the fundamental distinc- tion into men of thought and men of action ; those best in the council, and those best in the field. Indeed, according to his conception, the complete man unites the two qualities, wisdom and the deed. He has thus seen and drawn that deepest line of the human soul between Intelli- gence and Will, on one side or other of which all character fluctuates. In the Trojan as well as Greek camp we notice both kinds of men, care- fully classified ; the wise man is distinct from the 42 INTRODUC TION. man of deeds, yet not wholly distinct ; each shares in the gift of the other, though one trait predomi- nates; Homer produces living realties of men, not abstract phantasms. Our first question is, Can we find any common principle upon which to string these characters so that we may behold the spiritual bond which unites them? For some such unity we must search, as being that which holds Trojans or Greeks together, and makes a common cause possible. We shall find this fundamental ground of character in the principle about which the two parties collide, and for which they off'er their lives. The conflict enters every soul and forms the basis of its action. In each human breast is a picture of the universal struggle, with fainter or intenser colors; the relation of the man to that struggle makes him what he is in such trying periods. If we first turn to the Trojans we find them dividing upon the restoration of Helen, which is the principle of the war ; their characters may be arranged according^ to the ethical idea in- volved in that act. Let us select three typical persons. Hector may be called the Greek in Troy; he favors the return of Helen, and his character corresponds to such a view. He is the domestic man first, true to one wife, with the deepest instinct of the Family ; he appears as father and husband in the most tender of human * INTRODUCTION. 43 relations. Very beautiful is this phase of Hector, winning for him all hearts ; he clearly ranges him- self on the side of the Greeks in regard to the justice of their claim; he is the ethical man in Troy. But his country is assailed ; he, the Hero, must defend it, though he believes it to be in the wrong, and has the gloomiest forebodings for its fate in consequence. Such is the dissonance in Hector; still he remains loyal, in every way noble, faithfully subordinating family to coun- try. But in defending his countr}^ he fights for what he knows to be wrong; thus he is supremely the tragic character of the Iliad. Paris, on the other hand, is the Oriental man in Troy, the favorite of Venus, the abductor of Helen ; sen- sual, unheroic, the man who cannot sacrifice his passion for the true life either of the family or the country. He is thus made the contrast to his brother Hector. Priam, the ruler, father of the two differentiated sons, is a sort of compromise between them ; he will not restore Helen, nor does he exactly refuse; on the whole, his leaning seems to be to the side of Paris. His domestic relation, too, is a sort of barbarous compromise between East and West, between polygamy and monogamy, with a tendency to the former. He has a family, yet it borders upon a harem; not based upon violence, yet consistent with Oriental notions, Troy has not the internal Greek problem which 44 INTBODUCTION. springs from the Heroic Individual, nor could it well have, with its face turned towards the East. In the person of Hector, both hero and author- ity are combined, which fact gives him his promi- nence in the poem, since he does more fighting than Achilles. Still, he is not its hero by any means, as some have said; he has not the grand problem of Achilles which makes the poem. The Heroic Individual must be seen wrestling with authority and with himself, the outcome of such a struggle must be shown for both sides, then the poem means something for the Greek, for the world. Hector has no such difficulty, be- cause he has no such towering strength in him, no such unbending heart of oak ; his pattern is evidently too small for such a conflict. In com- parison, he is a sweet, amiable man whom we ad- mire, and we regret that inner dissonance which comes from having to defend a country whose cause he believes to be Avrong. We may now glance at the Greek characters ; in like manner we shall find them dividing upon the line of their essential principle: heroship in conflict with authority. Such is the internal problem for all the Greeks, not for the one merely, being ingrown into their whole spiritual existence. For upon the Trojan problem, the restoration of Helen, they are a unit; just that is the object of their expedition against Troy, and is the unquestioned ground of their character. INTRODUCTION. 45 Hence domestic life does not need to appear in the Greek camp, being wholly presupposed by the purpose of the enterprise. Even the captive woman Briseis is to be elevated into an ethical life in the family by the Greek Hero who cap- tured her, thus showing the destiny of the captive woman also is to become the wife. We have already spoken sufficiently of Achilles, as one side of this inner Greek conflict. Ajax and Diomed seem to have his possibilities of charac- ter; they are the heroes next to him, great war- riors, men of action, with strong individualities. They still cling to authority, though we see that they too might fall off, or, at least, become re- fractory ; the germ of the same trouble is in them. On the other hand, the wise men of the Greeks, Ulysses and Nestor, stand by Agamem- non, the leader, without faltering, though they reprove his rash act ; he must be sustained against the Hero, for the sake of the all-govern- ing i)rinciple at stake in the war ; such is the true mark of wisdom : if they must choose, they pre- fer the victory of their cause to the honor of the individual. Such are the main lines of distinction among the men on both sides ; but the poem has a very strong feininine element, which must also be con- sidercMl. Tioy alone can have female characters of any significance ; in it they can be at home, and in it is their problem, Troy retains Helen, 46 INTR OD UC TION. and thus disrupts domestic life, the deepest prin- ciple of woman ; just this is the conflict, or the essential phase of it, between Trojans and Greeks, for the latter are seeking her restoration, while the former are divided upon the matter. Three female characters will be found in the city who express the various shades of the domestic rehi- tion of woman as it plays into the great conflict between East and West. Andromache, spouse of Hector, corresponds to her husband ; she is the Greek wife in Troy — the faithful, devoted Greek wife ; she is quite absorbed in her family ties ; country lies beyond her vision. Hecuba is the Oriental wife and mother, or indicates that tend- ency; certainly she seems in no protest with her polygamous household. The favorite wife of the harem, perhaps the only one in the old age of Priam, we may see in her a hint of what the Trojan War meant for the redemption of woman as well as of man. Thirdly, there is Helen, the alienated Greek wife, most interesting of all of her sex ; deeply fallen, but now repentant, full of self-reproach, longing to return out of her Trojan condition to her Greek domestic life. This longing of their most beautiful woman the Greeks must make real, such is their greatest enterprise; indeed, with a deeper glance, we can see it to be their whole destiny, the grand sum of their spiritual endeavor. In Troy we behold her now, in a state of scission, inner and outer; sep- INTRODUCTION. 47 * arated physically and morally from her own, yet sighinjy for restoration. It has been seen how she represents the entire struggle ; the great ex- ternal war between Greek and Trojan is a war within her, steeled into her very soul, tearing her life into bleeding shreds. Yet her strongest as- piration is, to be redeemed from her fallen lot, which redemption the Greeks must accomplish, for it is just that which makes them Greeks. The three women of Troy are several times in- troduced together, usually with lamentations; their domestic life is mangled and torn in the sharp collision of armies; they form a kind of female chorus chanting in undertone a tender lyrical strain mid the manful epical song of deeds; their wail is that of the Family bleeding and bereaved beneath the death-dealing strokes of this terrible war. VI. But there must be not merely the return of the woman, but also of the man, from Troy and from the Trojan alienation. This brings us to the last grand scission of our Homeric theme, the scission into two poems, the Iliad and the Odt/ssey. There are, then, two books upon the Trojan oc- currence ; this dual fact and its import are to be noted and studied. Troy is not taken at the end of the Iliad, which sings of the wrath of the 48 INTB OD UC TION. Hero ; the wrong which caused the war remains ; Helen is not restored, though her restoration is everywhere implied. In the second poem, the Odyssey^ she appears in her old Spartan home, the reinstated wife and queen. But her life and return cannot be made the theme of this second poem, which must take up a new theme, yet in a harmonious completeness with the first ; our new, yet accordant theme, is the restoration of the man to family and country. It is the story of the wise Ulysses, of his many wanderings, physical and spiritual, till he returns to peace and to his home. The whole poem is one of the deepest looks into the abysses of human existence and its tireless movement; struggle, desperate, long-continued, ending in victory which brings forth a new strug- gle which ends again in victory. The question is : How can the man who takes Troy, or performs other great action through his intelligence, be re- stored through intelligence from the alienation which is born of his very deed? This present alienation is of the profoundest ; the Trojan War has caused the Greek Heroes to live separated from family and state for so many years ; it is not an easy matter to get back, the separation having gone so deeply into their lives and their souls. But the work must be done, and that, too, by the wisest Greek, wherein he is to give the last and highest manifestation of wisdom, the final, fairest bloom of the Homeric world. Ulysses is IN TR OD UC Tl ON. 49 the man whose skill is the chief instrumentality in taking Troy and restoring Helen; now he has the same problem of restoration for himself —7 which he proceeds to solve, must solve, in his spiritual strength. No army will help him, no thousand ships, no one hundred thousand heroes; naught can help him but his own mighty, much-enduring heart. He is, there- fore, the ethical hero, and the intellectual one too; greater than even Achilles, who could not take Troy and release the beautiful woman, whose mission ends with killiue; Hector, who has not the gift of wisdom, nor the ethical purpose of the whole war so much as the idea of personal honor. We shall not disparage Achilles, but put him in his place; it is Ulysses who first enters the Trojan walls, through intelligence, and then re- turns to his wife, prudent Penelope. Both arc the deeds of wisdom ; the capture of the hostile city is a great action, but the second conquest, which implies self-restoration, is a far greater. It will be further observed that the primitive dualism of the human mind, its diremption into Will and Intelligence, is now seen to have taken on an outward form in two poems, and in their two heroes. The one of tlie poems is action, the other wisdom. The one sings of the Wrath of the Heroic Man and his Reconciliation by Avay of personal honor, the other sings of the Wise Man, returnino; to an institutional life and mental 4 50 INTBODUCTION. harmony after the great Trojan separation. This last is a sea-voyage, boisterous, full of tem- pests and hostility of the Gods; a soul-voyage, too, we must never forget through our ab- sorption in the external incidents. Both poems end in reconciliation, as they must, but they are in other respects different, if not op- posite. The reconciliation of Wrath is, after all, something personal, but the reconciliation of man with institutions after his lapse is the highest har- mony of life, is universal. Still, we must not leave out of mind that last act of Achilles, placing himself in unity with Zeus, the supreme ruler ; yet even thus his personal feelings must be touched through the prayers of the aged Priam. But Ulysses is the Achilles who finds his honor in the ethical world, whose whole aspiration and en- deavor are for a return to it, who has seen be- yond the limits of the individual life into the universal one. The first is the young Hero, the second is the older one. Achilles is fated to die early with work undone, Ulysses lives to the end and completes his work ; in fact, he is the comple- tion of Achilles' s life. VII. From this Lower World we now pass to the Upper World, that of the Gods, which is the primal principle controlling Homer's Universe ; INTRODUCTION. 51 the Divine is perennially over it and starts it into being'. Homer has faith in the Gods, a joyous, buoyant faith, yet deeply genuine; he insists upon the overruling providence in the world, but he does not therein destroy the freedom of the individual, if he be read aright. The deities are in the man as well as outside of the man. Let it never be forgotten that these two sides, so strongly antagonistic in the surface currents of human action, are at bottom in unity ; the Homeric poems rest upon this ultimate foundation, and the poetic vision is that which beholds the two streams, terrestrial and celestial, flowing har- moniously together. The Divine is the deepest, strongest instinct of the Poet; he dwells often, on this lower earth, but he seems to dwell bore un- willingly; he is never so happy, so free, so trau- scendentally poetic as when he rises in one grand flight to Olympus, and tells what is going on there. In the company of the Gods he is always at his best; he often gets dull when he has to de- scribe the combats of mortals; soon he throws off his mundane chains and mounts to the society of his deities, whereby his song seems to flow at once into a new life and vigor. In this upper realm he sees that all human action is governcKl by divine action ; yet he sees, too, that man must be free and through himself come into harmony witli the Gods. We shall notice in the Upper World (piitc tiie 52 INTRODUCTION. same manifestations as in the Lower; there is the same scission, the same unity — indeed, the same social and political organization. For the terres- trial is but the distant shadow of the divine, the reflection of the clear heavens above in the earthly waters below. Homer feels in every throb of his heart, he shows in every hue of his work, that this real world of ours, this appearance of things to our senses, is but the bearer of a divine impress; without such impress it has no sig- nificance, would indeed fall into chaos. The Divine stamps its image upon the waxen material of Time ; this is what he is forever recalling to us by his interventions of the Gods in temporal matters, as if he w^ere saying: Only in so far as thoi\makest thyself the agent of divinity, and bc- comest godlike thyself, hast thou, O Hero ! truly significance in the Trojan or any war. One may well take de^aght in these divine ap- pearances in Homer as they continually weave themselves into the texture of the poem. The best readers of the poet in every age, we maintain, have found in them the main charm and miracle of the book. In man's career the Gods must arise at the important turning-points; all life is interwoven with a divine direction. So people gravely say and think ; but it is not a formula or dogma, once seen and believed, that can settle this matter for all time ; it must become a living act, many living acts every day. A creed or INTR OD UC TION. 53 dogma is much, is very needful ; but it must not remain a mere conviction of the intellect, it must be sprouting incessantly into a deed. In these days we often underrate the dogma and the formula; they have their place, and an important one, in the spiritual order of the world. But they must always be in the process of translation into life, else they are dead, or about to die. Homer in the Iliad is forever renewins; these divine appearances, and working them into the poetic action as the celestial strand in human existence. More truly than of Spinoza it may be said of Homer that he is the God-intoxicated man. The spirit of divinity works in him almost to excess ; it is his strongest passion, hardly controllable at times; it is the Olympian draught which produces in him the complete inebriation of poetry. In the Upper "World we shall find, therefore, quite the same scissions as in the Lower ; we have already observed that this Lower World gets its division and organization from above, from the hands of the Gods. The first division here is into the upper God, Zeus the Highest, who has sui)reme authority, as against the lower Gods, who have to be subordinated. So we see in Olympus a phase of that same disruption which we noticed below on Earth. Still further, these inferior Gods are divided among themselves into two parties, just upon the inerits of the Trojan conflict, as the people in the Lower World are 54 INTRODUCTION'. divided into Greeks and Trojans upon the same issue. Thus our grand theme, the struggle be- tween Orient and Occident, is truly Olympian, divine ; each side of the conflict finds its repre- sentatives among the Gods ; the dualism of the time is found both on earth and in heaven. Zeus is the supreme God, and the divine move- ment of the Iliad i\XYn?> upon his three chief atti- tudes towards the struggle. First, he is for the Hero against the Greeks, who, according to his decree, must reconcile their Great Man before they can win^ Secondly, he is for the Greeks, when the Hero is reconciled with them, against the Trojans; he is the highest embodiment of the Greek principle in its conflict with the East. Thirdly, he is for the unity of the Greeks and the Trojans, is for humanity as against the Hero, when the latter collides with the Providence of the poem by insulting the fallen enemy, and has to be subordinated. Achilles yields to the divine decree, the supreme Hero and the supreme God are then in accord ; this is the final and highest reconciliation. Thus, we see that there is a movement in Zeus, from his favoring the Heroic Individual at first, till he brings about the subor- dination of the latter. He is the grand move- ment of the world in its relation to the activity of the man ; the movement of history or of its idea, in contrast with individual development seen in Achilles. INTB OD UC TION. 65 It was said that Zeus is the supreme divinity, but in one phase this statement has been at times questioned. The issue may be put in this form: Docs the Zeus of the Iliad control, or is he con- trolled by Fate? We cannot now enter upon the discussion of this subject, which seems to have divided the students of the poet from the begin- ing. As in all such questions, there is the super- ficial view, which sees the dualism, hears the dis- cord ; it may persist in dwelling upon these dis- sonances, of which no one doubts the existence. But there is the deeper view, which sees the re- conciliation; our object is to attain this, if it be attainable. The emphatic answer may be given ; there is always in Homer, as the central, moving principle, a personal God — Zeus ; on the surface of the events, and on the surface of the language, Fate introduces sometimes a contradiction more or less grave, which, however, is swallowed up in the general harmony. Assuredly an impersonal Destiny does not rule the Homeric poems ; con- sciously or unconsciously in the mind of the poet, a self-active personality is always behind them. The doubtful expressions upon this point, quite frequent if torn from their connection, must be interpreted, in view of the total conception of the moveiucnt of the poem; thus, Fate will be seen not only to vanish as the supreme Homeric principle, but in reality to confirm divine free- 56 IN TE OD UC TION. dom as well as human freedom as the spiritual foundation of Homer's work. The character of Zeus has given great difficulty in its moral aspects. How could he, the supreme God, bearer of all that is highest in the Greek world, be endowed with such monstrous passions? How could such a being find worship among men? But we must consider that the Greek con- ceived of his divinity as human ; to him the God was not the abstraction of some virtue or power, but an actual man in flesh and blood; moreover, a total man, with the sensuous as well as the spiritual element. The mightier the God, the mightier the passions; indeed, Zeus was magni- fied in his lower nature in proportion to his higher nature ; if he had supreme power and in- telligence, he had supreme senses to correspond. He had to be a colossal lover, and hater too, just as he was the God of colossal might and mind. Mentally and physically there must be a corre- spondence ; so he is a reality, not a shadowy ideal simply. Thus, the Divine was manifested in a sensuous form, which is the Greek stand-point. On the whole, Zeus is the greatest portrait in the Hiad, divine or human; he is the broadest, deepest, strongest character, and hardest to be understood. It requires, indeed, the glance flash- ing across the universe to take in and reconcile the extreme attributes of his godhood. He is the world's order on the one side, and the world's INTB OD UC TION. 5 7 caprice on the other. His will is an iron neces- sity, yet wreathed about with a play of human motives, feelings, thoughts. He decrees, yet de- liberates about his decree; he orders, then sor- rows over his own order. He is the movement of Universal History, with its multitudinous sport of events in which the Olympian plan works itself out. He is not mere necessity, else he were no living person, but dead Fate ; he is not mere caprice, else he were no rational person, but mad Chance. He is both necessity and ca- price in one, and something more ; he is the per- sonality of the Universe. ^ VHI. We may now turn to the Inferior Gods, who are divided among themselves, and take sides in this Trojan conflict. Thus they become finite, struggling persons, such as we saw below on the plains of Troy among mortals. We ask. Why this doubling of the strife? why thrust it into the Upper World when there is a Lower World given over to it entirely? This is the grand peculiarity of Homer ; he furnishes a double re- flection of the struggle. The Gods, too, make war ; they stand for the ideal forms of the princi- ples in collision ; they signify that the conflict below on earth is a spiritual conflict; it is not a mere test of brawn, not a wild, barbarous rage 58 INTB ODUC TION. of fighting mortals, seeking to devour' one an- other like beasts of the forest. Driving the arms of the heroes is an unseen principle; it, too, must have its representation apart from the visible world of combat before Troj; it is the higher, stronger ; without it the heroes would be little or nothing. This spiritual realm Homer makes the abode of the Gods, above the mortal contestants yet controlling them ; he always in- sists upon this divine element in human affairs, which he organizes as a distinct world. But there is a spiritual principle on both sides ; there is the Greek and the Trojan principle; hence the Gods, the representatives and execu- tors of the spiritual world, divide info two con- tending parties on Olympus. Troy has its right, so has Greece; the dualism is reflected in divine partisans. In the earlier portions of the Iliad they confine themselves to deliberating with one another, and to aiding their favorite mortals ; but in the latter parts of the poem they enter the conflict and fight one another. Thus the poet never lets us forget that there is a spiritual prin- ciple at work in this Trojan struggle, always hov- ering above it and determining it. What that principle is, has already been unfolded; ours is the modern prosaic way of stating what Homer reveals in a poetic way by means of his divinities. We, too, demand that a war have its principle, and that the historian declare it; Homer intro- INTRODUCTION. 59 duces an Upper World, just to show the ideal side in the grand conflict between Orient and Occident. This is his enduring glory, and it is this chiefly which makes his books to be Bibles in the Literary Hierarchy ; he shows that the worthy human deed is not a capricious but a divine thing. The wisdom of Ulysses, the heroism of Achilles, are inspired by favoring deities, hence are not a mere individual matter, but a part of the Olym- pian order. The Greek partisans are Juno, Minerva, Nep- tune, standing in most intimate relation to Zeus, but often in opposition to him. The Trojan par- tisans are Venus, Mars, Apollo, who manifestly represent the Oriental side of Olympus. Through such strife, through such limitations placed upon one another, the Gods are finite, though at the same time supposed to be infinite. Thus a contradiction arises in the conception of the Gods, of which Homer himself seems to be partially conscious. The finitude of the Divine — that is the finitude of the Infinite — is a self -con- tradicting statement which in a naive way sug- gests humor; the Go(3ls, so divine, yet so human, have always a tendency to become humorous. They are a blessed company, happy, joyful, lov- ing the laugh ; still the poet is a believer, sincere, even pious. The humor of his divinities belongs in the heart of his religion ; it is not the laugh of indifference, still less the sneer of skepticism. 60 INTR OD UC TION. Nothing gloomy clings to his faith ; he can sport with Ids Gods; tlie happy man can worship earn- estly and at the same time smile at his deities. To us it seems an almost impossible state of mind; but the poet venerates the beings with whom he plays; his is a loving devotion, not by any means the sarcasm of the scoffer. Tlie limit- ations of the Gods, their foibles, weaknesses, he takes as belon<>:ino; to them ; he can throw a touch of humor into his deepest faith, so free he is in his treatment of his Gods, yet so sincere and full of love; indeed, all true humor rests up- on love — love of the object about which one is humorous. The unconscious humor of Homer rests upon his love of the Gods; he loves them because they are finite, and become humorous. Like some children, they must not be too per- fect; otherwise they cease to be children, and cease to be Gods. IX. But above all the differences of the Gods is their unity in Zeus, which is the chief fact of Olympus or the Upper World. Zeus is the pro- vidence of the poem ; he stands over and bridges the two parties among men, the two parties among Gods also; he unifies the Upper and Lower Worlds. All dualism ends at last in him, the Highest ; through him the great thought of a INTRODUCTION. 61 controlling Power, of a world- moving Intelli- gence, breaks everywhere out of these poems. Between the Iliad and Odyssey there is no dif- ference in this respect; the one supreme deity is above and rules. Yet in another respect we see an important difference. The Odyssey has es- sentially but one grand interference of Zeus, which starts the poem and propels it to the end; he is the beginning; the action of the poem rolls from one fillip of his finger and keeps rolling. But in the Iliad this interference is oft-repeated; it continues to drop into the action from the heavens above all the time. The deeds of this Lower World must be shown to depend directly u[)on the Upper World and its decrees, which can never be allowed to sink out of view. This dis- tinction between the two poems is almost the dis- tinction between the universal and the special Providence. This unity in Zeus, lying back of Greek poly- theism, has given rise to no little speculation. It has been supposed to be a remnant of the true faith, which, monotheistic at first, was corrupted into a multitudinous idolatry. Thus the Greek religion is considered a faint reflection of that true revelation originally given by God to man, from which the latter has fallen off. A theory quite the reverse has also been given — a theory, not of a fall, but of a rise of man. This takes the Greek polytheism as an intermediate step in 62 INTRODUCTION. the move out of a pantheistic worship of Nature toward monotheism, of which the supremacy of Zeus is the first early appearance. In Homer we may find phases of the three great religious fornrs of the human mind — Pan- theism, Polytheism, Monotheism, rising up in a certain gradation and order. The deities of the river, of the sea, of the winds, indeed of most appearances in Nature still are active in the poet, in a subordinate way, though the old Titans have been put down and are imprisoned far away in the Under world. This Pantheism of Homer is the poetical Greek one, not the unpoetical limit-swal- lowing Hindoo one, and has most triumphantly perpetuated itself in poetry, and in the recent study of and devotion to Nature, which almost amounts to a worship in some souls, scientific as well as imagmative. in this respect and in many others, the last world-poet shakes hands across the centuries with the first world-poet. *' I, for my part, with the manifold tendencies of my be- ing, do not find one mode of thinkino; sufiicient. As poet and artist I am a Polytheist; on the con- trary, as a searcher into Nature I am a Pantheist ; if I have need of a God for my personality as a moral human being, that has been provided for also. (Goethe to Jacobi, Jan. 6th, 1813. See Duentzer Life of Goethe, Eng. Trans.). But these theories need trouble us no further at present ; it is sufficient to know that the Poet INTRODUCTION. 63 brings us to a realm above all conflict, where reigns the divine harmony of the Universe ; he is seen to rise out of all dualism on Earth and on Olympus to the oneness of Zeus. Yet not without conflict; the price of Olympian repose is the ter- restrial struggle. This supreme unity above is to be brought down into the world below, where it is to abide and take on form in visible things; thus it becomes reality, indeed, the great reality in all earthly matters. What is discordant, it harmonizes; what is wrathful, it reconciles. The world, with all its vast goings and comings, is transformed into an eternally tuneful s[)here, in- to one great piece of music which starts into song of its own accord, and sings itself finally into an Iliad whose whole movement is out of dissonance into reconciliation. Our poem takes as its theme the profoundest conflict of History, that between the East and the West ; it touches the deepest struggle of the human soul, the problem of the Individual; the world without and the man within are attuned to one note; both find their ultimate harmony in the common God. In such a strain have the multiplex scissions come to an end. Homer has, therefore, bridged, in his way, that profoundest of all chasms — the chasm between the Beyond and the Here, between Earth and Olympus; it seems to be his chief striving to make some path across the enormous gap which 64 INTRODUCTION. separates the Lower and Upper Worlds. It is no easy task for us to-day ; indeed, the sum total of our whole effort runs parallel to Homer in a cer- tain manner. We also seek an unseen Upper World in some form. Can we reach the invisible soul of our time, and make ourselves at home therewith? Can we stand face to face with tha^ spiritual power which uses Time as its material, and man as its instrument? No modern book, not even religious book, recognizes more deeply than Homer that this outer world is but wax for the seal stamped by the Gods. Earth and Olym- pus are indeed twain, but, in the truer meaning, they are one — each is the image of the other, reflecting the discord, yet above all discord reflect- ing the reconcilement. It was said that this harmony, springing from the conquest of fierce strife and dissonance, be- comes a song ; now the man appears who vibrates to this deep attunement of things, and who can make human speech vibrate in accord with the same, giving to words the rapture and the rhyth- mical swell of an ocean flowing out of tempest to tranquillity. The Poet steps forth with his strains, singing this unity in Zeus as the key-note of his song: a most marvelous, adorable man. His utterance thrills with the secret harmony of the God, harmony now revealed ; all men thrill with him, being transmuted into the movement of his song. Olympus, with its scissions, moves INTRODUGTION. 65 into unity, and we see rise up an organized society of the Gods ; we behold, too, the poem which utters and images the same. The bard is truly the organ of Zeus, the High,est, whose daughters, the Muses, tell him the true word, which he again tells to man. But it is the bard alone who can hear the voice of the Muses, not every man ; in- deed, that is just his gift, his genius — to be able to hear the voice of the Muses. Critics have, indeed, denied the unity of the Iliad in manifold argumentation; they have pointed out its discords, its disagreements, its uncertainties. It has this side; whoever wishes to dwell in it can do so and find much confusion, war, and rumors of war ; in fact, he can pertina- ciously affirm that nothing else exists in it, except to the eye of the visionary. But the true Homeric faith is in the unity of the poem, its harmony; without such qualities it could never have been a Literary Bible. Reconciliation is its divine word, the word of a Bible ; most deep and true is its unity, that of Olympus itself. We must reach up into this one soul of the Iliad for its inspiring draught; much disordered material floats on the surface of it as on the surface of the sun; still, these refractory masses are smelted into one brilliant flowing stream when Ave once see them touched by the central fires underneath. The genuine Homeric scholar has his creed, which he will repeat, after reading some hostile discordant 66 INTBODUCTION. book, with tenfold emphasis: I believe in the unity of Homer, in the unity of the Upper World, in the unity of the Lower World, in the unity of the two together, and supremely in the unity of the poem which images all these unities. Thus it will be seen and felt that the poem is one and in accord — its men as well as its Gods; these are harmonious parts of a Whole represent- ing the concord of the divine and the terrestrial; man is transformed to a musical beinsj after all his struggles, since he is in perfect agreement with his divinities. Woe be unto him when he falls out with his Gods, as Hesiod does, deeming providential Zeus to be a jealous tyrant over mankind. Then the happy Homeric unity will be rent asunder, and human life will become tragic ; the Upper and the Lower Worlds will be two discordant notes, whose dissonance tears mankind to pieces. The Gods are our enemies ; what, then, are we? Such is the Hesiodic man, evidently a fallen soul, in torture; but the Homeric man feels the divine powers to be in tune with himself, nay, to be in truth himself, his own spiritual essence ; therefore he utters their harmony. The poem must consequently have a musical end, not merely in verse, but in spirit. It refuses to conclude in the destruction of the city; that would be a disastrous, discordant end; in recon- ciliation only can the song cease worthily, although INTRODUCTION. 67 conflict may arise again afterwards. It cannot terminate in the wrath of the Hero, but in his external and internal harmony, in that lull of his soul when he has reached up and participated in the unity of Zeus, fitting himself into the supreme, world-governing plan. This is the finality and true completion of the hero; his mission is con- cluded, not in wrath, but in atonement; no fur- ther height is by him attainable. A short synoptical table may aid in keeping before the memory what has been said already, as well as in showing the full sweep of the poem above and below. I. Scission into the two worlds, Lower and Upper. A. — The Lower World. IL Scission of the Lower \Yoi"ld i^to two con- flicting nations, Greeks and Trojans. IIL Internal scission in both Greeks and Tro- jans; each side has two opposing parties. IV. The internal Greek scission producing the Iliad, with its double Wrath and double Recon- ciliation. V. Scission of the characters of the poem into two sets. Vr. Scission of the Trojan theme into two poems. 68 INTB OD UC TION. . B, — The Upper World. VII. Scission of the Upper World into Zeus and ti]e inferior Gods. VIII. Scission of the Inferior Gods into two parties, one favoring the Trojans, the other the Greeks. IX. The unity of all these scissions, both of men and Gods, in Zeus. C. — Zeus the Highest. X. Zeus has a scission within himself into the two sides of his nature — Necessity and Caprice, or Fate and Chance, or Infinite and Finite — which dualism is at last united in the one supreme personal God. X. This last point, which brings before us the scission in Zeus himself, the supreme deity, calls up specially the ethical aspect of Homeric The- ology. It is the source of much difficulty and questioning to the reader of the old poet. We have already noticed the two grand phases in the character of Zeus which run throughout the en- tire Iliad: the God has within him the eternal, necessary, unchangeable, which is repeatedly called Fate in the poem ; he has also the opposite attribute — the capricious, passionate, changeable, which often shows itself in strong contrast with INTRODUCTION. 69 the previous quality. That is, Zeus has in his nature an infinite and a finite element; both are recognized, and brought into a continual inter- play through word and deed. It is plain that this same dualism reaches out and embraces the moral sphere : Zeus has in him the Good and the Bad — the divine and the dia- boLic. The two attributes are not separated into two distinct beings, the satanic and the holy Ones, but live together in the soul of the God. A step further we shall have to push the mat- ter : Zeus brings them to pass — both Good and Evil; he is First Cause, not of one side but of both sides of the moral Universe ; he is the source not only of the world-order, but of everything that apparently runs counter to that order — error, wrong, sin. In the last vision of his cre- ative sovereignty, all goes back to him ; he must take the responsibility for things as they are. Now it is at this point that the moral con- sciousness begins to break with Homer, for it has its ultimate ground in the separation and abso- lute opposition of Good and Evil. It makes the creation a dualism with two irreconcilable ele- ments, the positive and the negative. But Homer's final insight is that these two hostile elements are united in one personal divine energy. The moralist, therefore, assails and strongly con- demns Zeus and the poet of Zeus. This condemnation beiiau long ago with (he 70 INTB OD UC TION. oldest Greek philosophers. Xenophanes of Colo- phon more than 500 years before Christ made the first known attack, which is sharp, bold, de- fiant, and takes the moral point of view. One of his sentences is: " Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to Gods all that is shameful and blame- ful among men." Heraclitus, his contemporary, said, according to Diogenes Laertius, that Homer should be beaten with rods from the festivals of the Greeks. But the loudest, most far-reaching protest was made by Plato. The fictions of the Gods in Homer were not permitted in his ideal Republic, and the great teacher of the Greeks was turned out of his school. In later pagan antiquity, the same charge of immorality was made against Homer by Dionysius of Halicarnas- sus and by Plutarch. But this ancient chorus of damnation is nothing compared to the modern. Necessarily the Chris- tian religion has raised up many hostile voices against the Homeric conception of deity. Even the warmest friends of the old poet can find in his Pantheon nothing but divine depravity. Says Mr. Gladstone : "In general, the chief note of deity with Homer is emancipation from the restraints of moral law." Again the same writer declares: " As compared with men in conduct, they (the Gods) are generally characterized by superior force and intellect, but by inferior mor- ality." (Homeric Studies, Vol. 2, p. 334.) INTB OD UC TlOy. 7 1 Professor Blackie takes essentially the same point of view. (Homer and the Iliad, Vol I., Diss. VIII.) The poet Bryant, in the preface to his translation of the Iliad, writes as follows of the Greek Gods in Homer: " They are debauched, mercenary, rapacious, cruel. They dwell in a world in which the rules of right and wrong, and the maxims necessary to the well-being of society find no recofjnition." Such is the accusation made by the moral spirit, ancient and modern, against the old Greek poet. Plato was consistent, he sought to do away with a book which he deemed unfit for moral edu- cation, especially for that of young people, " who cannot discriminate between what is allegory and what is not." (Plato's Republic, Book II.) His argument aijainst certain stories of the Greek Bible is very similar to what has been not seldom urjjed ajjainst certain stories of the Hebrew Bible. But are our modern Homeric teachers above cited consistent? They have done more to pop- ularize Homer among English-speaking peoples than any other men of the present generation. The question will come up : Why have you, gentlemen, spent an important fragment of your lives in illustrating and furthering the study of a book which you condemn as immoral, nay as in- fected with the worst kind of immorality? For the taint reaches not only the men, but the Gods — the divine order itself. How can that tender 72 INTB OD UC TION. conscience which finds the whole spiritual organ- ism of Homer rotten with moral leprosy, spend time in translating and interpreting this same Homer? The question is personal, and perhaps imperti- nent ; let us drop it with the remark that there is one interpreter at least who does not believe the charge against the old poet, though he, too, would not use all the Homeric myths for the edu- cation of the youth of the land. Plato is right up to a certain point. Homer is also; the two are not necessarily incompatible. And our modern teachers already mentioned are right, too, in their devotion to the old poet; certainly we are glad that they have given so much of their great ability and influence to Homer. But the con- demnation they utter against him really comes back with increased force against themselves, un- less it be a mistake. Assuredly we wish to de- fend them and their work with all our heart; but to defend them successfully demands that we defend the poet against them. What does Homer mean when he makes wrong, delusion, vice spring from the Gods? He has before him the problem of problems — the exist- ence of evil in conjunction with a divine provi- dence. His whole poem is one long symphony with this as the key-note. Modern Theology states the question usually in the following way: Did God create sin? The customary answer is: INTBODUCTION. 73 He permits it. Yes, but if He be the all-wise and all-powerful creator of the Universe, the permis- sion is tantamount to the creation, and certainly involves the divine responsibility for sin. This conception is the ground-tono of all Theology. But in our modern world "we hear the protest of the moral consciousness ring-ino; out: If that be your God, I do not wish to have anything to do with him. The result is. Morality takes a decided turn to agnosticism, yes, to atheism. It declares defiantly that any being who is absolute First Cause, and hence the cause of evil, it will not accept. The Creator, who made man a sin- ful creature, is scouted by the exclusively moral spirit. On the other hand. Theology as well as Philosophy and Poetry, must seek the unity in the Universe, must find the Absolute One from whom flows' all — not only the positive, but also the negative principle in man and outside of man, not only Good but likewise Evil. The theologic spirit, accordingly, looks a\vay from the moral view of the world with its unreconciled dualism, widens its look from Earth to Heaven, and takes into one final vision both the Evil and the Good. Still the antagonism of the two stand-points re- mains and asserts itself with no little intensity. Here lies the chief spiritual struggle of our time, turning upon what may be called the antinomy between Theology and Morality. 1'lie moral view of the world, pushed to its last utterance, has a 74 INTRODUCTION. tendency to become atheistic; the theologic view of the work!, pushed to its last utterance, has a tendency to become immoral. Again we must think that this oldest poet Homer unites the two points of view, harmonizes Morality and Theology. To be sure, if you judge him by the moral test merely, you destroy his Gods, and if you judge him by the theological test merely, you destroy his men. Under any system of monotheism — and Homer is at bottom monotheistic — deity must be seen as the creative principle of both the positive and negative ele- ments of the Universe ; the two are symmetrical parts of one Whole. On the other hand, man is free, and a moral being; he must put down the negative principle in himself, which, however, was originally his endowment from deity. Such is the essential fact concerning the Gods of Homer. We must look at them from his stand-point, and his stand-point is to take into ac- count the negative elements of the world — error, wrong, war — and to bring them into unity with the providential plan as upheld by Zeus. This is the reason why the God sends the deceptive dream to Agamemnon in the Second Book, and makes Pandar break the treaty in the Fourth Book. Yet even Zeus could not have sent the delusion, unless it were already in Agamemnon's soul ; nor could the divine Power have compelled Pandar to break the treaty, unless it were in his heart to INTE OD UC TION. 75 do SO already. This is what the poet afHrms em- phatically by his procedure, when we come to look into it with sympathic insight. What Zeus really gives to Agamemnon is the freedom to be deluded, as well as to do the o-reat wrons:. That freedom the God cannot take back, and leave Agamemnon a man — or leave himself a God. The divine power is truly shown not by destroy- ing, but by employing the free-will of man, which is the real gift of the Gods. Homer implies this in many places; Zeus actually says so, in Book XXIV., line 71. " Let us (the Gods) give up the design of carrying off by stealth the corpse of Hector from the watchful Achilles — it is not possible in any way^ On the contrary, Achilles is to be moved throujjh himself to ac- cept ransom for the body of the Trojan Hero. Yet this inner movement of self is brought about by a divine influence — his mother Thetis. She can touch the tenderest chord of his heart; still the act is his own. In this way Homer is continually presenting his treatment of what may be called the problem of the Negative, as it shows itself in man and in the world. He is not an agnostic, ho does not deem sin to be an inscrutable mystery; it exists, and he gives it its [)hice in the order. In his poetic manner he is seeking to formulate the rational thing for the rational man to know and do; his eye is upon human adjustment in the 76 INTB OD UC TION. divine system — the grand economy which pre- serves in their highest potence both the human and divine elements. Wlien the one-sided moralist declares that Zeus is immoral in sending the deceptive dream to Agamemnon, on the same grounds he must be able to take the view that God, the creator of the world, is immoral. And from time immemorial, religious controversialists have not failed to hurl this charge like an Olympian thunderbolt at their enemies. Among Christians, how many times have fierce Protestants pronounced the Roman Catholic God immoral for his indulgences, dispensations, and acts of favoritism toward the immoral believer and against the moral dis- believer, as well as for pious frauds, some of them not unlike the deceptive dream sent by Zeus to Agamemnon? And among Protestants not less bitter has been the outcry of polemical theo- logians who have declared, for example, that the Calvinistic God is immoral in fore-ordaining from the beginning of the world sin and damna- tion, even unto the unborn babe. Thus the same indictment may be heard against every concep- tion of deity, Christian or Heathen. Now we affirm that Zeus is neither moral nor immoral; or perchance both, if you will. That is, these predicates do not designate in any true sense the creative power of the Universe. They pertain toman, whose duty it often is to suppress INTEODUGTION. 77 the very nature which the Creator gave him, must give him in order to make him man. It is at this point that the humanly moral principle directly conflicts with a phase of the divinely creative principle, while Morality and Theology begin to move in opposite directions, with a jar that often shakes both faith and conduct. The conception of deity in Homer is not peculiar to Homer, but can be traced throusrh all the con- structive Sacred Books of the world. The reader of the Hebrew Scriptures will find essentially the same view, and the moral consciousness may be shocked in the same way. The unity of the posi- tive and negative principles is directly figured in the Book of Job, when the Lord assembled his children upon a time ; Satan was also present as a mem- ber of the divine family. How could it be other- wise when all got together? Then in the Mosaic account, how often did the Lord harden Pharaoh's heart, and then punish him for his hardened heart? And yet it was witli a final providential purpose; to redeem Israel. In like manner Zeus punishes Pandar and the Trojans for breaking the truce, though he made them break the truce. This, too, is done with a final providential pur- pose: to destroy the Trojan city. But is it just, is it moral? Theology and Morality show the same antinomy in the Greek and in the Hebrew Bible. It may, however, be said that this Hebrew book 78 INTE OB UC TION. is the imperfect old dispensation, which has been transcended. How is it, then, with the New Testament? Mr. Gladstone, who is a great The- ologian as well as a great Homerist, must often have read the passage in one of St. Paul's Epis- tles: *'God shall send them strong delusion." Was he never struck by the similarity between this statement and that of Homer, who makes Zeus send the delusive dream to Agamemnon? But the resemblance continues: God shall make them «' believe a lie " to the end " that they all mia;ht be damned who believed not the truth." In like manner, the Greeks are made lo believe, or at least to act upon, a falsehood, to the end that myriads might perish at the Grecian fleet, till the hero should receive his meed of honor. Let not the argument be misunderstand. It is not directed against the Greek, Hebrew or Chris- tian conception of the divine agency, but is in- tended to show that the moral objection to the one holds good of the other, indeed of any mono- theistic construction of the Universe. The con- tradiction between Morality and Theology is equally strong in both the Greek and Hebrew Books. When the exclusive moral test is applied to the Creator of the world with all its good and evil, he is condemned as the author of evil. Now what is the solution of the diflSculty, especially Homer's solution? Let us once more take the case of Pandar. INTB OB UC TION. 79 Undoubtedly, Homer's account runs that Zeus caused Pandar through Minerva to break the agreement, and thus to start the war again. But this is not all of what Homer says. It is but one side of his account, is but the half of his state- ment, which perverts the whole, unless the other half be seen too-. Homer also indicates that Pan- dar did the act from within, led by his own mo- tives of gain and fame, " gifts from King Paris, and glory from all the Trojans." To be sure, it is Minerva who urges these inducements, but uses no other means than persuasion : " She persuaded the mind of the foolish man," is the poet's own comment. Then Minerva, the Goddess of Wis- dom, selects just the man who can be moved by such motives, she always does. So Pandar is free in his choice, though tempted by the Goddess, who is sent from Zeus himself. But it clearly lies in his power to put away the temptation. These are the two sides of Homer's spiritual Universe — the orderinsc Providence and the self-acting Man, both working together to bring about the great event. Hence one must take into view both the theo- logical and moral stand- points in the study of Homer. The one pertains to the Gods, the other to man. The latter is to assert his moral nature against temptation, ap[)etite, passion, in general, against his lower nature, though this be a gift of the Gods. He has to suppress de- 80 INTB OD UC TION. lusion, wrong, wrath, though some deity send them. Pandar is held responsible by the poet, in a succeeding Book he perishes. Now it will be seen that the moral conscious- ness is dualistic, as distinct from the religious consciousness, which is monotheistic, even in its vagaries, and as distinct from the philosophic consciousness, which is monistic. That is, the moral view of the Creation rejects any First Cause which creates the Negative in any shape, and it ends in the complete dualism between Good and Evil, between Man and the World. On the other hand, the theologian, philosopher, and poet, in so far as they are constructive and com- plete, unite Good and Evil, the Positive and the Negative into one providential system. The judgment of the mere moralist, therefore, con- cerning Homer or any Bible, Literary or Relig- ious, is certain to be one-sided and distorted, showing us but a half, and that half somehow per- verted into an appearance of the whole. Still Homer recognizes the moral element in man. He sees clearly that the Gods must deal with the human being as a free agent. If they make him a puppet in order to control him, and rule him merely from the outside, then they have destroyed him, and what is more, they have de- stroyed themselves. If deity be merely a machine-controller, he is indeed very finite and mechanical ; to be a free-will controller makes INTIiODUCTWN. 81 him the God. The two sides belono; together. Often the poet brings the free human actor, and the determining divine power into co-operation for the one deed: " He (Achilles ) will again fight whenever the st)irit in his breast urges him, and a God may rouse him." (^omzoze xiv ;itv i%;j.d<} i-A ar-qd-taatv a'^wyr^ xai &so^ uparj.) Iliad IX. , 703. XI. The marvel of the Homeric poems is their finished excellence in a comparatively rude age. They suddenly spring into existence with supreme perfection at a time which may be called national infancy. They are not only the creative start- ing-point of Greek Literature, but of the World's Literature, as it has manifested itself in the Occident. In their case, the highest art is the earliest product, and poets of culture have found their best model in a poet of a primitive epoch. This is the fact, struggle with it as we may ; undoubtedly, it is a hard fact for civilized peoples to digest, especially difficult it seems to men of learning, who have been the sole agency that compelled the destructive Wolfian theory into being, and who still keep it alive. There is no doubt that Homer found much poetry already in existence, though in a dis- organized form. Homer did not create his materials, no poet does or can. He did not 6 82 INTBODUCTION. make the Greek Gods, though he did reveal an order in the Greek religion ; that is, he is the greatest theologian of the Greeks. This is the honor which Herodotus ascribes to him in the famous passage which says that Homer aud Hesiod gave to the Greeks their " Theogony," — which passage is sometimes translated as if it meant that these two poets made the Greek Gods. But Herodotus means, as we see by the word he uses as well as by the context, an organ- ization of the deities, a theology. Homer is the organizer of Olympus, not its creator by any means. In like manner the mythical materials of his poem were given him; he did not make them, but he certainly transfigured them. What they were in their cruder forms, can, to a certain ex- tent, be seen in Hesiod, who, though later than Homer in time, is earlier in thought and develop- ment'. A vast body of chaotic legend, local and general, Homer organized and put into his poem. We can trace the tales of heroes who were cele- brated in certain places ; yet these tales in the Iliad become the spiritual links of the chain which holds together the Greek race. Homer is the greatest mythologist of the Greeks, as well as the greatest theologian. Undoubtedly Homer's chief material was found in the old songs of the people. The Greeks were a song-loving race; for that matter, all races INTBODUCTION. 83 seem to have in the love of sons;- a common char- acteristic. In Homer's poems there is song everywhere; the Muses and Apollo sing on Olympus at the feasts of the Gods ; the warriors sing, notably Achilles ; the bards sing at the ban- quet. What was the content of these old songs? The deeds of heroes, the legends of deities, great national enterprises like the Trojan. Hero we find the fragments which Homer took and fused into an universal song; he is the organizer of poetry, as well as of theology and mythology ; he is supremely the poet, the maker, and this is his highest title. He is something more than the ballad-singer, though much of his poetry sprang originally from what we may call ballads; he is the musical architect of the structure of which ballads are but the primitive materials. When we resolve this structure into the original stones, we have done away with the architect and his work. When the Homeric poems are put back into the old songs of which they are built, we have simply slain Homer. That is, we have destroyed what gives the chief value, namely, the poetic trans- figuration. Other peoples can show a vast body of ballad-poetry, but no Homer. Every border where fierce wars have been fought for genera- tions, produces great numbers of ballads, often of a high order. But where has the organizing Homer appeared a second time? The Scotch- 84 INTB OD UC TI ON. English border has abundance of epic material, but no epic poet. The Greco-Trojan border pro- duced him. To be sure, at this point was the greatest world-historical conflict, while the Scotch-English forays had the very least his- torical sig-nificance. There are Greek ballads to-day springing up along: the Greco-Turkish border and have been for centuries. But no second Homer has risen to give them the form of a totality. They are still but fragments of a great epic of the nation, in its conflict with the Oriental man. These frag- ments have been collected, they show a certain unity in thought and expression, which often be- comes mere repetition, but which nevertheless hints of an organic unity. They suggest the pre- Homeric materials of Homer. It is a curious fact that the modern Romantic Epos in its most important forms, took its rise from the conflict of Europe with the East, and thus shows the same spiritual origin as the Homeric poems. The ballads of Spain, which form the Cid, arose from the struo-o-le between the Christian Spaniards and the Mahomedan Moors, an Oriental people. So strong was the feeling of this conflict that the Occident trans- formed its great hero Charlemagne, the historical conqueror of Germany into the legendary hero of the West against the Moors. From the Carlo- ly^TIi OD UC TION. 85 vingian romance sprang the Italian Epos of Ariosto and Boiardo. From the later medieval contest with the East during the Crusades arose Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. So we may say that epic poetr}^ ancient and modern, classic and romantic, has taken its chief theme and inspira- tion from this deepest tension in the World's History, the struggle between Orient and Occi- dent. The romantic conflict was a religious one, be- tween Paynim and Christian. But the old Trojan war was not a religious one ; and the poems of Homer are secular, thouo;h there is a divine ele- ment in them of transcendent sig-iiiticance. Homer was, nevertheless, a bible to the Greeks; he taught them Theology in the highest sense, the relation between God's Providence and Man's free action. But his works were never a dogma, never embodied in a creed, with rites enforced by a special priesthood. It was never a breach of religion to call in question the religious view of Homer, no such dissenting person could be branded as an infidel. A secular Bible he was, without being a religious authority in the modern sense; the old philoso{)hers criticised him merci- lessly, yet, with little danger to tiiemselves, and no danger at all to him. As to Socrates, he drank the cup of hemlock because he was thirsty for it. 86 INTRODUCTION. XII. The geographical boundary of the Iliad em- braces but a small territory. The ^gean Sea is the heart and connecting medium between the Homeric peoples who take part in the Trojan War. European Greece on one side, the coast of Asia Minor on the other, make the poet's horizon. He probably knew by personal travel most of the lands which sent contingents to Troy. Beyond this boundary he has heard of peoples and events, both of which, however, have a tendency to turn to fable. The horizon of the Iliad makes a very small circle upon the map of the Earth, but through it is drawn, the most important line on the globe — the line of battle between Orient and Occident. Here is the great highway on which the East has come against the West, and the West has gone against the East. Homer stood upon this high- way and saw, perhaps, not its earliest, but one of its early conflicts, and set it to song. That song holds good to-day as bearing witness to an his- torical fact, for the fighting line between Greek and Oriental at this moment is laid down just about where it was at the beginning of History. It is interesting to compare the geographical boundary of Herodotus with that of Homer. The two have essentially the same center in the INTB OB UC TION. 87 ^gean and its borders ; but the Homeric horizon has been expanded by the historian in every di- rection, till it embraces all the civilized peoples of Orient as well as of the Occident. Stilly the historian has a limit to his view as well as the poet ; beyond this limit the world turns to a hazy fable-land. Though the geographical horizon of Herodotus be much larger, the line of conflict between East and West runs through it quite in the same places as in Homer. The plain of Troy was near the chief scenes of the Ionic revolt ; the mustering at Aulis was not far from Marathon. Moreover, the grand theme of Herodotus is the war between Greek and Persian, which is but another phase of the perennial struggle between Orient and Oc- cident. Poet and historian have at bottom the same theme, and the geographical as well as the spiritual line of battle is the same in both. But after Herodotus we find the Greek con- tinuing wiiat may be, in a certain sense, called the Trojan War. The last great act of the Hel- lenic world was the conquest of the Orient under the second youthful hero, Alexander; the first youthful hero, Achilles, opened Greek history at Troy. The beginning and the end of Greece are one ; and it was not necessarily sentiment or superstition which made Alexander connect his grand attack upon the Orient with the siege of Troy. We may give him the credit of seeing or 88 INTB OD UG TION. feeling the deep historic unity of the Macedonian with the Trojan expedition. He is said to have been an ardent admirer of the Iliad, he had caught its true meaning, and his life is the commentary which he left behind written in deeds. The question has often been raised, whether there ever was any Trojan war. In view of what was taking place continually in the historic period of Greece, the doubt seems an intellectual impo- tence. The conflict must have happened essen- tially as it stands in Homer ; it is not only prob- able, but necessary. The reason of its necessity lies in the fact, that a hundred Trojan wars which we know of, have been fought substantially on the same grounds and for the same cause during the last three thousand years. If there had been but the one Trojan War, without predecessor or successor, then the doubt would not only be natural, but would be imperative. But as it is, that war is a type, is everlasting, and furnishes an everlasting theme for the poet. If it were a mere accident, occurring once perchance and then stopping forever, it would have been long since forgotten, though Homer himself had sung of it. The Trojan War is typical; it belongs to past, present and future ; in the immediate future, if signs do not fail, it will be fought over again, perhaps, on the very plain of Troy. INTR OB UC TION. 8 9 XIII. From the earliest times there has been some form of Homeric interpretation. It is a neces- sity lying deep in the nature of the poems, which thouf^h transparent, are not shallow, and require close looking to see the bottom. Else, indeed, they were not great works. Plato speaks of men who declare that Homer "had educated Hellas." Homer is an educator, that is his chiefest and worthiest title, and to-day he must be read not simply for his form but his content, not simply for his style but for his doctrine. We are still to find in him a knowledo-e of things human and divine, if he be truly a world-poet. In our time peo})le are inclined to spurn this side, to deny his instruction, his seership, and merely enjoy his external literary power. That power he has in a surpassing degree, but it would be quite worthless without the other quahty. Homer has something to say, as well as a supreme manner of saying it. We may think in our egotism: Oh, no, Homer cannot teach us. Better then throw away his book, for it becomes at most a mere anuisement, and time can be better emploj-ed. We must, therefore, hold with the old Greeks that there is in Homer a "didascaly" — an element of in- struction. But it is not intended to affirm that Homer is a 90 INTBODUGTION. didactic poet in the ordinary sense of the word. His writ is not a school-book in verse, he has not taken a prosaic subject, like agriculture, or as- tronomy and turned it into meter. Then his book were not poetry. He seizes the doctrine in the fact, and the fact in the doctrine; he gives the deed but with it the thought inherent in the deed ; he deals with persons, but in them the character is infolded. Now interpretation is to bring out this implicit element in one way or another. To be sure, there are many methods of inter- pretation; some bad, some good, most of them inadequate. Still they all seek to wake up dor- mant sides of the poem, and probably the hum- blest explanation bears a seed of light to some- body. It is the fashion of one age to decry what instructed and delighted a former age. At the present time it is the habit of most Homeric critics to speak contemptuously of the allegorical method; they seem to think that the supreme matter is to dissect the poems into the Homeric and non-Homeric portions. The allegorical method as a whole is not the most fruitful method, we may well think, though there are cer- tainly some allegories in Homer. But is it not as fruitful as some new redaction of the Wolfian theory, which so many Homeric scholars deem it necessary to give their readers in these days? The Homeric poems were recited from the be- ginning, and there can be no doubt that these INTE ODUG TION. 9 1 oldest reciters used tone, gesture, play of features to bring out and emphasize the meaning. The Aoids, Homerids, Rhapsodes were all in their way interpreters, using mainly voice and actioa, but gradually coming to throw in at times a word of comment. This word of comment continued to grow till we see in Phito's Ion what the Rhap- sode's vocation was in the bloom of Hellenic cul- ture. For Ion was not only a reciter of Homer, but a commentator, and his commentary on a passage was evidently as long or longer than his recitation of the same passage. Moreover, he did not lose his own personalty in that of the poet ; in exploiting Homer, he evidently exploited himself quite as much ; he deemed that he de- served a golden crown for what he had done for the old bard. Theagenes of Rhegium, about 525 B. C, is usually mentioned as the first who allegorized Homer, but doubtless there were some who read Homer in this spirit from the besinnino;. For Homer often suggests, nay, demands allegory; for instance, the Goddess Pallas Athena must have been conceived from the start as the God- dess of "Wisdom. Still further, the whole account of the Prayers, daughters of Zeus, in the Iliads Book IX., is as much a conscious allegory as Bunyan's Pilgrim^s Progress. The allegorical method was not invented in order to defend Homer from the attacks of the philosophers, 92 INTBODUCTION. as has been asserted ; it existed long before Xenophanes of Colophon made his assault, be- fore the philosophic consciousness had arisen in Greece; allegory goes back to Homer himself. Every reader of Homer has to allegorize now and then in order to keep up with the poet ; even Mr. Grote, the Olympian scorner of allegory, alle- gorizes a little in spite of himself. Still, the allegorical method, applied to Homer as a whole, is inadequate, does not explain the complete fact. Allegory in general substitutes for this particular thing said by Homer another particular thing said by the interpreter, who thus opens upon Homer all the sluices of sub- jective caprice. To be sure, the writers of the Wolfian school open the same sluices in deciding what is Homeric in Homer and what is not, and thus Wolfianism is certainly as capricious as Alle- gorism, although it thinks it is not. Allegory branched off early into two directions, moral and physical. Theagenes, already men- tioned, seems to have mingled both in his inter- pretation of Homer. But after him, Metrodorus of Lampsacus is mentioned as the one who specially developed the physical method. All the striking scenes of the Iliad, the quar- rels of Jupiter and Juno, the battles of the Gods were interpreted into the phenomena of Nature. The physical method has been revived in connec- tion with the study of Comparative Philology by INTB OD UC TION. 9 3 a modern school of mythologists. Not only the Homeric scenes, but the Homeric heroes have been resolved into sun-myths and dawn-myths. There can be no doubt that a physical substrate is to be found in Homer, especially in the Homeric Gods; but this modern school, too, has run to wild extravagance, and committed excesses which have caused it to lose its credit. Arother ancient tendency with its modern counterpart is w'hat is called Euhemcrism. This is an attempt to explain the miraculous part of Homer into purely historical events, and still further, to explain not only the heroes but also the Gods as men who have been deified on ac- count of their great actions. Thus all the divini- ties of Homer, with their doings, are translated into human shapes and interpreted. The process, however, cuts the divine element out of Homer and out of man too. Euhemerus, a Sicilian, whose period hovers about 330 B. C, is the man who gave his name to this method of interpreta- tion. He has always remained a type of the ex- treme rationalizing tendency, and pious people in antiquity did not fail to call him an atheist. But the greatest ancient school of Homeric in- terpretation was the grammatical, which flour- ished at Alexandria in the third and second century B. C. The Alexandrian grammarians examined the words of Homer, the character of the various texts, the dialects, the geography and 94 INTRODUCTION. mythology with the most industrious and pains- taking erudition. Their eye was fixed upon the material elements of the poems, and evidently became microscopic both in the keenness and in the smallness of its scope. Of this school the undoubted hero was the grammarian Aristarchus. The period of his activity seems to extend from 200 B. C. to 150 B. C. He was the head of the great Alexandrian Library, was a lecturer on Homer — his oral discourses being attended by a large crowd of listeners. He became a kind of Homeric dictator not only to his own, but to succeeding ages, till the medieval period, and his authority has been partly revived in the present century. In nearly every respect this Alexandrian school has again come to light in modern times in the German school of Homeric interpretation. In- deed the latter sprang directly from the former. The publication of Villoison's edition of the Iliad in 1788, with the newly discovered Scholia which cited quite fully the writings and opinions of the Alexandrian grammarians, who had been almost unknown since their disappearance in the Middle Ages, gave to Wolf both the incentive and the information necessary for writing his Proleg- omena ( 1795), from which springs the modern German school. In both schools we note pretty much the same excellences and the same defi- ciencies ; there is the same enormous learning and INTBODUCTION. 95 industry, the same acute examination of words and texts. We must think, too, that there is in both the same loss of the spiritual purport of Homer, the same inability to grasp the poems as totalities. To a certain extent also, there seems to be the same display of caprice and dogmatism. In fact, some modern German scholars appear to regard Aristarchus the grammarian as of more importance than Homer the poet. And why not build a theory that Aristarchus is really the poet, while Homer is the grammarian? It would be a great mistake to undervalue the W'Ork done by the school of Alexandria. Our present text of Homer is probably that of Aris- tarchus. He saved it from much corruption, doubtless, both by his labors and his authority, though some have thought that he also corrupted it in turn. The effort of the Alexandrian school was chiefly spent upon the materials, till the poet v/as overwhelmed in his own lumber. Now there must be a study of materials and a thorough one, but the aim should always be to rise out of them into the spirit of the poet as soon as possible. That is, the study of Homer is ultimately spir- itual, not material. As an example of what the Alexandrian School could do in the way of throwing the mind off from Homer in studying Homer, we may take the so-called signs of Aristarchus. There were six in number (though more were used by later gram- 96 INTB OD UC TION. marians) and were prefixed to verses of Homer to indicate what the critic thought of them as re- gards genuineness, etc. Now these signs coukl not possibly be read without calling the attention away from the poet to somebody else, namely to Aristarchus, and to his opinions. They are not a commentary at the bottom of the page or at the end of the book, which we may consult as we need or wish, but they are a kind of alphabet thrust into the very line along with the letters of the text. We are compelled to take them into view, if we read such an edition of Homer, and the grammarian has subtly injected himself into the very writing of the old poet. Truly they are not only signs, but they also constitute symbols of the grammatical school. There is no doubt, however, that the ethical view, more or less pronounced, of Homer pre- vailed in antiquity from the earliest times. It was this aspect of the poet that made him a Bible to the Greeks. To-day we may take special de- light in the statement recorded in Xenophon's Symposium, where one of the guests says: " My father, wishing that I should become a good man, made me learn all the poems of Homer; and now I can say the whole Iliad Viud Odyssey hj heart." This implies something altogether better than a mere erudite interpretation, than the keenest doubt and dissection ; it seeks full of faith the soul of Homer, and finds it. INTRODUCTION. l»7 XIV. Friedrich August Wolf is the name of the man who aroused the greatest Homeric discussion of modern times. He was born in the year 1759, and thus his young days moved on aline with the grand revolutionary awakening of Europe. Wolf belonged spiritually to his age, he applied the French Revolution to Homer, and for a while seemed to have destroyed the old poet. But a counter-movement set in, and Homer has again personally appeared, even in Germany, among Wolfians. Revolutions are very necessary at times, but the world cannot be forever revolu- tionizing. The main points of W^olf's theory are as follows : — 1st. The Iliad and the Odyssey were originally a series of songs or ballads, more or less discon- nected ; they were not all by the same author, though it is possible that a gifted minstrel called Homer may have had a chief hand in their com- position. Homer, if he existed at all, belonged to this early phase of the songs. 2nd. These songs or ballads were at first not written, could not be written, for the art of writ- ing was then unknown in Greece, at least for lit- erary pur[)oses. Such long poems, however, as the Iliad and Odyssey could not have been com- posed without writing; and, even if written, they 7 98 INTBODUCTION. would have had no meaning to a public which did not read, but only listened to the recitation of the minstrel. The latter was the means of handing them down to later times, though with many alterations from their original. 3rd. After the songs had been written down, about the middle of the sixth century B. C, they underwent still further changes from the hands of revisers (diaskeuastte), who had certain rules of art to which they made the ballads conform. The two poems received their present shape from literary men attached to the court of Pisistratus, some years before 500 B. C. Such was the clap of thunder which preluded the storm. The noise was great, the learned world of Germany leaped with an electric shock from which it has hardly yet recovered. Wolf is not always clear or consistent. Sometimes he speaks as if the present Iliad and Odyssey had no organic unity^. Then he talks as if their pres- ent unity, which he seems to recognize, had been foisted upon them by the men of Pisistratus. At one time he admires, then he denies what he has admired. Still his spirit is one and the same ; his attack is upon the artistic structure of the poems ; he shows a mortal horror, something like a lurking mania, against the organic unity of the Iliad, and of the Odyssey too. It is true that he concedes something to the latter poem — admi- rabilis sum7na et compages — but he takes back hia INTRODUCTIOK. 99 concession in his general argument. Wolf is an adroit controversialist; with a courteous and un- prejudiced air he often seems to accept things which it is his ver}^ object to batter down. We have, therefore, often to look deeper than his words iu order to catch his spirit. And his spirit is death to the artistic, or wdiat he would call, the artificial Homer; he is going to get back to the natural poet, who existed long before the patch- ing of Pisislratus. Thus Wolf would permit us to clutch for some shreds of a personal Homer, though rather dubious here too ; but of the poet's Greek Temple he would not leave one stone upon another. This is the spirit of Wolf's Prolego- mena, though his words often show drawbacks, concessions, exceptions. Now we are not blaming Wolf, we are trying to understand him. He is the child of his time ; his voice is one with that of Rousseau crying, Back, back to Nature, out of this artificial so- ciety. So Wolf shouts in his domain: Back, back to the natural Homer, as he lived and sang before the art and artifice of a later age. That spirit which was abroad iu Europe everywhere at this period, and which was bent on destroying the old order, was the spirit of Wolf, who car- ried it into philology. And there was need of him. The previous criticism of Homer was, indeed, an artificial, most jejune thing; let the torch be ap- plied to the dried-up stuff. Still v/e do not wish 100 INTRODUCTION. Homer himself to be burned up in the conflagra- tion. We must fully recognize Wolf as an out- growth and a necessity of his time; his positive results are permanent, his negative effect is slow- ly vanishing. The development of the Wolfian theory in the succeeding period we may briefly trace. It has already been stated that Wolf is not al- ways consistent. His main trend is to destroy the Homeric structure, and thus to leave us with- out a Homer, at least without an organizing Homer. Yet he sometimes leans the other way, and calls up a personal Homer, who not only wrote most of the original songs, but even started the organic thread of the Iliad and Odyssey. From this dualism in Wolf himself, the two main branches of his school have unfolded. »* The extreme branch is represented by Lachmann and Kochly, who have resolved the Iliad into its primitive lays, and pointed out the sutures where they are joined together. Thus we are at a bound carried back to the starting-point of Wolf, and we are made to see the very songs out of which the Iliad arose. These songs apparently were composed by a multiplicity of unknown authors. There is now no Homer at all, he is less than a name, a lie ; even Wolf's primitive minstrel who may have composed many of the songs has van- ished. The second branch of the Wolfian theory has mrii OD uc Tioisr. i o i found more supporters than the first. Accord- ing to this view Homer is the main author of the original songs which go to make up the poems as we have them. He also gave to them a primitive structural form, which was changed and extended by succeeding poets. Thus we reach the con- ception of a primary and a secondary Iliad and Odyssey^ which became a new starting-point for theorizing, with branches running in many directions. This last phase of the Wolfian theory has been developed by a number of able writers. To be sure they all differ as to what parts went to muke up the primary and the secondary Iliad. Mr. Grote in his History of Greece developed one modification of this second i)hase of Wolfiunism, and made it generally known in English-speaking countries. Certain Professors in the British Universities have adopted and set forth various points of view in the doctrine of the primary and secondary Iliad and Odyssey with learning and ingenuity (Geddcs, Jebb, Mahaffy). But the Wolfian theory has not deeply af- fected the Anglo-Saxon study of Homer. In Germany it is still working, and has shown a new phase in the writings of Dr. W. Christ. We find in Prof. Jebb's excellent book on Homer a short summary of this last appearance of German Wolfianism. Dr. Christ hohls to a primary Iliad which Homer composed, and to a secondary 102 INTBOD UC TION. Iliad which Homer partly composed and partly inspired. To other sources than Homer the author ascribes certain portions of the Iliad which he designates. But the great fact of this new phase of the old theory is that in it Woliianism seems to have run through its cycle, it has come back to old Homer again, to one chief Homer, author of the primary and main author of the secondary Iliad, and this is done through the Wolfian process itself. Still it is but fair to note that in Germany too there always has been a strong fight kept up against the Wolfian theory. The contestants on this side have been in the minority, but among their number was probably the greatest Homeric commentator of modern times, Prof, Nitzsch, who considers Homer the poet who formed the Iliad out of the many small songs afloat concerning the Trojan war. He also holds that the same poet may have composed the Odyssey. This view is not the Wolfian, but has been influenced by Wolf. In it we begin to find the true and permanent re- sult of the Wolfian discussion. Homer did not cre- ate his materials, did not invent his legends, did not make his Gods — all these were given him in one way or other. He is the grand organizer and transfigurer of them into a poetic Whole. Which party has won? Both sides cry victory, with not a little mutual disparagement. The Wolfians are very generally inclined to look upon INTIIODUCTION. 103 tbeii- adversaries as too deficient in special knowl- edge to form a just opinion. The latter look upon the Wolfians as so intent upon the details of Homeric erudition that they cannot take a survey of the total Homer. Probably both to a degree are correct. Hence we may suppose that people will con- tinue to differ upon this subject as upon many others. The professors in universities, who, by vocation and habits of thought, become special students of grammar and text, will probably lean toWolfianism. But poets who love an artistic whole, philosophers who seek for a systematic whole, and people generally who read Homer for literature and not for giammar, have, in the main, held to the unity of these poems and will proba- bly not change their attitude in the future. The Wolfian theory will continue to convince those already prepared to be convinced ; but those pre- pared to stay unconvinced it will still fail to convince. Undoubtedly the Wolfian theory has great ob- stacles in its path on account of the long trans- mitted prejudice in favor of the personal Homer, with whom the sympathetic reader becomes pretty well acquainted, and whom he actually gets to loving. To have the individuality of the old poet swept into nothingness at this late day goes against the jjrain. We come^ to know the mania his spiritual outlines, and we arc uotquito willing 104 ■ INTRODUCTION. to accept the argument going to prove that he is a dream. To the subtle reasoning of the Wolf- ian we may often hear the naive answer: But I know Homer, I have heard him speak as no other man has spoken. This is prejudice, possibly delusion ; at any rate it is an end of the discus- sion. The Wolfian argument also runs counter to cer- tain deeply rooted presumptions in the thinking mind. The first is, that the discrepancies and contradictions pointed out in Homer by no means necessitate diversity of authorship. This pas- sage is different from or inconsistent with that passage, reasons the Wolfian, hence it must have been by a different author. By such a test, how- ever, Milton, Tasso, Sir Walter Scott could be torn to pieces and their scattered portions as- signed to many diverse writers. Certainly the first and second parts of Faust differ far more from each other than the Iliad differs from the Odys- sey. Still, we may grant that there is a point at which discrepancy implies a difference of authorship, and that there are lines which have been interpolated into these old poems. But Homer, sinfyin^ for uncritical listeners and not for lynx-eyed readers, could well contradict himself in details and yet keep his poetry homogeneous. This first presumption the Wolfians have valiantly tried to batter down, still the citadel remains. INTR 01) UC TION. 1 05 The second prosumi)lioii against Wolfianisni springs from the difficulty of accepting so many Homers, and most of them poets of such tran- scendent excellence. The strong conviction is that there is but one Dante, one Shakes[)eare, one Goethe, and one Homer. The conviction goes further; there are not many ^Eschyluses, not many Schillers or Miltons. Poets of the first class, the great world-poets, appear singly at in- tervals of centuries. Poets of the second class are also rare men in every sense. This is the main rock upon which the Wolfian ship has struck, and which usually causes the passengers to take to the sea and swim for their lives, only the toughest and most courageous sailors by profes- sion clinging still to the old craft. The Wolfians have sought to meet this second presumption in two main ways, apart from con- tempt and dogmatism ; they deny its validity di^ rectly, and try to prove that a community of Homers once lived and wrote Homer, as the En- glish Bible was translated in the same stylo by a number of men, and the Prayer Book of the An- glican Church was made l)y several hands, yet with perfect uniformity in manner and meaning. The other way is to accept the presumption against many Homers, but to affirm that a great deal of the Iliad is not good poetry, ou much inferior to that portion which the one Homer, the first ballad- ist, or author of the primary Iliad, has written. 106. introduction: Thus that most excellent Book, the Twenty- Fourth of the Iliad, has been called poor stuff. The last phase of Wolfianism as represented by Dr. Christ (see above) has, however, accepted the one Homer as the author of the primary Iliad and of the secondary also, for the most part. Thus the W olfian ship has gotten into port, but by throwing overboard the bulk of its cargo. Then there is a third trouble. Every theory of re-adjusting the Iliad creates greater difficulties than it removes. This seems to be true without exception. To be sure, each theorist regards his view as solving the grand problem, and the others as more or less wrong. We listen to the argu- ment of the acute dissector and rejector, and are inclined to agree ; but wdien we try to put together the whole Iliad, after the new light, it will not march, it limps, its members drop off as if it had leprosy. Take Mr. Grote's theory as de- veloped in the second volume of his History. He constructs out of the Iliad an Achilleid, yet he leaves out of his Achilleid the most Achillean Book in the whole poem, the Ninth. What, then, shall we do with the poor Ninth Book? Bury it somehow out of sight; dropped off or lopped off, it no lonofer is a limb of the org-anism. What now is the condition of our sick Homer after having undergone such a surgical operation as the aforesaid? Still the Wolfian discussion has given us, if introduction: io7 not a new Homer, the mccans for seeing Homer anew. What materials it has gathered 1 What research, what learning, what fresh thoughts, what deep insights it has called forth ! Never again can we look at Homer with the old Franco- Classical eyes. . And yet these good things seem to have been dropped mostly in the hot pursuit of something else not so good. The hungry guest, sitting at the Homeric table, exclaims: O ye learned cooks, your sauce is the best in the world, give us more of it; but your fish is rotten, take it away. XV. And now let it be declared that there is no in- tention of saying much about the Homeric con- troversy in the remaining portions of this book. Probably the most ardent disputant on either side would not affirm that the Wolfiau theory, in all its redactions and modifications, had brought out the really vital questions of the Homeric poems. It has generated an innumerable offspring of l)robabilities, conjectures, disputations; of doubts chiefly it has been prolific, but seems to be un- able to unfold any deep inner necessity of that marvelous song. It fails, somehow, to reach down to the soul of the poet, but is occupied with external matters, interesting enough, but quite dispensable in presence of weightier things. Certainly these intricate questions concerning 108 INTR OD UC TION. authorship do not grasp the supreme fact in the works called the poems of Homer; for do they not remain the same, and offer us their problem, whatever be the way we spell the author's name? Important, yet not all important, is also the question of Homeric writing. Still, if this matter were settled beyond a doubt, it could not induct us into any true comprehension of Homer. Let us, then, relegate such a discussion to the halls of learned leisure, and take up another ques- tion which must always remain the leading one with the true-hearted student. Here before me are two books which the world always has de- clared, and does still declare, to be of its very greatest. Do I know them, and do I know why they are so great? Some phases of the Homeric dispute have sought to make us believe that we have no Homer; but we turn away, and see in- dubitably his twin books lying before us upon our table; so we take them up, assured once more of their reality, and begin anew to find out what they contain that lasts so long, so fresh, and so beautiful. With boldness we may advance to a new attack throuo;h lono; shelves of commentaries extending back to ancient Alexandria, provided we hold continually before us this question. What vitally true thing do these old poems tell us, even at this late day? An answer to such a question the sincere reader will seek in them, and will, in time, find. A little conference with an- INTB OD UC TION. 109 other person engaged in the same pursuit may help him; hence, O reader ! I give thee here my notes; perchance hereafter I may get some of thine. For a genuine attempt of a modern human soul struQ-ojling to malie Homer and Homer's world a profound reality unto itself is not only interesting, but teaches much. But if I find thee working merely in some ramification of the Wolfian argument with possible additions of thine own, cutting up the poems into ballads large or small, according to some new scheme, with fresh hypotheses as to their authors, defend- ing or refuting a long string of conjectures from the beijinnino; down, most of which are mere CO ' bubbles that have long smce exploded of them- selves, displaying thy erudition by citations drawn from the vast mole-fields of learning, or in any manner reducing back to gold-dust and dirt the gathered and minted treasures of Homer, with- out manifesting the least appreciation of them, as they rest in sun-like radiance before thine eyes — I warn thee, I shall burn thy document without further reading. And now thou hast the power to requite me. Other kinds of notes — such as philological, textual, historical, ethnological — we shall, in the main, eschew ; very necessary in their place, they belong not here. Even literary notes, in the common acceptation of the term, whereby beauti- ful passages are pointed out, fine comparisons are 110 INTBODUCTION. dwelt upon, offenses against taste are duly scored, must not be expected. But, in the higher mean- ing of literature as the very portrait of the human soul and as the very visage of human history, there is much to be found in Homer which has hardly yet been said, or, if so, can well be said again. What is the significance of these poems to man — what do they mean, interpreted into the language and methods of thought of our day ? An interpretative criticism, which takes these poems as mighty facts thrown up by our race in its development, and seeks to grasp the import of them in their relation to all culture, must be em- ployed; such a criticism will regard Homer as the great revealer of his epoch, and will unfold, as its foundation, the poet's conception of the gov- ernment of the world. The Gods, their interfer- ence in human affairs, their strange characters ; the many myths, and their many forms ; the Homeric man, too — are all phases of that period long passed away, which demand some transla- tion into our own life and expression whereby we mayfconnect them with ourselves, and thus make them into a link of our own inner as well as of our race's outer history. Another question will also come up for an an- swer : How does Homer build his materials into a poem? The structure of these Homeric books is their chief wonder, though not their chief great- ness, perhaps; everywhere is seen the profound INTRODUCTION. Ill instinct of the builder who puts his work to- gether, not ouly in the most beautiful, but in tlie most lasting way. This architectonic soul is what has preserved them so long, and has helped to make them the creative principle of literature; most succeeding poetic books have been built after their structural type. One may well say that as detached fragments, however excellent in them- selves, they had long since perished; but, wrought into a temple, they attain their perfect beauty and duration. Homer is, therefore, the builddf"; according to one derivation of his name, he is the man who fits together. Many materials were given him to work into his structure; one asks, In what con- dition did he find them? In a disjointed, floating mass, doubtless, just as they were thrown off by the people and handed down in tradition; they were fragments of a national life, and of its ex- pression, impure, uncertain, but genuine, and coming from the hearts of men. The Poet takes them, fuses them, and makes them into a complete expression. From time immemorial there had been a great conflict with the East — a long series of conflicts, which culminated in one grand strug- gle ; all the essence of this deep wrestle of na- tions was gathered into a song. Many such fragments of antecedent conflicts we can discern in the Iliad where they take the form of some ancient tale or legend; there are 1 1 2 IN Til OD UC TION. hints of migrations; there are mythical notices of great revolutions, national and religious, such as the story of Dionysus's flight, the fable of Bri- areus, the tale of Bellerophon. A great poem re- sumes the whole Past into itself; the Iliad has united into one brilliant legend the legendary stores of the Greek race, and smelted them into one pure-flowing strain. Still more plainly has the Poet gathered the local legends of the Trojan War; each little community had its hero and its lay in his honor, which recounted what he did and suffered at Troy in the great na- tional enterprise. All these lays are not merely to be collected, but to be fused together into the national song ; for is not each town a part of the nation ? Such is the work of the Poet, such the materials out of which he is to build his edifice. So much was furnished to Homer by his peo- ple, so much must be furnished to every great book. The mythus is made and given him by his nation or race; faint and disjointed it lies, but has the germ, the deep hint of their destiny, which the Poet seizes and unfolds to light. It is but the crude material of song, the scattered nu^o-ets which he must gather and fling into his poetic fur- nace, melting them and casting away the dross, and stamping the pure gold with his seal, whereby it becomes current ever afterward, the literary coin of mankind. Hidden deep in mother earth, even nuggets are valueless, though they be gold, INTJiOD UC TION. 1 1 3 being unmerchantable, and, indeed, unrecogniza- ble to most eyes. So much, then, is given to the Poet from with- out by his people, yet it must not be forgotten that he too is one of the people — indeed, one of their typical men. He is also a myth-maker — he not only receives, but gives; these legendary treasures are his in the deepest sense. More- over, he, of all men, feels most profoundly what lies in his people ; he shares most strongly in their struggle, in their suffering, in their victory. Not simply, then, has the material been given him, but his heart has helped to make it ; indeed, he is the sensitive throbbing heart of his whole people, and their voice, too. Even to-day Greece shows certain phases of the pre-Homeric epos. There has been a long con- flict with the Turk, extending over hundreds of years ; it is still a struggle with the Oriental man, as it was upon the plains of Troy and of Marathon. Every village has taken part in the conflict, has had its hero, and still celebiates him in song. The fragments of a great national poem are floating scattered through the villatTfcs, but there is now no Homer to throw them into the crucible and refine them, and work them into a great or- ganic Whole. Nouo;ht do we see there now but the compiler ; collections of these single melodious heart-beats we may find, but they are merely a fitful breath of music here and there, and then 114 IN TR OD UC TION . dying away to a wail or momentary joy. Per- haps the time is not come for the second Ho- mer; when the second Troy is taken and destroyed, he may be called forth by the shout of triumph. But it is time to pass to our task. We shall now attempt to contemplate these ancient poems in their true place at the fount*iin-head of Uni- versal Literature. It is not too much to say that such is their relation to other Great Books ; they are the beginning of the literary stream, and still give to it form and scope. This is quite the most sijTjnificant fact about them ; thev belonsr not to a nation simply, though they be national in the highest degree; they rise and participate in that spiritual current running above nations, which hang therefrom as from their mother's breast. In that universal life they share, and image it too ; we must reach to the very highest consideration of them, which is to reo;ard them among: the Gi'eat Books of our race, called Literary Biblcii, several of which our European peoples ha\e created as they have dropped down the stream of Time. Such, then, is to be our commentary, not philological, not allegorical, not literary in the more common sense of the w'ord. We seek to unfold the spirit of Homer, his eternal element as manifested in his temporal wrappage. What he gives as particular, we are to behold as uni- INTRODUCTION. 115 versal, even when this reaches beyond the im- mediate ken of the Poet; foi* instance, that particular Trojan War is to be seen as one phase of the universal conflict between Orient and Occident; though Homer be not conscious of it, standing, as he does, at the very beginning, we are to see it, looking back from our stand-point of three thousand years of history, in which that conflict has had time to explain itself. In this method we are but following the ancient master and founder of literary criticism, Aristotle, who says in his Poetics, that "Poetry has to do with what is universal." XVI. A word upon the Invocation (the first seven lines), which, though short, is deserving of a long thought. This little preface is clearly in- tended for the whole Iliad; here we find stated the essence of the poem in its twofold nature, in its primitive dualism. Both points are to be care- fully noted as showing the ultimate thought of the Poet. The first point is the wrath of the Hero and its consequences; the Greeks suffer woes unnumbered, and many souls are sent to Hades; such is the result to the people when their Great Man is dishonored. But tiie second point is the other great fact of the poem : the will of Zq«ii3 was accomplished from the beginning. He 116 INTROD UC TION. is the Highest, and it is by such collisions as this Greek one that he brings forth the world's divine movement. A conception of Universal History lurks therein, and the course of the poem unfolds it. Keconciliation, which plays so important a part in the action, is not otherwise spoken of in this short passage, but here is the hint of it and its realm: Providence is over all conflict, fulfill- ing his purpose, and bringing forth harmony. The antithesis of the Iliad, in fact of the Uni- verse, is just this one here indicated ; an Upper and a Lower World; an Individual on one side, the Deity or the Universal on the other ; the question being, How shall this mighty man, as independent, even as wrathful, recalcitrant, free- agent, be made to fit harmoniously into the world's order, and to contribute his share there- to? Such is the problem of the Iliad; it is yours too, and mine; wherefore both of us may study the old Poet's solution of it with profit. Such a meaning looms out of this Invocation when seen, not by the first glance perhaps, but by the last glance, sent backward from the end of the poem . One other thing the reader will delight to dwell upon: the Muse is invoked to sing this song ; she is to the singer a veritable reality, not a juggle, not a mere fanciful play, as at present. Also she sings the reality, not simply the fancies of the singer. The Poet, though he be called the INTRODUCTION. Il7 Maker, knows that not he alone has made this wonderful lay; much has been given him, among other gifts a voice ; it is indeed the Muse who sings throuo-h him. Thus he fiirurcs to himself his poetic process — a figure which has remained to this day, though too often merely as a figure, not as a soul with a divinity in it. BOOK FIRST, The First Book of the Iliad is worthy of care- ful study as a typical book of the poem. It lias its own distinct organism, yet it fits with true precision into the organism of the entire work. It is Homeric in the deepest sense ; it is an inde- pendent, self-contained individual, yet is beauti- fully adjusted in the universal poetic order. It has the note of prelude and preparation, yet it has also the prophetic glance which looks through the whole poem to the end. The quarrel of the Chieftains below shows the beginning, the decree of Zeus above hints the termination. Two questious we are to ask concerning the formation of all these Books : What is their separate structure, taking each Book as a poem with its own architecture? and next, what is the relation of each Book to the entire Iliad, to what goes before and to what comes after? It is probable that Homer himself did not divide his work into Books, as it lies before us moderns. Still he must have given the organism as we have it now, since it is the very body of his poetical spirit. We cannot, therefore, go far astray, if we study these Books in the way time (118) BOOK FIRST. 119 has transmitted them to us. We must, ac- cordingly, look at the First Book as a whole by itself, then as a part of the total epical move- ment. It cleaves naturally into two portions, — al- most halves — the Conflict in the Lower World before Troy, and the Conflict in the Upper World on Olympus. Thus we see that the en- tire Iliad plays into the very structure of this Book, which has, as its organic ground-work, the grand Homeric dualism, the human and divine realms. Moreover we notice in each of these realms a disturbance — in fact, essentially the same disturbance; the Olympian household is the image of what is taking place on earth, bufe it shows in addition the solution of the trouble, which is just its divine function. In this way the great fact of the poem mirrors itself in the construction of the present Book ; that fact is, the Man-below and the God above, in their interaction yet in their freedom. This structural principle of the Book we may carry out still further in the following survey, which indicates the general symmetry of the two portions: — I. Conflict in the Lower World . ( Lines 8-348 in the original.) a. The })hysical pestilence, which causes so many deaths in the Greek camp, passes into a spiritual pestilence, the quarrel of the Chieftains, 1^0 BOOK FIRST. which will cause many more deaths. — The two plagues- b. Next come the efforts to harmonize both troubles — Ulysses is sent to conciliate Apollo, the sender of the physical pestilence, and a divine and a human agent — Pallas and Nestor — seek to conciliate the chieftains. — The phase of media- tion. c. The mediation fails below — the quarrel con- tinues, the Leader and the Hero separate in en- mity, Achilles withdraws from participation in the war, and nourishes his wa*alh with thinking about it. II. Conflict in the Upper World. (Lines 348 to the end. ) a. Two divine judgments are given in reference to the two pestilences. Apollo is conciliated in the matter of the physical pestilence, while Zeus decrees that Achilles must be honored; thus the spiritual pestilence continues, and is now to bear its fruits in conflict. b. Juno, the bitter partisan of the Greeks, suspects what has happened, and makes a strong protest, whereby the quarrel is transferred to Olympus. Zeus asserts his sovereignty, single and *' apart from the other Gods," who also are ruffled against Zeus. This new divine trouble calls forth the mediation of Vulcan, which be- comes an Olympian comedy, ending in " the in- extinguishable laughter of the happy Gods." BOOK FIRST. 121 c. Unity and harmony of Olympus expressed in feasting and song. The outcome is, the decree of Zeus is the highest law, to v;hicli all nm>t reconcile themselves. The conflict above is mediated externally by the might of Zeus, and internally by the conciliatory festival of Vulcan. After the invocation, which has already been considered, the poem begins with a question : " What one of the Gods started the strife be- tween the two chieftains?" For it must have been a deity and so the action springs from a divine source. Yet we are also to see that the quarrel lay already in the hearts of Achilles and Agamemnon, else the God could not have brought it about. Thus in the very first line of the poem proper we begin to hear the grand Homeric ground-tone which is to unite at last the free- acting individual and the ordering deity into one harmonious utterance. The answer to the above question is also given ; it was the son of Zeus and Latona, Apollo, wdio sent the pestilence. He is the great enemy of the Greeks before Troy, a partisan deity on the side of the Trojans, though the pestilence is not directly ascribed to his hostility to the Greeks, but to the insolence of Agamemnon. Again .we note that the God must be supi)lcmented by the mortal; even Apollo's hate could do nothing without the human offender. 122 BOOK FIEST. I. We may now proceed to take up the Conflict in the Lower World which pulses with intense dramatic life from the first line. We behold a double pestilence, which rages in the bodies and souls of the Greeks; we mark the steps taken to get rid of the outer and inner disease. The physicid plague ends with the present Book, but the spiritual plague runs through the entire Iliad, which is, indeed, a record of its rise, cul- mination and cure. a. The poem, then, starts with the physicil pestilence sent by Apollo, who is here the avenfjer of the wrong done to his priest. The approach of the God is described, the arrows of disease fly from his bow, the Greeks are perishing inconsequence. What next? This malady of Nature at once brings to light the malady of Spirit; indeed the physical pestilence hardly be- longs to poetry till it manifest the spiritual pestilence which now breaks out in full intensity. Listen to the loud voices of quarrel ; the two chief Greeks are in angry dispute ; Apollo, as their divine enemy, ought now to be satisfied with what he has set a-going. At once the Poet introduces us to the heart of the matter ; we behold two men in strife, each of whom is the grand personal embodiment of a BOOK FIRST. 123 principle. These two principles at war we may- state as Authority against Heroship. Agamem- non is commander, and has the right of authority ; but he dishonors and wrongs Achilles, the Heroic Man, who retires in wrath from the combat and stays in his tent. It will be seen that Authority on the one hand and Heroship on the other are disjoined ; they exist in different individuals who now are hostile. Thus the two strongest and deepest forces of the State, which ought to work in harmony, have become antagonistic, and we are to witness the consequences. Such is the famous quarrel between Achilles and Agamem- non, the essence indeed of many quarrels that since have been and are hereafter to be. As the case stood in ancient Homer's time, so it stands at present. The I)orn ruler is seldom the ruler born; the man of highest ability is usually not the man in highest power. Even in hinds w'hcre the privilege of birth is abolished, and the chief office is open to all, the same law asserts itself. The American President has rarely been the first man of his party. Genius comes into the world, not for the established, but for somethino; beyond it, and cannot be entrusted with it. Achilles is the genius, Goddess-born, and is clearly not the man for institutional au- thority. Agamemnon is the ruler, a second-rate spirit, whose scepter, but not himself, is derived from Zeus. In the one case, the man is divine; 124 J300K FIMST. in the other case, not the man, but his au- thority. Which is right, and which wrong? The quar- rel has its origin in a violation done by Agamem- non — he refuses to accept ransom for the captive daughter of Chrys^s, the priest of Apollo. It is manifest that he ought to have accepted the ran- som according to the Greek ethical instinct of the time ; all the Greeks applauded the demand of the father and said : Revere the priest and receive the ransom. But the leader refuses with passion ; the result is a divine transgression, which is pun- ished by the plague in the Greek camp. More- over, the act of Agamemnon cuts deeper; the restoration of Helen, also a stolen woman, is the matter for which the Greeks are fighting: before Troy; the commander, in refusing to restore Chryseis is thus violating the very principle for whose infringement he is seeking to punish the Trojans. And yet deeper does his action cut : he goes and commits a second deed of violence; he takes from Achilles Briseis, the Hero's prize in war and intended spouse; steals, as it were, another Helen. Thus Agamemnon substantially plays the part of Paris in the Greek camp, and contradicts the whole pnrpose of the expedition. He, the man of supreme authority in that expe- dition, does so; the Poet places him emphatically in the wrong, for he has denied in his deed hi3 own cause, the cause of the whole Hellenic world. BOOK FIRST. 125 It is true that Briscis also was a captive woman in the tent of Achilles. But she had never been demanded back, as was the case with Chiyseis, and Helen too; nay, we learn later that the Hero intended to elevate her from cap- tive to wife. The Greek consciousness in this matter seems to have been : Women may be stolen, but must be restored when demanded back with ransom. Achilles therefore is seen to be in harmony with the Greek ethical feeling ; he is here the patriot who seeks the cause of divine wrath, and then tries to remove it when found. Whereby he collides with the man in authority, Agamemnon. The character of Agamemnon as revealed in these outlines has in it two striking traits : inso- lence toward the Gods, and arbitrariness toward man. Both are indeed the same trait, at one time directed to those above, at another to those below. Note how he abuses Calchas, the seer, for tcUino; the source of the Greek trouble. The leader quarrels with the eternal fact — the very worst trait in a leader. Yet it is the disease of all authority, whose danger is to regard its own caprice as one with the reality, and to punish the honest speaker of the truth as an enemy of the cause. Listen to that first line addressed to Calchas, and mark what lurks therein: " Never yet hast thou told me the thing that is pleasant." That is not the duty of a good priest then or now. 126 BOOK FIRST. Clearly the head of the army, who ought always to keep his eye fixed upon the great general pur- pose, has lost sight of the same in his individual whim and passion. The vice of his station it appears to be, which vice he must get rid of or it will destroy his expedition. A third trait here peeps forth, which will help him out in the end. Agamemnon is flexible, and can be reconciled ; he yields to a better view when his ire is calmed. At once he gives up his insolence toward the God, and restores the maid with due penance ; but his arbitrariness to the Hero he at present persists in ; he drives off his Best Man, for which conduct hereafter he will experience bitter repentance. 'Jlius we must place to his account a redeeming trait : he is placable; the man in authority can be appeased, and made to recall his deed. The fundamental lines of the character of Achilles also are brought out in these sharp dis- putes. He supports the Greek cause with body and mind; just now he is seeking to find and to get rid of the divine obstacle. But, when his honor is touched, he withdraws from the conflict and lets the Ciuse go to ruin ; he will not subsume his personality under a commander. He, too, has a disease — the disease of Heroship; he feels that he is not sufiiciently honored by the Greek leader and the Greek army. We observe in his few first words that he is in a strained mood to- BOOK FIRST. 127 ward Agamemnon, which the hitter reciprocates; it has long been a smouldering fire, for the whole ten years perchance, which now breaks forth in consumins: flames. Indeed, he rather invites Agamemnon to come and take Briseis, that he may have a good pretext for sulking. The feel- ing of greatness unappreciated, long pent up in the brooding soul, burstsoutof his speech every- where; the Hero is present and in action, but is not recognized; he will bring both leader and people to a comprehension of his place in the world. Thus the disease of Authority on the one hand and the disease of Heroship on the other arc the two maladies in the Hellenic camp and in the Hellenic soul; the twin principles, which must work together to produce a great harmonious national action, have fallen into strife and pro- foundest discord. That pestilence of Apollo, God of Light, which first struck the Greek camp and shrivelled the bodies of beasts and men, has now gone within; this is the real pestilence. Thus begins the wrath of Achilles, forever memorable from the poem which it called forth. Not mere irascibility or sulkiness is this menis or wrath of the Hero ; it goes much deeper, nay, to the very bottom of the soul : greater than his anger is his pride. In the Christian Avorld, Pride isthe first of the seven deadly sins, and the funda- mental one ; it is that by which Satan fell — fell 128 BOOK FIBST. from his loyal support of the divine authority. So Achilles withdraws from the great Hellenic enterprise, because his individuality is not suffi- ciently honored. That is Pride, the primitive sin of manhood, which sets its individual self above the world-order. Such a man, if he persist, will surely have to be put under the discipline of Zeus. The besetting sin of Agamemnon may also be called Pride, but springing from another source, from authority. Hyhris it is named by Pallas herself — the insolence of power, which respects not the right of the individual. This insolence he carries to such a height that he violates not merely the right of the individual, but the spirit of the whole Trojan war: he cuts the throat of his own principle, and now it is bleeding to death. b. Such is the scission in the Greek enterprise — a scission which produces the First Part of the whole Hiad, extending to the reconciliation of the two men in the Nineteenth Book. But here upon the spot we have two attempts at reconcili- ation, a divine and human attempt. The first is that of Pallas who appears merely in order to pre- vent bloodshed, and succeeds thus far ; the second is that of Nestor, who seeks to harmonize the strife, but he does not and cannot succeed; this matter is too deep-seated without an appeal to the final judgment over mortal men — the judgment ut- tered by Zeus voicing the World-Order. BOOK FIE ST. 129 Let us scan this first divine appearance found in the Iliad, and see what it means; for just these connecting lines between the Upper and Lower AVorhls are the piUars of the Homeric temple. The heart of Achilles " within his shaggy breast was divided in counsel whether to draw the keen blade from his side and slay Atrides, or assuage his anger and curb his soul." This is a plain statement of his internal condition. But while he was doubting, and even laid his hand upon his weapon, Pallas came from heaven, to him alone visible, and caught him by his golden hair and forbade him to draw his sword. Such is this striking passage in which the human internal state directly fuses with the divine external interfer- ence, a rise, as it were, from earth to heaven ; also there is seen the transition from plain com- mon speech — prosaic, we might say, for the con- trast — into the mythologic tongue of Homer. While Achilles deliberates, though in passion, Pallas, the Goddess of Wisdom, appears to him alone and reveals to him his second sober thought. But if this be his own internal act, why introduce the Goddess to declare it to him ? Because it is the voice of the situation, too, of the Greek cause ; it is not merely his inner suggestion, but that of the outer reality as well. He must rise out of himself, out of his own passion, and hear the whisper of Pallas ; she and her commands exist not simply in the man, but outside of him as 130 BOOK FIRST. well ; she is a voice coming from the world, which speaks in his own soul. Therefore she is divine, being a spiritual reality and not a sub- jective thought alone. A double error must herein be avoided. Do not interpret the God into a mere internal state of a man, thus the distinctively divine element is lost; do not, on the other hand, interpret the God into a mere external power driving the man from without, thus the human element of free- dom is lost. Achilles is about to ruin the great enterprise against Troy by slaying the man of authority; so Pallas interferes, sent by Juno, who is the sunreme o-uardian of the Greek cause, next to the throne of Zeus. But Pallas does not try to heal the breach ; she rather urges the Hero to continue his railing at the Leader. Before Helen can be restored by the captu; e of Troy, it is clear that another question must be settled — the honor of the Hero. In such manner, all through Homer, the two worlds, the Upper and Lower, or the Inner and Outer, touch and kiss in a divine rapture, then separate — the Gods flying off to their home on Olympus, the men resuming the bloody conflict before Troy. Such is the divine mediation ; now comes the human mediation. An aged man appears, re- spected by joth parties, with far more experience of life and war than either Achilles or Agamem- non, with a tongue dropping words sweeter than BOOK FIIiST. 131 honey to smooth over the difficulties of heroes; it is the wise Nestor. He sees the conflict, anddecides it ari<^ht ; he is the voice of justice heard amid those tumultuous passions ; indeed we may take Nestor's speech to be the voice of the Poet himself re- garding the merits of the quarrel. Listen to his word, for it speaks the reason of the situation ; Thou, Agamemnon, take not the maid, the prize of him. Goddess-born, and Best Man of all the Greeks; and thou, Achilles, strive not with the King, the sceptered man, to whom Zeus has granted rule. Wise old Nestor, with that clear understanding of his probes the difficulty to the core, and gives the best advice ; indeed, he quite states the collision as it has been hitherto un- folded — individual heroism versus institutional authority. c. But the word of reconciliation is now fruit- less; each side charges the other with transgres- sion against its right; each side docs a wrong; the Leader violates the Hero's honor, the Hero refuses' obedience to the Leader. The twin principles, whose perfect interfusion and agree- ment make the very soul of the Greek enterprise, have separated and turned with violence upon each other. What is to be the outcome? For one thing this Iliad before us, whose whole course is now to show us through what disasters and punishments the two discordant principles must work back to unity and harmony, for to- 132 BOOK Fin ST. gether they must live according to the World- Order, the voice of which we are now to hear — it is the voice of Zeus. II. We are now borne to the Upper World, to the very highest pinnacle of the Upper World, where Zeus is seated in supreme majesty apart from the other Gods, whence we are given a glance over the future sweep of the poem. The appeal must be made to the final divine authority to settle this question of human authorit3^ Mark again, it is a matter upon which the highest earthly powers, the Hero and the Leader, are at variance ; what will the supreme power of the world say to it? Hence the introduction of the world-governing ruler, the Highest God; the solution of the con- flict is out of the reach of the man below on the plains of Troy. This brings us to the Second Part of the First Book, which is ushered in by the prayer of Achilles to his mother Thetis, wherein the mortal Hero, in affliction and dis- honor rises up and communes with his immortal portion. For Achilles has a mortal and an immortal parent, Peleus and Thetis; both have given him their endowment. Two strands, a mortal and immortal, run through him ; both are interwoven into his being and make him the Hero. He, the BOOK FIRST. 133 mortal part, prays to bis mother who is a God- dess and immortal, but who is in himself too. As mortal, be is fated to die early ; but as immortal he is to obtain everlasting glory. Now that glory is stained by Agamemnon the Leader, who dis- honors him. So he calls upon his divine mother to intercede with Zeus that the latter may grant victory to the Trojan enemy till the Greek restore him to his honor ; that is, till he be recognized fully for his heroic worth, and thus get his im- mortal meed. In such manner this question is brouirht before the highest tribunal, and the grievance of Achilles is elevated from a personal matter into a universal question, in whose de- cision Hellas and all mankind have an interest. a . What does Zeus decree, what must he decree • in such an emergency? For the necessity of his judgment is the main insight ; it is the Reason of the World uttering itself upon this question of Heroship. Zeus as the supreme divinity is above both Greeks and Trojans, and above the other Gods; in him we must see the highest movement of the poem, its true and final thought. This thought which now comes before the divine judg- ment-seat is that the Heroic individual must be restored to his place in the Greek host and in the Greek mind; not till then can the Greeks con- quor, or ougiit they to conquer. They are to be scourged into their own true destiny by the God ; the Trojans must, therefore, be victorious till 134 BOOK FIRST. Achilles be restored to honor. We see it to be not an arbitrary command of some external power, but truly a divine decree resting upon the very essence of the conflict. So Zeus grants the prayer of Thetis, must grant it in order to be Zeus; the Greeks must perish till they be brought to understand what the Hero is, and take him up anew into their hearts. Agamemnon and the Greeks are, therefore, to make undone their wrong before they can be vic- torious. Zeus is to send defeat upon his people, till they be ready to do what they are chosen to do. A deep glance into the providential govern- ment of the universe is this — a glance into the very movement of the World's History. Zeus disciplines his own people by calamity, till they free themselves of their violation. What if the Greeks won, with Achilles wronged? It would be truly no victory, as long as the wrong of Agamemnon is the wrong of Paris. Troy can- not be taken when the leader re-enacts in the Greek camp the abduction of Helen. Such is the decree of Zeus: the Greeks must be disci- plined out of their wrong, else the, restoration of Helen will be no restoration. This deep glance of the old bard into the ways of Providence reveals the far-reaching purport of the poem. In modern wars we may often hear the same decree of Zeus. But, chiefly, in our own war it came like the blast of a trumpet out BOOK FIRST. 135 of the skies: O Nation, if you violate the very principle for whose sake the bloody appeal to arms h;is been made, you will be scourged and beaten till you be brouojht to do in pain and suffering that which you were called to do by the Gods ! All these things the Poet expresses not in our way, but his own way, which we must comprehend. He has a poetic form introducing a varied play of the Gods, who often seem capricious enough ; yet in this very play he is deeply in earnest ; in fact, it is his genuine and only manner of expression. He is seeking to give utterance to his profound- est thought; it is not a conscious employment of mythologic shapes which are blown into the air like soap-bubbles for their momentary irides- cence, but it is his final sincerest expression of what he deems truth. Homer's age was not a time of abstract thought, but of poetic thought ; the latter was the only way of thinking. So completely has this naive manner been educated out of us that we have to educate ourselves back into it ; the Poet's images we have often to trans- late into our abstractions in order to understand them. But with him it is the first spontaneous expression of a view of the World and its gov- ernment; this primitive, unworn look out upon the Universe is his charm and his value for us. Through comprehending in our way what he means, we get back into his way ; nature and life 136 BOOK FIRST. bloom again with their original freshness, seen through the eyes of the old Poet. Thus we must reach down to the heart of this sportive play of the Gods. They have a per- sonal, capricious side ; but we must see through this side as a transparent outer covering and be- hold the rational necessity lying underneath. Zeus is Zeus, not because of his whimsicalities, but because he is the voice of the divine order of the world. So it is with the Gods generally ; their finite human element is but a transparent body revealing the divine soul or some phase thereof; our vision, in reading Homer, must be trained to look through this external hull ; such is the poetic glance which beholds in the image the reality. AVe have now placed before us the first attitude of Zeus in the poem, with whom we cast a long look over what is to be. The question left un- settled below is answered above; I he people and the Leader are to learn to honor the Hero. But Zeus must not be considered as hostile to the Greek cause; only a strong partisan like Juno can thus regard him. His present attitude is, in the long run, for the good of the Greeks ; like other peoples known in history, they must be de- feated in order to win. When they have learned their lesson this first attitude of Zeus will chnnge, whereupon we shall enter a new phase of the poem. BOOK Fin ST. Vol Such is the decree of the Highest God, but another deity, Apollo, is showing his activity be- low on earth, receivino; sacrifice and listenino; to hymns; he is appeased by the Greeks and stops the deadly pestilence. This work of conciliation with its song and festivity is in strong contrast with the warlike outlook from Olympus. Hence- forth the physical plague drops out of the poem, after having brought to the surface the spiritual disease, which was already rankling in the hearts of the two hostile chieftains. Chryseis, daugh- ter of Chryseis, is restored to her parent, and Apollo is conciliated; but the deeper disease continues to rage. Still, we must grant that Achilles has been deeply wronged. The poet is careful to bring out the ethical side of the violation. Briseis is not merely a common concubine, doomed to the un- happy lot of the captive woman in those times. Achilles declares in the Ninth Book that he loved her, and he calls her his spouse, indicating his in- tention to elevate her into an ethical life. But she too feels the separation; "unwillingly she went away" with Agamemnon's messengers. The tie was mutual, but the leader tears it asun- der. Briseis, too, has her right violated in this harsh proceeding — her love and her hope of fu- ture elevation. Nor must we forget the extent to which Achilles shows self-control. He lis- tened to the voice of Pallas and refrained from 138 BOOK FIE ST. striking down Agamemnon — which was his own thought as well as the advice of the Goddess. Then he surrenders Briseis at the word of author- ity, when he might have made it warm for the transgressor. So we must say that Achilles shows in the beginning that he can relent ; he is not implacable. We may see his future recon- cilement foreshadowed in this phase of his char- acter. It will take time and discipline, however, to make him ready. Achilles has also a strong prophetic strain coupled with due self-appreciation. He knows what will happen when he retires ; Hector will appear, and no Greek beside himself can resist the Trojan hero. He foretells the course of the poem ; he knows the Greeks will send the em- bassy of conciliation. Moreover, he is aware of his own early death, though he has heard that from others; still he feels it and utters it himself in his prophetic moods. He also has an insight into the dealing of the Gods with men. "Who hearkens to the Gods, him they hear," is his sentence, his principle ut- tered to a Goddess. But who obeys not the Gods, him they cannot hear. The inner man and the outer deity must come together and be one; the human and divine sides meet and converse, the God comes to the one who hearkens, to the one who is ready for him. Thus Achilles explains the message of Pallas, who hears BOOK FIRST. 139 him in the midst' of strife, because he hears her. b. But the matter is not yet fully settled upon Olympus; even against this supreme decree of Zeus there rises the protest. For the Gods are many, and they take sides in the struggle on earth below between Greeks and Trojans. The opposition is voiced by Juno, the zealous partisan of the Greeks; in favor of her people she pro- poses to interfere with the world-ordering plan of Zeus, who has to as-ert mightily his sovereignty over all the Gods. The two are man and wife, heads of the Olympian family ; hence the division between them assumes the form of domestic jeal- ousy. It is natural; against the complete out- look which takes in all things is always the view of the partisan who sees but a part. Indeed, there has been from time immemorial this scis- sion on Olympus between Zeus and the Lower Gods, who have conspired against supreme power ; witness the ancient story of Briareus the Hun- dred-Handed, who was called to Olympus once to maintain the divine authority of Zeus. This story intimates that there was a time when Zeus had not the supreme power, and Thetis was com- pelled to bring Briareus or Force to maintain unity on Olympus. The realm of the Gods, too, was in a state of scission, like the Greek camp below on earth ; superior might had to suppress it and brins order out of chaos. We note also 140 BOOK FIRST. that the ancient conspiracy was the work of the present partisan Greek Gods — Juno, Pallas, Neptune, who will renew their plotting against Zeus and try to thwart his decree in favor of the Trojans. He will again have to assert his sov- ereignty in the most emphatic manner in oppo- sition to just these three divinities (Book VIII.) The attempt to chain Providence failed, must fail ; still that Olympian revolt lay deep in the Greek consciousness. Thetis was the one who called Briareus to the aid of Zeus, and thus saved Olympian authority. " Eemind him of this," says Achilles, and tell him to assert his divine supremacy by giving victory to the Tro- jans. And Zeus does it, though unwilling; he must do it; the result is that there is wrath among the Gods too at their leader ; as the earth below was disturbed, so is the divine harmony of Olympus stirred up to discord. It is all on ac- count of mortals and their conflict between Hero and Leader; indeed, we behold quite the same conflict among the Gods — authority in a struggle with insubordination. Thus the earthly scission images itself above; yet it lasts but a moment; against divine authority there can be no real struggle. The Olympian conflict ends in the su- preme power of one God, who, however, rouses a feeling of irritation in the other Gods. This is a new difiiculty, of which we must have the mediation on Olympus, corresponding with BOOK Fin ST. 141 the earthly movetneut of the poein. As Nestor sought to reconcile the two conflicting Greeks, so Vulcun undertalves to restore good feeling between liis conflictina: fatlier and motlier anionsj the Gods. His sokition is doubtless the true one: '* Mother, be patient and submit, lest I behold thee beaten with stripes." Which, though not an act of con- jugal tenderness, is what happens to those who strive against the world-order; they are scourged and disciplined till they submit. Vulcan knows by his own experience ; once before he inter- fered against the will of the supreme parent ; he was seized by the foot and flung over the bat- tlements of Olympus ; the result is, he is now lame, and a blacksmith among Gods. In the Olympian economy he is what the Greek artist was in mundane society — indispensable, partak- ing of divinity by his genius, but socially not held in esteem. He has found out one thing : the vio- lent solution of the Olympian conflict is not the happiest for the Gods. Vulcan effects his purpose and restores the happy mood ; even inextinguishable laughter arises among the blessed Gods at his divine inter- ference. He is a comic figure, aud his solution of the difiiculty is comic, for the situation admits of no other solution. He is a little Part putting himself above the great Whole, and trying to re- concile the same ; Zeus as su[)rerae God can have no jrenuine collision ; it is a mere feint or show of 142 BOOK FIRST. seriousness, which vanishes suddenly ia laughter, as here. Such is the true outcome of opposition to the highest movement of the spiritual world — a comedy. Looked at through the honest vision of the Poet, this scene is not degrading to Gods or Men, but is a simple though light-hearted rep- resentation of the fact. c. So we have reached concord again, even mer- riment upon Olympus ; a fresh festival begins with harp and song of the Muses, who evidently are to sing just this conflict and its reconciliation. Herein we have another ideal reflection of Greek life, full of music and joy, yet not \^ithout strug- gle. In honor of whom do the Gods feast? In honor of themselves. In honor of whom do men feast? In honor of the Gods — that is, ulti- mately in honor of themselves, imaged in their ideal world. Olympus is now concordant ; the conflict there is harmonized, being in fact but a passing shadow over the Olympian heights. Zeus is supreme, such is the trumpet-voiced announce- ment from above ; we may henceforth expect that his will, with some protest, and possible counter- plotting on the part of certain Gods, will be triumphant. This First Book now lies before us in its or- ganism and idea; an important Book we may say — a sort of image of the entire poem held up in advance, an Introduction to the Iliad, yet an integral part of it. We shall note its beautiful BOOK FIRST. 143 symmetry ; it naturally divides into the two Worlds of Homer, Upper and Lower; then wo behold the same conflict in each of these Worlds, with the mediation in each. Both Parts of this Book fit together harmoniously — fit, as it were, one upon the other. The thought builds the structure, from the structure shines forth the thought; both thought and structure are one process, which must be separated in an analytic criticism, but are always to be reunited in the poetic vision. Yet the great difference between the two Worlds is not to be passed over; in the Lower is the grand conflict, but unreconciled; in the Upper, the decision of the problem is stated, which decis- ion, from the lips of supreme authority, runs : Honor your Heroic Man, for I, the Highest, am the avenjjer of his wrons;. A decree which holds good to-day, and will hold good forever ; not an arbitrary caprice of Zeus, but the voice of the World-Spirit uttering one of its laws. Thus the potentate above decides against the potentate below because of the hitter's violation; the first duty of the Leader is to reconcile himself to the Hero, else he is nought, both are nought. In such manner we have a second portraiture of the conflict, which is thrown up among the Gods. It is Homer's way; he does not rest con- tent with giving us a simple terrestrial account of wars and combats, but he draws over the earth an Olympian world which is the livine image of 144 BOOK FIBST. the struff^le, together with its solution. This is Do ' ~ the most glorious fact of Homeric sons: — this Olympian light breaking in upon it from above and revealing the reality in the appearance of things. Two portraitures run through the Poet's book: the one below, ambiguous, a struggle of brawn apparently, often tiresome ; the other above, clearly determined, a struggle of spirit, never drooping in interest. We in these days say, too, that a war has its principle which drives the arm of the combatants, and often we state the principle abstractly; but Homer creates a distinct world to indicate this very matter, and thus makes it the emphatic part of the war. Our modern substitute for the ancient Epos, the Novel, has no such Upper World whereby to give the spiritual side of its conflict. It could portray the quarrel between Achilles and Aga- memnon, the struggle between heroship and au- thority in the present phase of such a problem, but it would have no divine interference. The conflict would have to work of its own energy through to the end; the characters would unfold and change by the experience of their own deeds, without the express oversight of Zeus. Homer has this internal development of character too, as we shall see; but he has, in addition, an ex- ternal world- movement into which his personages fit, and which is the true reality of all their heroic actions. BOOK FIIiST. 145 Many traces of old legends and songs, the pre- Homertc material of poetry, wc can follow in this Book. The two parts of it, the Quarrel of the Chieftains and the Scene on Olympus were prob- ably furnished to the poet by tradition. German critics of the Wolfian School have resolved the Book into two great ballads or songs. Some of the lesser portions als<^ have echoes of the ancient myth. The story Of Briareus is an old fragment of Olympian deY<$lopment, hinting the movement out of a crude polytheism into a more clear mono- theistic conception of deity; this Homeric story on certain sides touches Hesiod. The pestilence sent by Apollo, the myth of Vulcan's fall upon Lemnos, the intercourse of Thetis with her son Achilles seem to be drawn from the vast stores of legend belonging to the Hellenic race. Still the poet has done the main work; he has transmuted these rude and isolated materials into a poem, to which he has given structure and poetic form, and into which he has built his world-embracing thought. The artistic arrange- ment, the dramatic life, the deep glance into the divine order belong to Homer. The question has been asked whether Zeus would have paid any attention to the wrong of Achilles, if he had not been stiriod to his duty by the prayers of Thetis? He does it unwillingly, he says he will have now trouble with Juno; nevertheless he gave the nod and Oiyni[)us shook 10 146 BOOK FIRST. ill response. He hearkened to the petition of Thetis and repaid her ancient service. Still we have to think that Zeus would have avenged the wrong of Achilles, who must have found some voice reaching the divine ear, had he not obtained Thetis as intercessor. Zeus has the two sides, finite and infinite, in perpetual interphiy; he is affected by prayer and sacrifice as if he were a mortal, yet he does the eternal thing in the end, like an immortal. The same question lies in all prayer: Does it change God? Essentially in the same line are the difficulties which have been found in the twelve days' fes- tival among the Ethiopians, to which Zeus went with the other deities. Now, are the Gods ab- sent from the Hellenic world or present? Are they limited or unlimited? Both conceptions flow together in the mind of the poet. Apollo still shoots his arrows of disease in the Greek camp, though he has gone to Ethiopia; he can still hear the song of expiation at Chryse, and " be delighted in his heart," though he has not yet returned from the distant journey. These contradictions lie everywhere imbedded in Hom- eric poetry, they result directly from the inherent dualism in the conception of deity ; the finite side is always in a play, and often in a struggle with the infinite. The religious feeling of the poet must find the God ever-present in the time of need; but the artistic feeling of the poet must en- BOOK FIRST. 147 dow the God with a form, which is the stamp of finitude. The following is the happy statement of Pro- fessor Gerlach upon this subject: "The Gods appear as exalted men when conceived in a plas- tic manner; but in the religious conception, they are not tied to the human form, not fixed to time and place. Both conceptions, the plastic and the religious, are inseparably grown together in Hom- eric poetry." (Cited in Ameis-Hentze, Anhaiig zur Ilias, 1, 20. ) BOOK SECOND. Book Second stands out amoni>' the books of the Iliad in possessing certain qualities of its own. It has, on the whole, the subtlest proced- ure, the most elusive links of conjunction that can be found in the whole poem. The motives are so hard to catch, so fleet and riant in their evasiveness, that the drift of opinion has usually been to regard the book as patchwork or a ca- price, with little outer or inner connection. But it has a plan, a profound plan, and it fits organic- ally into what goes before and what comes after. It has, however, a spirit of sportfulness, of playful concealment, which must first be reached and sympathized with before its true harmony can be felt. It may be called a difficult Book, probably the most difficult in the Iliad. It rests upon the pro- foundest thought, yet has a strangely humorous manner; both the thought and the humor must be seen to flow easily together. It brings up the oldest yet the newest question for every human soul: how can the providential order and man's free agency work together for one result with aims apparently opposite? Into still deeper wa- (148) BOOK SECOND. 149 ter the plummet drops: the supreme deity per- mits, yea directly causes delusion, wrong, blood- shed, using them as instruments to bring forth his higher purpose. Zeus, or Providence if you will, seems to have turned Jesuit, and takes any means to reach his end. To employ another kind of phrasing, the poet has before his mind in this Book the function of the negative principle in the divine economy. Evil is here ; who sent it — the First Cause? If deity bo all-knowing and all-powerful, is he not the source of wrong, calamity, dohision? Homer makes Zeus the sender of Agamemnon's delusion ; is that a great moral lapse in the poet? On the other hand, is not the man free in his error, and hence responsible and punishable? Thus we have to sound the depths of Homeric Theology in order to understand what tiie i)oet is trying to do in this Book. Moreover, these questions under- lie the whole poem, which always is showing man acting freely through himself, yet in conjunction with the Gods. Still we must not think that Homer has any dogma of freedom or of necessity. He is a poet and pictures the reality; there is an instantane- ous appearance of the God, and an instantane- ous vision on part of the man; the divine and human meet, communicate, and then separate, whereupon the world turns round again in its ap- pointed orbit. Even if the mortal be under 150 BOOK SECOND. some great delusion, as is the ciise with Aga- memnon at present, Zeus gives it to him; that is, the God lets him have his own sweet will, and turns it into a means of the providential order. Thus, however, the man is a comic figure on the divine stage, as he brings about" the opposite of what he intends; his deep laid scheme dissolves in the humor of Zeus. We see, accordingly, that this Book, regarded apart from the Catalogue of Ships, has a funda- mental comic strand ; it is, indeed, a sort of divine comedy, yet looking forward to a great and seri- ous end. A double plot we observe in it, or rather a plot within a plot ; we behold the astute human stratagem enfolded and carried on in the universal divine stratagem ; Zeus, the upper ruler, turns to a comedian of the skies, and Agamemnon, the lower ruler, is to have his own wily, deceptive game played upon himself by the supreme God. Yet this play above and below and between is all in furtherance of the deep providential plan of the poem. So it is a veritable piece out of real life. Providence cannot help being a humorist once in a while; for has he not to deal with mor- tals, who, in their self-importance, sometimes get to thinking themselves a Providence too? It is a hint of the world's comedy, played by its two actors, the God above and the man below ; the Aristophanes of Olympus, that greatest comedian of all, reveals the mighty terrestrial scheme BOOK SECOND. 151 merely as a piece of his colossal divine hu- mor. The first point to be noticed is the relation be- tween this and the preceding Book. Here the subtlety of the treatment must be felt and seen, else the connection is lost ; for this connection is not so much an external event as an internal, almost unexpressed state of feeling. The great fact lying back of this Book and joining it with the First Book is the wrath and withdrawal of Achilles. But this fact is hardly spoken of, and then, as it were, with a quick rebound from the subject. Yet it is the matter in the minds of all the Greeks, it is the hidden, fearful thing lurking in their hearts and causing a deep suppressed anx- iety. It is not a subject which can be talked about openly; the deed is done, and the Leader is the guilty man. The situation is: Our Hero has left us ; what are we to do now ? It is the masterly skill of the Poet in such an emergency to leave the main fact unspoken, yet to make it most deeply felt; this self-suppression one may well consider as the most genuine flash of artistic instinct in the whole Book — a flash swift and penetrating to the heart of the situation. That the ehief men have the fateful word in their thoughts, but arc unwilling to speak it out, will be seen by examining their utterances. Agamemnon says to the Council of Elders that he will try the Greeks and counsel flight; but 152 ' BOOK SECOND. how this could be a trial of them he does not tell, and we at first do not see; still the Elders seem to have understood him perfectly; he touched the hidden chord in his faint allusion. Again, Ulysses says in his si)eech to the people that the Leader intends to try them; he explains no further, deeming the expression intelligible to all. There is an appeal to something underneath, which we must feel out; it is the state of public opinion, as we should call it, like a subterranean river flowing dark and voiceless, yet a very decided reality. Ajjamemnon is therefore in doubt con- cerning this speechless monster, and there results the trial, which is to answer this question: Will the Greeks fight w-ithout their Hero? Such is the main theme of the present Book, such is its subtle connection with the preceding Book ; the withdrawal of Achilles has roused and transmitted this dark burden of uncertainty and anxiety, which now lies on the hearts of the people, and makes the spoken word an intrusion, a crushed, ill-omened sound, altogether to be avoided. Still it is not wholly avoided. Twice allusions to the fatal quarrel break out, and we are to note both the circumstances and the speakers. The first allusion comes from the mouth of Thersites, the demagogue who tries to be the voice of public dis- content ; he is the unbridled slanderer of public men, the coiner of calumny. Such a character naturally touches the sore spot of the situation in BOOK SECOND. 153 hope of poi)ular favor, but he is suppressed by Ulysses with the apphiuse of the people, who are in uo mood to listen to abuse or to any discussion of the painful topic. The second allusion is made by A<^amemnon in his hist speech, where he confesses the wrong he has done to Achilles, and manifests repentance. This confession, it is plain, is spoken in deference to the feeling which he knows to be in the people, and it puts him in harmony Avith them by coming over to their opinion. Doubtless he felt what he said; but certainly he removed a great obstacle by his penitent declaration ; though they cannot restore the Hero, they do restore the Leader to their good will. He has won his point; the Greeks will fight for the cause without the Hero; he can afford to be generous and confess his own mistake. Such are the two allusions in this Book to the quarrel between Hero and Leader, which we have read al)out in the previous Book; both presuppose a de(>p though not loud spirit of dis- may, if not of discontent, among the people, and form the strongest bond of connection between the two Books. If these be cut asunder by the critical knifp, every nerve in the poetic organism tingles with pain, andthe human organism of the reader responds. It will be remembered that the First Book leaves us with the two supreme persons of authority, the one in the Lower World and the 154 BOOK SECOND. other in the Upper World, each of whom has his plan. In the Second Book we are to see each carrying out his plan, and to see how both plans — that of the man and that of the God — lit into and complement eiach other. Zeus, in sleepless anx- iety, is turning over his scheme, which will bring honor to the heroic Individual ; this is now the universal principle, the decree of the Highest God, and must prevail. Moreover, it is one with the Greek consciousness, not on the surface so much as down in the depths thereof ; the Greeks, too, believe primarily in the honor of the Hero, and are in agreement with Zeus, or soon will be. This divine plan will henceforth hover, like a Providence, over the entire movement of the poem till the reconciliation of the Hero with his people. On the other hand, Agamemnon, the earthly Leader, has his scheme, which is to take Troy in the absence of Achilles. He imagines that he can do without the Heroic Man, yet he has a lurking doubt ; this doubt is to be resolved by a second scheme, which seeks to find out whether the Greeks will fight without their Hero. He may well feel a secret questioning upon this mat- ter ; the purpose of this Second Book (apart from the Catalogue) is to give the answer of the Greeks, which answer is. We will fight. These are the two plans above and below, the providential and the human ; they start in opposi- tion, then they unite in bringing forth the same BOOK SECOND, 155 result, namely, to get the Greeks to fight without Achilles. But after this point of union they again separate ; that the Greeks will be defeated Zeus knows, that Troy may be taken Agamemnon im- agines. It is the lesson of tho Providence who is over all, and sportfully employs even the delu- sions of men to fulfill its purpose. We may now touch upon the organism of the Book. It has two parts: first, the Testing of the Greeks, which is to find out whether they will fight without Achilles, and, secondly, the Calling of the .Muster Roll when it is ascertained that they will fight. The last is usually called the Catalogue, and for us is rather a dreary list of names, though it is appropriate where it stands. We shall now take up the First Part, which is by all means the most significant, and is usually meant when the Second Book is spoken of. This Part has one essential sub-division which divides it into two movements : the one is toward disruption and abandonment of the Trojan enterprise, the other is the reaction toward harmony and a val- iant continuance of the struggle. On the track of these two movements, each of which is strongly maiked by tho introduction of a divine appearance, we shall follow out the course of the action. lo6 BOOK SECOND. a. Zeus, in pursuance of his plan of honoring Achilles, sends a false dream to Agamemnon, declaring that Troy is now to be taken. At once the question springs up, How can the supreme deity resort to a deception to accomplish his end? The moral feeling is shocked, and at once begins to exclaim about the low conception of God among the Greeks. The question is indeed fund- amental, and must be seen in its true light to understand the poet and his age. We have already found the axiom of Homeric Theology to be that the Gods are in the man as well as outside of him, and we may apply our axiom lo the present case. Indeed, we must feel that this dream is Aga- memnon's own ; he dreams that he can take Troy himself, without the Hero. This touch h:is been already given in the First Book, in his character there portrayed ; turn back and mark his pride, his vanity, his contempt of others. The founda- tion of his conduct is, he imagines that he is self- sufficient alone; he dreams that he can capture the city without the aid of Achilles. Thus the delusion is in him already; he would not have spurned Achilles in the way he did unless the dream had been working in his heart. He says in the First Book to the Hero: " Desert if thon wilt;" hence to thy home, I care not for thee, I can do without thee ; " Zeus is with me still." Thus the poet has adequately prepared Agamem- non for this final infatuation. BOOK SECOND. Vol But in the present Book also the poet is careful to let uri know that the dream is Agamemnon's own, as it left him " musing on things that never were to be." Moreover what the delusion is must be again emphasized: "For on that very day he thought to take the city of Priam" — such was his dream, when he was no longer asleep physically; after he was awake, the voice of the Dream-God still sounded in his ears. Thus we are necessitated to put this dream inside of Agamemnon. But it 'is equally certain that the delusive vision is sent by Zeus, lies in the plan of Zeus, is part of a puri)ose wholly beyond Agamemnon's ken, whereof the poet himself again duly gives warn- ing : "Fool! who little knew what Zeus de- signed ! " Thus the dream is also outside of him ; Zeus, the supreme deity sends it ; this is the difficulty. It would appear that the highest Greek God employs his supremacy to delude weak mortals. Yet we need but reflect that this self-delusion of the leader is a part of the plan of Zeus ; the God turns the vain scheme of mortal man to his own purpose. It is the way of Providence, who overrules the evil of the world to good, as the theologian declares. But the Homeric manner of expression is mythical ; that is, the Poet makes Zeus the cause, tlie sender of the delusion. The genuine mythical spirit always puts the deity 158 BOOK SECOND. at the center of every action, and the world moves from him and around him. Zeus sends the dream, because this dream fits into and is a part of the providential phin of Zeus. The divine impulse has now been given, which is to bring the Greeks to fight, and by defeat to show them how neces- sary is their Hero. Thus we must see this dream in its double significance, the human and the divine ; what it is in the man and what it is out- side of him. This is one of the passages of the Iliad which has always shocked the moralist, ancient and modern. From Greek Xenophanes to our American Bryant, the protest has been heard. If Zeus uses deception, what must hie worship- ers do? But this is not a fair conception of Homer, who is not giving a moral lesson, but is trying to account for evil, wrong, error in the world, as well as to show the use to which they are put in the world's order. As already stated, the delusive dream is primarily Agamemnon's own, and Zeus can not take it away from him without destroying him as a free man. Still Zeus must use him along with his delusion, since he is the Leader of the Greek host, and is the chief actor in the great event. Through the voice of the poet we may hear Zeus saying to the mortal: Take your delusion, your dream ; you must be free, but I shall make your freedom my providence; your plan, appar- BOOK SECOND. 159 cntly adverse, will in reality forward mine. It is the God alone who can use human free-will for a divine end. To make man a puppet destroys not only the man, but the God as well, who shows himself weak and finite if he have to turn man into a machine before he can employ him. The delusive dream of the Leader is, accord- ingly, a part of the divine order ; it rises to a supreme importance, being woven into the great event of the world. If it were merely subjective, merely Agamenlnon's, it would be dismissed as a dream, as an insubstantial figment of the brain; but it shares in the plan of Zeus who is conse- quently shown sending it to the man. The Old and New Testaments have the same way of making deity the source of human error. "I also will choose their delusion," saith the Lord in Isaiah. St. Paul, like Homer ,*is careful to give both sides — God as the primal sender and man as free agent: " And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie." Certainly this does not fall short of the utterance of the Homeric Zeus. But the Apostle in the same passage makes the man re- sponsil)le for the delusion and punishes him: " That they all might be damned who believed not, but have pleasure in unrighteousness." Having attended to the Olympian part, we may now look after the terrestrial. The dream is working delusively upon Agamemnon, yet there 160 BOOK SECOND. lurks in him the suspicion that it is a dream. He calls the Council of Elders and tells them his vision ; the wise Nestor faintly hints its unreality : "If any other man had said it, I would declare it false ;" but the Leader has seen the dream and we must obey, and shun the example of Achilles. Then the people assemble; 'Agamemnon advises them to abandon the war and go home, in a spirit contrary to the promise of the dream. This is his trial of the Greeks, to find out whether they will fight without Achilles. He employs the follow- ing stratagem : I shall make a discouraging speech, call up the picture of wife and children far away, declare that Troy cannot be taken, tell them to go back to home and country, and see what they will do. So, as Zeus employs a decep- tion above, Agamemnon employs a deception below, unconsciously requiting the divine ruse by one of his own. Yet both have the same purpose — to bring the Greeks to battle. The Greeks at once responded in the most start- ling manner to those feigned words of the Leader. They make a sudden rush, they clean out the channels, they drag down the ships to the sea, and get ready to start for home. A comical yet affecting scene; we behold the quick strong im- pulse of Family, which has been suppressed for ten years in those enduring hearts, and which now, at the touch of a sympathetic word, breaks forth in a vast sea-swell of emotion. It is one deep BOOK SECOND. 161 throb of that voiceless popular heart longing to get home, yet speaking mute volumes of heroic endurance for their great cause. It is but one throb, and then comes the reaction, which is now to be outlined briefly. h. This reaction is beg-un from above — must begin there, since it is a recall of the Greeks to the spiritual principle of the war. Juno mentions for the first time the name of Helen ; she is the very soul of the Greek cause. If the first divine impulse came from Zeus for the sake of Achilles, this second one comes from Juno and Minerva, the special guardians and partisans of the Greek side, for the sake of Helen. The plan of the God- desses is not interfered with by Zeus, as it fits into his higher plan of honoring the Hero and of brins:in2 the Greeks to battle. Juno and Minerva are partisans; Zeus is over them, but he lets them have their way here as it fits into his plan. So there is again a divine interference, and ao-ain we must see this same divine purpose in the hearts of men. The Greeks cannot go home till they have restored Helen. Such is their strong- est aspiration, their profoundest principle. That movement to go home was but a transitory out- burst of feeling — a noble one too — yet they will recover from it and fight again if they be recalled to themselves. It looked for a moment as if the ruse of Agamemnon would upset the whole en- terprise, and therewith the plan of Zeus for 11 1G2 BOOK SECOND. Achilles; but the frenzy could not last; they would not be Greeks if they could go home with- out Helen. The resolution above having been shown, we can now look below and see its execution. The human instrument is Ulysses, altogether the wisest man of the Greeks, whom grief had al- ready seized for the loss of the enterprise and prepared for the appearance of Pallas. When he is ready for her, the Goddess darts down in a flash and speaks to him. Why just to him? He is the man to behold her, the only man, just as Agamemnon was the man to see the delusive dream. She recalls to him the great object of the war, Argive Helen, and bids him restrain the present rush for home. It was, too, his own inner command, else he could hardly have heard the Goddess. It is only the wise man who can hear the voice of wisdom ; the God without speaks to the God within; the sudden thought of Ulysses flashes into the Olympian order whence he hears the words of Minerva. In every sense Ulysses proves himself to be the proper man for the emergency. He runs and seizes from Agamemnon the staff, the wonderful stafl" of authority, always imperishable ; he is now the Leader, behold the emblem and sign thereof; he restrains the multitude, employing argument upon the leaders and blows upon the populace. He touches the heart of the matter in his famous BOOK SECOND. 103 utterance: Let there be one ruler, the Many can- not all be Kings. Obedience to authority is his jrolden word; herein he shows himself the intel- lectual enemy of Achilles, who is insubordinate. Moreover, a new phase of opposition develops itself, very different from that of Achilles. Here he comes with his speech ; it is the fault-finder Thersites. He too is hostile to authority, not as beautiful Hero, but as ugly, cowardly calumnia- tor. All the qualities of body and mind repug- nant to the Homeric spirit are he;iped upon him, till he is weighed down with diabolic adjectives. Yet he belongs to the Homeric world — is indeed a prophecy of the Athenian demagogue. His outer ugliness corresponds to his inner perversity, a truly Greek method of expression, which makes him a sort of plastic Greek devil. He is the man who picks flaws in all great deeds and enterprises, and vilifies the men of authority. We see that he has heard the undertone of popular discontent ao-aiiist Affaraemnon for the wrong done to Achilles, and uses it for calumny and discord. This touch connects the present Book with the preceding Book, indicating one of those subtle chords which hold the entiie poem together. The wise man suppresses Thersites with vio- lence; the wdse man too utters the statement: The rule of the Many is not a good thing ; a voice from Heaven among those beautiful but ever-conflicting individualities. ]64 BOOK SECOND. Yet Thersitcs told truths ; he gave in some re- spects a just criticism of the Greek leaders ; he was the opposition newspaper in the Greek camp, which newspaper has sometimes to be suppressed in the pinch of a great war. Now comes the strange fact: the people, in whose belialf he seems to be speaking, applaud Ulysses for sup- pressing him. Is it a case of po|)ular fickleness and ingratitude ? No ; the people saw in Thersites the imaL^e of their own present attitude, their own ugliness, and they at once shrunk back, and the beixinnino: was made toward the reaction. Furthermore they saw a picture of their surrender of the conflict. The stroke on the back of Ther- sites is felt by all the people inwardly and declared to be just. Thus Ulysses by violence gives a sudden shock to the impulsive multitude, makes them halt and listen. Now comes, not violence, but persuasion ; all are reaily to take the second sober thought, gift of Pallas, now voiced by Ulysses himself. Not a loose episode is this af- fair of Thersites, but the turning-point back to their rational purpose. This return to the grand object of the expedi- tion is made complete by the three speeches of the three chief men wliich now follow. Homeric oratory before the people is here a glorious an- ticipation of Attic eloquence; in this instance, and in many others, we trace all the germs of later Greek life in the old poet. Each of these BOOK SECOND. 1G5 s[)eeclies has its own character. That of Ulysses dwells upon the national end against the domestic impulse so powerfully wrought upon by Aga- memnon, and then he recalls the religious promise at the beginning of the war ; that portentous snake which swallows the nine birds is Troy swallowing tiie Greek years; but in the tenth year it turns to stone, is no longer a living thing, nothing re- mains but its stone wall. Nestor follows some- what in the same vein, for the old man is the appreciative spirit, not the creative — a difference seized by Shakespeare in Troihis and Oressida. Agamemnon, at first in a tone of penitence, then in a tone of triumph, shows that he thinks the Greeks will fight without their Hero. The reac- tion is complete ; the people are arrayed for bat- tle. Pallas with her segis stalks among them ; the war spirit is rampant. The supreme end, which we may call national, has suppressed the feelino- for home, and once more the combat is to be renewed, now without Achilles. The two supremacies, divine and human, Zeus and Agamemnon, have each attained their pur- pose. Zeus has brought about war tlirough the delusive dream, by which means he intends to honor Achilles ; Agamemnon has ascertained that the Greeks will fight, thongh the Hero be absent. In the mean time the chief oljject of the war has been stated — the restoration of Helen; it Avas necessary to recall this purpose to the mind of IGG BOOK SECOND. the Greeks in their discouragement after the withdrawal of Achilles. It is also shown how a Providence hovers over the poem, who employs human agency, and even human delusion, for its end; the will of Zeus is being accomplished. After all, the main interest of this Book lies in the picture of the people, that uncertain, bil- lowy Demus so famous in Greek history. Aris- tophanes caught the outlines of his portrait in Homer ; a comic element plays around this dark, susceptible human mass, Idughable and laughing. Yet the image is not unfavorable, as is sometimes declared ; it is true, and sympathetically drawn. The people are capable of strong emotions, espe- cially for their distant families — assuredly not an ignoble trait; still more, they are capable of be- inir recalled to their grreat national end when it is for a moment lost in an ebullition of feeling for wife and children. The deep, unswerving pur- pose, the strong, underlying will, which con- tinued the war for ten years through every manner of hardship is revealed. This is not fickleness; it is the fundamental persistency throuoi:h all fluctuations which the Poet brings out. Finally, though their Hero may abandon them, they- will still fight for the principle of the war, at its call they will again take their place in the ranks — which is a true and sympathetic picture of the people, I think; it shows forth the eternal and substantial element of their character, BOOK SECOND. 1C7 as well as the temporary and lluctuating, wliicli is their comic side. Granite there is here underly- ing all these foamy and dashing waves, and hold- ing them in their limits. In the First Book we had the Princes and their quarrels, in which selfish or personal ends were the chief matter. But in this Second Book we see the people and their sacrifice for the supremo object of the war, and their devotion to the cause. The contrast is cer- tainly not unfavorable to the people. All of which is serious enough ; yet the free Homeric sport cannot be omitted, this double' deception, on the part of both man and God. It is the deep look of the Poet into the reality, whereof the outward play is this comic capricious- ncss; appearance takes on a thousand delusive sha[)es to reveal the eternal — such is the humor of existence. I do not find it to be a lie, or even degrading; it is a means of expression, somewhat strange to us, though we have, too, in the novel, a fictitious utterance of life. One glance forward ou£!;ht to be made in this connection. The stratagem of Agamemnon has succeeded ; he may nov/ chuckle over his good luck. But coidd he behold his scheme, as it lies in the supreme plan of Zeus, he would see that his very success is defeat, that the wily deceiver is himself deceived in the deception which ho has practiced. Thus Zeus plays with the most cun- ning of men in a sort of celestial comedy all to 108 BOOK SECOND. himself, and to the eye of the Poet, who must witness it too; he takes delight in turning earthly shrewdness back upon itself. Not out of hate, but out of love, the divine humorist must let cunning undo itself, mid the laughter of the Gods. II. The Second Part of the Book beo-ins with the strong address to the Muses. It is well to follow the Poet into his own processes where we can. ' This address is not a formal matter, but a faith; the impulse of song is to him a wonderful, a di- vine thino; ; he addresses th it unreflrctive genius of his as some existence external to himself. He is not self-conscious, we say ; he does not fully grasp his spiritual operations as his own; he has to employ these outer shapes to give utterance to his inner impulse. This process is epijicatlon — to deify the spiritual act of man; every mental movement, instead of falling into abstract prose as with us, in Homer may seize hold of a form and become a short poem. And with truth is it so ; for the poetic process is a vision of the reality and has the divine right to be placed out into the world, even upon Olympus, where the Muses are, and know all things. This invocation suggests the poem to be sung, not to be read, else the " ten tonjjues " and " ten mouths" would not be so inadequate. A very BOOK SECOND. Kj^ diflacult subject to sing this muster-roll imist have been with its barren list of names ; but the thing has to be done, hence the Muses are be sought for aid with unusual fervency, lest the poet breakdown in passing this unpoetical desert. In the First Part of this Book we saw the prin- ciple of the war brought out; in the Second Part we have the so-called Catalogue which is the muster-roll of both sides, Greeks and Trojans. We mark the political organization of these peo- ples; towns more or less independent send leaders quite as independent; each town has its hero, and the culmination is the hero of heroes, Achilles. There is a lack of subordination, though a su- preme commander be recognized; we see the case of Achilles might become universal. And Zeus, the final authority above, does not at present support the final authority below, but the hero, who is refractory; the stress is laid upon the indi- vidual even by the God, which fact reveals the essence of Greek consciousness. We note how the poet has tried to vary the monotony of the Catalogue, and to put some l)()etry into an exceedingly prosy business. He has scattered through it certain little green oases of legend, of anecdote, of genealogy. We are told the short story of Philoctetcs, who had been left behind in the isle of Lemnos on account of having been bitten by a snake ; with him later le^^end will have much to do, which Sophocles 170 BOOK SECOND. will turn into a drama. New information is furnished about Briseis — the fair captive of Lyrnessus. The fate of Protesilaus, the first Greek to leap upon the Trojan shore, is given, with touches of his wife and of his unfinished palace. The picture of the warriors of Achilles, condemned through the withdrawal of their chieftain to find amusement in throwing the quoit, shooting the bow, and hurling the javelin, or to wander forlorn through the camp without taking part in the battle, is fine-toned and vivid. The dull inventory of river, town, and country is often enlivened by a bright epithet, or elevated out of prose by a little myth like that which tells of the boastful singer Thamyris made blind and songless by the Muses, because of his boasting. Not a few epic poets after Homer have felt obliged to imitate this Catalogue, and have gen- erally improved upon its dreariness. Still it was a very important document to the old Greek world. By a law of Solon, it had to be recited on solemn occasions. For the Greek school-boy, it was a kind of text-book in geogra- phy — probably the earliest one — which he had to commit to memory. It was cited in important cases to decide national disputes, as, for example, when the Athenians appealed to it, during the Persian War, against the right of Gelon, Tyrant of Syracuse, who asked for the chief command over the Greeks. To every town mentioned in BOOK SECOND. 171 it, the Catalogue must have been a trca.sure. To the families and descendauts of the persons named in its lines, it was a source of no little veneration. To Greece in general it was a roll of honor, only to be compared with that second list containing those who fought at the battle Plataea, which list is given by Herodotus in Book Ninth of his His- tory. And we must not forget that both wars, Trojan and Persian, "were but two different phases of one mighty conflict — that between Orient and Occident. a. The Greek muster-roll is not given by coun- tries, but by ships, as if tlie armament might be sailing out of Aulis for Troy, and not after nearly ten years of war. From this fact conjecture has been much stirred up among the learned, but it need not stop us here. We may state, however, that the Catalogue has always been one of the most suspected portions of the Ihad. Yet some such enumeration seems necessary, and it is in order just at this point. How many Greeks went to Troy? The facts for anything like an accurate estimate are want- ing. Different writers count the ships ditrerenlly, and disagree about the total sum of the force. In round numbers we may say that there were 1,200 ships and 100,000 men. Each ship of the Boeotiiins had 120 men, each ship of Philoctetes had 50 men; in no other Ciise is the number of the crew given. We can take the average, which 172 BOOK SECOND. makes 85 men to the ship. This seems a hirge army and many questions suggest themselves. Still more doubtful is any estimate of the numbers in Troy. Agamemnon intimates in his discouraging speech that the Trojans, apart from the Allies, were less than one-tenth of the Greeks. On the other hand those thousand camp-fires, roum.l each of which fifty warriors sat, must not be taken too literally. Nor was there a close siege which stopped reinforcements and convoys of provisions. Troy had her back-door always open. The war was a challenge to come down out of the city into the plain and fight. Was there any system of recruiting, which would seem necessary to maintain so long a strug- gle. Probably, but the manner of it does not distinctly appear. We know that contingents arrived for the Trojans in the course of the war; see the case of Rhesus in the Tenth Book, who had just come. Even more interesting would be a peep into the commissariat. How was such a large army supplied with food and other neces- saries? There was undoubtedly free foraging in all the districts round Troy, but these would soon be stripped. The same question rose in the mind of Thucydides, who was a soldier as well as a historian. He says that a part of the force was detailed to raise crops in the Thracian Chersonese, while the rest fought at Troy. No doubt much was bought in the neighboring islands, which BOOK SECOND. 173 seem for the most part to huve remained neu- tral in the great conflict. Those shrewd Greek islanders, by nature traders, made the most of the war, and dealt with both sides, furnishing what- ever was necessary for a price. They probably sympathized with neither party very strongly, they were on the line which divided the two con- tinents, Europe and Asia, and they kept their equilibrium in both directions, especially in a case where it was so obviously to their advantage. We see how every part of western Greece was roused to share in the war ; it was in the strongest sense a national enterprise and brought about a national unity, such as was not seen afterwards among the occidental Greeks in their age of free- dom. It is a strange fact; those Greek towns, so jealous, so discordant among one another and within their own walls, have all been harmonized by one great impulse, and have responded to the call for Helen's restoration. What could that have meant to them? Something deeper than their strifes, something stronger than tlie ties of family, something more authoritative then even the love of life ; what was it? h. The Trojan muster-roll is introduced by the message of Iris, who, however, simi)ly voices Polites, the scout who keeps his outlook on the high barrow of ^Esyetes, and watches the move- ments of the Greeks. She announces the ap- proach of the enemy, and Hector in turn marshals 174 BOOK SECOND. the Trojan forces, of which now a list is given. They have no ships, the marine element is left out; this characteristic marks them off from the genuine Greeks, who in all ages have belonged to the sea almost as much as to the land. The Trojan contingents are not given very fully, but we mark them as coming from the main i^rovinces of Asia Minor — Lycia, Caria, My- sia, Phrygia, Paphlagonia ; also European Thrace across from the Troad has furnished its quota. Who are these peoples ? In general we see them to be backward elements of the great Aryan race that were dropped in Asia Minor during that race's migration westward. They take part with Troy against the Greeks, the most active and progressive portion of their own stock. They are a motley group of many tongues and peoples, in strong contrast with the order and homogeneity of the Greek forces. The Catalogue does not give all the names of places that furnish contingents, some being men- tioned in the later Books. The laro-e islands near the coast of Asia Minor, Samos, Chios and others — were probably neutral both in spirit and in act. Lesbos seems to have been ravaged by the Greeks. But to the South, Rhodes and Crete sent troops to the Greek side. In the extreme West of the Greek world, the islands did their duty; little Ithaca furnished the chief man of brain — Ulysses, who, indeed, as the hero of the BOOK SECOND. 175 Odyssey, may be called the soul of the Occi- dent. The nations in contiict are thus seen to divide pretty nearly on a line })etweon Europe and Asia, which fact suggests the spiritual struggle between the Orient and the West. Yet these various na- tions seem in the main to belong to the one Hel- lenic race, and those which do not are Aryan, being but one remove in the pedigree. Evidently the war is a conflict of tendency, which we may formulate in this way: the Trojans are Hellenes with face turned toward the East, the Greeks are Hellenes with face turned toward the West. The separation had deepened into antagonism; one or the other must be put down ; the result is war. But how is this to be uttered unto men? The Trojans will not restore the stolen woman, the most beautiful of terrestrial beings, to the Greeks, her guardians. What do they and all the>6e Asiatic peoples with them mean, by keep- ing her? Thus we call loudly for the significance of this struggle to gain possession of Helen, who in answer to the call, is to appear in the next Book. BOOK THIRD. This, above jiU other Books of the Iliad, may be called Hek^n's Book. It contains the essence of her antecedent history ; it has a record of her situation and sorrow; it shows her beauty and the conflict which always seems to be linked with beauty. Already in the previous Book she had been mentioned as the grand object of the war ; her restoration shone forth as the supreme pur- pose of the Greek expedition. The Greeks will fight without their Heroic Man for her sake: they have proclaimed by their conduct that their heart-thrill is more intensely roused to bring back Helen than to honor Achilles — which fact' tends to deepen and to transform his wrath toward the Leader into sulkiness toward all the Greeks, Here we note the immediate connection in thought with Book Second. The two armies are arrayed, against each other, the roll has been called, the battle is imminent. But what is the cause of the war, what is it all about? This Book gives the answer — Helen. Who she is, what she means to those fierce combatants, is now the theme. (176) BOOK THIRD, 177 But why should two entire armies, composed of many thousands of men, who have no personal connection with her wrong, fight and kill one another for her sake? The woman seems a dubious character at any rate; she has been stolen, apparently with her own consent; let those personally concerned, the injured and the injurer, step forth and fight out their grievance. So the reader naturally thinks, and the poet as- sents for the time being ; accordingly we shall have a duel between the two claimants of Helen and not a general battle. Moreover, both Greeks and Trojans assent eagerly to this form of settlement. How tired they all are of the war ! Ten weary years it has lasted; there is not a man on either side who does not wish it stopped. Hence the joy with which both armies hear of the agreement. But it is no solution of the question of the war ; it is a compromise, and the great principle of the Trojan enterprise is made to hang upon an acci- dent, upon the outcome of a duel. What will Zeus say to that ? ' ' The son of Saturn hearkened not to their prayers; " how could he? Neither Greek nor Trojan can stoj), though fatigued to the last degree of endurance with the struo-ole ; both have to fight, willing or unwilling, till the true end comes in the true way. The poet would have us see another hand than the human in this war. But the human method is just now to try 12 178 , BOOK THIRD. the duel and the compromise; we shall watch with interest for the result. The inherent connection between the Third Book and the First Book has often been denied ; but it is strong and deep, though not so appar- ent as the connection with the Second Book. Indeed it may fairly be said that this Third Book is the explanation of the First Book, since the lat- ter flings the reader at once into the midst of war without any preparation. Whose is this war, what is the cause of it? How does it com.e that Ao-amemnon and Achilles are in camp before Troy where they quarrel? To be sure, there is no word about the quarrel in the present Book, but the breach with all its circumstances must have been in the mind of the poet, as he does not mention Achilles among the Greek heroes who are seen and described in the View from the Wall. The Third Book gives the historical back- oTound of the Trojan conflict and reaches out long before the First Book, for more than ten years in fact, even to the period antecedent to the war. Mr. Grote, the historian of Greece, who, with others, has hewn asunder the two Books and given them to different authors and todifferent poems, out of which the present Iliad was put together according to his view, has done a bloodier act of carnage to the old poet than any recorded by the latter before Troy. The First Book is but the beginning of the epos, BOOK rillRD. 179 and it hangs in the air without the Third Book. Moreover, there is, alongside of this open, mentioned tlii'ead of connection between the two Books, a secret unmentioned thread of connec- tion, which the reader must always feel and bring to light. And here it is: the w^rong done to Meuelaus by Paris in the abduction of Helen is similar to the wrong done to Achilles by Aga- memnon in the taking of Briseis. The two wrongs lock the two Books together in a kinship of injury ; we now can see that the whole pur- port of the Trojan expedition is essentially de- stroyed by the deed of the Leader. The poet does not directly say these things; but they lie in what he says; the unspoken Homer is as vast, as deep and as real as the spoken Homer. The literary skill shown in the Third Book is of the highest order. There is dramatic move- ment, yet without haste ; there is the description of the man-making deed of arms, in contrast with soft, luxurious, man-enervating works of love. The characters step forth in the strong outlines of vigorous muscle, or in the gentle flowing folds of Greek drapery, always revealing the clear plastic shape. The groupings in the Book are specially famous; a few examples are: Helen as she ai)pears to Priam and the Graybeards of Troy ; Helen among the Trojan women on 180 BOOK THIBD. the tower, where Venus comes to her in the form of the old woman ; then the grand group of the evil-bringers — Helen, Paris, Aphrodite — who are the three main characters of the Book, vic- tims and victimizers in this fatal war. The artis- tic element is still further seen in the fact that Helen herself is to be drawn as an artist, weav- ing a web of sculpturesque shapes and giving a poetical description of character. The Book shows not only Art, but has become, to a degree, self-conscious ; it shows Art makino- Art. The structural movement of the present Book is somewhat different from that of the two pre- ceding Books. In both of these we saw the sweep between Earth and Olympus — first from below upwards, then from above downwards. Now we have a movement from the outside in- wards, from the external combat between the husbands of Helen to the internal conflict in the soul of Helen. The attention passes from the whole outer war before Troy to the inner war inside of Troy. The duel and the war are really in Helen's heart; so the poet clearly thinks, and organizes this Third Book upon his thought. Mark then the very intimate relation between the two threads of which the whole action is spun. That combat between Paris and Menelaus before the walls of Troy for the possession of Helen, is the image in real life of what is trans- piring in her spirit, and the whole war is the BOOK THIBD. 181 grand visible appearance in the World's History of Helen's soul-conflict. She Las a desperate struggle between two clashing emotions : Shall I yield to or put down Aphrodite? Her aspiration is to be restored, which the Greeks are fighting to fulfill ; still she seems not fully ready. In such manner she has her individual problem; but that individual problem is also the problem of the Greek world, and it is just now being settled at Troy on the boundary of two grand divisions of our globe. Helen bears in her the principle of the war, she is its embodiment; in this Book we are to see Ihe inner struggle of heart which gives meaning to the outer slrujjo-le of battle. The movement from the outer to the inner struggle we are now to see as the organic prin- cij)le of the Book. There are two such move- ments — transitions which carry our glance away from the duel into the very soul of Helen. The following table gives the structural outline : — I. First movement from the outer conflict of the duelists to the inner conflict of Helen, which is really waged against Yenus, though the God- dess be not now visible. (Lines 1-244.) a. The first phase of the duel, the outcome of which is the agreement that Helen is to go to the victor. b. Helen in Troy, who is shown in her exter- nal activity, but chiefly in her internal struggle 182 BOOK TRIED. of remorse and penitence us well as in her long- ing for restoration. II. Second movement from the outer conflict of the dnellists to the inner conflict of Helen, which she now wages against the Goddess pres- ent and visible, but with the old result. (Line 245 till the end.) a. The duel, after the preliminaries, is fought; Menelaus is victor, but Venus rescues Paris and brings him to his home in Troy. h. Helen is commanded by Venus in person to go to Paris, she resists, is threatened by the God- dess, and again succumbs. The group of Paris and Helen, mortals, and the immortal one — Venus, who triumphs. in this sketch we see the symmetrical structure of the Book in its two movements from out- ward to inward — the first showing Helen's gen- eral state of struggle and distress, the second showing a special case of her conflict, as well as the cause of all her woes. This last time is her first time and all the times in between ; she is always Helen, at the start resisting, and in the end yielding to Venus. Menelaus has once more won by proof of battle her who was by right his wife before he fought; still he possesses her not even after this second winning of her ; Paris has her still, though she never was his before the duel. So muddy does the current of this world's events get at times, till the Gods begin the cleansing. BOOK THIRD. 183 We now catch the mtignificent sweep of tliis Book. Though belonging to its present phice in the poem, and to the last year of the war, it reaches back to the beginning and takes in the original deed of wrong from which sprang the Greek expedition. This general view we shall now fill out with the details. The poet brings before us the two armies get- ting ready for battle, and touches a characteristic difference between the Greeks and Trojans; the former move in silence and order, the latter with noise and clano-or like a flock of cranes. The Greek tactical superiority which contrasted in. later times with the Oriental lack of military dis- cipline, makes itself valid already in Homer. Out of the two opposing masses of men leap forth the duellists, the injurer and the injured, the two who have the personal grievance. From these bodily contestants the poem passes to the spirit which animates the contest — Helen. a. Paris is the first to come to the front, with a " leopard's skin fiung over his shoulders ; " he is, indeed, the primal human offender. But he sprang back again into the ranks of his compan- ions, wheq Menelaus appeared before the Greeks in order to fight him. No wonder Paris '* was struck in his heart" on seeing the very embodi- 184 nOOK THIRD. ment of his wrong before him, his defeat came from the inner blow of conscience. Paris, however, has his opposite in Troy, who now is introduced in a speech. This is Hector, the ethical man among the Trojans, yet in a deep scission with himself. We hear his bitter cen- sure of his brother Paris, who acknowledges its justice. Hector in this first utterance of his sub- stantially declares the wrong of Troy ; his re- proaches extend not only to Paris but to the Tro- jans, who ought to have "given thee a coat of stone for the ills thou hast done." But what about Hector himself? He is fisfht- ing for his country, but his country supports the wrong which he has so vehemently condemned. What is he to do? Abandon his people? That he cannot. Hector is caught in the shears of Fate and is in the process of being cut in two ; he is the tragic character of the Iliad. If he do or leave undone, the outcome is quite the same for him; he is not the world-historical personage who can rise above country into the sphere of universal right. Yet how glorious he shines out as a man and patriot ! Now comes the proposition: Let Paris and Menelaus, the two individuals who are personally concerned as injurer and injured, fight for Helen, and let the victor take her with the accompany- ing treasure. Then follows a second clause in the agreement, which embodies the present wish BOOK THIRD. 185 of both armies : Let jill the others besides these two muke peace, the Trojans still inhabiting Troy, and the Greeks returning home. In other words, the great national struggle for the restoration oC Helen is to be ended by a duel and a compromise. No doubt both sides are tired of the war. At present the feeling runs somehow thus : the grievance lies between two individuals, it is really not our affair ; let the twain fight it out by themselves and not spill our innocent blood. So each army inclines just now; it is a personal mat- ter, let the duel take place, and we shall enforce the agreement. A personal conflict for the per- sonal possession of the woman and her chattels — this is what Greeks and Trojans seem in their present mood to see in the war, so eager are they to have it brought to a close. Sick they are of the whole business, and want to get out of it ; but can they let go their hold ? They together ratify an agreement which, the poet hints, Zeus does not sanction, nor can we. Chiefly, it is the Greeks who have given up their cause. This duel very properly opens the fighting of the Iliad. There will follow many other duels ; indeed the chief strategy of the poem consists in personal combat between two antagonists. But this first duel reveals the spirit of them all, it lies between the injured and the injurcr ; Helen stands in the background of the individual prowess of the heroes and nerves their bodies for the contest , 186 BOOK THIRD. though the Greeks just now forget her. But behold ! here she is in her first grand epiphany in tlie Iliad, born, as it were, directly out of the duel. b. We have already heard her name mentioned in the agreement as the object of the combat between Paris and Menelaus ; already in the Sec- ond Book she has been incidentally alluded to as the origin of the war. We are thus prepared, even curious for her appearance, when she steps forth in her own person. She must come just now, for the burning question of the time is. Shall Helen be restored or continued in alienation? Shall the beautiful woman of the world be wife, or be lost to family ? Thus we feel that the soul of the theme is ethical ; back of the question stand two armies, Greek and Trojan, to decide it. Upon the decision of the question much de- pends — nothing less than the whole Western world, we may say, the Future itself. This theme, too, as unfolded into the Iliad, is the beginning of Western Literature. Let us then, scan Helen closely, as she appears here, for we shall find that she is not only the object of the conflict, but bears it within her own bosom ; nay, she por- trays it too. She is in Troy, absent from her true husband, in a condition of estrangement. The poet will introduce her twice in the course of this Book, each- time under a somewhat different aspect. BOOK THIRD. 187 First she is shown in her outer activity and in her internal scission, apart from the presence of Venus ; we feel the mighty struggle of herself with herself ; she shows at the start that she was in a continued state of penitence and self-re- proach on account of her deeds past and present. Deep and sorrowful in every way is this mental anguish of Helen ; she is not, and cannot be happy in Troy, estranged from her true life ; she longs to be restored and it is this lono-ino; of her heart which corresponds to the outward attempt of the Greeks. At the second appearance of Helen, Venus will come to her in person, and the old struggle will be renewed in all its intensity. Iris, the messenger of the Gods, comes to Helen in the palace under the form of Laodice, fairest of Priam's daughters. The occurrence which is thereby brought about is not a mere whim, but is divinely sent; Laodice, the mortal shape, simply tells what is going on, but in this mortal shape is hidden Iris, who comes from the Gods. This message is a part of the divine plan, and the event which takes place in consequence is linked into the providence which rules over the poem. Who does not delight in the old Poet's recogni- tion of a divine control of the world, into wdiich the individual is jointed through his deed? Moreover, Iris comes from the better Gods, not from Aphrodite, who will appear later; this message tells her of the approaching combat, and 188 BOOK THIBD. recalls the memory of her absent spouse and kindred, to whom she would now fain return. This desire for restoration is the strong emo- tional background of this first phase of Helen, and is the contrast to the resistless command of Aphrodite in the second. Forth she goes to the Scaean Gate to witness the duel for her sake, *' shedding the tender tear." But let us note what is Helen's occupation in Troy. She is making a garment wherein are woven the conflicts of the Greeks and Trojans on her account — a wonderful garment, which, when completed, we may call the Iliad itself. For, if she truly represents this conflict in her marvel- ous web, we shall have to call her Poet, too, or at least Artist, who has experienced the mighty struggle, and then turns around and portrays it. It is a deep, perhaps the deepest, element of her character, this self-reflection of Helen in Art. In such manner she is busied inside of Troy, the weaver of the many woes which she has caused and endured, imaging beautifully the great con- flict, and being herself at the same time the most beautiful imao^e of it. In later ages Helen be- came the type of Art, or its Ideal; the suggestion thereof is found in old Homer, who makes Helen the self-imaging person, weaving a brilliant robe out of the combats for her own sake. The Artist has verily in him the struggle and the as- piration of his age, which he must weave out of BOOK TIIIUD. 189 himself into a beautiful garment, if he woukl make his Iliad, Greater or Lesser. The divine messenger bids her to witness the duel which is to decide what she is to be in the future. What her desire is cannot be doubted for a moment ; there comes at once that heart- burst of hers aglow with painful recollections of what she has left. It is manifest that she longs to pass out of her period of alienation to that of return to family ; repentance is the word that cries from every line; heart's sorrow is indeed her companion. Yet coupled with the deep dis- tress is her beauty ; the old men of Troy confess the prize to be worth the war for her possession, and declare that her face is like an immortal God- dess to look upon. Assuredly a noble and true definition of beauty ; the Eternal shines through her face — that face touched by struggle and contrition, yet looking up to restoration. Sor- row and beauty are twin sisters, inseparable ; un- der beauty lurks the passionate trial of the soul, till it rise up to reconciliation. Such is the face of Helen : not merely an outward symmetrical visage, but a living mirror, reilecting all her life; for a mask, though it have the Greek lines and be of human flesh, cannot be beautiful; the soul must be uttered in the features. We may now pass with Helen to the city wall, and take a look with her from it. Here again we behold the artistic phase of Helen in a new way. 190 BOOK THIBD. To Priam, who addresses her very kindly, she gives a description of the leading Greek Heroes as they appear down in the plain; yet this is coupled with a strong description of herself, of her own internal condition. It is another word of sorrow bursting up with the wish for death. But behold Agamemnon, Ulysses, Ajax, but not Achilles; authority, wisdom, strength, but not heroism, are represented in that Greek host. Helen, we may well say, is in all this the Artist still, or the Poet; she depicts tlie essence of the Greek army in the characters of its great chief- tains as she looks down into them from her high position on the watch-tower. This is a picture of hers too, woven now of words; it may be called the companion-piece to her garment woven of threads. Thus has the Poet brought her for- ward in these two passages as the Artist, at one time picturing the combats by means of visible forms, at another time showing the characters of Heroes by means of spoken words ; the one hints of sculpture, the other of poetry, the two great Arts of Greece. Still more deeply she has pict- ured herself the imager and the imaged ; her heart is the heart of the whole war, and its por- traiture too ; the scission in that heart is what we are next to witness when she comes before us. We must see the necessity of Helen's occupa- tion ; she could be doing nought else but that wonderful work of weaving, which keeps her at a BOOK THIRD. I'H domestic emplov merit, while elevating her into the realm of the artist. It is not a chance piece of embroidery which she is making; her work is not an accident, which might just as well be something else. She would not be a true Greek unless she sought to throw out of her the conflict which is in her and about her, putting it into an artistic shape. For the Greeks, of all the [)co- ples that have ever existed or now exist, are the Art-people, self -imaging in forms of beauty through a sheer necessity of their nature. When they have done a great deed, they must transfig- ure it into a beautiful image, and look at it as the very revelation of their own being to them- selves. Marathon, the most glorious action of the Greek world, was painted, was sculptured, was built into temples, into the Theseion, even into the Parthenon, was built into great plastic characters like Pericles, and was trans- . formed into colossal statuesque poets like Jilschylus. Helen would not be a true repre- sentative of her people unless she were doing what she here does — not only bearing the conflict but imajring it to herself in forms of Art. And, CD O in general, the Artist must carry deep in his own heart the wound from which his people and his age are bleeding ; then he can portray their bat- tle, inner and outer. We can well say, then, that Helen is making the Iliad, making it in a double sense : she is not 192 BOOK THIBD. only the creative theme of it, but she is embody- ing this theme in poetry and in phistic shapes. Her problem is the problem between East and West, which every Greek must meet and solve. Diomed, a typical Greek hero, fights Venus in person and puts her to flight in the Fifth Book, thus doing that which Helen is as yet unable to do of herself ; for this reason he can be truly one of her rescuers, spiritual as well as physical. Nor must we fall into the common conception of Helen as merely a beautiful voluptuous woman, with the power of setting men crazy through her sensuous charms. Undoubtedly she both exerts and feels the keenest allurement of the senses, but she has the counter-stroke of conscience ; if she shows the temptation and the fall, she also shows the remorse and the repentance. In other words, Helen is the full cycle of the soul incar- nated in a human life. Thus she is, in the highest artistic sense, beautiful. n. The poet drops the thread of Helen in the midst of her description of the Greek heroes ; just when she has looked in vain for her two brothers, Castor and Pollux, and shown that her thoughts are turned tenderly homeward. But something still separates her from restoration; the duel rises up again and is carried forward to its out- BOOK THIRD. 1"J3 come, which calls forth a new and more intense struggle of Helen, namely with Venus in person and with Paris. But Venus is victorious in Troy over both Menelaus and Helen. Thus we have the second transition from the outer to the inner conflict. a. The preliminaries of the duel are arranged with much ceremony. Priam goes from the city to complete them with the highest sanction of authority, but returns without witnessing the deadly assault upon his son — a very human, deli- cate touch on the part of the poet. Striking is the number of prayers, no less than five in quick succession, all directed to Zeus, who is felt by both sides to have the matter in hand. " Which- ever of the two has done the wrong, grant that he go down to the house of Hades, having perished," is the common supplication of both Greeks and Trojans. Yet in case of the latter we must hold it to be lip-work or the moment's satiety of war, for they will soon change, and break the agree- ment. From beginning to end Menelaus is the active fighting man in the duel. Paris seems to have taken every stroke as it came without returning it. He is badly beaten by Menelaus, but saved by Venus. She breaks the strap of his helmet to foil his enemy, and then carries him off in a cloud. Such is the intervention of the Goddess, which we must not consider as an allegory in 13 1U4 BOOK THIRD. which each little incident has its separate mean- ing, but as the broad general image of a spiritual occurrence. Let us conceive of Paris quitting the battle-field under a cloud, in some disguise, if you will. It is Venus who leads him ; his sen- suous is far stronger than his warlike nature. She spirits him out of the combat; when there is danger to his dear body, the grand instrument of pleasure, she makes him a coward; for this reason he, as the disciple of Venus, receives such bitter reproaches from his warlike brother Hector. The Goddess is certainly in him, and she also can furnish outside help in Troy. Thus we catch a glimpse of what Paris means, of what he stands for to the mind of the Poet. He is the favorite of Venus, his leading trait is that of sensual indulgence, which destroys the heroic character of man, and debauches the do- mestic character of woman. Moreover, we get a passing view of what the Trojans think of him, and what his standing is in Troy, as in the entire Book, we are introduced to the Trojan aspect of the world as distinct from the Grecian. -One party, led by his own brother Hector, hates Paris, yet the latter has hitherto foiled all their attempts to restore Helen. For in this Book we learn that she was demanded back by a Greek embassy before the war began, of which embassy Meue- laus and Ulysses were members. Even the Gray- BOOK TUIliD. ID 5 beards of Troy, as they look at Helen, seem to be in doubt whether a woman so beautiful ought to be given up. They, the old men, say wilh manifest unwillingness : Let her go for the sake of our Trojan land and families. It is clear that Paris has a strong party sup- porting him in the city; it is furthermore, clear that he cannot be forced to surrender Helen, and Troy participates in his guilt. The hate which the Trojans are said to have for him could only be true of a party. Paris is really a truer repre- sentative of the Trojan spirit than Hector, as we shall see in the course of the poem. Otherwise Troy would not have perished in the providential order of Zeus. In the sharp pinch of war, the Trojans have assented to the compact for the emergency. But mark the outlook: if the com- pact leads to the surrender of Helen, they will break it, must break it in order to be Trojans. That deed we may see already foreshadowed in their character. b. We pass the second time from the outer con- flict to the inner, and behold Helen's duel with the Goddess, who comes to the tower in the shape of an old w'oman, a wool-comber, and plucks the robe of Helen, bidding her return home to Paris. We here begin the second })art of Helen's thread — this Book of Homer being woven out of threads like Helen's garment — which shows in a vivid dramatic picture the struggle about which ^hc \\\\^ 196 BOOK TRIED. previously uttered such bitter reproaches against herself. The conflict is now with the Goddess of Love in person, these are the two combatants, and a duel takes place far more intense and far more significant than the duel which has just taken place before the gates of Troy ; in fact, this second duel is that which gives meaning and spirit to the first. Venus has just come from Paris, who looks, she says for Helen's temptation, not like a returning warrior, but like a blooming dancer in the chorus. Helen recognizes the messenger, so different from Iris ; she sees " the beautiful neck, desireful bosom, and lustrous eyes," and knows to whom they be- long; she has, indeed, become conscious of the presence of the Goddess in her own desire, for " her soul was stirred within her breast " at the words of the messenger. Still she resists ; she turns ferociously upon the Goddess and refuses to obey. " Accursed, wilt thou cajole me again? Dost thou intend to lead me still further, to Phrygia or Maeonia, where dwells some favorite of thine?" That is, still further to the East, where my degradation lies? In this way Helen and the poet seem to look upon another remove toward the Orient. We may note here the line drawn in the poem dividing East and West, though it is by no means so distinct as three thousand years have made it to us. Helen refuses to return to the couch of Paris at the com- BOOK THIRD. 197 mand of the Goddess: " Go thyself, let him make thee his spouse, nay, his slave." Then that last wail : " Oh, the sorrows in my soul are infinite I " We behold here the desperate effort of the wom- an smitten by shame and remorse to free her- self of the chains which still hold her captive. It is the conflict in her own breast between sensual love and self-control, one of the thousand inner conflicts which for many years Helen has watered with her tears, resisting at first and then giving up again. It is the picture of them all; the God- dess is a Goddess, and responds, with wrath: Beware lest I shall hate thee and make Greeks and Trojans hate thee, and thou shalt perish mis- erably! The Goddess threatens, as we under- stand her words, to take away Helen's beauty; then indeed will Helen be lost, being no longer the object of eager possession, to both Greeks and Trojans — in fact, to the world. Helen without the gift of beauty, indeed without just her sensu- ous charm, is not Helen; in awe of the Goddess she turns away, wrapped in a shining robe, and goes into the presence of Paris. Here is her second struggle, not now with the Goddess, but with the man; yet both struggles at bottom are of the same kind. She turns upon him who has brought her so much woe and who has just shown himself such a coward. She knows his unworthiness, she knows too her own guiltiness ; she casts upon him reproaches, very 198 BOOK THIBD. bitter and very true, and then yields again. Paris has his excuse, very convenient in Greeli polytheism ; he says that Pallas won the victory for Menelaus, but asserts that there is a God on his side too, and at once demonstrates the fact. Such is Helen's double struggle with the God- dess and with the mortal counterpart of the God- dess; an intense, furious combat, but ending in defeat. Both Paris and Helen are the victims; to Aphrodite they have sacrificed both manhood and womanhood. We are led back to the original wrong; the island Cranae, scene of their first guilty love, is hinted; the history of Helen's fall is re-enacted in Troy . This Third Book brings out in vivid dramatic interest the fatal begin- ning, which is repeated before our eyes, and thus it is a poetic review of the origin and meaning of the war. Still Helen is repentant ; Paris is not; he knows no contrition for his act, and thus there is between them a vast difference — the whole universe, we might say. He must perish ; she must be restored ; Paris, the city of Troy, all that comes between her and restoration, will be swept out of the way by the world-governing Powers. Helen in this Book is seen to be the cause of the war, as the statement usually runs. She is certainly the image of it in herself; a deep reflec- tion in its ethical purport. She has a great throe in her bosom, a massive heaving heart of sorrow and conflict; she longs for the return to home and BOOK rillBD. 199 country, but the Trojans stand in the way. This is their guilt, their grand interruption of the di- vine order; they must be wiped out ; those one hundred thousand Greeks are before their gates for that purpose. Tlius her inner struggle is the outer struggle between Greek and Trojan ; she is the soul of the war, its very soul put into a human soul. We may call her the ideal, whose life is to be the reality of that which is fought for on the Trojan plain. Her cause has taken possession of her nation and race ; that cause arms them and drives them into the battle for her salvation, which is their own salvation too. She becomes a type which the Artist reveals, wherein he images the nation to itself in its strongest aspiration. But Helen in this Book is that Artist, too, or is employed in artistic work. She is not only the bearer of the struggle, but its painter — the image makino; its own ima2:e. Such is the artistic nature which has to image what it endures; the Eternal peers through the personal sorrow and transforms it into the expression of the Beautiful. In her fall she manifests the possibility of her rise, which will overcome her sensuous impulses and find restoration, even after many relapses. One such rise and relapse, the image of them all, we have seen in this Book; but we feel as- sured that redemption is coming and with it a new world. Such a hint there is in this fervid ac- count ; hope is here, and the future harmony and 200 BOOK THIRD. reconciliation. The germ of her recovery we touch everywhere; this fact is the most vital one of the story. It is a deep glance into the time to come on the part of the old bard, a genuine, pro- phetic glance which brings back the truest word of the ages — restoration of the fallen soul. A comparison with those old Greeks rises in- voluntarily : Would our social order restore Helen as readily as they did ? Would her modern sister ever acknowledge her as restored? Would her cause call forth a thousand ships and a ten years' war? Hardly ; but our excuse is at hand ; those old Greeks had to settle this question be- fore all others ; it was then the question of the World's History, which it is not now. Thus, however, we may catch a glimpse of the greatness and reality of the theme of which this ancient poem treats. From another point of view we may celebrate the poet's art in this Book. What boldness in handling such a subject, and yet what chastity in its treatment! No prudery on the one hand, no salacity on the other ; the sexual relation in all its seductiveness and in all its transgression we see placed before us ; there is no modern senti- mental silence on a matter which more nearly concerns every human being than any other ; nor is there any lascivious tickling of a prurient fancy, such as we may find in many poets who have treated this affair of Helen. The license BOOK THIED. 201 and the penalty are here, side by side ; the stroke of passion and the counter- stroke of re- pentance are felt in their full power, yet told with perfect modesty. But how about Menelaus, the other duelist? Victor, though defeated, and defeated hy the Goddess. " He darts through the crowd like a wild beast, trying to find Paris," but cannot spy him anywhere even with the help of the Trojans. Poor husband ! thy wife is now in tlie arms of thy beaten antagonist, thou hast simply driven him back to the wrong which thou hast fought to avenge. Clearly the duel is not the divine way of settling this war. Meantime let Agamemnon make the empty proclamation: "Trojans, the victory belongs to Menelaus, restore ye Helen and the treasure, and pay your fine," then there will be peace. Alas ! there is no peace; surely not in that way. BOOK FOURTH. The connection between this and the preceding Book is most intimate, not simply in incidents, but specially in thought. This connecting thought it is our main concern to see and unfold; that is the thread which holds the poem together against all the attacks of time and of criticism. The previous Book showed the personal conflict for the possession of Helen, and the treaty based upon it; the present Book shows that no such treaty can ever be carried out, being contrary to the divine government ; that this conflict at Troy is not a personal matter between husband and seducer, but a national struggle ; indeed, we may add, looking back at it, a world-historical strug- gle, which has to be fought out between the con- tending elements before any peace is possible. Such Olympian emphasis we must hear in this Book. We have just seen placed before us in living reality the central conflict of the war, of the en- tire Trojan war, in the person of Helen, whom we may therefore call a type or character, which embraces the essence of all characters of this time and of this struggle ; she has in her heart (202) BOOK FOUBTH. 203 the whole Trojan war, both sides of it, fighting there as well as outside of her. Around her and for her the two contending peoples fight, must fight, since she denotes their very essence : the Greeks are not Greeks unless they rescue Helen ; the Trojans are not Trojans unless they keep her in alienation. Such is the image of the great general war ; but into this general war a special occurrence is playing, the wrath of Achilles. We now begin to see what that wrath really means; the with- drawa.1 of Achilles from battle signifies his with- drawal from the Greek cause, which is the restoration of Helen. These books are neces- sary to show what the Hero abandons through his wrath; they portray the world in which he is a chief factor; now ho quits that world in anger, and is ready to let it be destroyed. But, sepa- rated from it, he is no longer a Greek, no longer himself truly ; the deep scission in his soul, grow- ing deeper with every Trojan victory, is to be pushed to the last limit, till he quit his wrath and be restored to harmony with his world and with himself. But we are far from that point yet, though vis- ibly going thitherward ; at present we must re- turn to the general phase of the conflict, which is in the process of unfolding. Let us look at that treaty again; by it, apparently, the whole war has been brought to an end; Meuclaiis is now to 204 BOOK FOUBTH. have Helen and her treasures in reward for his personal victory over Paris, and the Greeks are to sail off home, leaving Troy undestroyed. Im- possible ; the treaty was not ratified by Zeus; the Poet says it cannot be. The supreme Governor cannot let the matter be settled thus, for the sim- ple reason that it is no settlement. Here it is that we have of necessity an intervention of Zeus, the mighty overruling hand which has to descend and seize the rudder when mortal men are runnino- the world into chaos. Yet he interferes in his own way ; that way is humorous. Zeus is again the humorist as in the Second Bcok; indeed, he must be so, having to deal with mortals and immortals who must have their own will, and yet must be made to fit into the divine order, even when willing the very op- posite thereof. Can Zeus, our Greek Provi- dence, help smiling, and even breaking his jest, when he sees the little man or the little Godwork- ino- busily all the while to thwart his purpose, and just by that means forwarding it, and indeed making it possible? In this world- embracing humor of Zeus I cannot see hate or even con- tempt ; on the contrary, its root is love, as is the case with all true humor ; when Zeus hates, he crrasps for his thunderbolts, which are always at hand, and in good order. Love, I say, is at the bottom of his rugged heart, still to be unfolded somewhat, it is true ; love is that which overrules BOOK FOURTH. 205 the hostile deed of man for man's own good, and gives him, besides, out of pure grace, his own sweet will even in opposition. What would we do, were we put into the place of Zeus and given his outlook? The world in one phase would appear a vast comedy. When we stand above the mistakes and complications of the individual, seeing him involved in them, but not seriously threatened by them, the situation is humorous. For instance, we go to a play, the Comedy of Errors, and from our lofty perch glance below upon the stage and behold a little world, in which we see the human being caught in a net- work of accidents ; we laugh at his mis- chances, above which we are grandly sublime ; w^e are a kind of Providence looking down from the gallery on the errors and delusions of the char- acters, knowing what causes the whole trouble and foreseeing how it will turn out. We are lit- tie Jupiters on Olympus and have our sport with the people who are acting on the stage, and who^ are entangled in the deceptive appearances of things, through which we see from our position on high. But not man now, as was the case with Aga- memnon at the beginning of the Second Book, but deities, Juno and Pallas, are the objects of the Olympian humor of Zeus. They are partisans, they have shown themselves finite like man, they can be teased in their one- 206 BOOK FOUBTH. sidedness. So Zeus stirs them up with his iron- ical words. From this Book, then, we must infer that the Trojan war is no personal quarrel between Paris and Meuelaus; it cannot be settled by a duel be- tween two individuals, though they be the injured and the injurer. Paris is all Troy, Menelaus is all Greece, the peoples are the real participators in the conflict; that is, this Trojan struggle is not personal, but national, and is to be fought out to its true result by the nations involved in it. The Trojans cannot give up Helen without becom- ing Greeks, without acknowledging the triumph of the Greek principle. A few men of this kind are in Troy — Hector and Antenor, for example ; but most of its people side with Paris, and sus- tain him, even though they hate him personally for having brought on the issue, or for other un- told reasons. One thing is certain: they never compelled him to restore Helen, though they must have had the power. We must see that their spirit is to keep her in estrangement, and that Zeus, the Hellenic God, is determined to crush this spirit out of the Hellenic race. Her forcible surrender would, therefore, be no solu- tion of the great question for either side, espe- cially for the Trojans ; they must break the treaty ; the breach lies in them already; Zeus, on the other hand, will have them break it, since he is bent upon putting them and their principle down BOOK FOURTH. 207 ill the end. The Supreme Deity will overrule this work of man, whereby he would shun his task, making a peace when there is no peace. This treaty, then, through which the war is to be brought to an end by a personal duel, is a vio- lation of the great purpose of Zeus in the en- tire Trojan struggle. Hence Zeus and not a lesser God rises up in the poem at this point to di- rect its course. But specially the treaty is a vio- lation of the promise to Thetis, of the promise that her son Achilles should have honor. Thus the Heroic Individual would not get his meed, which is the very theme of the poem. He must be harmonized with his i)eople, they honoring him, he sustaining them, eie the conflict can be brought to a close. So we see that the whole Providence of the poem in its two phases — namely, that Troy shall be destroyed as the out- come of the entire war, and that Achilles shall be reconciled as the outcome of the Iliad episode of the war — is contradicted by this treaty and its result. Zeus, therefore, appears and sets it aside, turning the human course of action back into the divine plan. Why, then, does the Poet introduce the duel at all? It is, indeed, necessary to teach the provi- dential thought and discii)lino ; the Greeks, and we, too, might otherwise imagine the affair to be a merely |>ersonal matter between husband and seducer, and no concern of theirs or ours; a tight 208 BOOK FOURTH. over a beautiful but dubious woman, such as many fights have been and will continue to be without causing a national war. But this Book raps us over the head, saying, Awake, O indolent brain! and think; my Helen is not simply one little woman and nothing more, but the supreme object of two great peoples, yea, of two contin- ents; not merely a runawa}^ wife of a Greek chieftain, but the very heart of the two strug- gling: tendencies of the Hellenic race. This Book has an interpretation of Helen, we may say, as well as a prophetic outlook upon the result of the great war. The structure of the Fourth Book is simple, yet reveals the thought at its essential points of juncture. Two chief parts we behold, which may be named the Breaking of the Treaty and the Re- newal of the War. They are seen to carry us at once beyond the individual grievances involved in the rape of Helen, and to bring us to the uni- versal import of the struggle. I. It has already been indicated that there must take place at this conjuncture an interference of Zeus as the supreme world-governor, for the pur- pose of asserting the Providence of the poem. The treaty which goes counter to this Providence BOOK FOURTH. 209 is to be annulled; the Gods ordain it, and then find the human instrument to bring about the an- nullment. For the Gods work throuo;h human instruments, but do not thereby destroy free agency ; they rather confirm it ; the intention must be in the man as well as in the God. Hence we shall have two phages of this First Part, the divine and human, each of which is unfolded in sequence — the divine utterance being the start- ing point. a. The deep underlying fact in this divine utterance is the doom of Troy. It is to be de- stroyed; there can be no treaty, no compromise which v.'ould leave it standing; its attitude toward the beautiful Greek woman is its character, and that character must be wiped out of the Hellenic world, of which Troy is the Oriental tendency. Thus Zeus decrees, though unwillingly, for it is not a personal matter with him; indeed, if he were to follow his own wishes, he would spare the Trojans and their city, which he has honored above all cities "under the sun and starry heaven," and which has always given to him due sacrifice. But he also, the supreme deity, must put aside personal considerations, and look at the eternal reason in all things; so Troy must perish. Zeus, too, has his struggle with himself, he is touched with a momentary pang of finitudc ; then it is over. Such is the deep feeling of penalty in the universal order, as it bursts up everywhere 210 BOOK FOURTH. out of the Iliad — the feeling of the justice of the world, and the world's deed. It may be asked, Why do the gods punish the Trojans for what the Gods compelled the Trojans to do, as, for example, to violate this treaty? Such violation was decreed by Zeus; is that jus- tice, to punish men for wrong which they are forced to commit ? The answer lies in that axiom of Homeric interpretation which the reader must always have present to the mind: Homer's Gods and their decrees are in the man as well as out- side of him; they are his own character, his own free-will, his very essence indeed, as well as the divine ordinance. Zeus through Pallas moved the Trojans to break the treaty, it is said ; but already the Poet has indicated that the general feeling at Troy was that Helen should not be re- stored ; she was refused to an embassy demand- ins: her back before the war. Indeed, she can- not be restored if Troy is to remain Troy ; that there was no serious and abiding purpose of ful- filling the treaty we see by the readiness with which the Trojans renew the fight when it is broken. The Trojans must be free in breaking the treaty, they must not be compelled from the out- side by Zeus, else they would not be Trojans in their act. Their punishment lies in their free deed, the very doom of Zeus against them rests upon their voluntary detention of Helen. Yet BOOK FOURTH. 211 Zeus, the all-powerful, compelled them just in one way, by giving them their own freedom, which they were forced somehow to accept, and so be Trojans. Here we may make a note on the character of the Gods in Homer, especially of Zeus. The highest as well as the lowest traits Zeus has in him; if he had not, he would not be all. He is the Whole, both center and circumference, both divine and human. His divine side surpasses all the Gods in its divine greatness ; his human side surpasses all mortals in the magnitude of human frailties. Human, terribly human he is, just in proportion as he is transcendently divine; the one conditions the other. Zeus is the product of Greek plastic imagination which figures the God as man universalized ; not the spiritual man sim- ply, but the sensuous man also, the total man, magnified into a colossal image. Zeus is not an abstraction, not a virtue or a dry catalogue of virtues, or entities; he is a person, and has caprice, for personality without caprice cannot be conceived by the Homeric Greek. But under that capricious, humorous play we shall always find the eternal clement. In accord with this character of him we notice that in his very first words he is teasing Pallas and Juno, the strongest Greek partisans among the Gods. He also propounds to them tlie ques- tion whether Troy shall be left standing and 212 BOOK FOUHril. Menelaus lead his Helen home, or not. Yet we see that he is not serious in this, it is but his sport, his humor; we already linow what his pur- pose is. In his next speech, however, we see in a gentle way the iron hand ; the side of necessity appears, which decrees, at present in the mild form of permission, that Troy must perish, though his caprice contemplates the opposite and plays with the thought for a moment. Sportful- ness he has, yet is capable of exploding into sud- den wrath, which is usually very evanescent, and more often feigned than real. The froth of ex- istence he shows, too, in his seething moods, but the granite is always peering forth above and around ; we know also that it is at the bottom of the surges and holds them, though we do not see it. So he plays with the Goddesses; fun or an- ger, it is still play, and takes the form of teasing which has always a rude love under it ; he teases them now, just because it is their heart's desire which he is about to accomplish. After teasing them well, he tells them that he is going to do just what they wish. Mighty truth we may indeed feel in this portrait- ure of Zeus, a genuine image of the Time-spirit which delights in sporting with chance, which re- veals itself under the thousand forms of contin- gency called events, which seems to take pleasure inteasingthe struo-o-lino; sons of men with false vis- ions of hostility and defeat just at the moment of BOOK FOUBTH. 213 victory. " Yet the will of Zeus was accom- plished " is the grand Homeric refrain through all this bustle and tumult of cross purposes among men and Gods. It is the humor of existence, this colossal humor of Zeus, who, in appearance, is foiling while in reality carrying out the plan of the individual; or, on the other hand, he is, in appearance, carrying it out while foiling it, or turning it into his own plan. The cry is always heard: " A very unworthy conception of deity." It is imperfect, we may well believe, but not base. It will do good to every son of every century to take to heart and make real to himself that Greek stand-point which put a God at the center in all things, a person, and endowed him with all the traits of personality, the low^est as well as the highest. A shadow of the complete humanity, all of it, hovers therein, and the voice of it speaks the word of hope. We must see, too, that Zeus is playing only on the surface with time-bubbles. Underneath is the one great earnest end ; that end is universal — the end of the race. Who will deny that the cause of the Greeks is the cause of humanity, and Zeus putting down Troy and its ori- ental tendency is the mighty image of the World's Reason surmounting its obstacles in Time, and unfolding into its own pure reality? Zeus is a mythus assuredly, but mythus is truer than history — the essence, indeed, of 214 BOOK FOURTH. all history concentrated into a single colossal visage. He is also figured in the domestic relation, in the broadest sense, as father of Gods and men, for religion always conceives the world as one family, whose bond is love. In the more narrow Olympian household he is husband and parent ; so he sports with, in fact teases, wife and child. He has the character of the Greek who, under the form of play, of artistic spontaneity and sport- fulness, worshiped the Gods seriously and was pious. But listen to that divine wife Juno in re- sponse. While acknowledging the supremacy of the husband, she strongly asserts her place and prerogative not only in the family, but in the world-government, being equal both in birth and rank to the highest God ; the first and grandest assertion of woman's rights, one may think, and prefiguring much that has followed in that line : *• I am a Goddess, too, Of the same race as thou, I am the child Of crafty Saturn, and am twice revered — Both for my birth and that I am the spouse Of thee who rulest over all the Gods. Truly everything is in Homer, to the eye of the student who has faith in his heart. But Juno has no humor ; she is bitterly in earnest, divinely indio-nant, vet she can be sarcastic, with a worn- an's sting in her tongue. Still, she has no hu- BOOK FOURTH. 215 mor, and cannot stand teasing. Zeus, master of all limitation, alone can possess the true Olympian humor; no lesser beings, mortal and immortal, can manage it any more than they handle his thunderbolts. So Zeus permits his wife, the strong partisan, to bring about that which he had already resolved upon as world-judge ; in fact, he uses her and Pallas as his instruments. Such is this divine intervention, which we must grasp in its double phase ; first, as a necessity in the supreme order; secondly, as a caprice of the Gods sporting around this necessity. Nor can we pass by that descent of Pallas from Olympus in the form of a blazing meteor, a won- derful sign to Greeks and Trojans. Sign of what — peace or war? Alas, poor mortals ! both sides interpret the sign both ways. It is but an appearance to them, without any certain divine stamp — a touch of sympathetic humor in the old bard, which some unfeeling critics would cut out, beinsT as ignorant of the meaning of the sign as were the Greeks and Trojans. But the Goddess in disguise is seeking her hu- man instrument for breaking the treaty, for such is her way. She has not long to seek ; she knows her man when she meets him. She has found him; behold, he steps forth, when she calls out, " Son of Lycaon." b. This human instrument is Pandar, the archer. It is instructive at this point to watch the procc- 216 BOOK FOURTH. dure of the poet, and see how he links the divine decree into the deed of the man. Observe how he gives to Pandar an ample internal motive : " Thanks and praise from all the men of Troy and gifts from Paris." Well did Pandar read the Trojan spirit in regard to the treaty ; he will receive approval for his deed from all the Tro- jans. Glory and cupidity move him within ; thus he is a free agent with his own mainspring of action. Yet it is a Goddess who suo-o-ests and in- spires these motives, the Goddess Pallas, who knows her man and finds the character ready for her promptings. If he were not ready, she could have done nothing with him. Why bring in the Goddess? Because it is she who adjusts these individual motives into the universal course of events. Ordinarily they would be of no signifi- cance, that is, as Pandar's particular whims ; but now the war turns on them, and they have a place in the divine order. From Zeus the Hio-h- est comes this act of Pandar; yet it is Pandar's own. He is the instrument of the Supreme Ruler ; yet he none the less proceeds of his own accord. Man has his will, and just therein is realizing the will of the Gods; but to connect the two is the work of a deity, of Pallas, Goddess of Wisdom, beheld in the poetic vision of Homer. In this scene we may hear Zeus, the supreme divinity, saying to Pandar : I cannot compell you, unless you choose to shoot the arrow yourself. BOOK FOURTH. 217 I give you your free will, which, I know, is to break the truce. Now the mythical way of conceiving and stat- ing this fact is to say that Zeus caused the truce to be broken, caused it since it lay in the inten- tion of the Trojans. Zeus is first cause — om- nipotent and omniscient — and every act good or bad goes back to him. The myth, looking down from Olympus, expresses this first cause directly, and at the start leaves out man's free activity; but the mj'th also descends to earth, and, glanc- ing into the soul of man, puts there, too, the seat of causation. These are the two strands, coming from two sources, human and divine, which are woven together into the one thread of the poem, making it one complete action in the world as the resultant of two energies, God and Man. Of these two elements every great event is com- posed, even the World's History. In such manner we must explain the poet, reaching out often beyond the letter of his writ, but not beyond his conception. For he is clearly trying to image the two sides of the Universe, divine and human, working together, not in con- tradiction but in harmony, and thereb}" bringing forth the Supreme Order. Beyond the poetry of Homer we rise into the region of his scership. Thus the Iliad is a poem of freedom, hav- ing the true glance, which joins into one har- mony the divine and human relations. Provi- 218 BOOK FOURTH. dence is here, free-will is here. Neither side is left out or blurred ; yet both work together, fit into one another, nay, the one could not be with- out the other. The Gods are in the man as well as in the world ; thought is not merely subject- ive, but also objective; the individual is not sim- ply free in himself, but through his freedom he links himself into the universal order of the world. One may put his finger upon this point and say: This is the chief greatness of Homer, this is the reason why mankind will not let him die. He has spoken the reconciling word, has given both sides of this existence of ours — the human and divine — workinof in concord. He tells of the decrees of the Gods, then of the do- ings of men; these are the two threads of the poem, of life, of the universe. The arrow speeds, Menelaus is wounded, the treaty is broken. The Trojans at once move into array of battle without disowning the act of Pan- dar; they, indeed, make it their own. All along we have seen that this was their secret spirit; the treaty was but a momentary fit of weariness of war. They would not, in fact could not, give up Helen. Hector, leader in war, is manifestly not the political leader. In this respect Paris is stronger than he, and represents more truly the character of the Trojans. We have already had the divine utterance con- cerning the doom of Troy in the council of the BOOK FOUIiTH. 219 Gods. Agamemnon now gives the human utter- ance in regard to this violation and in regard to the Trojan character, of which this violation is but one outburst. Troy will perish. Not in vain has the treaty been made and the sacred pledges given. The Trojans with their heads, with their wives and children, will pay for this wrong. Again breaks up tliat strong feeling of penalty so frequent in tlie Iliad. Agamemnon sees the great fact of the Trojan action in its complete circle; he, the mortal, spies the plan of the w^orld-ordering Zeus in this incident. It is the human vision beholding the divine purpose ; the Leader is the man chosen to take a glimpse into the all-governing principle above him. In the very wantonness of the Trojans he beholds them as victims of supreme justice. The man now speaks what the God has already decreed, Helen is not to be restored except through the destruc- tion of the city. If Troy were not doomed it would have allowed Helen to return. Zeus will punish them, says he. The mortal sees in Zeus only the i:)unisher and not the originator of the violation. The poetic eye takes in the complete Zeus, and beholds the free act of the Trojans working into the purpose of the Highest. This vaticination of Agamemnon is in many things remarkable, particularly so in style. A prophetic rapture and earnestness lie in it, an elevation of the look into what is everlasting, like 220 BOOK FOURTH. some Old Testament writ. The Greek bard seerns suddenly changed into the Hebrew prophet, and the Hellenic song is transfigured into a strain of Israel. The Olympian humor of Zeus is gone, swallowed up in a sublime seriousness ; that serene life is clouded with wrestling, with agony. It is the mortal in contrast with the im- mortal; particularly it is that mortal Agamem- non whom this speech fits. He has fallen out with the Hero Achilles, and is on his road to re- pentance, which we shall witness in the Ninth Book, a very sober business and inclined to make men see the justice of the Gods. Of this peni- tential journey the present speech may be taken as an important landmark, lying about half way toward the. destination. II. It has already been seen how the Trojans at Pandar's shot move into battle array without any warning to the Greeks, without even the com- mand of their own chieftains; they make his breach of the treaty theirs. The poet tells us: " They again put on their armor, and were eager for the fight. ' ' Pandar has only done what all the Trojans were ready to do, had it in their heart to do, and would have done anyhow in some way; on this occasion he is their typical man. The re- BOOK FOUUTII. 221 suit is the renewal of the war, which forms the Second Part of this Book. Fighting now mainlj fills the Homeric canvas, the painful struggles of mortals below on earth. This part it is not necessary to follow in much detail, being easily comprehensible in itself, and having had its significance already unfolded on Olympus. For this Lower World, with all its tumult and conflict, is but the finite material on which the will of the Gods is impressed ; that will in its pure form Homer brings before us in his Upper World. The individual mortal side of this war is now shown working out in struggle and death the universal divine side, which is eter- nal. This Second Part falls into two divisions: the personal tour of Agamemnon, and the general battle which follows. a. The King hastens on foot around the army, rousing the people in general and the chieftains in particular ; the thought which propels him is what he has just seen and uttered in his prophecy ; now again he declares that " Zeus will never aid the false." He seeks to carry out the will of the supreme God, and to make the Greeks the instrument thereof. It is a true mission, and the Leader shows its inspiration; he does his work with a demonic power. He is dexterous with praise and rebuke, softening rebuke when it has stung too deep. The Greek chieftains are again brought before us in order, as we beheld them in 222 BOOK FOURTH. the view from the wall of the previous Book, but in a different manner. Subtle touches of charac- ter we get from them all; particularly we mark the proud-spirited Diomed, disdaining to reply to the unjust reproof from the King, and re- straining his companion from angry words in answer thereto : he will rather suffer wrong than quarrel with the shepherd of the people, as Achilles has done. One takes delight in thinking these noble words as the prelude and the prerequisite of the noble deeds of Diomed to be recorded in the very next Book. No sulking from him. "Come, now, let us, too, think of the furious charge," as he turns away from his personal grievance, and casts his look upon the great con- flict of his country. Still, the insult will rankle in his memory, and, in the Ninth Book, when deliberation takes the place of combat, Diomed will show his personal grudge by a bitter speech against the Leader. After all , we may detect a spice of heroic wrath in him too; a touch of Achilles is in all the heroes. But his conduct now, in the presence of battle, is noble and self-suppressive. h. Therewith the general battle opens ; the personal round of Agamemnon has come to an end. Certain differences between the two armies the Poet has marked : the noise which the Trojans make in contrast to the silence of the Greeks, which implies, apparently, a better discipline; BOOK FOURTH. 223 the confusion of many tongues among the Tro- jans in contrast to the unity of speech among the Greeks, a curious philological fact, which hints the mixed Asiatic non-Hellenic tendency of Troy compared with the pure Hellenic tendency of the Greeks; then, too, the ever-recurring differ- entiation of the Gods into the two hostile sides is the tinal mark of the great conflict. Personal encounter is the marrow of the Homeric battle ; every kind of situation is intro- duced, every difference of weapon, of wound. Finally, the whole line begins to retreat; this time it is Hector and the Trojans. The Gods now come in for a moment; Apollo calls to the Trojans down from their holy citadel ; to fight for that citadel is, indeed, a prodigious inspira- tion, and every man can look up there and hear, if not see, the God, who is also telling him, as the chief encouragement, that Achilles has retired in wrath from the side of the foe. But Palhis fights among the ranks of her people, just before their eyes, or rather souls, having no citadel to call down from. So the Gods cannot keep out of the terrestrial conflict. But we are now to see a new phase of the strusfflo — the combat of the mortal with the immortal, the Hero grappling with the God, and, what is more wonderful, putting him down. That Hero is Diomed, whom we have aheady heard with so much favor and thought him, of 224 BOOK FOUETU. all Greeks present, best prepared to meet and vanquish the Gods of Troy. As this Fourth Book is in the nature of a descent from Olympus to Earth, the highest God having his judgment brought down to the mortals, so the Fifth Book is in the nature of an ascent from Earth to Olym- pus, the mortal having his deed brought for judgment up to the highest God. Thus we are borne from heaven down below, and from below up to heaven again, on the billows of this ocean of Homeric, poesy. Moreover we get many a little peep into the background of the Homeric poems. There are touches of local legend, of personal history, of weighty events, which hint the primitive materials out of which Homer built his edifice of song. Nestor gives a short story taken f lom his youth, as usual ; the little idyl of Simoisius is connected with the Trojan landscape; Democoon, "the spurious son of Priam," came from Abydos, where he was evidently a breeder of swift mares. But the most important glimpse is that of the two wars against Thebes, which had to be destroyed before Troy, apparently for its Oriental connec- tion and sympathy. Two of its captors are pres- ent in this greater conflict with the Orient — Diomed and Sthenelus — and speak their word just here. So Homer takes up the mythical treasures of his pco))le in their complete circuit, making his song a totality of folk-lore, a kind of encyclopedia of knowledge as well as a poem. BOOK FIFTH. This Book is a poem in itself with its own or- ganism, yet it fits into the entire phm of the Iliad; as one beautiful God, complete in charac- ter, fits into the divine order of Olympus. The individual perfection stands not in the way of the universal harmony; indeed, the latter reaches its highest pitch only through the former. We must see and enjoy this book by itself, in its own nice adjustments, and then hear it as one grand note in the entire song of the epos. In the previous Book the great fact has been settled that this Trojan contest is not a personal one, the grievance of Menelaus, but a national one, the grievance of all the Greeks, who are now in battle array and fighting for their cause. It has also been settled that they will wage the war without their great Hero, Achilles; though he withdraw, they will not. The conflict, then, is to go on; but who is now the heroic man? Behold him; he steps forth, Diomed, the son of Tydeus, on the whole the greatest Avarrior after Achilles. Yet the course of the poem will show, and must show, that he is not an Achilles by any 15 (:^25) 226 BOOK FIFTH. means ; he possesses not the mighty individuality of the Thessalian Hero, who will brook no insult ; in the end he will falter and lose his heroic power and then he will be wounded and compelled to retire from the war. But now he fills the eye, the hope of the cause turns to him, and in our present Book he is to pass through the struggles and triumphs of the Greek Hero. We must see how Diomed connects spiritually with what has gone before, especially how he connects with Helen, the heart of the struggle. When Menelaus fought, he had a personal object, he was the wronged one, and Agamemnon was his brother. Now the man appears who fights without a personal object, not being the husband of Helen, nor the brother of Menelaus. What the Greek man, every Greek man before Troy, must put down, in order to be truly a Greek, is figured in this Book. He must conquer those two Trojan deities, Venus and Mars, the one of whom led Greek Helen astray, and the other of whom keeps her in alienation by war and violence. Still deeper runs the suggestion. Not only out- wardly in Troy, but in himself he is to subject these two Gods. Diomed's struggle is Helen's strussle: we have seen in the third Book how she sought to suppress Venus within the walls of Troy and within herself. Diomed, to be the Greek Hero must help her by tearing down the walls of her captivity and setting her free ; after BOOK FIFTH. 227 conquering the Cyprian Goddess in himself, he must assist others to the same conquest. Every Greek Hero, and indeed every human being, has Helen's struggle in himself, and must assert himself as master, as hero over his sen- suous nature, over the charms of Venus. Then he has also to endure the external conflict with the Trojans, the devotees of Venus ; he must man- fully fight for his principle, the restoration of Helen. This Book may be called the discipline of the Greek Hero; it shadows forth in hintful, far-reaching outlines what he has to endure and to perform in order to be a Hero. This Book is not, therefore, a moral allegory, in the ordinary sense of the term, though it every- where has a deep ethical substrate, to which the reader must penetrate as to the foundation of thino-s. Homer has not told these matters in their abstract form, but in their poetic, clothing them in flesh and blood. Then there are many unexpressed undertones running through the whole i/mtZ and joining it together in concord; these secret notes the sympathetic reader will hear and try to utter anew for himself. One of them connects Helen and Diomcd, and helps to make the two Books in which they appear as harmonious [)arts in the complete song of Troy. Homer, like every true poet, suggests more than he expresses, nay, more than he know3 con- sciously, and time is his best interpreter. 228 BOOK FIFTH. In the very first lines we hear a note which sings through the Book to the end in a sort of undertone ; it is the recognition of a demonic force which takes hold of the Hero and compels him to be more than common men, more than himself in common mood. Pallas causes a flame to play round his helm and shield like to the autumnal star, as she sends him into the thickest of the fight. It is a divine appearance indeed; the luster given by supreme courage, the shining energy which possesses the m:in when he is pos- sessed, the exultant spirit of him who holds victory in his hands, knowing the reality as his own ; it is that mighty spell of the Great Man when he performs a great deed greatly. More words we cannot spend in trying to name it ; let the reader feel it heaving and struggling beneath the poetic flow, and see it when it breaks up and bears before it everything. Sometimes this power is represented as Pallas Athena, sometimes as the man's own spirit; both are necessary and must co-operate. Diomed is Hero because Pallas can thus work upon him ; only as he makes himself the vessel of divine in- fluence is he great. The Goddess and the Man must be made one, and be revealed in the deed; the highest activity of both united is the supreme excellence of both. Such is Homer's method of work at his best, though sometimes he drops from his altitude and makes his deities merely BOOK FIFTH. 229 external and conventional; these Homeric nods are not to be mistaken for the genuine waking Homer. Even the enemy recognize Diomed when he is under the divine spell ; Pandar sees one of the immortals at his side, so madly does he fight. But, when the spell is gone, he is but an ordinary man and flees before Hector, till again Pallas inspires him. The warrior, too, must have di- vine inspiration, as well as the poet or the prophet ; this Fifth Book is full of the recognition of it. As the conflict is national, and not personal merely, we have a general battle alongside the exploits of the individual Hero. But this gen- eral battle has a tendency to divide up into so many personal combats; just as authority, in- deed, the whole Greek world, is always on the point of dissolving into its individual units. Zeus, the supreme God, is now planning honor for the individual hero; these poems of Homer brino- out everywhere the side of individuality in prowess, strength, intellect. The faint and fleet- ino- shadow of a general battle soon gathers and solidifies round an individual center ; that center is now Diomed, about whom for the moment the Trojan war turns. One takes delight in the thought that the old poet paid a visit to the home of Diomed long after the war and gathered these legends from the lips of his people, and wove them in the grand total poem of the Hellenic race. They 230 BOOK FIFTH. have a local aspect ; they are legendary treasures of Argos; the little community never forgot its Hero in the great struggle with the Orient, but swathed his name in rich folds of mvth and sonjr. They are local, and just for this reason they be- long to the whole of Hellas and to its whole poem; they are a genuine growth, not an artifi- cial product, of the Hellenic soil. The united work of Greece was at Troy, in the contest against the East; the united song of Greece is also of Troy, in which song Diomed is to have his due place. He was a local hero whose ex- ploits were celebrated by his townsmen; but he likewise belonged to all Hellas, by virtue of be- longing to a Greek locality. The Poet's function is to make a national poem, in which every local hero participates; which fact does not destroy, but confirms the unity of the poem. Indeed, the unity of the Iliad rests upon the solidest fact; this is the unity of the Greek race in the war against Troy. The theme which unites the entire Hellenic people is the theme which unites the poem. The Iliad govAA not have been composed except as the image of that mighty common effort stirring the heart of the bard. But that effort binds together the Greek race, and with the same spiritual links it binds together the Iliad. As the Greeks always showed beneath their one great purpose a tendency to drop back into individual ingredients, so the various books BOOK FIFTH. 231 and son^s of this poem have their own special unity, while over them is the great general unity. So this Fifth Book, so Diomed himself ; each with a strong individuality fits into the universal or- der. The true appreciation of Homer takes in and harmonizes both sides ; it will not permit the one poem to be torn asunder into separate and unconnected ballads, or suffer a crystallized unity which destroys the beautiful Greek freedom in a poetic centralization. This Book, then, rests upon the one fundament- al fact, 'the conflict between Greece and Troy, such as we have already seen on the Trojan plain, and in the soul of Helen. But a new phase is in- troduced. The Hero is now shown fighting the God; the mortal on the side of Greece is brought to contend with an immortal on the side of Troy. The heart of the Book is uttered in that cry of Venus: "No longer is the contest between Greek and Trojan, but now the Greeks fight even the Gods." It is indeed no longer an alfray be- tween Greek and Trojan men, but between a Greek m;m and Trojan deities. Thus Diomed, the daring warrior, grapples with the divine rep- resentative, the spiritual embodiment of the Tro- jan cause. It is one of the deepest glances of the old bard, and makes the grand peculiarity of this Book, which is organized just from this point of view, and reveals one of the noblest of" Homer's constructive methods — the rise of the Hero out 232 BOOK FIFTH. of his struo-o-le with men to his strus'gle with Gods. This organism we must now study in de- tail; it will demand some thought as the struct- ure of the Book is, on the whole, more subtle than that of any other Book in the Iliad. At first sight it seems a chaotic thing, an indiscrimi- nate jumble of Gods and Men, with all sorts of strange occurrences. But light and order will come with an insight into its structural principle. There are two parts in the Book of almost equal length. The first Part shows Diomed be- ginning his contest with Trojan men, rising to a direct conflict with the Trojan Goddess Aphro- dite or Venus as we shall generally call her, who, being wounded by him, brings her appeal to Olympus, which appeal Zeus, the last authority, sets aside. The second Part runs quite parallel to the first : it shows the mortal strufjorle rao-ine; around Diomed till he is brought into conflict with the Trojan God Mars, who, being likewise wounded by him, carries his appeal at once to Zeus, the supreme deity, and receives a sharp re- buke. Such are the two p:irts moving in beauti- ful symmetry from earth through opposition of Gods to the final favorable decree on Olympus. Deep inspiring hope lies therein. Diomed, mor- tal man, is victor not only over the Trojans, but over their Gods, their spiritual essence, his victory being confirmed by the decision of the ultimate divine judge. Thus we feel in the whole a double sweep upward to the Highest. BOOK FIFTH. 283 I. The first Part we shall now follow out in its main particulars, observing in its movement the tliree significant phases which are inhe- rent stages of its unfolding thought. These phases are: the mortal in struggle with mortals, the mortal in struggle with the divine, the ultimate decision in favor of the mortal. a. There is a genenvl battle on the plain of Troy between Greeks and Trojans ; Diomed is the main, though not the only, participant on his side. But this battle cannot go forward, accord- ing to the Homeric conception, without a divine interference which is to shadow forth the spiritual principle at stake. The mere bloody combat is naught without the God in it. The first impor- tant interference is Pallas leading Mars out of the battle and setting him down *' beside grassy Scamander." The Goddess of Wisdom can con- trol the God of mere violence: she does it now, and the Greeks, her people, are victorious. Such is the divine hint : it is enough. Again Pallas appears in answer to the fervent prayer of Diomed, who has been wounded by Pandar's arrow. That wound rouses the Heroic in him to the highest pitch; we note that he is ready for the Goddess inwardly, when she stands at once outwardly beside him. She takes that 234 BOOK FIFTH. mortal cloud from his eyes which before hung upon them: now he can distinguish easily man and God. A most wonderful vision indeed, given by Pallas only; hereafter, in this Book, Diomed will fight by it and win his victory. But mark, he must be careful not to assail any immortal but Venus, that Trojan Goddess who deluded Helen, against whose divinity indeed the Greeks are chiefly fighting. With such an equipment we can easily believe that " a triple strength possessed him" to slaughter the sons of Troy. Now we must turn to the Trojan side, where -^neas, who is the son of Venus, is organizing resistance to the Greek Hero, ^neas takes as his companion Pandar, who caused the violation of the treaty in the previous Book. Pandar quits, in a fit of disgust, his true weapon, the bow, for the spear, whereby the way is prepared for his death. But the deeper motive is his great wrong ; now comes the penalty. It is true that the Poet does not directly state that Pandar's death is the consequence of his guilty act, nor need he; the connection is felt all the time; Pandar violates the truce, then perishes. What is implicit in Homer, the reader must make ex- plicit to himself. ^neas, too, is about to perish, when he is picked up and carried off by his mother, Venus. Another divine intervention ; what does it mean ? His mother, as Zeus says, is not warlike; she, BOOK FIFTH. 235 who may be considered to have imparted her character to her son, rescues him. ^neas, though hurt, got out of that fight in Venus's fashion ; the strong contrast is with Diomed, who, though now wounded, is performing deeds of vnlor, and has just vanquished JEneas. In like manner, tlie weak Goddess rescued her favorite, Paris, in his duel with Menelaus in the Third Book; now 'her own son, in a closer kinship than Paris, is borne by her from the battle. Such is the shadowy suggestion, which cannot well be pushed out into clear day-light. Perhaps, however, the interference is purely external. iEneas himself h;id nothing to do with his flight; he was simply carried off by his mother in a swoon of pain. Such is not Homer's usual way, we feel certain ; his poem is a poem of freedom. Still, he has his conventional, even mechanical passages, and he sometimes nods. In this Book for instance, Vulcan rescues his priest's son from Diomed in a purely external way; Pal- las, the partisan Greek Goddess, loves the Trojan builder of the ships in which Paris took Helen ; Menelaus, Greek though he be, is dear to Trojan Mars. Homer has his artificialities — nay, his soulless ritual ; but this is when he nods. When he is awake, he beholds the divine and human in- one, and portrays both in the form of God and man who co-operate ; the Upper and Lower 236 BOOK FIFTH. Worlds become confluent to his vision, unite and produce the God-sent deed of the man. b. But Diomed is not satisfied with wounding the mortal son ; he proposes to vanquish the im- mortal mother herself. This he must do, if he be the true Greek hero; he must conquer the mother and the Goddess of this Trojan world. He pursues and overtakes her, and draws her divine blood, the ichor; we may think of it as the pure principle of herself, not derived from the physical elements, " the wheaten loaf and the dark wine." It is that which led Helen astray, that which all the Greeks are fighting, and chiefly this Greek Hero. Diomed tries to crush this principle, to make it cease its conflict with the Greeks. If he can drive it permanently from the field, he may well think that the war is ended. Thus the old poet seeks to show this Trojan conflict in its essence, to indicate what every true Greek must meet and put down. It is not a con- test of muscle simply ; in the brawny arm is a God who drives it; that God must at times ap- pear, lest men forget that it is he, and not them- selves, directing the battle. The hostile deity, too, must step forth in person and be conquered; Venus cannot even rescue her own son in the 'pinch of danger. Brave Diomed, we can see, has pierced the heart of this whole Trojan difficulty ; for himself, at least, he has settled the question ; BOOK FIFTH. 237 he "will not be fascinated by that sensuous God- dess of beauty. For listen to his stern words addressed to her in person: "Yield, daughter of Zeus, quit the war; is it not enough for thee to delude weak women? " Thus the Greek Hero has suppressed the Trojan Goddess and driven her out of the field. Moreover he has given a strong hint of her character and vocation. c. But Venus is a Goddess, the daughter of Zeus, and is now to have her case brought before the highest tribunal. She passes from below to Olympus ; the means of her transition thither introduces two divinities. Iris, the messenger, whose rainbow arch spans heaven and earth, and makes a road up to the skies on which Gods can travel home, leads her forth. Horses and chariot for her i-apid flight from the war she borrows of Mars, who has no use for them now, being still kept at a distance from the battle by the skill of Pallas. Venus arrives on Olympus, falls at the knees of her sympathetic mother, Dione, and pre- fers her bitter complaint : " Not between Greeks and Trojans is now the strife, but the Greeks are fighting the Immortals." It is, indeed, a heavy charge, but it is what the Greeks must do, and it is just this contest which makes the soul of the Book. But let us listen to the response of that mother : " Endure, my child, and hold tliyself up, tliough 2o8 BOOK FIFTH. in pain." It is, indeed, noble advice, divinely worthy; it hints that Gods, too, must suffer — yea, suffer for the sake of mortals. In times past they have often thus suffered ; men have assailed divinity ; such seems to be the world's order. She cites from mythical lore three cases of high deities — Mars, Pluto, Juno — whom men have made to suffer; into her speech bursts up this ancient faith of peoples, wrapped in dim legends, yet very real. Thrice she repeats that magic word *' suffer," deeply intoning the note which palpitates through her whole speech, and sug- gesting a kind lyrical refrain which may have been taken from some old hymn. It is a most motherly, tender discourse, voicing an ancient religion of suffering, and in its sympathy giving strong consolation by its sweet counsel, " endure, endure." Alas! that wild daughter, Venus, is, one thinks, the last person to endure. Still further, the Gods have brought miseries upon one another on account of men, and have had to struggle and suffer. Assuredly, the con- flicts of mortals are taken up to Olympus, and there divide the Gods; this Trojan conflict has separated the deities into two hostile parties, as seen in the whole Iliad as well as in this Book of the Iliad. For the earthly struggle has its true meaning in the souls of the contestants, whereof the image is reflected in the Olympian struggle. The Upper World is the spiritual counterpart of BOOK FIFTH. 239 the Lower World ; Homer never fails to give both. Such is the fate of Gods, aud Dione bids her daughter endure. What a shadow of prophecy the old poet, singing 1,000 years before Christ, throws forward upon the future ! There is the hiut that the God must suffer, possibly die in pain through the actions of men, and for the sake of men. Yet there is danger for a mortal to strive with an immortal ; death is not far off when he sets himself up against a divine reality. Thus Dione utters a gloomy prophecy over Diomed ; but he has another deity on his side. By the authority of Pallas he has assaulted the Goddess ; he is but the human instrument of a divine mover. He will not, then, perish so soon, and Dione finds her limit in another deity. In her plaintive tone lies a tragic depth ; she feels that the Gods too are tragic, only they are divinely tragic. Such is the sympathetic, motherly utterance to Venus on Olympus; a second utterance is that of bitter hostility from Palhis. This takes the form of the most acrid sarcasm : the wound of Venus comes from an attempt to lead astray some Greek dame to Troy ; the Goddess, caressing her, was pricked by the golden buckle of her garment. A biting allusion to the story of Helen ; the God- dess is indeed pricked severely by iier own deed in its consequences ; the truth [)oisons the sarcasm. The wound of Diomed is the prick of Helen's pin, 240 BOOK FIFTH. if we wish to let the fancy run a little with the suggestion. Now comes the third utterance to Aphrodite — not that of love or of hate, but the decision of the world-judge arranging the divine order. " Warlike deeds have not been assigned thee, my child, but the desireful deeds of marriage." She was out of her sphere in war; the world-re- gent remands her back into her proper function. Zeus sets his seal upon the victory of Diomed ; the first grand appeal from mortal to immortal is settled ; the further hint is flashed through to the end, that the Greek is to put down Venus, the Trojan Goddess, by decree of the Highest. II. We may now take up the second Part and be- hold it moving in a certain harmony of develop- ment with the first Part ; both Parts we must see to be built upon the same plan, yet in symmet- rical counterpart to each other. The three phases again appear; first is the struggle of mortal with mortal, organized, however, and directed by a God; the second is the struo-o-le of mortal with divine ; the third is the final decision on Olympus in favor of the mortal. a. In the multifarious tumult of conflicts which follow is seen the hand of the divine organizer, Apollo, who is to bring back order and tempo- BOOK FIFTH. 241 rary victory to the Trojans, as the advantage in the first Part was with the GreeJss. The position of Apollo, in this Book is remarkable ; he is a sort of divine guardian of Troy, standing dimly in the background everywhere, and setting in motion his instruments for liis work. He has his divine counterpart in Pallas on the Greek side, who seems, however, the stronger. Apollo is now a Trojan God ; hereafter he will step out of this obscure Oriental background and become a Greek divinity, the God of Light itself . Homer speaks of rocky Pytho and its treasures; but the rise of Apollo's sun npon Hellas does not take place in Homer's day. Apollo first gives a strong warning to the Hero Diomed, who, forgetful of the advice of Pallas, has assaulted him as if he were a Venus. There is, then, an element in Troy which is not to be put down or destroyed by the Greek; it is Pha^bus Apollo, whose voice now speaks forth in terrible rebuke to the audacious warrior: " Dare not, O mortal ! deem thyself the equal of a God. ' ' That voice quite cows the demonic spirit of Diomed, and he retires; the central Hero of the Greeks has for a time the divine energy taken out of him, to the great advantage of the Trojans. Now Apollo can rouse Mars, who is well des- ignated by his epithets, " blood-besprent, mortal- destroying, wall-smiting," the God of pure vio- lence, as the influence of Pallas and her agent, 10 242 BOOK FIFTH. Diomed, is paralyzed for the time. This God of violence always, it seems, needs a God of wisdom to direct him; he takes the form of Acamas, and exhorts the Trojans ; Sarpedon, too, is his indirect instrument in stirring up Hector, the greatest of the Trojans, to fresh combat. But Mars must beware of Pallas, and wait till he has seen her go away ; if she, with her strength and wisdom, remains with the Greek host, he can do but little. Furthermore, Apollo makes important use of -^ueas, whom he, stepping out of the air, had rescued when dropped by the wounded Venus. Still -^neas, as the very son of the Trojan divine conception, must be present somehow in the bat- tle; so Apollo makes an image of him, round which the Trojans fight; that is, perhaps, the Poet's way of saying they imagined him to be present — indeed, they must have some image of some such being in their souls. But, next, Apollo brings tlie veritable -3]neas into the battle, fully cured, for that wound of his was not a very serious one bodily, and the God of wisdom has cured the spirit's wound of the stroke of terror by a short delay in his temple. This dealing of Apollo with ^neas seems quite external, it is not in Homer's highest vein. In general, it may be said that this Book is distinctively marked by the external way in which the Trojan Gods specially perform their office. BOOK FIFTH. 243 Such is Apollo's organization of the Trojan forces which advance to meet the Greeks, who are now worsted, ^neas, true to his mother's spirit, retires and vanishes from the conflict; two lesser Greeks can put him down. But the Greek heroes in the main are driven back; even Diomed, the central tigure, now withdraws be- fore Hector. We mark the cowed spirit, though a good excuse is given; Diomed sees Mars beside Hector and declines to fight with a God. But to put down the Trojan deities is the supreme func- tion of the Greek Hero; he will yet do so, with another draught of inspiration from Pallas in his body. Still we must here note his limitations, he is not the supreme hero, he has moments of great valor, and then droops. Herein we can see the motive for his conduct in the next Book. The Poet has not failed to give us a single pict- ure of the whole present situation in the duel between Sarpedon and Tlepolemus, which fol- lows at this point. The one, son of Zeus, aids Troy; the other, grandson of Zeus, aids Greece. The children of the supreme Hellenic God are on both sides; it is a struggle in the Hellenic race. But in this momentary phase of it the Greek is slain, and the Trojan severely wounded ; the con- test is nearly equal, the balance now leaning to the side of Troy. The struggle of mortal with mortal thus culminates in this little e[)isode ; those critics who would cut it out would make the 244: BOOK FIFTH. whole poem bleed. Moreover, this talk of the two warriors turns upon a pre- Homeric legend, the first taking of Troy by Hercules, the grand Greek demi-god and defender of the Hellenic world. This gleam of an earlier conflict with Troy has its susgestion for the present conflict. Before the present war Troy has had to be disciplined for her tendency ; she, therefore, represents some- thing: which seems to be recurring in the Greek world, which, however, must be valiantly fought and suppressed. One of the many strands which weave this Book into the entire Iliad is Hector. He is at present the bold warrior mainly; Mars fights at his side to the vision of Diomed and of the Greeks. But he is now seen to be very different from ^neas, son of Venus, with which deity he has nothing to do; in the next Book tlie ethical element in his character will unfold into supreme radiance, so that he will stand in perfect contrast to Paris also. Hector is the Greek in Troy, con- demning as a moral man, but defending as a pa- triot, his country. At present he is the com- panion of the God of War, which trait is his too ; a possible hint of his future unfolding may also be gathered. h. Now the Greek principle, embodied in Juno and Pallas, is to be seen rising up against this Trojan success and taking possession of Diomed, that he again fight a Trojan God. The scene is BOOK FIFTH. 245 truly Olympian in grandeur; the description of the two Goddesses getting ready to assert their sovereignty is not only sublime, but full of the deepest poetic suggestion. Juno prepares the divine chariot and steeds, by which both are borne; Pallas lays aside her celestial garment and puts on the terrible dress of war, the very mail of Zeus. Then that wonderful gate of the skies, guarded by the Hours, " to whom have been intrusted Olympus and high Heaven, to open and close the thick cloud thereof; " that gate, watched over by Time, through which the lower deities must pass in their divine conveyance in order to reach Zeus, " sitting apart from other Gods on the highest Olympian peak ; " that gate we too must see through, behind the cloud, to the seat of the son of Cronus. Out of Time, out of the finite world, it leads to the Infinite, who is now consulted upon this Trojan question, and gives his decree that Mars, God of mere senseless vio- lence, be driven from the field. The voice of the last necessity we must hear in that; let us then look below to the Trojan plain. The mortal instrument must be found; it is again Diomed, can be none other, for he has in him the most capacity for the divine energy. Juno, of course, finds the Greeks, and calls to them, with Stentor's voice, like that of fifty men. One comparison she makes which nuist be noted : " while Achilles went to war, the Tro- 246 BOOK FIFTH. jans Dever passed their gates." Achilles is then missed; he is lar greater than the next best man, Diomed, who cannot be the Hero of the whole Iliad, but of one of its Books only, which Book implies as its setting the mightier Hero, now ab- sent from battle. A small, tender fiber, to be sure, is this allusion of Juno's, easily disposed of by an excision ; but hundreds of such delicate fibers, almost invisibly woven through the organic body, are cut asunder by any theory which breaks up the unity of the poem. Diomed is found by Pallas ; he recognizes the Goddess, as he has before recognized Mars — a most important trait jn a Hero ; then he states her former command as his excuse for withdrawing. But she now gives him a tenfold draught of in- spiration : "Fear not Mars nor any other God, for I shall be thine aid." Zeus is indeed behind this strong assurance, which descends into the mortal Hero, the recognizer of Gods, and in his breast finds the ready response. Pallas must be inside of him as well as outside of him. Again Diomed -engages in combat with a Trojan God ; to be sure, he is under the guidance of Pal- las, who is greater than Mars, the deity of mere violence; she is Goddess of war and wisdom united. Such, too, is the inner trait of Diomed now; the Goddess can employ him, because her character is within him. That skill of Pallas in catching and turning aside the spear of Mars be- BOOK FIFTH. 247 longs to Diomed also, we may well think; and likewise her skill in guiding the spear to wound the God, who thereat goes off bellowing with the cry of nine or ten thousand men — a comic mark both of his streno;th and of his divine lack of self- command, violence broke loose in pain. So the other God of the Trojans representing passionate blind havoc, is foiled at his own game and by his own means, being wounded and driven from the field by a mortal Greek. c. He too carries his appeal to Zeus, his fa- ther, the highest God, without the intercession of the mother, as in the case of Venus. His complaint is quite like hers — she is his wife ac- cording to some legends, his paramour according to others, but in this Book she calls him brother — " the Gods suffer fearfully from one another, do- ing favors to men." Chiefly he compLuns of his rival on Olympus, Pallas, "thy mad, mischievous daughter, whom thou dost not check in word or deed," and who has now twice incited a mortal to take up arms against a God. Such, however, is just the highest function of Pallas ; she must first give men wisdom, and then the courage to main- tain wisdom by force, if necessary, Tlie com- plaint of Mars is humorous ; a God complaining must always have in him a touch of humor, though it be unconscious — an iufiuite being complaining of defeat, of his own finitude, above which he is supposed to be sublime. Particularly is 248 . BOOK FIFTH. Mars humorous in this speech, complaining of the very thing he is guilty of, violence earnestly blaming violence. The decision of Zeus is most severe ; the God of Strife has his character set before himself from the mouth of the hist arbiter of the world. Zeus proclaims him the most hateful of deities, forever disturbing the divine harmony of earth and Olympus; moreover, he shifts from side to side, like the fortune of war, a very turncoat of a God. Again the Supreme Power declares that a deity has suffered justly at the hands of a mortal. Still it is not well for an Olympian to suffer too much, so Zeus in his paternal character relents to the extent of putting his wounded son in charge of PfBon, surgeon of the Gods. The two Trojan spiritual principles Diomed has vanquished ; he is equally strong against blandishment or violence. Such is the Greek Hero presented in this Book with wonderful life and color, with all the charm of poetry and spiritual faith. Hope, too, it im- ages, the deepest hope of the race, wherein the man is shown iiohtino; and overcominoj Gods hos- tile and mighty, that he place himself in accord with the Highest. We cannot help asking ourselves what are the two principles which are represented by Venus and Mars whom Diomed has put down ? The first demand of the reader is for an interpretation. We have already learned about Venus in connection BOOK FIFTH. 249 with Helen. She is love in its sensual manifestation, lovedivorcedfroraitspurposeandsoul, the Family ; she is, in consequence, h)ve in its self-indulgence, and thus is the effeminate, unwarlike, luxurious. The Greek woman Helen has been made the vic- tim of such a love, and is held in its bondage by Paris and the Trojans. But the Greek Hero meets and wounds the Goddess, and all that she represents; also the Olympian household, the di- vine Family of the Greeks, shows itself hostile to Venus. This is essentially the decision of Hel- en's case by the last authority ; moreover, Zeus is shown to be emphatically a Greek and not a Tro- jan deity ; he is now such as he appears in the out- come of the struggle. Veinis cannot defend her- self, much less her own people ; the world- judg- ment is against her and them. .Mars is not the effeminate, but the violent principle; senseless cruelty, rnge, the lover of strife and blood, changing without principle fi'om side to side, a divine condottiere . We must mark his corre- sponding opposite on the Greek side, Pallas, who combines war and intelligence, while Mars is the irrational violence of war, which is at present holding Helen in captivity against her rescuers. Both Mars and Venus have the Oriental tend- ency in their characters: love without its ethical or rational purpose, war without its ethical or rational purpose ; both these Trojan deities are suppressed by Dioraed below and by Zeus 250 BOOK FIFTH. above — the Greek man and tlie Greek God in their highest potence. Wherein we mark a sig- nificant hint of the outcome of the whole poem, and a thought harmonious only with the unity of the Iliad. This thought can be truly seen in one sole way — that is, through an insight into the struct- ure of the Book. The idea is at once suggested by the organism; this organism we have seen moving on two symmetrical lines which show the same general purport, namely the reference of the combat below on earth to the supreme ar- biter of this great Hellenic conflict, to Zeus. There is an ascent from the terrestrial to the Olympian world twice, and twice the same de- cision is heard from above. That decision against the two most prominent Trojan deities is really a decision against Troy and the Trojan principle. One cannot help thinking that this book touches the very heart of the struggle, and is prophetic of the whole Iliad, springing, indeed, from its inmost soul. It bears the decree of the Highest that the mortal Greek may meet and conquer the Trojan divinities; what a profound and world-embracing glance is that! Supreme poetic vision we feel it to be, a look of the old bard into the bottom of the Uni- verse. Still we must not suppose that the Trojan con- flict is ended with the suppression of Mars and BOOK FIFTH. 251 Venus. Among mortals in Troy we have beheld, besides Paris and his tendency, Hector, who is soon (in the next Book) to shine forth not in his warlike, but in his ethical glory; to put him down will be a far harder task. But among the deities at Troy have we not seen with wonder Phffibus Apollo, at one time stepping forth out of this Trojan background with his word and his deed, and then dropi)ing back into it, like a gleam of liofht vanishins; into darkness? Who is he? A certain undevelopment he has, a lack of dis- tinct outline, yet a mighty reality we feel him to be; in him this Orient has something permanent which will not be lost in the flames of Troy. Two of its Gods, those of sensuality and of vio- lence, may well be suppressed; but Phcebus can- not be spared; his home will yet be transferred to Hellas, where he will become the chief Greek oracle, though in Homer he looks out of a dim Oriental setting, not yet advanced to his true being. Such is our Fifth Book, in its own unity and in its place in the unity of the Iliad, though it has been torn all to pieces by Gerjnan comment, as well as torn out of its palace in the poem. Un- doubtedly there are some loose threads hanging from the garment, but this does not show that it is not woven, nay, carefully cut and made, into a well-fitting robe. Loose threads can always be found, particularly if we pick them out with 252 BOOK FIFTH. a sharp-pointed instrument; not tlie garment, but the picker is the thing deficient in unity. This microscopic criticism, if not corrected by healthy natural eye-sight, will destroy every organic Whole; the microscope will exaggerate the almost invisible fly-speck to a monstrous heap of dung which fills the whole field of vision. No wonder that Goethe, the man who saw totali- ties in science as well as in poetry, hated the microscope. It is not known when the IJiad was divided in- to Books, or who made the division ; it doubtless took place a long time after Homer, being usually ascribed to one of the Alexandrian grammarians. But this Book is cited by a title of its own, as early as the time of Herodotus, who calls it the Aristeia of Diomed, that is, the highest deeds of Diomed. It was probably first sung in Argos, the home of Diomed, in the form of a lay or hymn to a local hero, who took part in the great national conflict with Troy. Hardly was that early form its present one ; it was picked up by the national poet in his wanderings, trans- muted into the noble poetic shape which it now bears, and put into its place in the complete epos of the nation. Many other hints of pre-Homeric lays do we find in this Book. What Dione says to Venus about the sufferings of the Gods has the feeling and movement of an ancient hymn, deep-toned and BOOK FIFTH. 253 far-hinting. Ttie deeds of Sarpedon could have well been a transformed Lycian ballad. The legend of those horses of iEneas, sprung from the stock of Zeus, is a glorification of the equine breed, and may have been sung in some old lay in which the blooded horse had a divine pedigree. The story of Pand:ir shows local knowledge and color. But whatever we may think of particular cases, we may be sure that the materials of the poem were furnished to Homer by his people, in a condition more or less crude and disorganized. He is not the creator, but the organizer and trans- figurer of those primitive chaotic materials — he is the poet. But this form of his makes their worth and permanence. It would be quite impossible to turn this Book, with its complete organism, back into the rude fragmentary ballads out of which it was made. Why resolve the gold coin, pure, shining, fair-figured into the earthy ele- ments from which it was freed with so much labor and genius? Without Homer's touch these old ma- terials had long since sunk in the stream of Time. For the sake of comparison, we shall add the structure of this Book as given in Hentze's edition of Ameis' s Anlutng. I. Superiority of the Greeks through Pallas, who keeps Mars at a distance, and gives fame to Diomcd. (Lines l-45;'5.) 1. Deeds of Diomed till wounded by Bandar. (1-113.) 254 BOOK FIFTH. 2. Combat of Diomed with xEneus and Pandar, and the wounding of Venus. (113-453.) II. Superiority of the Trojans under lead of Mars in the absence of Pallas. (Lines 454-710.) 1. Restoration of the battle by Mars and Hec- tor, before whom Diomed retires. (454-626.) 2. Combat betweeu Sarpedon and Tlepolemus, and the further exploits of Hector. (627-710.) III. Intervention of Here and Pallas in favor of the Greeks, and the wounding of Mars. (Lines 711-908.) This is a purely external division, with no or- ganic soul in it; the inner movement and essence of the Book are not only not brought out, but not even suspected. With such a view of its or- ganism the Book falls to pieces, and one is not surprised to tind the commentator cutting out first the myths of the Gods, then the myths of mortals, and leaving — what? The central fact to be seen is the double movement up from earth to Olympus ; this is the thought, this is the structure on which all details are borne; both thought and structure become one to the poetic vision, though they be separated for a moment by a critical analysis, in order that they be better comprehended. Thus, the vision of the bard is justified and fulfilkd in the reason of the critic, not by tearing the poem to pieces, but by uniting it in a new bond of harmony. In conclusion, by way of emphasis and contrast, BOOK FIFTH. 255 we shall set down the structure once more, but in a synoptical form. There are two grand sweeps or movements upward — the two aisles of this poetic temple leading up to the High Altar, where the Supreme God is judging. I. First sweep from Earth to Olympus, in which Diomed puts down Venus. (1-431.) a. The general struggle of mortal with mortal below on the plains of Troy. b. The special struggle of the mortal with the Goddess, who is wounded and put to flight. c. This last struggle referred to Zeus, who decides in favor of the mortal. II. Second sweep from Earth to Olympus, in which Diomed puts down Mars. (432 to end.) a. The ireneral struggle of mortal with mortal below on the plains of Troy. b. The special struggle of mortal with the God, who its wounded and put to flight. c. This last struggle referred to Zeus, who decides in favor of the mortal. BOOK SIXTH. This Book is perhaps the favorite Book of the Iliad with most readers. It has a character of its own throughout; in spite of all diversity, its parts hold together in a common soul. That soul we shall try to feel afresh in modern ways of thinking and speaking. The first line utters a fundamental fact, which holds good to the end : " The Gods withdrew from the conflict between Greeks and Trojans." Accordingly, we shall see no divine intervention in this Book ; the strug- gle is handed over to mortals, to be carried on or to be reconciled by them as best they can. The withdrawal of the Gods, announced at the start and intended by the poet, is one of the facts which keep the various portions of the Book in unity with itself. The connection with the preceding Book is close and multifarious. Diomed is still the cen- tral figure, though he is now to undergo a change. He has put down two divinities that were par- tisans of Troy; clearly he is the man whom the Trojans must fight, or conciliate, if possible. Both Diomed and Troy show a new aspect into which they unfold from their antecedent phase. (256) BOOK SIXTH. 2bl If Mars and Venus were the sole Gods of Troy, the city would now fall; but there is in Troy something else unconquered which at present comes into the foreground, and which Diomed is not able to subdue. We have already noticed that there is a Trojan deity, Apollo, from whom he fled; but Apollo has quit the conflict along with the other Gods, and does not appear in this Book. Not a God, then, but a man now appears in Troy, Hector; we have seen him a number of times hitherto as the brave captain of his people, who is trying to repel the invaders of his coun- try ; we have also seen him as a bitter denouncer of Paris. Now he is to be shown as the one whom we may call the ethical hero of Troy, the bearer of all its noble instincts; with him in it, the city cannot be taken by Diomed, or by any- body else. He is the one Trojan man who has to perish before his country can perish. In the present Book he is called to be a mediator ; he invokes the Family, all the domestic life of Troy, to pacify the wrathful Goddess, Pallas, who has lent such power to Diomed. He will be shown in his own home, as son, as husband ; his -brother, Paris, will be held up before us in contrast; thus the inner ethical scission in Troy will be made manifest, revealing the two parties and the two tendencies of the city. A religious man, a do- mestic man, a patrotic man we l)ehold in Hector ; we may truly call him the Greek in Troy. 258 BOOK SIXTH. Yet just in this fact lies tlie limit on which he breaks, which makes him tragic. He does not believe in the detention of Helen, yet he fights for the nation which detains her; it is, alas! his own nation. His conviction clearly is, that the Greek cause is right ; still he assails that cause in the defense of his country. In nobly maintain- ing his own Family and State, he is led to assail the principle of Family and State. His very virtue whelms him into guilt, and this is his tragedy. Of all the Books of the Iliad this is the Book of the Family. The inner condition of Troy is brought before us ; we see the home in the midst of war ; we see especially the woman in her do- mestic life ; yet this life is one of terrible anxiety, and perpetually threatens to become death. The Greeks in their camp have not the Family, and, hence, cannot show this domestic phase of the conflict. Still, the Family is the heart of their cause; are they not fighting for its integrity in the restoration of Helen? But Troy alone can show the home, in its deep antagonism to war — bella detestata matribus. This Book, accordingly, has a conciliatory character; the Family seeks the peace of life, the mother will keep her son, the wife will keep her husband. Emotions averse to home-destroying battle we feel every- where ; the prayer goes up to the Gods that they would ward off the fateful stroke from the Family. BOOK SIXTH. 259 It hints the deepest truth that the poet invokes woman with her domestic institution as the me- diatorial principle which seeks to conciliate the conflict. Yet these sad, piteous Trojan women are tragic too, their very supplication is its own denial ; they, praying for the safety of Troy and of themselves, pray for the detention of Helen and the destruction of the Family. Can the Goddess listen to such a petition? Note, too, the place of the Book; it is put between Books of war ; thus it gives relief from the bloody strain of battle ; we tarry upon it as a peaceful oasis before plunging into the storm which rages around it. The object of the Book, then, is the concilia- tion of Diomed, who has conquered the Trojan deities of sensuous love and of blind violence — deities whom every Greek Hero must put down ere he can truly fight for Helen, who is to be rescued from the domination of just those two Gods. Accordingly, the opposite principle in Troy, the pure and peaceful element of the Family, must next be called up to try to save the city. Will the plan be successful ? Yes and no ; this double answer leads us to consider the double nature of Diomed, and the new turn which his character now takes. Diomed has already shown two sides, the divine and human, both of w^hich were active in him durino; his srand career in the Fifth Book. The 260 BOOK SIXTH. poet tells us that the hero repeatedly received suggestions from Pallas ; by her aid he conquered Mars and Venus, she being the Goddess of war and wisdom combined, and at the same time a viro;in unstained. Thus she is the antagonist of those two Trojan deities in her very nature. Now Diomed has Pallas in him, he sees her form and hears her voice, she animates him; this is his divine side which raises him above himself. Yet she is outside of him too, she is the spirit abroad which puts down the Trojan, she is the Greek spirit which will conquer Troy, or that portion of Troy represented by Mars and Venus. When she leaves him, he is human, is but Diomed, the individual, not a great warrior, or at least not so great as when the divine energy is working in him, and hurling him against the Gods themselves. He, as individual, has certain friendly, paternal, ancestral ties, he is connected in some way, as all the Greeks are, with the Trojans; on this per- sonal side he may be a[)proached and be recon- ciled. But the reconciliation of Diomed, in order to be complete, must be double, must include both the divine and human elements. It must first seek to placate Pallas, the divine element not merely of the Hero, but, to a certain extent, of the whole Greek enterprise; she is not only in him, but in the entire cause. After that, Diomed, the person, may be conciliated. Of the two at- BOOK SIXTH. 261 tempts, the former does not succeed, cannot suc- ceed, if Greece is to endure ; Pallas will reject the Trojan prayer, and the war must go on. But the latter attempt succeeds, in part at least; Diomed, the individual, no longer knows the voice of the Goddess, stops in the midst of the conflict, and is reconciled. AVe shall hear of him again, but he will never fully recover his divine energy. We are now to see this thought taking body in the structure of the Book. Four divisions of it are plainly marked : 1. A series of bitter single combats (1-72). 2. The sending of Hector (73-118). 3. The meeting of Glaucus and Dio- med (119-236). 4. Hector in the city (237- 529). But these four divisions all stand in rela- tion to one thought, that of reconciliation, which has the two sides, human and divine. From the first to the second division is a movement which passes from the unreconciled human element to the attempt to reconcile the divine element. From the third to the fourth division is another movement which passes from the reconciled hu- man element to the unreconciled divine element. Thus there is a double sweep from the human to the divine, which gives the general symmetry in the structure of the Book. Yet the Gods do not appear ; it is simply an attempt on the part of men to conciliate them. The main suggestion of the whole Book is, that though individuals may make peace and drop out of the conflict, the Gods 262 BOOK SIXTH. will not be reconciled, the spiritual principle in this Trojan war cannot be compromised. The noblest character in Troy forebodes that the city must be destroyed. These four organic portions may now be unfolded in their two symmetrical movements. First we behold the fierce, unreconciled struggle among men, which passes, however, to an attempt to reconcile the divine principle, as being the source of the conflict. The Trojans turn from fighting the Greeks to propitiating the Goddess of the Greeks, Pallas. a. In a series of bloody single combats we see the unreconciled nature of the struggle between individual Greek and Trojan. For the Gods have withdrawn and turned the conflict over to men, who surge in battle through the plain. It is a contest of individual strength and courage with- out direct divine interference on either side. The most important Greek heroes Ajax, Diomed — note that Diomed now comes after Ajax, an ominous hint of what is to follow — Euryalus, Ulysses, and others, are brought before us in rapid pictures, each hero slaying his man, or two or even four men. A fierce, gory time of which the reader soon has enough. But the most prominent and the typical instance is the fate of Trojan Adrastus, who, being over- BOOK SIXTH. 263 turned in his chariot, is taken alive by Menelaus, and offers larg-e ransom. Menelaus is inclined to be merciful, when his brother, the leader of the Greeks, runs up and rebukes him : " Let none es- cape, not even the babe in its mother's womb." Then he smote the cowering prisoner, and, put- ting his heel on the breast of the fallen man, jerked out the ashen spear. As an image of im- placable temper, this will suffice. Old Nestor, too, who is usually the reconciler among the Greeks, is full of the spirit of the time; " Let no man tarry behind for plunder, but let us slay men, and afterward at leisure strip the dead." The whole stress here is the human struggle un- reconciled and without mercy. b. Now comes the attempt on the part of the Trojans to reconcile the divine element which has animated the Greeks, and specially Diomed, in the preceding Book. If they can take away that power from their enemy, they can indeed win. Will they do works meet for reconcihation? Such is the underlying question of the whole Book. The matter is not to be settled by an expiatory ritual, but by a complete undoing of the wrongful deed. Hector is taken from the front of battle and sent to the city. This is the suggestion of Ilel- enus, " the very best of augurs," the man of re- ligion who well knows that some divine i)owcr is fightinff for the Greeks, even though the Gods 264 BOOK SIXTH. have outwardly withdrawn from the contest. He has the gift of vision, and sees the very divinity who has been helping Diomed. This is Pallas, who must now be propitiated by the Trojans with a grand procession and sacrifice. The Goddess is to be taken away from the Greek hero, if possi- ble, that he be shorn of his strength, and become like another man. It should be noticed that Hel- enus considers Diomed the o-reatest hero of the Greeks, greater than even Achilles, " whom men say to be Goddess-born." The fact that a God- dess helps Diomed, does not detract from his greatness ; indeed just that constitutes his great- ness. Thus the poet naively takes for granted that the deity must be in the man as well as out- side of him, and that he whom the Gods help most is in his own right the mightiest individual. Man is truly free and himself just through divine aid. So the Trojans are going to try to conciliate Pallas Athena, the divine element of Diomed, and partly of the whole Hellenic world. We have al- ready seen that she is a strong Greek partisan among the Gods on Olympus; still she has her temple in Troy, in the sacred precinct of the acro- polis. It is an indication that both Greeks and Trojans belong to the same race, have the same worship, language, customs mainly; have the same Gods, who, however, are divided upon this cause of Helen, as the Hellenic race itself is divided for the same reason, and split into two hostile tend- BOOK SIXTH. 2G5 encies. Well is it then for tlie Trojans to propi- tiate the Greek Goddess in Troy. But why should Hector be selected, the mighty chieftain, and taken away from the head of his troops in the field? Why should not Helenas himself, the man of religion, go to perform a re- ligious mission? Hector is altogether the proper person, and none other; and Helenus knows it. Hector is the Greek in Troy, opposed to Paris, opposed to keeping Helen. In his heart he believes that the Greeks are right; still as a patriot he fights them when they assail his coun- try. In his conviction, Hector is most friendly to the Greek Gods ; truly they are his, and not Venus, not Mars. He is the man of all others in Troy, to conciliate these Greek deities ; in spirit he is most theirs, far more than Hel- enus, the soothsayer. Hector is the bearer of the Greek, versus the Asiatic influence in Troy. Pallas will listen to him, if she will listen to any Trojan. It is true that the offering is to be made by his mother, but he brings it about, he is just the one who might be expected to order such a sacrifice ; he is the mediator, through whose kin- dred soul the Greek Gods will speak, if they speak at all, to the Trojans. Before departing, he, by a special eff'ort, puts his troops in good spirits, and places them in a secure position. He animates his people till they drive back the Greeks who " think that one of 266 BOOK SIXTH. the immortals has descended from the starry heaven to help the men of Troy." Besides, he leaves vEneas behind, who is coupled with him in courage, fame, and command. But, while he is gone, Diomed, losing in some way his divine com- panionship, is individually reconciled. II. The second movement again passes from the human to the divine, showing on the one hand, that the individual Greek and Trojan may be reconciled, as in the case of Ghiucus and Diomed, but showing on the other hand, that the Gods hostile to Troy cannot be reconciled, at least while Helen is detained. a. The story of the meeting of Glaucus and Diomed on the field of battle, seems, at first sight, an episode disconnected from the main action; but its spirit is in unison with *the present Book, and, moreover, it is completely in Homer's man- ner, which often reflects the whole struggle in some far-off legend of other days. We behold the reconciliation of a Greek and Oriental, or better, of an Eastern and Western Greek, by re- ferring to the personal relations of their ances- tors, who were in the olden time allied by ties of hospitality. It is another declaration that Greek and Trojan are kin, both of one race; in the preceding Book we saw the same fact imaged in BOOK SIXTH. 2G7 the story of Tlepolemus and Sarpedon, son and grandson of Zeus, fighting each other on the plain of Troy. In the present instance the legend will throw a deep glance into the mean- ing of the whole war, w^ith the scission of the Hellenic people into East and West. In this story three mythical strands are twisted together ; the legend of the Thracian king told by Diomed, the legend of Bellerophon told by Glaucus, the legend of ancestral friendship ending in the re- conciliation of the descendants. 1. The speech of Diomed is remarkable; it indicates a great change in the hero of the Fifth Book. There Pallas had lent him the gift of knowing Gods from mortals in battle ; but now he cannot tell whether Glaucus be man or deity. There he assailed and put down Mars and Venus, and show^ed in that deed his highest heroism ; but now he says, " I shall not war with the Gods of heaven." Something has happened to him mani- festly. He cites the instance of Lycurgus, the Thracian king, who resisted the Bacchic cult and drove out the God, and who in consequence, did not live long. Here we have a case of a Greek ruler who is punished for his opposition to an Asiatic divinity, for Bacchus came to Greece from Asia, and is barely known to Homer. So at present Diomed would not fight a Trojan God ; he is terror-stricken at the fate of Lycurgus, who assailed an Oriental divinity that was enter- 268 BOOK SIXTH. ing European Greece. This is not our former Diomed; he is now afraid of calamity, afraid of not living long. Pallas has left him, the divine element has gone out of him, and we see only the human Diomed. He can now be reconciled. How shall we consider this change in Diomed ? German criticism, which is inclined to find many Homers everywhere in Homer, declares, in a number of representatives, that a new poet com- posed this famous episode, one who did not know, or disregarded the hero of the Fifth Book. But such a way of interpretation ignores the pro- cedure of Homer in a hundred places, and indeed of all supreme poets. These introduce great changes into their characters which the reader must poetically, and the interpreter logically, justify. In King Lear, how different is Cordelia of the First Act when she disappears, from Corde- lia of the Fourth Act when she appears again ! It is no explanation to say that there are two Cor- delias and two Shakespeares. And in the pres- ent case it lands us in the Kingdom of Nowhere to say thatthere are two Diomeds and two Homers. Under this difference we must see the unifying reason, and then we shall behold one character and one poet. If we look back at the Fifth Book, we find that this change in the man has been amply prepared. He does not attack Venus nor Mars till Pallas comes to him and specially inspires him. His BOOK SIXTH. 269 suceptibility to the divine influence is distinctly marked and limited ; without the Goddess he is but a common mortal, a good fighter still ao;ainst men, but not against Gods. He cannot command the celestial spell; at present the superhuman power has left him, and he knows it well. He will fight a mortal even now, but not a Trojan deity, as he has before done. He has manifestly reached his limit ; those two Gods' of Troy, Mars and Venus, are all that lie within the range of his heroship. It is evident that the poet has in mind the di- vine energy, which, when it seizes the individual, fills him with what is universal, both in power and vision. Or we may cull it a demonic possession, which makes the man more than himself — clearer, mightier, even taller in stature. When this power is off, the individual is like the rest of us ; thus it has happened to Diomed. In the Fifth Book he is held up and driven forward by a tremendous God-sent might ; in the Sixth Book there is still the memory of it among the Tro- jans, but he has lost it. This is his change and none other. 2. We now come to the speech of Glaucus and the marvelous tale which it contains. It ■begins sad, he speaks mournfully of the generations of men, transitory as the leaves on the trees. Why such a mood? Glaucus has already a presenti- ment of his Trojan destiny, and he strikes the 270 BOOK SIXTH. elegiac tone; indeed, his whole story is one of tragedy, which unconsciously includes himself. His family is a famous one, his ancestor came from Greece and settled in Lycia ; now he, the descendant, is fighting for Asia against his kin- dred and his nation. This is his fate, to which his first words are a pensive overture ; he has Orient- alized and he will perish, just as Troy, which has done the same thing, must be destroyed. But how did this retrogression to the East come about? Here the legend enters which tells of Bellerophon, the ancestor who made the change, and who Avas entangled in the fateful coils of the Orient. Bellerophon was a typical Greek Hero, of the highest family, of unstained character, of surpassing beauty and manly strength. Anteia, the king's wife — she was an Oriental woman, married ip Greece — was madly enamored of him, tried to tempt him, but without success. Then she falsely accused him to her husband the king, and Bellerophon had to suffer for wrongs which he never did. Here the legend touches another famous Oriental story, that of Potiphar's wife. Bellerophon is sent by the king to Lycia in Asia Minor, the home of Anteia, where the father-in- law, who is ruler of that country, receives a com- munication, by signs scratched on a tablet, that the bearer, who is Bellerophon, should perish. This passage has become famous, inasmuch as it introduces the question of Homeric writing. BOOK SIXTH. 271 and the further question whether the poems of Homer were written in the beginning. It is pkiin that these signs were a means of communication between absent people. But what was the na- ture of these signs ? Three main views have been held concerning them : first, that they were al- phabetic; second, that they were a cipher, agreed upon, and known to those persons alone who communicated; thirdly, that they were a kind of picture-writing. Let the reader take his choice ; any one of the three will do for the passage. To us the second view seems the most probable ; it holds that these signs were a conventional cipher not intelligible to their bearer, Bellerophon, who could doubtless have read the alphabet or the pictures, or, at least, would not naturally have been entrnsted with them. In consequence of the false accusation, Beller- ophon has to undergo the severest trials ; hard- ships were put upon him, that he might perish, yet he, the Greek Hero, must stand the Oriental test. In him the old poet shows how the best man, guiltless, must suffer, yet in his suffering triumph. It is this which proves that he is " the son of a God," though sprung of a mortal father, the elder Glaucus. His labors are three, all significant of Greek heroship. First ho slays the Chinuura, a monster made up of a lion, goat, and dragon, breathing forth fire — a mixture of ani- mal forms common to the mythology and art of 272 BOOK SIXTH. the East. This Oriental horror it is just the function of Greece and the Greek Hero to sup- press ; they must put down the beast and become ethical, they must put down the ugly and become beautiful. In many ways Greek legend has cel- ebrated this triumph of Hellas over Asia; the story of Troy is its completest expression. Nor is it carrying the thought too far if we consider the character of the three commingled animals, the lion, the goat, and the dragon — violence, salacity, the fire of the destroyer. At least, the bestial side of the world and of man as well as of art and of religion must be subordinated by the true Hellenic soul. The next task of Bellerophon was to subdue the Solymi, who, according to Herodotus, were the primitive inhabitants on the border of Lycia ; wild men we must consider them, whom the Greek Hero has to bring under the State and civilized order. Thirdly, he slew the Amazons, wild women, hostile to the Family, as they are repre- sented in Greek legend. Thus it is seen that the Greek Hero is producing the institutional world; he has performed three typical deeds, he subjects the animal, he vindicates State and Family; moreover, in these actions he calls forth a new realm, that of beauty. Greek art springs into existence just at this point; Greek mythology gives its own origin mythically : and the greatest poem of Hellas sings itself into being. In his BOOK ISIXTH. 273 final deed, Bellerophon touches the summit; those of his own race — the Lycians here — who would kill him stealthily, and destroy his cause, he slays to the last man. He is now the triumph- ant Greek Hero, having put down the foe within and without, even in the Orient, and is recognized as " the son of a God." But this is just where fatality enteis; adver- sity cannot conquer the Greek Hero, but pros- perity can. Bellerophon takes land and authority in Lycia, takes a wife and has children ; he mar- ries the king's daughter, a sister of that ill-famed Anteia, who was the beginning of all his woes. He enters the Family which has been his curse, and enters the State which has tried to destroy him ; out of Hellas he sinks into the embraces of the Orient. Like Themistocles, like Alexan- der, he Orientalized even in victory ; truly a typical Greek Hero, though thrown far back into Greek legend. How well does the old bard know his own race and its besetting temptation, especially the temptation of its great men ! AVriling of a remote mythical i)ast, he casts his light forward into the historic future, and pro- phetically reveals the destiny of his mightiest countrymen. Fate now overtakes the Greek Hero just in those institutional relations which he had once so valiantly maintained in their Hellenic spirit. The wild men, the Solymi, again make war; his 18 274 BOOK SIXTH. son perishes in conflict with them. His daughter is slain by Artemis for violation of the precepts of the chaste Goddess. Where now is the triumph of the Greek Family and State ? Bellerophon him- self goes crazy ; has he not already surrendered the rational principle of his life? He roams the Aleian plain, " hateful to all the Gods, consum- ing his mind, shunning the paths of men." Again we have to think he is the tragic imajre of the Greek Hero, who has renounced his Hellenic heritage and Joined the Orient. But this Glaucus who is talking — what shall we say to him, the grandson of the great Beller- ophon? He, too, has lapsed, he is fighting against the Greek cause, and for the detention of Helen. He has just told his own story in that of his grandfather; he is also fated to go the same way, and he has a strong presentiment of his destiny. Hence the melancholy tinge which colors his whole speech; it is as if he were mak- ing his own funeral oration. So the poet himself felt, we must think; a httle later Glaucus per- ishes. Tradition makes Homer a native of the islands of the ^gean, or even an Asiatic Greek; certainly he must have lived somewhere on the borderland, for he feels the struggle on both sides to its very heart-throb. With what sym- pathy, yet with what truth, he portrays the con- flict! In fact, his feelings seem rather to lean toward the Trojan side, though his head is al- BOOK SIXTH. 275 ways with the Greeks. The story of Bellerophon is a picture in miniature of the whole Trojan War, and his fate foreshadows its outcome : the Trojans, too, are Greeks, who have cast away the Greek heritage, and must perish. Many such little pictures, framed in some remote legend, we find in the Iliad; they are in the poet's mythical manner, and they bind the poem together in a new unity. In spite of critical scruples, we can think of only one man writing the great Trojan story and the little Lycian story, so closely is the meaning of both knit together. 3. Diomed listens to the tragic tale; he will not fight, but " plants his spear in the earth, and addresses the shepherd of the people with gentle words." He knows that the ancestors of himself and Glaucus were guests, and exchanged hospita- ble presents, one of which has descended to him, and with it the friendly relation. They, too, pledge faith not to slay one another, and exchange gifts as their ancestors had done, though the poet says that the gift of Glaucus was by far the more valuable. Does not this hint that Diomed, in his present condition, has got the best of the bar- gain by a cessation of the combat? At least, Diomed, the former fierce warrior, is reconciled vvith a man warring for Troy; he has allowed personal ties to tnrn aside his zeal from the uni- versal cause. If such considerations were to pre- vail, there would be no restoration of Helen, in 276 BOOK SIXTH. fact, no Greek world. Pallas appears to him no longer, the divine has gone out of his soul ; in the future, though he will again show bravery in battle, he will soon be wounded and withdraw from the struggle. h. The individual Greek Hero is now recon- ciled with an individual Trojan warrior ; we are next to see how the attempt of Troy to reconcile the divine element of the Greek side will succeed. When Hector enters the city from the place of war, the women gather around him, asking after husbands, sons, brother, friends. We witness the domestic forces of conciliation, which would put an end to the bloody struggle. But of these women three are selected as typical women, with whom Hector is brought into relation during his visit. The war primarily sprang from the wrong done to the domestic principle by Troy ; now we see the Trojan Family whirled into the tragic circle of the guilty act of Paris. Three families are brought before us in these three women, representing three phases of the domestic institution in Troy. The first is that of Hecuba, the queen, or at least the wife, of the king of the city, out of whose fifty sons she is the mother of nineteen. A glimpse of the Oriental harem is seen ; the one wife of the household is degraded into being one of many wives. Second is the family of Helen, estranged, in self-opposi- tion, a family based upon the ruins of the Family. BOOK SIXTH. 211 The third famiU' is that represented by Andro- mache, wife of Hector, the true famil}^, yet tragic to the last degree through its political environ- ment. 1. Hector first sees his mother at the palace of Priam ; this palace, with its fifty chambers for the king's children, is also significant. The son bids her take the fairest robe, " the one which is dearest to her," and make an offering of it to Pallas, that " she may keep off Diomed from the sacred city." This robe is laid on the lap of the Goddess by Theano, the priestess and the wife of Antenor, who is a leader of the Greek party in Troy together with Hector. Thus Pallas is be- sought by those nearest to her in the hostile walls to have mercy on " the city, wives, and children of the Trojans." But the Goddess refuses; why? She could do naught else without destroying herself. What is Troy doing ? Has it had pity ? Did it restore the stolen Helen to husband and child, when peacefully demanded back before the war? Is it not engaged in battle at this moment to keep the Family asunder? The prayer is a contradic- tion; if it be answered and Troy be successful, the home is indeed disrupted. No wonder that Pallas "shook her head." Behold now the rea- son. 2. This is Helen to whom Hector next comes in his visit, for the purpose of bringing Paris 278 BOOK SIXTH. back to the war. She is the woman whose pres- ence in Troy is a viohition of all the Trojan prayers to save Family and State. Hector is brought face to face with that Avhich nullities his mission, which gives the lie to his hope of aid from the Goddess. Troy will not undo the wrong, and a prayer for Troy is a prayer for the disruption of the home. Hector knows the o;uilt of his city, and feels it deeply; in fighting for his own Andromache he is compelled to fight against the restoration of the wife. Here is the man, Paris, who has thrown him into such a contradiction. No wonder Hector wishes that "the earth might gape open" for that baneful brother, the cause of the war, " whom Zeus reared to be the destruction of Troy, Priam, and Priam's sons." Paris em- bodies the tragic "^guilt of the whole city. Since the conflict with Menelaus in the Third Book he has shunned the war, he seems to be sulking in a kind of shame. It is clear that Paris is an im- portant man in Troy, a political rather than a military leader; his party evidently controls the city ; his presence is necessary, though he be not a very good fighter; at least, he 'is an uncertain combatant, sometimes brave, and sometimes not. When he arrives with Hector (see beginning of the next Book) he revives the drooping spirits of the army, but his warlike exploits are confined to one small feat of arms. There is no necessary BOOK SIXTH. 279 inconsistency between his character here given and that given in the Tliird Boolv, as some critics would make out. We find a difference, it is true, but this difference comes only through an added trait ; we see the man in a new situation, and for a now situation or turn of character, we need not conjecture a new Homer, nay, not even for an in- consistency. Helen is repentant, tearful, full of self-re- proach, quite as we saw her in the Third Book. The presence of Hector, the ethical Hero, doubt- less calls forth this strong confession of her internal state. But Hector himself is not with- out his struggle of soul; he is by no means at peace with his own conduct, as we see by his forebodings. At present he gives to Helen neither praise nor censure ; unhappy is her lot, and he is fighting to keep her thus. Still she, the beautiful woman in tears, does not lose the desire to please; she is still conscious of her beauty, and its power, nay, is aware of her fame present and future. She tries her magic spell upon Hector, but his answer is: " Do not ask me to sit, though loving me ; thou shalt not persuade rae." His mind is on his country, he will hasten to the battle-field " that I may defend the Tro- jans ; " but just now he is thinking of wife and child, whom he hurries forth to see. Thus Hec- tor is not detained by the blandishments and beauty of Helen from duty to Family and to 280 BOOK SIXTH. State; he is master over sensuous charms, still he, too, has his limit and his conflict. 3. The third woman whom Hector meets is Andromache, his wife, who has gone forth from her home to the city walls, weeping, because she has heard that the Trojans were hard pressed by the Greeks in battle. Husband and wife are seeking and thinking of one another ; we behold the true relation of the Family, in contrast to that of Helen and Paris, even to that of Hecuba and Priam ; moreover, the child is now present, while the marriage of Paris is fruitless, and that of Priam is quite too fruitful. Her speech tells the whole domestic tragedy of the Trojan war; father, brothers, even mother have perished in this fateful struggle between East and West. Hector is now all these and husband too. She tries to keep him from expos- ing himself to danger in the war. But he must go though he feels most profoundly her appeal. She is the tragic woman, whose institution is im- molated in war that it may be preserved in the end. The relief from their sorrow is furnished by the child; he is still their hope, and brings them in their tears to a smile, and to happier thoughts. Hector can pray to the Gods that the Trojans may say of his son: "This man is much better than his father," the noblest of heathen prayers, and sounding like an ancient stray note of the Paternoster, if we elevate it into BOOK SIXTH. 281 its highest significance out of its bloody set- ting. But ther' gloomy foreboding of Hector is the true voice of his situation and comes from his heart : — Yet -well iu my uudoubting mind I kuow The day sluiU come iu which. our sacred Troy, Aud Priam, and the people over whom Spear-beariug Priam rules, shall perish all. He feels that the Gods, Pallas and even Zeus cannot support Troy without stultifying them- selves. How can they protect the families of that Troy which wages a fierce war to disrupt the Family? Repentant Helen is seeking to be what Andromache is, and Hector is standing in the way, contrary to his own conviction; well may he utter the bodeful prophecy which contains the doom of himself aud his city. Hector, therefore, is a tragic character in the loftiest sense of the word ; the outer war has its spiritual image in the inner war of his own soul, and it is this inner war which is slaying him. He feels that the Greeks are right in demanding the restoration of Helen ; they are really fighting for his tenderest reUition — husband, wife, and child ; truly, the Greeks are fio-htin": for Hector, An- dromache, aud Astyanax in principle. On the other hand, Hector goes to war to save his coun- try, a high and noble action; but this very action 282 BOOK SIXTH. turns to wrong through the overshadowing wrong of the country. All this the hero feels; he knows his city must perish, and he must be in- cluded. The ethical order of the world is para- mount; Troy and all who maintain its violation must sink under the judgment of Zeus. Hector is so profoundly tragic because he, true to family and country in the highest degree, is driven to violate something still truer and higher — the supreme movement of the race above family and country, yet including them. He knows it, he fights his own true self, his victory would be his own ethical death. Harmony with Zeus alone is not tragic. What then, can Hector do? Change sides, and make war with the Greeks against his people? Thus he would assail his own individual family and nation ; he would have to turn against father, wife, kindred and countrymen. He is held fast in the vise of fate — if he fights for the Greeks, he fights against parent and people ; if he fights for Troy, he fights against the restoration of the wife. He is caught in the mill of the Gods; nor can he withdraw and be neutral in the war which is to settle this great question of Family ; that were indeed his spiritual death. Manifestly there is but one way to avoid being tragic, that is, to take sides with Zeus. But then Hector would not be Hector; losing his tragic limit he would lose the character which rouses such a deep BOOK SIXTH. 283 human interest, for we all have a possible tragic limit located somewhere in ourselves. The wife, and with her the Trojan women, are caught in the conflict between the State and Family; their city will not do justice in the case of the great domestic violation, and so destroys the domestic institution. But the husband is caught in the conflict between his nation and the ethical order of the world; the State will not do the universal right, and so falls under the doom of Zeus. The good men and women of Troy are tragic, they are ground to death in the conflict which Paris and the party of violation have called into existence. Still, there is one person in the city not des- tined to perish, but to be restored — that person is Helen. She is repentant, struggling to get rid of her thraldom, inner and outer, as yet without success; still she is striving. Whatever stands in the way of the estranged soul's returning to its true life, must go down ; such is the final de- cree. Troy stands in the way, Hector stands in the way; the poet with all his sympathy regis- ters the judgment against both. But in the Greek camp there is also a wrong which cannot be allowed to live. It is the wrong done by the Leader to Achilles. Troy cannot be taken till that violation be gotten rid of. Zeus is now disciplining the Greeks, his own people, to that end. But in Troy there is a greater wrong 284 BOOK SIXTH. which they are called to put down ; still they must set their own house in order before they can march to victory. This house-cleaning process is what Zeus has in hand just now; his method is to purify the Greeks through defeat. We see that the Greek divine principle will not be recon- ciled with Troy ; war must be renewed by the weary human combatants; wherewith we have reached the next Book. The Gods must come forward again; in the Sixth Book there was not one divine interference; though much besought, they did not appear, they are not to be concili- ated. BOOK SEVENTH. Each of the precediug Books has been marked by some special characteristic; the Seventh Book also has its particular quality. The main fact which it brings into strong relief is the present equipoise between the two sides. The Greeks and the Trojans are phiced in the hover- ing balance, as it were; the scales sway up and down without any decision. This is also the ethical situation just now ; in Troy the wrong of Helen, in the Greek camp the wrong of Achilles, are equally hateful to Zeus, the supreme gov- ernor. It is true that the reader has long since known the purpose of the highest God ; he in- tends to give victory to the Trojans in order to destroy them; but first the Greek side is to be disciplined out of its wrong by the victory of Troy. At present, however, the equipoise is sustained, though in the following Book Zeus will weigh the Fates of the two armies, and that of Troy for the time will triumph. The equaHty is, hence, but temporary, a phase of tlic great struggle, the quivering point of f-upreme uncer- tainty, which has its counterpart in most wars and battles. (285) 286 BOOK SEVENTH. The connection with the preceding Book is direct, both in the outer circumstances and the inner motives. Hector arrives with Paris at the Trojan camp; the leader finds his people quite as they were when he left them to go to the city. Equally close is the connection in thought. In the preceding Book Pallas was not conciliated ; she cannot be. Accordingly, when the Struggle opens anew she appears almost at the beirinnino- to aid her side, the Greek. But Diomed the individual was conciliated with a Trojan hero, and will not fight him. The result is, Diomed passes decidedly into the background, and another hero, Ajax; is the central figure. Still, Diomed is not forgotten ; he does no famous deed, but he makes a famous speech, which is implacable to excess ; he will not now accept even Helen as a peace-offering from the Trojans. Still, he is not the former Diomed in action, whatever he may be as a speech-maker. There is also a general connection with the entire movement of the poem hitherto, both in events and motives. We find a pointed allusion to the wrath of Achilles, which must refer back to the First Book. Moreover, the statement is emphatically made that the Greeks have other heroes besides Achilles, and will go on fighting without him — a fact shown in the Second and following Books. Diomed, in the- Fifth Book, was one of those heroes; Ajax, in the present BOOK SEVENTH. 287 Book, is another. In like manner the Trojan side, since the withdrawal of Achilles, has de- veloped a hero, Hector, who, though not a new man in the war, has been rising more and more into prominence since the Third Book. The two heroes, Greek and Trojan, sifted out by the chauired circumstances of the war, are now to be tested, one by the other, in single combat. These are Ajaxand Hector. In correspondence with the two terrestrial heroes, two Gods are shown in equipoise, and their selection follows from preceding Books. The Trojan deities. Mars and Venus, Diomed conquered, but he could not put Apollo down; there is, then, one unconquered God on the side of Troy, and he now appears. On the Greek side, Pallas has been the most active antagonist of Apollo's efforts, especially in the Fifth Book. Each of these divine energies has counteracted the other; both are now shown suspended in the balance. • Thus many small, delicate threads knit the present Book with the Books that have gone before; the little fibers remain quite unnoticed till, through some attempted dislocation, the whole poem begins to limp. The main fact just at this point of the struggle, we must repeat, is the equality of the two sides, which equality is set forth in a pair of divine and in a pair of human representatives, and unfolds through them into the structure of tlie Book. 288 BOOK SEVENTH. This structure, with its divisions and subdi- visions, is as follows: — I. The divine and human equipoise of the con- flict shown in Gods and men. a. The divine side shown in the mutual coun- teraction between Apollo and Pallas. b. The human side shown in the drawn combat between Hector and Ajax. II. The effect of this equipoise, made visible by the drawn combat, upon both sides. a. Upon the side of the Trojans, who debate anew the proposition to restore Helen, which re- sults in nothing. b. Upon the side of the Greeks, who build now a wall, concerning which a divine decree is uttered. The whole sweep of the Book, then, is the equipoise and its consequences. It is manifest that both sides are startled — indeed, fright- ened — and reach out for the readiest means of protection. We cannot fail to see again how the Upper and Lower Worlds — the grand Homeric dualism — play most deeply into the poetic or- ganism, and how they reflect each other, casting a double image of what is one in thought. We may now turn to the details, and observe whether they fit harmoniously into the form which has been given. I. The Trojans have a turn of luck with the com- ing back of Hector and Paris from the city; BOOK SEVENTH. 289 three Greeks, of no great fame apparently, are slain witliOLit hurting their Trojan antagonists. This beginning resembles that of the preceding Book, when the Greeks had their spurt of good fortune. The present success of the Trojans is but an eddy in the great river of events, and merely countervails the former success of the Greeks;- each side neutralizes the other; equi- librium is the result, which is now to be set be- fore our eyes in the divine and human order. a. First comes Pallas flitting down from Olympus when she beholds her Greeks perishing in battle. Opposed to her, Apollo darts from Pergamus, " wishing to give victory to the Tro- jans." Here we might expect a divine duel, a battle of the Gods, such as will occur in a later Book, but Apollo speaks a peaceful word: " Let us cause the war to stop to-day." To this Pallas assents ; she had the same thought in mind. Then the two Gods hatch the scheme whereby Hector is to send a challenge to the Greeks. Bui we note that even Apollo implies that Troy is to be destroyed in the conflict hereafter. Thus the two divine partisans counterbalance, and come to rest, while they throw the decision of the strug- gle down to earth, to be fought out by mortal men. In this passage we must again apply the fun- damental principle of Homeric theology; the Gods are both objective and subjective, in the 19 290 BOOK SEVENTH. world and in the man. Apollo and Pallas are deities of wisdom; they reflect the present situ- ation in its divine or spiritual sense; the side' of Greece with its wrong and the side of Troy with its wrong quite balance each other ; there is an ethical oquilibrum just at present, though Apollo foresees and states the end of Troy. The two Gods assume the form of birds — vultures — and sit upon the beech-tree as spectators of the duel ; they do not assail each other, and do not partici- pate in the conflict; we witness a divine image of the equipoise. Not only au image, but an omen is shown by the Gods in the shape of birds ; here the birds, though vultures, do not tear each other, as they do sometimes in Homer ; they are in a balance. All Greek augury implies this divine possession of the feathery tribe ; and Helenus, " the very best augur of the Trojans," perceived the purpose of the Gods, and at once set about bringing it down among men. On the other hand, this same equipoise is the present unconscious state of feeling in both Greek and Trojan. Achilles having withdrawn, is there any hero able to cope with Hector? Or is Hector now able to meet the best Greek in the field? Thus both sides are in the condition of uncer- tainty, and are ready to look upon the duel between the two grand protagonists for some omen or hint of future tendency. It is clear that the Upper and Lower Worlds image one BOOK SEVENTH. 201 supreme fact ; there is a balance of Gods and of men, of principles and of parties. Helenas, the divine interpreter, finds his human audience ready ; he voices their dumb instinct, b. The duel is proposed by the Trojans, and the essential question is. Which side has the best man after Achilles? Without the heroic indi- vidual the Hellenic spirit is helpless, has no embodiment, has no living, plastic shape of what is godlike upon earth. Significant to the last degree is this search for the hero ; he must be found before any great work can be done. In fact, is not that just the great work of the Trojan or other conflict — to reveal the divine in action tiirouo-h the deeds of the hero? The present duel, then, is the competitive trial for heroship, and is wholly different from the duel between Menelaus and Paris, in the Third Book. Then it was a personal encounter between the injured husband and iujurer; now it is the representa- tives of two nations, of two continents, who are to enter the combat, not for an individual griev- ance, but for a cause which has become not only national, but world-historical. Paris may fight for the personal detention of Helen, but Hector cannot, for he does not believe in it; still he must fight for his country, though it refuse to restore Helen. The Trojans are going to keep the Greek woman, and have already broken the compact 292 BOOK SEVENTH. for her restoration — " Zeus did not ratify it," says Hector apologetically. Troy has made the deed of Paris its own, which is its fatality ; the wrong of the individual has become national, and the national hero has to appear, though Destiny is getting her shears ready for him. In like manner, on the Greek side, the personal in- jury done to Menelaus has been made national. Accordingly, nation must tight nation as wholes or in their heroes. It will be observed that the restoration of Helen is not spoken of now — a very skillful silence on the part of the old poet; the Greeks Avould hardly have faith in any new contract. But they are challenged to fight in single combat ; as men of courage and military honor, they nmst accept, and send forth their hero. The duel undecided is not so much the end as the beginning of battles. Still we shall witness a touch of the personal side of the wrong. When the Greeks hesitate to accept the challenge of Hector, Menelaus steps forward, and, with sharp rebuke of his country- men, offers to fight the Trojan hero. This strik- ing passage indicates that the sting of private wrong is sharper in him than in any other Greek, though his disposition be humane, as we see by his sparing Adrastus. But Menelaus may meet Paris, not Hector. The poet thereby intimates that this duel is different from that of the Third Book, and introduces Menelaus expressly to set BOOK SEVENTH. 293 him aside, in contrast witli the former case. The personal phase has risen to the national, whose representative must, in one way or other, be pro- duced. But he is not forthcoming; he does not report of himself, nor is he so easy to find in the ab- sence of Achilles. Then Nestor, the aged man of wisdom, has to make him show himself through stino-ino; words of rei)roach. Nestor is the orator, using his weapon at the right moment in the right manner. His argument is that of shame: ye, present race of Greek chieftains, are degen- erate ; see what your fathers ditl ! Then ho weaves a bit of his own life into a cunning legend, which reflects the present situation, and suggests what is to be done. How well the old orator knew his audience! Not by abstract reasoning, but by a mythical exploit does he rouse these children of tlie imagination; tliey know what to do when they see the fabulous example. Not one, but nine respond, and a new selection has to be made — this time by lot. Surely it is not easy to find the hero. Then we note that the Greeks in their prayer select three, not one, though Ajax is mentioned first, while Diomcd is second. They are not so very certain who is (he hero after Achilles. But the lots, under the dis- creet management of Nestor, call for the right man — Ajax. Chance in some way was con- trolled by Wisdom in that Greek camp ; sad 294 BOOK SEVENTH. would it be, then and to-day, if she were not thus controlled. Still we affirm Nestor did not stuff the ballot-box. The main point in the description of the duel, which is a marvel of clearness and rapidity, is the equality between the two combatants. Each throws two spears, yet both men escape; next each hurls a stone ; finally each seizes his sword in exact counterpart, Avhen they are separated by heralds from both Greeks and Trojans. " Cease, Zeus loves you both; " you are quite equal in the supreme eye. " Night has come; obey the night." Such is the decree of the spectators on both sides — a mutual recognition of the equi- poise, which is not broken by the duel, but con- firmed. Yet we observe a slight leaning of the balance to one side, in favor of Ajax ; not sufficient to change the result, but noticeable. The Greek hero w^ounded Hector slightly with his spear, draws the first blood, then crushes him to earth w^ith a stone, "but at once Apollo raised him up." Here, too, the God is inside the man, whoso hurt is not so severe that he could not keep his shield and get up again. Divine grit the poet may well call it. The two antagonists exchange compliments and presents, like Diomed and Glaucus; but, unlike these, Hector speaks of renewing the contest at another time, and of fight- ing till the Gods shall decide for one or the other. BOOK SEVENTH. 295 This duel is remarkable in another respect: it has a decided tinge of chivalry. There is so much knightly feeling and such a lofty utterance of courtesy between the combatants that we seem to feel the first breath of the Middle Ages. The Greek hero says to his enemy, " Begin your bat- tle " — throw the first spear. Hector replies by telling him to get ready — "I shall not smite thee by stealth, but openly." Is not this the chivalrous spirit of a Bayard? Then in their speeches when they have ceased to fight there is the same high tone of personal honor and court- esy. Not without the deep suggestion from the elder poet has Shakespeare introduced the man- ners of chivalry into his Troilus and Cresida, which is based upon the tale of Troy. Each hero returns to his own side, and is re- ceived with joy. Yet there is anxiety for the future among both Greeks and Trojans. It was a drawn battle, with some odds possibly in favor of Ajax. That fateful equilibrium has brought new care. It is manifest that Achilles must come back to insure victory to the Greeks. The case of the Trojans is even more doubtful; they cannot drive the enemy from their territory if the Greeks still have, after the withdrawal of Achilles, the equal of Hector. Sorrow will sharpen care, for the dead are now to be ob- tained under truce and to meet with funeral rites. But when the war is renewed, what then? 296 BOOK SEVENTH. II. We are now to see the more permanent conse- quences of the duel to both Greeks and Trojans. First we beheld joy at the escape of each hero, then sorrow for the fallen ; but the main result is a settled anxiety, which leads to the two last actions of the Book — the building of the wall by the Greeks, and the new proposition to restore Helen by the Trojans. o. Nestor, the man of experience and fore- thouojht, voices this anxiety on the Greek side, and, at the same time, suggests the means of l^rotection. He tells the princes in council that while they are making a tomb they should turn it into an earthwork, with entrance, towers, ditch, palisade, " to be a bulwark for our ships and ourselves." His last words show his solici- tude, " lest the war overwhelm us." All tiie princes assented; it is plain they do not feel cer- tain of the field with Ajax. For ten years no fortification was needed; Achilles was the wall ; even when he was absent on a foraging expedi- tion, his name was a sufficient terror to keep the Trojans inside the city. But now they know of his wrath; they come forth, and the Greeks have to build a wall in the greatest haste, taking ad- vantage of the day of truce, and converting even the tomb into a part of the fortified line. Very BOOK SEVENTH. 297 timely and subtle was the advice of Nestor, The Trojans could now prevent the construction of the wall, but they naturally suppose that their enemies are merely building a monument to the dead. So they keep the truce, and attend to their own funeral duties. But the Greeks had good reason to be anxious ; hence their hurry, and, as we think, their stratagem to get the work done. Now we are to have a very curious utterance — nothing less than a divine judgment concerning this work. All the Gods admired it but Neptune, who was jealous, fearing lest men would forget the wall built by the Gods — by himself and Apollo — namely, the wall of Troy. So he makes an appeal to Zeus in regard to the work of the Greeks. To the Hellenic consciousness there were two kinds of walls, the everlasting and the transitory. The first kind was reared by the Gods to contain the Gods and their temples, along with the political organization of the city. Such walls, built of enormous blocks of stone, were eternal, and those of Troy, as well as of Mycena3 and of many other Greek cities, have outlasted the Gods themselves. A wall to hold institutions must be enduring; so we may feel a genuine though rugged l)iety in the huge Cyclo- pean structures of ])rimeval Hellas. But the present earthwork is but temporary and for a tem- porary purpose, raised " without hecatombs to the Gods." 298 BOOK SEVENTH. Hear, then, the decree of Zeus: When the Greeks have gone home, do thou break down the wall, and cany it into the sea, and hide again the great shore with sand. This wall is indeed transi- tory, compared to that of Troy, built by the Gods. Some authors have seen in this passage an attempt of the poet to account for the condi- tion of the Trojan plain in his day. He is sup- posed to have visited the scene of the war, and found that the earthwork, so famous in tradition, had vanished. Its disappearance rises before his imagination into a legend and unconscious symbol ; it was not a divine wall, built to protect a city ; it was rather built to destroy a city, and then to be abandoned. Another question comes up: How long after the destruction of Troy was it till Homer made his visit? Impossible to tell; say one hundred years, and drop the conjecture. In another respect, the Greeks are now reduced to an equality with the Trojans. If they have the advantage, they have also the disadvantage, of a wall; they are liable to be penned up, as the Trojans have been for so many years ; in fact, this is just what is about to happen. There is but one relief — the hero, Achilles, who has the wall in his right arm, must return. b. While the anxious Greek princes in council had resolved to build the wall, the Trojans in equal anxiety were holding an assembly in the acropolis of Troy. Antenor comes forward with BOOK SEVENTH. 299 his proposition to restore Helen and all her wealth ; the reason he gives is the broken treaty of the Fourth Book. Thus the Trojans have again the opportunity to fulfill their pledge and to do jus- tice ; they can now make undone their acceptance of Pandar's faithlessness, and even of the primal wrong of Paris. It is another test of the ethical tendency of Troy, which has been repeatedly shown, and which is the ground of her fate. Paris is present and speaks. He refuses di- rectly to give up the Greek woman; he is defiant, even contemptuous; he well knows that he has the power on his side. That power is twofold : First, he doubtless has a majority of the people, though many hate him and curse him. More than once the Trojans have made his wrong their own; in fact, that wrong is their consciousness. Paris would long since have been compelled to leave the city if the greater portion of the inhab- itants had been hostile to him. Indeed, Troy would not perish did it not share in the guilt of Paris. In the second place, the power of the throne is with him. Hear now King Priam; he simply commands that what Paris proposes be made known to the Greeks by the herald. We arc compelled to think that Priam leans to the side of Paris. Thus we see that there arc two parties in Troy, which divide upon this question of the restoration of Helen. Hector and Antenor arc leaders of 300 BOOK SEVENTH. the minority, who wi^^h to give back the Spartan woman to her nation and husband ; this is the Greek party in Troy, the Hellenic counter-cur- rent to the Oriental tendency of the city. Paris, evidently a political leader and representative of his time and people, has on his side not merely the majority, but his father the king. It is true that we read of many outbursts against Paris as the cause of the war; still, he is the typical Trojan, the embodiment of Troy's spirit far more than Hector. The proposition of Paris, which was to restore, not Helen, but the treasures stolon with Helen, and add wealth of his own, is rejected by the Greeks ; they are not to be bought off, even in in the present uncertainty, wdierein they show that they have a principle at stake, and will not surrender it. Both sides end their labors and sorrows in a banquet ; the Greeks purchased their wine evidently from the neighboring islanders, with "brass, iron, slaves, cattle, and hides; " a statement which suggests a lively picture of trad- ing in the Greek camp, as well as the absence of any general circulating medium. We see that the equipoise is at present com- plete, even established by the new work of the Greeks. Two walls now balance each other, as it were ; but the war must go on ; neither party will compromise, though both are anxious concerning the result. But, hark I through all the night Zeus BOOK SEVENTH. 301 thunders terribly ; the equipoise is about to be dis- tuibcd, whereof the following Book will give an account. The main object of the preceding observations has been to bring to light the motives which con- nect the various portions of the Book. These motives are not always brought to the surface by the poet, but constitute an undercurrent which flows unconsciously through the reader, who lis- tens in deep sympathy to the story. For in- stance, the building of the wall is not openly con- nected with the drawn combat between Ajax and Hector, nor is the new Trojan proposition con- cerning Helen ; still both are the unexpected con- sequence thereof, which breaks forth without warn- ing and without premeditation. The reader is sur- prised at the sudden change, till he thinks ; then he finds that the Greeks and Trojans were also sur- prised at the result, but had to meet it with some plan of action. Homer makes the same leap in his characters; compare Diomed of the Fifth with Diomed of the Sixth Book. Now, it is just at these points of transition that the neofative critic, unable to find the connecting motive, or bent in advance upon tearing the one garment into many shreds, cries out : Here be- gins a new song ; this is the hand of another poet. He complains that the wall has no connection with the duel; is built in a great hurry; and asks tri- umphantly, Why was it not thought of before, 303 BOOK SEVENTH. during the ten years' stay of the Greeks? All of which is simply a failure to see the motives which lie imbedded in the poet's story. The critic pre- fers two Diomeds, two or a dozen Homers, two or many fragments of anybody or anything to one entirety. The poetic instinct feels these connect- ing motives always ; but, when the poetic instinct is dim or lost, these motives must be raised from their unconscious realm into the clear, conscious daylight of thought. Moreover, these sudden leaps in motivation (if the word be allowed) are found in all the great poets. We see Shakespeare springing at a bound from his real to his ideal world, and the connect- ing link must be poetically felt or consciously supplied; in fact, it is bettor to have both ways. Similar leaps in his characters can be often noticed. To take again that most striking instance, though there be many others : How different the Cor- delia of the First Act of King Lear is from the Cordelia of the Fourth Act ! Yet it is one char- acter when we reach down to the connectinof mo- tives ; there are not two Cordelias, nor two Shake- speares. But the poem of earth-defying leaps is Faust. For this reason many German critics are inclined to dissolve it into a series of scenes, with little outer and no inner connection, and to gaze upon it as so much star-dust scattered through the heavenly spaces. Still we must think there is one Faust and one Goethe. BOOK SEVENTH. 303 This duel and that of Meuelaus and Paris in the Third Book occur on the same day. With this fact fault has been found, and various con- clusions drawn from it prejudicial to the unity of the poem. But the intervening three Books take the place of a considerable lapse of time to the mind of a hearer or even of a reader; Homer's audience did not reckon time so much by days as by actions. The epical events follow in succession, the imagination follows easily, very few people even to-day are troubled by the chronological difficulties of the text. It is, however, worth our while at this point to look back and count up the number of days con- sumed by the action of Iliad as far as we have gone. The First Book covers a period of twenty-one days, according to the usual estimate ; nine days the pestilence lasted, and "on the twelfth day " therefrom the Gods returned from ^Ethiopia, when Zeus gave the nod to Thetis. With the Second Book begins a day which lasts till it ends in the course of the Seventh Book; this is the twenty-second day of the Iliad. Two more days arc consumed in the Seventh Book with various transactions outside of battle, such as the gathering of the dead on the twenty-third day, and the building of the wall on the twenty- fourth day. With the Eighth Book the twenty- fifth day of the Iliad begins on Olympus in the morning and ends on the Trojan plain in the evening. BOOK EIGHTH. This Book has its own individual stamp, its own central thought and character, even more em- phatically than the preceding Books. One idea rules it from beginning to end : that idea is the sovereignty of Zeus. There is in it Olympian strength and grandeur, but chiefly Olympian su- premacy. Both Gods and men are now to be shown in subjection to the highest divinity. The idea of Zeus rules even the style and literary tone of the Book as absolutely as Zeus himself rules its action. The imagery of the poet almost breaks down under the weight of the burden of portray- ing the God's superior might. The poetry is pushed to the verge of the grotesque ; finite speech cannot help contradicting itself when it tries to express the infinite. A certain colossal gro- tesqueness lurks in its very sincerity ; one even thinks he can hear in this Book a low little note preluding Romantic Art, seeking an expression of something beyond expression. Very important, too, is the religious thought of the Book. It shows the one God above all other Gods put together; that is, the conception is strongly monotheistic. The many deities van- (304) BOOK EIQIITE. 305 ish in comparison with the one supreme deity, who is now going to carry out his decree, and bring defeat upon the Greeks in order that Achilles may receive honor. This he will accom- plish against all divine agencies that may resist him. It is, therefore, emphatically, the Book of Zeus, and is the monotheistic Book of the Iliad, though the whole poem asserts the supremacy of the one God. , The links which connect this with preceding Books are many and strong. The fulfillment of the promi-^^e to Thetis joins it with the First Book very closely. Diomed again obtains a good share of his former prominence ; the hero of the Fifth Book makes valid his claim to heroship once more. But Ajax, the hero of the Seventh Book, is withdrawn into the bucks-round with excellent judgment, since his exploits have just been told. The Trojan deities are conspicuous by their ab- sence ; there is no necessity of their helping Zeus in his present mood; moreover, Venus and Mars have been driven off the field by Diomed, who is still present and might possibly repeat his work, if they should appear. The connection with the preceding Book is in- timate. The equilibrium, which we noted as the main fact of that Book is now to be disturbed. The duel between Ajax and Hector was so nearly a drawn battle that a doubt was left in both sides. The result of that doubt was the building of the 20 306 BOOR EIGHTH. wall on the part of the Greeks, and a new propo- sition to restore Helen in the Trojan assembly. But the present Book shows Zeus breaking the even balance between the two hostile armies ; the scales which he holds up indicate the situation transmitted from the previous Book. Moreover the wall and ditch, which were made in the pre- vious Book, are important strategic points in the present Book, and are mentioned several times. In fact, the tvvo Books follow each other not only in natural succession, but show points of strong contrast. In the Seventh Book there is little in- terference of the Gods and that little is an agree- ment not to interfere ; while in the Eighth Book there is nothing but divine interference and its immediate effects. A further contrast is that the hero chiefly employed in the one is exchanged for a new hero in the other; alsca duel forms the main interest of the one, and a general en- saaement of the other. Be it instinct or design, the two Books show in their composition a won- derful symmetry and mutual adaptation, as well as contrast. We behold, too, a frame-work of nature loom- ing up in the background of this Book in the shape of lofty mountains — Olympus in Thessaly and Ida in the Troad, between which Zeus sweeps in mighty majesty. It is a colossal scenery, a fit setting for the grand doings of Zeus, who takes his seat on Gargarus, the highest peak of Ida, BOOK EIGHTH. 307 and thence overlooks in person the war iit Troy. For this Greco- Trojan affair is now going to have his personal supervision, hence he quits the more remote, the more general Olympus and takes a local position. His sovereignty reaches over from Europe into Asia, and must be asserted on the spot. Alone he sits in solitary might on the summit of Gargarus ; no God shares the place with him, or even approaches him except his messeno-er. When he has vindicated his absolute power over both sides, among men and among Gods, he returns to Olympus in his chariot flying between earth and the starry heaven. Such is the stupendous scenery in which Zeus moves, with its far-reaching suggestiveness. An Olym- pian landscape in every sense we behold, and we also catch a glimpse of Homer's use of nature in his poetry. Another physical characteristic of this Book, and one intimately connected with the sover- eignty of Zeus, is the frequent employment of thunder and lightning. Everywhere it roars and flashes round the horizon, the air reeks with burning sulphur, and the earth shakes with the mighty detonation. Thunder and lightning are among Nature's most intense and overwhelming manifestations of power; in their presence the individual seems nothing, and trembles lest his little spark of existence may become ashes in a moment; they seldom fail to call up in the mind 308 BOOK EIGHTH. some vast energy directing them. Thunder and lightning suggest God, not to tlie child alone, but to the full-grown man ; and they certainly furnish a number of epithets to Zeus throughout the Iliad. Greek plastic art has employed the thunder-bolt as the symbol of his destructive power. Not without a true instinct does the poet show the colossal scenery of this Book lit up with the sharp flashes of the physical might of the su- preme deity. The movement of the Book is, on the whole, very swift ; it seems to outstrip the well-known Homeric rapidity. The battle surges from side to side in sudden changes ; Zeus sweeps from Olympus to Ida, then back from Ida to Olympus, tiie human and the divine energies are in full tension, and the machinery of the universe is running at the top of its speed, yet with the bal- ance-wheel in good condition. The poetic leaps so quick and vast may set one's brain to whiz- ziug, but everywhere is order, clearness, a true cosmic economy both of thought and structure. The theological question involved in this strug- gle for divine supremacy is the deepest, and probably the darkest in the Book. Into the Olympian family the dualism enters, and the Gods become self-opposed. Against the sover- eignty of Zeus, three leading deities are the bul- warks — Pallas, Juno, Neptune. Most near toZcus both in birth and in thought is Pallas Athena, BOOK EIGHTH. 309 she who sprang from his brain directly, having no mother bnt her father. It is true that Homer does not mention the legend of Athena's birth, but implies it in her titles, as well as by his si- lence about her mother. Still that daughter is in opposition — the father's brain in opposition to itself. Are we not led back by this myth to the primitive dlremption of human conscious- ness — the mind separating itself from itself and making itself object? Such, at least, is the mythological figure, which, utterly impossible in nature, belongs to spirit, if anywhere. The brain of Zeus is verily cut in two i)y this Trojan war, is in self-opposition, and is fighting, with Olympian energies on each side. Less near to Zeus than Pallas is Juno, the sister, but above all the wife. Thus in her we see the domestic element of the supreme order in a state of self- opposition ; eTuno asserts her rights as the spouse of Zeus against Zeus himself, and that right, too, has its reflection in the Trojan conflict. Finally comes Neptune, brother of Zeus, representing the rule of the sea, in the original division of authority among the sons of Saturn. He is hos- tile, but in this Book not actively hostile, to the sovereignty of Zeus. His domain is a physical one primarily, and so we may see that Nature also is in self-opposition, through its representa- tives in the Olympian household. Thus Zeus, as the supreme sovereign, separates 310 ' BOOK EIGHTH. and projects himself into opposing energies, which, however, it is just his function to subor- dinate and rule. This gives the monotheistic trend which so strongly dominates the present Book. Three phases of the scission in himself are here shown: in his mind as Pallas, in his family as Juno, in Nature as Neptune. But the main thing is his return from, and mastery over, all these scissions — intellectual, domestic, physi- cal — now taking the shape of living opposition to him in the Trojan war. This is the assertion of his divine sovereignty. To be sure, these thoughts are not directly stated by Homer, who speaks in image and myth, still they are the un- conscious underlying foundations of his city of God, which we must excavate, like Troy itself, and bring to sunlight, ere we can see its outlines and structure. Out of this idea of the sovereignty of Zeus the whole organism of the Book unfolds its.elf. Four times the Supreme Power is introduced giving utterance to itself ; four different statements of absolute authority we hear in different contingen- cies. This gives the thread of the Upper World, which runs through the Book. Then comes the thread of the Lower World on a parallel line ; four times we pass from above to the plains of Troy below, and mark the result of this sover- eignty of Zeus upon men; the human gives its immediate response to the divine. Thus the two BOOK EIGHTH. 311 Worlds, Upper and Lower, are tlie two organic threads out of which the Book spins itself, as does the entire 7/mcZ. The four divine interventions have a certain relation to one another, they are in an ascending scale, from the mere assertion of power to its manifestation. They all have their center in the sovereignty of Zeus, A tabular outline will re- veal the structure, and with it the movement of the idea : — I. The external power of Zeus is asserted, yet clothed in the form of almighty caprice. The sovereignty of force. a. The decree of Zeus and the punishment for its violation. Zeus ajjainst the other Gods — the divine conflict. b. The conflict begins among mortals be- low. II. The internal deliberation and decision of Zeus are shown, yet under the form of necessity. The sovereignty of reason. a. Zeus seizes the golden scales and weighs the fates of the two armies. The Greeks lose. b. The ups and downs of battle below, like a pair of scales, with final flight of the Greeks. III. Submission of Neptune without a struggle to the sovereignty of Zeus. a. Juno tries to rouse Neptune to aid the Greeks, but he refuses. Then she rouses Aga- memnon " within his heart." 312 BOOK EIGHTtr. h. Temporary advantage of the Greeks, which, however, ends in defeat. IV. Submission of Juno and Minerva after a struggle to the sovereignty of Zeus. a. They go forth from Olympus with the de- sign of giving relief to the Greeks, but return after an emphatic warning from the Supreme God. b. The Greeks fly to their shiiis before Hector and are saved by approaching night. Thus we behold the will of Zeus in the process of accomplishment, and his sovereignty asserted strongly on Olympus, as well as below on earth. We may observe, in passing, th:it this Book occu- pies a day, with the divisions into morning, noon and night carefully marked by the poet. It is the second day of battle, the first day of battle startino^ with the Second Book and endins: in the Seventh Book, in which two more days are con- sumed. The First Book of the Iliad takes up twenty-one days. Thus we have reached the twenty-fifth day since the poem began with the pestilence. The Gods are gathered on Olympus ; there is a deep scission among them on the question of Troy. Two parties have shown themselves, re- flecting the Greeks and Trojans, who are getting BOOK EI GUT 11. 313 ready to fight below. The divine and hurmin sides may be looked at in the order of the poet. a. Zeus in a speech, whose Avords drop like the blows of a trip-hammer, lays down the law to the assembled deities, male and female; none are to aid either Greek or Trojan. The penalty for the transgressor is stated ; he will be " scourged back to Olympus," or, for a still greater punishment, he will be ''hurled down to Tartarus." After such an experience, " Ye will know by how much I am the most powerful of all the Gods." Truly a mighty utterance of mightiness. But this is not all. He challenges the Gods to a trial of strength, somewhat in these words : Hang a golden chain out of heaven, all of you take one end and I the other, and you cannot jerk me down; but I can pull you up along with earth and sea, and bind you to the top of Olympus; thus all earth, sea, and Gods would be suspended in mid air. At which prospect it is no wonder that the Gods were astonished; for Zeus " spoke very mightily." This grand image has lured many an allegorical interpretation from the human brain, has even given name to a famous book of the hermetic kind (Aurea Catena Homeri); but whatever else it be, it is certainly an assertion of infinite power on the part of Zeus. And yet the contradiction lurks in the assertion, nay, seems to laugh out of it in a roguish twinkle. Hang the earth to Olympus, which is but a mount- 314 BOOK EIGHTH. ain on that earth! Impossible, cries the old grammarian Zenodotas, and proposes to reject the passage. He might as well throw away Homer himself. In the poet's thought Olympus is the All, and the Earth is but a part. Still the contradiction between the image and the thought exists, and drives the passage quite to the border of the grotesque. Not in all ol" Homer's imagery, but in all his Olympian imagery, this same char- acteristic is found to a m-eater or less extent. Great, indeed, is the difference between poet and grammarian; the former has his eye upon the spiritual Whole, the latter can see only some material Whole. Zeus has now given expression to the unity in himself over both parties of the Gods ; he has also aifirmed his sovereignty in crushing the spirit of revolt. Still this is but the strong affirmation of his external power ; hardly more is here given. Pallas recognizes it fully, yet claims the riglit of aiding the Greeks with counsel — with inner suff- gestion, not with active help. So much Zeus must indeed allow, as this Goddess is in the Greeks as well as outside of them. He speaks kindly to his daughter, showing her to be the nearest to his own heart, but he does not recall his decree. Then he passes in his chariot down to Mount Ida, from which he could overlook " the city of the Trojans and the ships of the Greeks." That BOOK EIGHTH. 315 is, he specializes himself; on Olympus he is the universal ruler, but now he takes in hand a par- ticular case. He makes himself finite, becomes temporarily a partisan also. b. This scission, which, among the Gods, re- mains an idea, becomes real on earth in the con- flict between Greeks and Trojans. Early in the morning the battle bejjan, with din and shout and boast rising from slayer and slain, " the earth ran with blood." Such is the picture of the struggle, an even-handed fight, undecided as yet; but now the decision is to come, the equilibrium must be broken. II. "VYe again pass up to Olympus, to Zeus, the Supreme Dispenser, who is to be shown in his inner deliberation and decision. He is not now the asserter of power, that has already been af- firmed with success. The equilibrium between Greek and Trojan is before him as the fact of the previous Book, and indeed of this day's battle also. The pair of scales is the figure of the ex- ternal situation, which he is to seize and employ fur his own purpose. a. Hence Zeus takes the golden scales, " when the sun was circling middle heaven,'* and weighs the Fates of the Greeks and Trojans, " and the allotted day of the Greeks sank down." This is the decision after weighino; the two sides. But 316 BOOK EIGHTH. we kuow that this decision has ah'eady been made in the promise to Thetis in the First Book. The whole action of Zeus with the scales is to bring before us once more his deliberation and resolution ; he uses the moment of equilibrium to declare again his purpose to give victory to the Trojans. But at this point a new question arises. These Fates of Death (Keres) which Zeus weighs in the scales — whence did he get them ? Are they something external, apart from him, or are they inside him, really his own? In other words, is Fate above Zeus or Zeus above Fate? This question is one of the most important in Homeric Theology, specially important is it for this Book, which asserts so strongly the sovereignty of Zeus. But if he has a Fate over him, (hen he is not sovereign, and the whole purpose of the Book is nullified ; in fact, the whole Iliad with its supreme will of Zeus is nullified ; the poem is controlled by Fate. It may be emphatically affirmed that such is not Homer's consciousness. In the present instance, the God is the deter- miner, the weigher; he uses the scales, like an external instrument, to ascertain and decide. The Fates are represented as two objects like weights ; but they have no use of themselves, they stand in no relation, till Zeus, the being who rises up behind them, employs them and gives them validity. He is also the umpire and BOOK EIGHTH. 317 announces the decision; ho declares the law of the Fates. The latter are helpless, dead, till the God, the person, brings them into activity. We can see that the fisjure is but an imai\\\ wrathful, but now he will stay and not go home; he will fight when Hector reaches his ships'. III. Speeches after the return of the Embassy. Eager inquiry of Agamemnou concerning the re- sult. The failure to reconcile the Hero has to be acknowledged. a. Speech of Ulysses — Who reports the wrath as still continuing, and puts the worst phase upon the affair by stating only what Achilles said in his first speech. b. Speech of Diomed — Who is the haughty man judging the haughty man, who knows Achilles by himself, and declares that " he will again fight." From this abstract a certain symmetry will be noted throughout, and a tendency to threefold- ness in the divisions. A lucid, but rather exter- 336 BOOK NINTH. nal arrangement prevails ; the Book has not the profound organism which we observe in other Books, and which springs from the heart of a great theme. Still this method is adapted to the subject, which demands a clear outward ordering of materials more than an inner vital develop- ment. That is, the structure of the Book, true to its character, is rhetorical rather than poetical ; both matter and form belong to rhetoric more than to poetry. The movement of the whole Book is somewhat like an oration, with exordium, argument, peroration. It is a long discourse made up of special discourses. Still it belongs to the poetic Whole, with just its present limita- tions ; for the art of persuasion does not now persuade, and eloquence must rest satisfied with having made a good speech. I. First, then, we are to consider the speeches previous to the Embassy. They are made be- fore two different bodies of men ; the Assembly of the People and the Council of Elders, each of which has its special character, and to this char- acter eloquence has to adjust itself. For the orator must take his stand-point in his audience ; if he is above them, beneath them, or outside of them anywhere, he may tell much truth, give BOOK NIJS'TIL 337 great amusement, even make a fine poem, but he is no orator. The situation is indeed alarming. The Greeks behokl what they have never seen before, and never expected: the Trojans under victorious Hector are encamped just beyond their wall. Night has come on, the battle cannot continue till morning, there is a breathing time for delib- eration. Who steps forward as the hero of this scene ? It is the aged Nestor, the man of calm re- flection among those volatile Greeks. Out of the six speeches made during this preparation for the Embassy, three belong to him. Nestor does not excel as the man of action, not as the man of creative wisdom, but as the man of deliberative wisdom. His speech is very courteous and dip- lomatic; but, when the time comes for telling the truth, he thrusts it home in the most direct manner. It is [)lain that there is one means of rescue. When Achilles was in the field, Hector scarce dared to venture beyond the Trojan wall. But now, when Achilles is in retirement, the Greeks are not safe behind their fortifications. Such is the prodigious difference between then and now ; is it not clear that the Hero must be conciliated and recalled? a. The General Assembly is brought together hurriedly and secretly by Agamemnon. All were in great agitation; hitlicr and thither they were 22 338 BOOK NINTH. tossed, "as when two winds, Boreas and- Zeph- yrus roll up the deep sea." Agamemnon rises to speak with the tears pouring down his cheeks, " like a spring running over a steep rock." Speech of Agamemnon — Again he advises the Greeks to go home, as he did in the Second Book. But now he has no delusive dream of taking Troy ; that hallucination has been disciplined out of him completely. The will of Zeus has been accom- plished, even by letting him have his own way, and he knows it well. The divine stratao;em has succeeded, while the human stratagem has come to nothing, or rather it has wrought out just the opposite of itself. Compare the present situation and speech of Agamemnon, with those in the beginning of the Second Book, and mark the providential movement of the poem. We may forgive the Leader for wincing under the blows of his castigation ; but he is weak in misfortune. He does not bravely stand up and say: "I am to blame, it was my delusion; " but he puts the fault on Zeus. This is a trait of Agamemnon, which Diomed justly lays to his charge; the Leader lacks fortitude. He has the habit, as we see in other speeches, of shifting the blame for his own shortcomings on the Gods, specially on Zeus. Thereby, however, he denies his own freedom. In this speech we see the man cowering, wilting under the rod of Zeus. He is not heroic in his BOOK NINTH. 339 endurance ; indeed he now reaches the lowest point in liis career. His Uyhris is all gone, he is limbered to the last degree, and is manifestly ready to crouch to any humiliation in order to bring back Achilles. But mark ! this is a stage, a necessary stage in the process of his purifica- tion : he will ag^ain rise when freed of his inso- lence and his wrong. No wonder the Greeks were *' silent a long time" at his last words: " Never shall we now take Troy." Speech of Diomed — The speaker sees clearly the weakness of the Leader, and exposes it in the very keenest words ; but his just censure is pois- oned in its effect by personal spite. Diomed })ays back to Agamemnon with triple interest the charge of cowardice which the latter made against him in the Fourth Book. Ever since that time, we feel that the reproach has been rankling in his bosom ; now the venom bursts out into passion- ate eloquence. Diomed makes good use of his opportunity and presses the contrast in the strongest manner, as if saying, Behold the dif- ference between you and me, I am the brave man and you are the coward. It is manifest that Diomed grows insulting to authority. He cries out to the Leader : Go home if you wish, the way is open. Just such language Agamemnon used toward Achilles in the First Book; now he hears it applied to himself with a justice that crushes. Diomed pushes the con- 340 BOOK NINTH. trast between his own spirit and that of the Leader to the last point of defiance : Yea, though the rest of the Greeks flee in their ships, " I and Sthenelus will stay and fight till we make an end of Troy, for we have come with the Gods." A great speech of its kind, surely; for intense, fiery eloquence it is not surpassed in the Iliad. The climax at the end, to which the speech gradu- ally rises in one great oceanic swell of feeling, reaches almost beyond the human limit of utter- ance; soul-stirring it is to the last degree. No wonder all the Greeks shouted and continued to shout in admiration of the words of horse- taming Diomed ; for listen to that everlasting echo of valor and faith; " For we have come with the Gods." And yet is it a wise speech under the circum- stances? Is this a time to humiliate authority in the person of the Leader? Does not Diomed, in his own way, show a touch of Achilles, of that resentful pride which sees itself greater than the cause? He. does not intend to desert or sulk, just the opposite is his design ; still he is not wise, though brave and patriotic and eloquent. In the Fifth Book he grandly put down Venus and Mars, the Trojan Gods; now he has another God to put down, namely, himself. His eloquence is great, but it shows the personal pique which gives it the sting of malice, like so much eloquence since his time. That may add flavor, but it takes away BOOK NINTH. 341 the power of convincing reasonable men. More- over, personal feeling distorts the great, ever- present fact, and prevents it from being seen as it actually is in the world. In some such way, we must believe, the poet thouo-ht, thouo-h of course he does not give us re- flections upon his own processes. Why did he think so? For he now brings Nestor upon the scene ; the wise man is urgently needed, and makes a speech which is to be a corrective all around. Speech of JSFestor — It is clear that both Aga- memnon and Diomed are not the men for the present emergency, at least not the speech-makers and advisers. They make similar mistakes, though they be so unlike ; they cannot rise above a personal view, they look at affairs through their own momentary feelings. An objective glance they have not. The one wishes to abandon the great cause and run away, in a fit of despond- ency; moreover, he is unwilling to speak out the real diiEculty. The other, by insulting the Leader, only weakens authority, already in a state of dis- solution. Now it is the object of Nestor, in his speech, to heal this new scission which is starting afresh between the Leader and the second Hero, and to brino; about another method of deliberation, for it has begun in the wrong way. What fine com- pliments he pays to Diomed to soothe his wounded S42 £00/1 NINTH. vanity ! With what delicacy does he, however, re- mand him to his true limits ! *' A great warrior thou, and best in council among those of thine own age ! But thou art young, thou mightest be my youngest son." Thus the old man asserts gently but firmly his place. " Thou hast not come to the main point in thy speech; " true, for Diomed had only raised a new difficulty, whereas the object was to get out of the old one. Now comes the crushing sentence, though it is put in an impersonal form: " A man without Family, Tribe or State is he who delights in strife among the people." There is no doubt that this is a cut at Diomed directly, more remotely at Achilles and Agamemnon on account of their quarrel. The man who loves civil broils denies and de- stroys the three great tics of the social order as it existed in the old Greek world — the domestic, the tribal, and the political ties. Old Nestor, with all his compliments, can make the blood gush with that tongue of his, for this is the severest slash in the Iliad probably; still he does not become personal. Diomed is not heard from again till near the end of the Book. Next Nestor turns to Agamemnon, who also stands in need of some correction. First of all, the wise man recognizes fully the right of au- thority and precedence: "Begin thou, son of Atreus, for thou art the most kingly." Nestor tells him what he must do ; this Assembly is no BOOK NINTH. 343 place for careful, secret deliberation; it is the field for passion and feeling. Call the Council of Elders, after having placed a guard of the young men outside to look after the Trojans during the night. ' ' Obey thou the man who gives the best advice; " that man, we may say in ad- vance, will be Nestor. The crisis is indeed press- ing: " This night will either destroy or save the Greek army." Thus Nestor breaks up the Assembly, which is not the place fit for discussing such a grave emer- gency ; moreover, it begins with a quarrel and should be dissolved to let the hot-heads cool off, before they proceed to extremities. The strife between Achilles and Agamemnon, which also took place before the Assembly, is not to be re- enacted. Nor must we forget the further advice of the Sage to the Leader: Prepare a plenteous feast of wine and things good to eat, which thou hast in abundance. After such an entertainment nobody will bo so ready to find fault with the host, or pick a quarrel. Looking back at the three speeches we find one very unheroic speech, one very heroic speech, both of which, however, are foolish and personal; then there is the wise speech, which seizes the situation as it is, and at once sets about finding the remedy. Still we can hardly call it an elo- quent speech, it is not suitable for lofty decla- mation. Not enough passion, too much wisdom ; 344 BOOK NINTH. not hot enough, too cahn by far; give me the speech of Diomed, says the flaming youth, say those everlasting youths, the Greeks. They did not shout at Nestor's speech, still they silently obeyed, be it said to their credit. These three speeches will be reproduced in larger outlines later on in the speeches during the Embassy. Diomed will be enlarged into Achilles, yet not surpassed in force and intensity ; the wise Nestor will be voiced by Ulysses; the tearful Agamemnon will be prodigiously im- proved in his tearful substitute, Phoenix. Three styles of oratory we may catch here in their out- lines : the emotional, the passionate, the deliber- ative. Is it not plain, too, that the poet has drawn the limits of each style? For even wise Nestor with his calm insight can do nothing with the boisterous Assembly stirred up from the bot- tom by the passionate words of Diomed. But a wise man will always find his way out ; he will make his audience, if he has it not already, where he will be heard and Diomed will be silent. This Nestor has done ; behold, here is his audi- ence ready for him at the tent of Agamemnon. b. The Council of Elders it is, this second audience before which we are to have another display of eloquence. Here the oratory will be different from that of the Assembly, as the con- ditions are different. Age is now to rule the hour, not youth; deliberation, not passion, is the SOOK XiyTH. 345 spirit of the meeting, which, moreover, has risen into good fellowship through the banquet. This body of men we may call the Senate of the Greeks. There can be now no fear of a quarrel, and every person can speak his opinions without the danger of exciting a tumult. A different manner somewhat we notice in both the speakers, Nestor and Agamemnon, from that which they showed in the Assembly. Speech of Nestor — The orator starts with a full recognition of Agamemnon's authority, but the speech, with a sharp, decisive tone, is openly pointed at the Leader: "I shdl begin and end with you." After the usual courteous words, the blow falls: You are to blame for taking away Briseis from the Hero ; I tried to dissuade you, but you obeyed your haughty spirit and did the wrong for which we all are now suffering. There is in the w^ords of Nestor, no palliation, no soft- ening of the offense. Then comes the advice: Now let us conciliate Achilles with words and gifts. We now see why Nestor did not wish to dis- cuss such a proposition before the Assembly, It would humiliate the Leader, shake authority among the people, and probably Agamemnon would not have made his proposition in full As- sembly. But here matters can be controlled easily; Nestor has given the true advice for the crisis to the right audience. 346 BOOK NINTH. Speech of Agamemnon — This is a declaration of what the Leader will do for the sake of recon- cilino- Achilles. The offer is as complete as lan- o-uao-e can make it. The whole Conncil is now to see what sacrifices he will undergo for the return of the Hero. Agamemnon makes fully the ac- knowledgment not simply of his error, but of his blind fatuity — Ate — we may translate it sin. This is spoken to all, including the future embas- sadors, and is a part of the Leader's reparation. There is, in the first place, the offer to restore Briseis, " pure as when I took her, I swear it with a great oath." This meets directly the complaint of Achilles ; the woman is to be given back, and Agamemnon implies that he has kept her for restoration ; he evidently expected to re- store her in one way or other. But the ethical hint is most important and is really the heart of the whole matter; Agamemnon knew that Achilles rejrarded Briseis as his wife to be, and amid all his violence he has respected that rela- tion. He has now done that which, if Troy would do, it would not be destroyed. Thus the Leader has taken away the righteous ground of Achilles' wrath, namely, that Briseis was stolen as Helen was stolen. Agamemnon, we see, has prepared himself to meet just this case against him, knowing well that here lay the essence of his wrong. The offers of property we may pass over with- BOOK NINTH. Ml out much notice. They are the outer signs of the wish to make ample restitution for all injury. I do not understand them to be a bribe to Achilles for buying off his anger, as some critics do. They arc a i^roperty satisfaction for a wrong ; an early but rude method of justice. Agamemnon finally offers one of his own daughters in marriage to Achilles with the gift of seven cities, if the latter will but cease from his anger. *' I shall give him honor equal to my son Orestes." Every species of compensation the Leader offers — property, family, authority. Is it sufficient to satisfy justice, as well as honor? We must think that the poet, in his con- ception of his own work, held the offer to be am- ple. Agamemnon has undone his deed of wrong as far as lies in his power. Suppose that Achilles refuses to be reconciled? Then a new phase of himself as well as of the poem sets in. But now it may be affirmed in the presence of Gods and men that Agamemnon has done all that he can to blot out his wrong, and henceforth he is absolved. After this speech he is no longer the guilty man. Speech of Nestor — It is evident that the wise Nestor regarded the restitution as ample : " Gifts not to 1)0 scorned dost thou offer." Otherwise he would hardly have sent the Embassy ; he thought the proposition would succeed. Accord- ingly he appoints the embassadors on the spot. 348 BOOK NIJSfTH. We should also note that he performs all this work without any authority but himself ; he is the self-appointed hero in this deliberative busi- ness. Observe, too, with what skill he selects the embassadors: Ulysses, the universal man, with his thought and skill ; Phoenix, the personal friend of Achilles, with a strong emotional nature ; AJax the representative of the warriors. Nestor does not appoint Diomed, for the best reason, after the experience with him which has just been passed through. Nor does Agamemnon go, it is far better for the cause and himself to await the results at his tent. With final instructions from Nestor "to try to persuade Achilles," the Em- bassy sets out on its errand. Such is the present attitude of Agamemnon ; one thinks that the Leader has humiliated him- self almost too much, that he has compromised his dignity and clouded his manhood. Still some critics are not satisfied ; they demand for Achilles a confession of the wrong and an apology. But the gifts are not only a confession but a repara- tion, and the Embassy itself is a colossal apology. In the presence of its members Agamemnon spoke those words: " I was in error, I do not deny it," and their speeches before Achilles imply this acknowledgment of the wrong throughout. Why should anybody wish to be more implacable than Achilles himself? BOOK NINTH. 349 11. The speeches during the Embassy are those which have justly been considered the greatest. There are six, one from each of the three embas- sadors, with a reply to each from Achilles. The great object is here persuasion; three styles of oratory, appealing to different elements in the nature of man, are brought to bear upon the Hero, who, however, heroically resists them all, and defies the art of the speakers most bravely with scorn, wrath, sarcasm, and all the sharp weapons of speech. Achilles is again the Hero, but in a new field, that of words. He shows off with the greater glory, because he has really no case; reason is against him, and yet he maintains his ground. The fire-works of passion which play from his mouth are brilliant and captivating, but absurd. We must not fail to note the little scene when the ambassadors arrive. They found Achilles "soothing his spirit" by singing the famous deeds of heroes to the lyre; he had the accom- plishment of music and poetry. Such lays as his were probably the original materials out of which Homer built his poem. Then came the enter- tainment, in which Achilles plays the part of cook, while Patroclusgets the wine and the bread in readiness. These heroes were e(|ual to any 350 BOOK NINTH. emergency, being self-sufficient men. A part of the meat was cut into small pieces, and put upon a spit, and roasted over a bed of coals; the same scene c;in be witnessed to-day in Greece, with the man as the manipulator. But it is getting late, the feast must come to an end, Ulj^sses filling his cup starts with a bumper to the son of Peleus. There are three pairs of speeches, each pair has a character and situation of its own. Ac- cordingly a strict analysis must not neglect this phase, though the divisions become somewhat numerous. a, First Pair. Speech of Ulysses — The speaker very dexterously makes a contrast at the start which carries him easily into the heart of his subject. Feasts we have in the tent of Aga- memnon ; but our mind is not now on the feast, we are in doubt whether we shall be saved or lost — thou art absent from the Greek host. Ulysses is the universal man of the Hellenic army ; he presents in his speech the universal view, the great cause, to which every individual ought to subordinate himself. Thus, however, the individual in turn obtains his meed of honor, his glory. If you cannot lay aside your wrath for the sake of Agamemnon, do it for the sake of all the Greeks, for the sake of the great enter- prise ; then, too, you will be the Great Man, the Hero. We shall mark two main divisions of the speech with certain subdivisions. BOOK NINTH. 351 I. The situation of the Greeks is described briefly, but with warmth and vividness. The watch-fires of the Trojans are before our tents, the enemy threaten to fall upon the ships to- morrow and burn them ; Zeus shows to the Tro- jans favorable signs. It seems, however, that Achilles could conquer in spite of the signs ; the Greek cause needed human aid to gain the favor of Zeus. The speaker is afraid lest the hostile threat will be accomplished. Therefore, Achilles, up and be a-doing, if you have any patriotic feelino; and wish the Greeks to be saved. Here is the complete acknowledgment to Achilles of his place in the Greek expedition. He is the man who can save in the great emer- gency. The recognition which he receives from the wise man of the Greeks is complete. The promise of Zeus to Thetis is fulfilled ; heroic honor has received its due, and the wrong done to the Hero begins to vanish in the reparation. Still we must not expect Achilles to yield ; if he did, he would not be Achilles and the Iliad would come to an end. II. In the second part of his speech, which is by far the longer of the two parts, Ulysses mar- shals before the mind of the angry Hero the vari- ous motives which can influence the human agent to a given course of conduct. A certain order, not very strict, may be observed in them ; the last point comes back and re-afHrmsthe first, which is 352 BOOK NINTH. the strong argument evidently in the mind of the orator. (1 ) First is the patriotic motive ; the appeal is made, somewhat indirectly it is true, to his in- stinctive willingness to rescue the Greeks. He must have national feeling, but if he disregard it now, bitter will be his regret hereafter, when it is too late. For what is the hero without a country and cause to fight for ? (2) Next is the motive which we may call the moral. It is the duty of every man to keep his proud spirit in restraint; " kindliness is better." This reproof of his temper Ulysses skillfully puts into the mouth of his father Peleus, and makes it the last paternal injunction before Achilles set out for Troy. It was probably this rhetorical artifice against which Achilles in his speech launches his counter-stroke: "I shall speak straight out, for hateful to me as hell's gates is the man who hides one thing in his heart but says another." (3) The material motive is the list of presents which Agamemnon offers, money, tripods, horses, slaves, cities. Among these offers of gifts is Briseis, who will be returned unstained, who represents, therefore, something far more than a gift of property. Ulysses, however, does not seem to think that Achilles will be moved by presents from Agamemnon. He recites the in- ventory in a sort of formal manner, like an auc- BOOK NINTH. 353 tioneer, and then returns to the first argument, when he warms up with a strong appetil. Still, we arc not altoocther satisfied that he does not make more out of the case of Briseis, as the poet does in a hiter Book. But his spirit is. national, let him be heard upon his topic again. (4) "Take pity on the Greeks, thy country- men, who are harassed with the struggle." This appeal to Achilles' feelings is supplemented by the declaration; " They will honor thee as a God." Then, too, the prospect of slaying Hector is held up before him as a lure to his love of warlike fame. These last motives throughout are personal. Such is the speech of Ulysses, not a very warm speech, but intellectual, presenting rather the side of duty than of feeling, taking the uni- versal view rather than the particular. But this is just what Achilles cannot do in his wrath, he is swallowed up in himself, in his grievance and in his revenge. He cannot see that his heroship is absolutely acknowledged, that, if he still keeps aloof, he is merely destroying himself as Hero. But let us now listen to him in person : — Reply of Achilles — This is the most famous of the speeches in the Iliad; the Hero now per- forms as great a feat in word as he has ever per- formed in deed. There is no doubt that he shows a wonderful command of the weapons of oratory — sarcasm, scorn, passionate utterance. Its purely rhetorical power is of the highest order. 23 354 BOOK NINTH. It is, however, the speech of an angry man, hence the speech of a man who is not in full pos- session of his reason. Anger is a short madness, says the old proverb, and its truth is certainly verified in Achilles. This is the fifteenth day, according to the usual reckoning:, since the quarrel between him and Agamemnon took place; he has brooded over his wrong, till he cannot get out of the thought ; it has become a fixed idea in which the mind is whirled around and around, till he is unable to be rational. Moreover, the Greeks as a body have not taken sides with him, but have continued to fio^ht with the leader for the cause ; thus his wrath has be- come permanent, and has settled into a vengeful moodiness against the whole Greek army. The fatality is, he refuses under any circum- stances to be reconciled with his own people, with his own cause. He stands aloof; the result is, that he becomes nothing through his own act. For he is hero only by virtue of fighting for the great object of the expedition, we may say, of the Hellenic race ; he destroys his own opportu- nity to be himself, to be hero. What is he, though he be Achilles, away from the battle-field, sulk- ing in his tent? The war is his arena of heroism, but his wrath withdraws him from the only chance of being truly himself. Here lies the irony of the whole speech. He thinks he is giving a tremendous validity to his BOOK NINTH. 355 greatness, but he is really destroying it. From beginning to end he nullities his individuality by asserting it. The word which he speaks is un- consciously ironical; what he says he will do, he is never going to do; how can he? His very sincerity is ironical, he will not " speak the word directly from his heart," he will not say '' what seems to me best." To be sure, he does not in- tend to be ironical, but this makes the irony all the more effective. From this point of view we must see the structure of the speech. It is a movement toward complete self-stultification, we may say, toward the annihilation of himself, of his cause, and of his people. In this negative sweep of the speech we can distinctly mark four stages, though the passionate surges dashing around everywhere do not allow much order. Still it has its develop- ment amid all its irregularity, whereby we can observe at least the law of its excess. First staoje : Neither Agamemnon nor other Greeks will persuade him to enter the fight again. Second stage: Not only will he not enter the fight again, but he will leave the camp and go back home. Third stage: Not only will he go back home, but he will then choose a peaceful, inglorious life instead of the warlike heroic one. Fourth stage : Not only will he give up his hero- ship, but he advises all Greeks to do likewise — to quit the war and return home — " for never 356 BOOK NINTH. will you now take Troy." Note that this is just what Agamemnon said in his speech; the two opposites come together in ruining the cause. Thus the wrathful man drives forward to the last point of negation, both of himself and of the Greek world. And yet he cannot carry out any of these threats, he does not really intend lo carry them out, though in the passion of the moment he thinks he does. At bottom Achilles is now a comic character, his end is null and absurd, more- over, self-destructive, he is the opposite of him- self in his tremendous assertion of himself. These four stages we may scan now a little more closely, using them as frames to contain his passionate outpourings. After a short introduc- tion, ill which he declares his terrible frankness, which is again unconsciously irouical, for he will say quite the opposite of what he really means, and so will not be frank in spite of himself, he utters his first grand refusal. I. *' I shall not be persuaded by the Leader or other Greeks " to take up arms again. He gives several reasons ; at present the coward and the brave man are held in the same honor; an equal share of booty falls to the man staying out of bat- tle and to the man who fights. I have done the hardest work and got no reward. But chiefly my prize Briseis is taken from me, *' the spouse dear to my heart." There is no doubt that at this point Achilles in BOOK NINTH. 357 his speech strikes home to the wrong of Agamem- non, and indicates truly the great ethical viola- tion of the Leader. He has evidently had time to think the matter to its completeness, and he states it with a logical precision which is found no where else in the Iliad. Why should the Greeks Wage -n'ar against the Trojans? For Tvhat cause Did Agamemnon gather people, and lead Them hitlier? Was it not for Helen's sake? Are then the sons of Atreus indeed The only men on earth who love their wives? Nay, every good man loves his wife, And from my heart I loved her who was mine, Although the captive of my spear. Complete validity is to be given to this state- ment; the entire poem up to the present Book has turned upon the wrong to Achilles. But is that the situation now ? Briscis is ready to be restored "pure as when I received her, I swear it," together with ample material restitu- tion, and a full recognition of the Hero's honor. The charge of Achilles, therefore, no longer applies. The Leader has made his deed undone as far as lies in the power of a human offender. But the angry speaker looks back to the old situ- ation over which he has brooded, indeed he can- not get out of its whirlpool of thought and pas- sion. Acliilles does not speak to the present state of thiniis; his liijhtnino; thonoh blinding the e3'es by its keenness and brilliancy, strikes 358 BOOK NINTH. nothing. Stills he keeps lashing himself into frenzy by his own eloquence ; he scoffs at Ulysses for deliberation, ridicules the new wall, proclaims his own pi-owess against Hector, whom now he will no longer fight. In a whirlwind of sarcasm, passion and self-glorification he passes to his second grand announcement. II. " I am going home." Early to-morrow morning he will start and on the third day with prosperous voyage he'will reach Phthia, his native land. (1) He has abundance of property which he has obtained in the war, though he before com- plained of getting little or nothing after doing the work. Also he has much wealth at home. Agamemnon cannot deceive him again. (2) lie rejects absolutely the gifts of the Leader, the offers of restitution ; even if they were " ten or twenty times as much " as they are, he would not touch them. (3) He refuses the daughter of Agamemnon. He would not marry her if she vied with golden Venus in beauty, and with Minerva in works of skill. (4) He can obtain a suitable wife at home; father Peleus will select him one. He will marry and settle down in the enjoyment of his posses- sions, wherewith we come to the next strono- utterance. III. " Nothing is equal in value to life, which BOOK NINTH. 359 henceforth I intend to enjoy and preserve." To this end he cites the saying of his mother Thetis, who declared that two destinies awaited him : that of a glorious life but short, if he stayed and fought at Trov, but on the other hand, that of long life without glory, if he returned to his country. He says that he has made his choice, he will go home, he has renounced his heroship. Life and its enjoyment are the highest good, and he will no longer expose himself in war. But this again is unconsciously ironical. He will do no such thing, in fact, he can do no such thing. He has already made his choice, character has made it for him ; he is merely playing with his fancies like an angry child. Then he pushes his own act to its universal application in his last an- nouncement. IV. He advises all the Greeks to sail away home, to do what he is going to do, and abandon the great enterprise, for it is now impossible to take Troy. Zeus holds his hand over it, and its people have taken courage. Such is the outcome of this speech. As before said, it is absolutely negative to himself as hero, and to the Greek cause, we may well say, to the Greek world. Yet he has not intended this, hence we call it the speech of unconscious irony, in which the speaker utterly undoes himself in his own words. He thinks he is laying out SCO BOOK NIXTII. somebody else, but really he is cutting his own throat. Achilles also uses irony as one of his rhetorical weapons; that is, he can be consciously ironical. For instance: " Let Agamemnon choose for his daughter some other Achtean who is more suita- ble for her, and who is more kingly." As if that could be, especially in his own opinion. But the unintentional irony runs through it all and gives to it a special flavor. Did Homer consciously employ this irony? Hard to answer are all such questions ; we only know what Homer thought from what he wrote. He knew the character and protrayed it; with its true portraiture comes the irony, which he had hardly named and defined to himself. But there is no doubt of its presence in this speech. Furthermore, is the speech rhetrric or poetry? It has a great display of wit, fancy, language ; still it is, when taken by itself, rhetorical. But as apart of a Whole which shows the limits of oratory, it is poetic. As a piece of rhetoric, it is deeply in earnest, like the speaker of it ; as piece of poetry, it is humorous, secretly self-an- nulling, unconsciously ironical, wherein we see not the orator but the poet. This speech has another recent distinction. It has evidently captivated a great modern orator, Mr. Gladstone. The spell of its eloquence has apparently wrought upon him with such power BOOK NINTH. 361 that he seems not to see its ironical element, but boldly proclaims that Achilles is in the right still, and that his argument in consequence is unan- swerable. But the poet has placed just after it the most overwhelming answer, not in the way of scorn and ridicule, but in the sweet words of tender friendship and personal interest — the doctrine of reconciliation in the purest form of reconciliation. This is the ever-memorable speech of Phoenix. b. Second Pair. Speech of Phoenix — This pair of speeches differs from the preceding pair inasmuch as we now have the tender play of emo- tion, of personal feeling, whereas previously it was the fierce opposition between Reason and Passion, represented respectively by Ulysses and Achilles. The speech of Phoenix which now follows is, on the whole, the best in the lliad^ and it is also the longest. Not the best from a purely rhetorical point of view; it is not always coherent, it is a lit- tle long-winded ; still it is the best in the sense that it takes the highest stand-point to be found in the Iliad. Homer here reaches the height of the seer, from which he looks not only through his poem, but through the Greek world into the modern time. The oratory is emotional, and springs from love, deep personal love, yet rises out of the individual side of affection into the realm of universal charity. It stands, therefore, 3G2 BOOK NINTH. in complete contrast to the preceding speeches of Ulysses and Achilles. Phoenix is the friend and teacher of Achilles, the speech is colored by both these relations. He was sent by Peleus, the father, " to teach thee to be a speaker of words and a doer of deeds " — the two great accomplishments of the Homeric man. But the grand unifying characteristic of the speech is its conciliatory tone ; placability is its pivotal word throughout. This word unques- tionably reaches the heart of the present situa- tion. Three parts we observe in the speech, each is but a variation of the dominant note. First, Phcenix gives his personal history in various try- ing circumstances ; in all of them we feel the pla- cable character. Secondly, he makes the direct api)eal to Achilles to be placable, otherwise he violates the supreme divinity. Thirdly, he gives an instance of the implacable temper becoming placable, an instance taken from mythical lore and applied to the case of Achilles, wherein he pre-figures the outcome of the Hero's wrath. I. Phoenix, " bubbling over with tears, "ex- presses his strong personal attachment to Achilles ; separation from him is impossible, " even if a God should give me my youth again." The speaker then recounts his own trials in life, he has had the discipline of patience. (1) He, as a young man, listened to the pray- BOOK NINTH. 3G3 ers of his mother, who was being wronged by his father; the result was the latter cursed hioi. (2) He thought of slaying his parent, but de- sisted and finally fled from home to Phtliia where Peleus, father of Achilles, received him kindly, giving him possessions and authority. (3) There he was the educator and companion of Achilles when a child. " I have made thee what thou art, loving thee from my heart." Not an easy time did the teacher have in training such a boy; " thou, spirting thy wine from thy mouth, didst often wet the tunic on my breast," with other little acts of childish self-will. "Many things I suffered and did for thee; I made thee my son," wherefore listen now. II. From this touching account of himself in which we find every where the self-surrendering man, practicing the doctrine which he preaches, he comes to the heart of the speech, the direct appeal to Achilles to lay aside his wrath. This appeal he does not base upon selfish motives, as honor and glory; not upon reasons of State, for which the patriotic man should be ready to fight ; not upon moral grounds which bid the individual to restrain his temper for his own good and that of others ; the motive which Phoenix urges upon Achilles is supremely the religious one ; *' the Gods arc placable," make yourself an imago of them ; adjust yourself, O Achilles, to the divine ideal. 364 BOOK NINTH. In this part there is unfolded two main points, both relating to prayer, which is the penitent ap- peal of the offender for forgiveness. In both cases the prayer must be granted ; the order of the world is based on mercy, which must be given to the one who repentantly asks for it. ( 1 ) The prayer to the offended Gods from the human offender, is answered; they are conciliated by burnt offerings and sacrifices and supplications. This is the nature of the divine — to be placable to the transsjressor, who chanfjes his attitude. (2) The prayer of the offending man to the offended man must in like manner be answered with mercy. At this point we have the allegory of the Prayers who are called the daughters of Zeus, as directly springing from the divine order of the world. They are lame, coming slowly after the transgression; they are wrinkled, from pain and contrition; they are squint-eyed, not looking the wronged man squarely in the face from a consciousness of guilt. Still they are the great curers of Ate (Sin), who is swift of foot in doing injury to man. The injured man who re- ceives these daughters of Zeus is blest, and is heard in his petitions ; but the injured man who rejects them and harshly turns them away, be- comes himself the guilty one, and is punished. Such is this wonderful allegory or personified story of human redemption, pointing out the way by which the sinful, guilty man may put himself BOOK NINTH. 3G5 again in harmony with himself, with the Gods and witli the one whom lie has injured. We may well speak of Sin and Repentance here, though forcing somewhat the ordinary usage of the old Greek words, for the thought of Phtjenix has a distinct Christian tinge, rising into the realm of forgiveness and charity as the very foundation of the World's Order. It is declared that he who refuses the prayer of the wrong-doer for mercy, becomes himself the wrong-doer, upon whom Zeus will inflict the penalty. Conscious allegorizing is this, intended by the poet. It shows that he knew what allegory was, and could use it with supreme effect. Moreover, this is the highest point attained in the poem, the furthest-reaching view is here expressed, nor is the thought by any means exhausted to-day. Curious that his most exalted doctrine should bo clothed in an allegory. It certainly suggests that the allegorical method of interpretation lakes its rise in Homer himself. To be sure, we may cut out the passage and throw it away, as some critics have done; then we have gotten rid of the diffi- culty, if there be one, but we have slain the speech of Phoenix, slain, in fact, the whole Iliad, which has one of its main turning-points just here. (3) The personal application of this doctrine is turned straightway upon Achilles with all its force. Agamemnon, though guilty before, comes 3GG BOOK NINTH. now with the Prayers, Daughters of Zeus; be- hold his gifts, his deeds of conciliation; he gives much now, promises much hereafter, and has sent the best of the Greeks, and those dear- est to thee, to turn away thy wrath. It is clear that if Achilles refuses this prayer, he is the guilty man; from now on he will be the wrong- doer. This speech is overwhelming, it is ther supreme utterance of truth, yet not cold intellectual truth, but truth told with all the warmth of love. It is, we believe, the only speech of Phoenix in the Iliad; well it is so, for he could not surpass this one in insight, in seership, in tenderness. We must also consider another thous-ht. It is the stand- point of the poet, and from it the reader is to look over the whole Iliad, organize it, and see its ethical meaning. Homer must have had the thought here given in his allegory ; we shall see that his poem turns upon it both in meaning and structure. m. There is now the third and longest part of this speech, the enforcement of the ethical doc- trine previously advanced by an example from mythical times, the story of Meleager and his wrath. In this respect the speech of Phoenix resembles the method of the later philosophers and pedagogues, who were in the habit of setting off their lesson with an ancient legend. (See the story of Hercules by Prodicus in Xeno- BOOK NINTH. 3G7 \A\on's Memorabilia.) Here then wc have the ilhistratioa appended to the sermon. There is no doubt that this part has a looser connection with the subject of the speech than the other two l)arts. Still we may let it stand as a prophecy of a form of Greek philosophical treatment. The tone of this part changes, it is not so personal, not so full of feeling. Then at the end it drops to a lower point of view, since it exhorts Achilles to take the gifts now, lest he may not get them hereafter. It shows, however. Phoenix as the teacher and moralizer, moralizing old Greek fa- bles into lessons of personal conduct. From this point of view the mythus is a moral allegory, and Phoenix is the first allegorizer of Homer. The story of Meleager, which Phoenix now tells, and the career of Achilles since the quar- rel are so, similar, so well fitted together that we at once ascribe the likeness to conscious inten- tion. The one is an adaptation to the other, with certain independent details. The main facts common to both stories are : the siege of a city, the withdrawal of the hero in wrath, the send- ing of embassadors to pacify him with presents, his refusal, the origin of the war in the anger of a deity. But both heroes at last help their peo- ple and save them without the presents, wherein the story is prophetic of what Achilles will yet do, though the presents are voluntarily given him when he returns. Then, when the tale is 3G8 BOOK NINTH. told, the moral is drawn, and the exhortation is added, whereby this whole story connects in its allegorical spirit with the fable of the Prayers just narrated. Critics have applied the knife to this speech of Phcenix in manifold ways, but they cannot cut out the fact that the earliest al- legorical interpretation of Homer is in Homer himself. Theagenes of Rhegium did not start it, but the Poet. Delightful on every side is the character of Phoenix as revealed in this speech. He is the old Greek pedagogue of Homer's age, who goes with his boys to war and is a fighter too; but his highest trait is his seership, his look into the divine order of the world. He has reached, in that distant heathen time, the conception of charity ; out of his own heart and thought it has arisen and illuminates his life and speech. Sage though he be, he is still a pedagogue, given to moralizing on old fables for the instruction of the youth. Thus he treats Achilles at present in his highest vein. As already stated, the stand-point of Phoenix is the loftiest in the Iliad, but the refractory pupil will not now obey in his tempest of rage. But hereafter he will ascend to the height of his teacher; twice he will follow the doctrine of Phoenix, he will be reconciled with Agamemnon in the Nineteenth Book, and he will listen to the prayers of Priam, his great enemy, in the BOOK NINTH. 3G9 Twenty-Fourth Book. Who will say that the teaching of Phoenix was in vain? Reply of AcJiilles — The paroxysm of wrath is not so strong now; the tenderness of Phoenix, if not the argument, has touched the Hero. He shows his love for the old man, but puts a limit upon it: Thou must hate whom I hate, and love whom I love. Phoenix has shuwn a double devo- tion : to his friend and to the Greek cause. But Achilles is inclined to permit no halving of affec- tion; to show favor to the Greeks is to show favor to Agamemnon, and to be an enemy. Here again the irony peeps out, the destructive wrath of the Hero is mainly destroying himself. Still he is not the same; he speaks of love, recognizes it, and asks the aged friend to stay with him over night, " to deliberate whether we shall go home or stay." Just this tender strain means much ; we never heard any such note in the previous speech; a new trait has been called up in response to the speech of Phoenix. But chiefly, he is not going home now ; he will not set sail on the morrow, but will talk the matter over with his friend. The frank Achilles has not, then, said quite v/hat he meant, in his first fiery oration. c. Third Pair. Speech of Ajax — This speech is characteristic of the man, who represents brawn more than brain, and who has great strength of muscle rather than a fine sense of honor. Yet 24 370 BOOK NIXTH. the argument of Ajax lias its force, though it be of the coarser, more sensuous sort. A sum of money, he argues, is taken for the death of a brother or son, and there is peace ; but Achilles, the implacable, will accept no compensation for his captive woman Briseis. Nay, seven other women, "the very best," are offered, with much property besides ; so be appeased, Achilles, re- spect the embassadors, thy dearest friends. Ajax appeals also to friendship; but he appreciates mainly the material advantage of the offer. Yet Ajax very properly belongs to the Em- bassy. He is the fighter next after Achilles probably; Diomed is the only one who might contest his right to such a place. But Diomed, as already stated, is not the man to send to Achilles for the purpose of conciliation. Thus Ajax gives a phase both of the army and of the argument not represented by Ulysses or Phoe- nix — the blunt utilitarian phase. Reply of Achilles — The Hero is still more softened, it is apparent that he begins to feel the folly of his position. He gives a mild response to the argument of Ajax, but then liames up asrain at the thought of the insult he has re- ceived. He has been treated like a " dishonored foreigner; " the intent of his answer to Ajax is that money cannot pay him for his wounded honor. This answer holds good, let us grant ; but everything else, Briseis herself, has been offered BOOK NINTH. 371 him. Achilles still speaks to the situation, not as it is, but as it was before the Embassy went. He is, however, undergoing a change all the while ; he has moved away not only from his first, but also from his second speech. He now says definitely that he will again enter the fight, when Hector has set on fire the Greek huts, and has reached his ship ; " then I think he will desist, though eager for battle." Thus the speeches of Achilles end with the old flash of the war-spirit — a sio-n of what he will again do in time. The Embassy departs, hardly noticing this gleam of hope in the darkest moment of their cause. Achilles, however, has fully explained himself. At first he was going home early in the morn- ing ; next he would deliberate about his depart- ure; now he intends to stay and fight under certain conditions, which, he can easily foresee, will soon be fulfilled. The irony of his first speech has found its interpretation in his later words ; he contradicts himself completely. Yet it is one Achilles portrayed, not three, and it is one Homer portraying, not three. Thus the grand oratorical display during the Embassy is brought to a close. Eloquence has not succeeded, the art of persuasion has not per- suaded. The three embassadors with their special styles of speech, have shown their gifts in vain ; Achilles has logically committed suicide in his flaming oratory. Above all the speakers is the 372 BOOK NINTH. poet, who has shown them in their full grandeur and in their failure. Still the Embassy is not without effect ; though its purpose has not suc- ceeded, it has set influences at work which give it a capital place in the poem and in the supreme order of things. m. The embassadors return to the tent of Aga- memnon, who very naturally makes an eager in- quiry about the result of the mission. Evidently the chieftains had remained with the Leader in order to learn their fate as soon as possible. Two more brief speeches we are yet to have after the return of the Embassy. a. Ulysses makes a report, a dry and imperfect report. He announces the continuance of the wrath of the Hero, and the refusal of the gifts. He also brings back word that Achilles threatened to sail away in the morning, and advised the rest of the Greeks to do the same, for Troy could not now be taken. The strange fact about this report is, that it gives only the first attitude of Achilles, the sec- ond and third ones it omits. Shall we think that Ulysses heard only the first speech, and that the second and third ones were interpolations by another hand? That would be fatal to the portrait of the BOOK NIXTH. 373 wrathful and cliangefal Achilles, as drawn in this Book. Ulysses may have been so overpowered by the first speech that the others made no im- pression; or possibl}^, he wished to prepare the Greeks for the worst that might happen, namely, the Hero's return home. Ulysses, however, states the main fact, the persistence of the 'wrath of Achilles. But it is a short, perfunctory re- port, evidently disagreeable to its author. b. Speech of Dtomed. — This is ijot at all con- ciliatory in its tone, and we see the reason again why the wise Nestor did not send Dioraed as em- bassador. " Would that you had not besought him, offering gifts; you have orJy made him the more haughty." But Diomed himself is the haughty man judging haughtiness ; so he can well prophesy concerning Achilles, " he will fight again." We would like to have heard from Nestor once more; but the old man evidently has nothing to say after the failure of the Embassy, which was his carefully planned work. So the speeches end with the exhortation of Diomed, not to give up, but to start the fighting with new energy again, as soon as " fair rosy-fingered Aurora hath ap- peared." So one more banquet and then to bed, for it must be late, as this entire Book is enacted after dark. It remains to give a few of the leading critical opinions upon this important part of the Iliad, 374 BOOK NINTH. Criticism has had a good deal to say about the Ninth Book. The German critics have gone through it with no little vengeance, suspecting, rejecting, bracketing pretty much everywhere. They differ greatly among themselves when it comes to the excision of special passages, but all seem to agree that something must be cut out somewhere. Many graciously spare portions of the Book, but others reject the whole of it from the true original Iliad. The speech of Phoenix has aroused a multitude of critical scruples, specially the fable of the Prayers and the story of Meleager. For us, indeed, the thought ex- pressed in this allegory of the Pra3'ers is the key-stone of the arch, and holds together the poem. But it is not necessary to follow this criticism into details ; its pre-suppositions as well as its results are alien, if not repugnant, to the Anglo-Saxon mind in its present state of devel- opment. But there are two English authors of great eminence, who have written quite fully their judgment on the Ninth Book. These are Mr. Gladstone and Mi"- Grote. Their writings on Homer go back over a quarter of a century ; still their opinions are by no means superannuated, but remain the best known as well as the most representative among English-speaking peoples. Mr. Gladstone rejrards Achilles as still in the right after the Embassy, which, in his view, had BOOK NINTH. 375 one grand defect : Agamemnon made no confes- Ksion of his wrong and offered no apology to Achilles. " Therefore Achilles is not appeased; but, I must add, neither is justice satisfied nor right re-established." (^Studies on Homer and (he Homeric Age, Vol. Ill, p. 374.) But if such an apology had been made in person, it is proba- ble that Agamemnon would never have lived through it in the present mood of the Hero. The confession of the wrong is certainly implied in the presents, which arc sent in the spirit of resti- tution. And the very ground of the offense is recalled and undone in restoring Briseis un- stained. Moreover Achilles makes no such com- l)laint himself in his speeches, though he did not lack opportunity or willingness to find fault with the Leader. But the chief difiiculty with Mr. Gladstone's position is that it morally destroys the poem. According to his view, Achilles, who is " the vin- dicator of great public rights as much as or more than he is the mere avenger of a personal of- fense " (page 377) ought never to have relented; but he did relent without the apology, without even the gifts, both of which, however, were freely given him after he had relented. In beiuo- reconciled to Agamemnon Achilles must, there- fore, have been guilty of a wrong, at least of a weakness; and the entire Hiad which turns upon that reconciliation becomes disordered with the 376 BOOK NINTH. same wrong or weakness. Still further, the ter- rible discipline of Achilles ending in the death of his friend Patrochus, has no ethical meaning; for Achilles was right in refusing the offer of the Embassy, and was simply doing his duty when the consequences of his deed overtook him. Against Mr. Gladstone's judgment in this matter, we can place the judgment of Nestor, the wise man of the Greeks, and of Phoenix the devoted personal friend of Achilles, both of whom hold that the Hero is wrong in refusing the offers of Agamemnon, though Nestor and Phoenix also de- clare that Achilles had previously had cause for his wrath. Our faith in the unity of the Iliad is sitrong, but that unity certainly falls into moral chaos, if Achilles is wrong when placable, and right when implacable. Are we not justified, from his argument, in say- ing that Mr. Gladstone is more inexorable than Achilles himself? \Ye have often wondered at the fact, and tried to find the psychological rea- son why he takes the side of Achilles with such vehemence. For not only the proposition of such a propounder, but such a propounder of a proposition enlists the strongest interest; he is one of the world's men, and has to be studied in himself. Does it spring from the political habit of defending the party at all hazards? Or was the great orator tranced completely by his own art in that famous speech of Achilles in presence BOOK yiXTH. 377 of the Embassy? Or was this view taken to avoid certain objections of critics? It is indeed strange; Achilles relents, relents twice and is reconciled; Mr. Gladstone remains implacable to the end, in spite of a few qualifications which he makes favorable to conciliation. In the speech of Phoenix we climb to the highest height of the Poet, and with him look over the entire poem, we might almost say, over the entire future. His golden word is not wrath but reconciliation. The gospel of forgiveness preached by Phoenix some 1000 years before Christ still has meaning: even for good Chris- tians some 1900 years after Christ. Mr. Grote, in the chapter on Homer in his History of Greece, has also had a good deal to say about the Ninth Book. He rejects it from his primary Iliad which he calls an Achilleid. To Mr. Grote' s mind there are three Homeric stages: 1st, when the poems were detached songs or ballads ; 2nd, when these ballads were put together into an Achilleid made up of Books 1, 8, 11-22, inclusive; 3rd, w^hen this Achilleid was expanded into an Iliad by the addition of the other Books. To the first part of this theory there is no objection; Homer's materials must have been chiefly ballads and songs. But when the poem is split into two portions without inher- ent organic connection, the modern Homeric battle opens. 378 BOOK NINTH. Mr. Grote thinks that the Ninth Book really brings to an end the problem of the First Book ; Achilles obtains honor and restitution, and the promise of Zeus to Thetis is fultilled. Hence, runs the argument, the Ninth Book does not be- long to the plan of the original Iliad. Now we hold with ]Mr. Grote, that Achilles ought to have been satisfied with the offers in the Ninth Book; but he was not, and we may well be glad, since the poem has to go on. For its theme, as stated in the First Book, is the wrath of Achilles, not only his justifiable but also his unjustifiable wrath ; the Embassy is the turning-point from the one into the other. Mr. Grote further sa3^s that the humiliation of Agamemnon was shocking to " the sentiment of Nemesis " in the Greek mind. This argument, if it l)e one, goes too far; it implies that the Ninth Book was not only not written by Homer, but not even by a Greek, but by some- body not sharing in the Greek consciousness. Still the Book looks us in the face, written in Greek by a Greek. The real weapon of Mr. Grote is, however, the discrepancy between the Ninth Book and the Books which follow. This discrepancy is concen- trated upon two passages: Book XI., 609, and Book XVI., 72. We shall at once accept all that Mr. Grote claims for these passages : they ignore the Embassy of the Ninth Book, they speak as if it had never taken place. The fact is un- BOOK NINTH. 379 doubted, there is no use of explaining it away by skillful manipulation of the text. But now for the other fact. Both these passages arc uttered by Achilles in his wrath, not after but before his reconciliation. What did he do in his great speech of the Ninth Book? He spoke as if there had been no offer of restitution in the very pres- ence of the Embassy offering it; he always went back to the original offense and ignored the at- tempt to conciliate him. He could only dwell upon the wrong done him by taking away Briseis, while Briseis was being urged upon him, with ample penalties for the wrong. By brooding over his insult, he could not get out of the old situation and adjust himself to the new one. Such was Achilles in the presence of the Embassy, such he was afterwards, as long as he remained wrathful. If these passages had been uttered by Ulysses or by Agamemnon or by anybody but Achilles, then the discrepancy would have been real. But as the matter stands, it exactly com- ports with the character of the angry Achilles to ignore the Embassy and the atonement. Instead of being in disagreement with the Ninth Book, these passages are in perfect agreement, and form a strong link in the unity of the Iliad. We see the same conception of Achilles running through all these Books. Moreover, the por- trait is psychologically true to the letter; an angry man docs just what Achilles does, he al- 380 BOOK NINTH. ways goes back to the oflEense and ignores the conciliation. There are, however, passages after the Ninth Book which alkide to the Embassy; Nestor hints at it, Thetis speaks of it directly. But in the Nineteenth Book, when there is no longer wrath but reconciliation, the Embassy becomes a chief factor, and its offers are carried out in full. Not, however, till Achilles rqlents, is he able to listen to its propositions. Mr. Grote, would ap- ply the knife to these later passages which stand in the way of his theory, for it must live though Homer perish. Such is, we believe, the solution of one of the worst tangles of the Homeric question. The Ninth Book is the center of the tangle, which is wholly the work of the critics, for the poet, when we once reach out of the letter into his thought, is clear and consistent. But how he has been slashed right and left, by friend and foe ! The one set, defenders of unity, would cut out those passages after the Ninth Book, which seem to con- tradict it, but in reality agree with it. (Sec Ameis-Hentze, Anhang zur Ilias, ad loc. ) The other set, assailants of unity, would cut out those passages after the Ninth Book which allude to it or imply its existence. Then there is Mr. Glad- stone, who keeps the poem intact, but seeks to explain the difficulty, by making the Embassy BOOK NINTH. 381 nothing, at least notbing for Achilles, who is still in the right after rejecting its offers. Now all these methods, we must think, are in- adequate. The Embassy is ignored afterwards by Achilles for a good poetical reason; the Embassy is emphasized afterwards by Agamemnon and others for a good poetical reason; also Achilles is wrong in his action toward the Embassy, for the best of reasons. One person we see to be right and harmonious in all this jangle; it is the poet. BOOKS 0-18. 1)1 the Niutli Book we emphasized the point at which the case of Achilles chano;ed from beino; in the right to being in the wrong. Moreover the standard of this right and wrono; was not one external to the poem but was very fully given by the poet himself in the speech of Phoenix. We are now to have that part of the Iliad which has as its chief motive-power Achilles in the wrong, and the consequences thereof both to himself and to his people. The time has also come, in the course of the present essay, for much greater brevity. The main points of the Iliad have already been elaborated ; its theology, its structural principle, its general meaning, have been quite fully un- folded. There will still be interferences of the Gods, but the explanation is the same and need not be repeated in detail. Our glance henceforth will chiefly be turned upon the universal sweep of the poem, upon the Iliad in its entirety, yet we shall not neglect its separate Books. Moreover, the present portion of the Iliad (Bools^ 10-18), is the least interesting, and the least significant part of the poem. It has too (382) BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN. 383 much fighting, too much display of brute force and fierce cruehy, too much blood and death to be acceptable to the taste and feeling of these days. It is true that our battles are bloodier, and our wars greater producers of human suffer- ing, than those of the olden time, but the conflict is not so personal now, and the gory tragedy is far more disguised. This middle part of the Iliad has not the variety of the other portions. What a changeful panorama was unrolled before us in the first nine Books ! We heard the quarrel between Hero and Leader, saw Helen, beheld the inside of Troy, was present at the great trial of oratory, and had besides, abundance of fighting. Now we shall have hardly anything else but fighting, with manifold fluctuations from one side to the other, yet bloodily monotonous. These middle Books are mainly one battle; they embrace but one day with its preceding night. The adventure of Ulysses and Diomed, recorded in the Tenth Book, took place early in the morning of the day of the battle, as we measure time at present. This day is usually reckoned as the Twenty-Sixth of the total action of the Iliad. Here, then, is the weak side of the poem, and Homer reveals strongly his temporary clement, springing from his position in Place and Time. He had a warlike audience, fond of conflict ; 384 BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN, when they had no real battle, they had to have the semblance in the games at Olympia and else- where, in the festivals, and also in literature and art. It may be said, too, that the organic connection of this middle portion with the total Iliad is not so close, not so deeply ingrown, as in the other por- tions. The leading motive is not so transparent, not so clearly wrought into the fiber of the poetic organism. Still the wrong of the Hero is the thought hanging over it all, though at times that thought gets lost in the long narrations of battle. The sending of Patroclus to Achilles in the Elev- enth Book and the deeds and death of Patroclus in Sixteenth Book, whereby Achilles is fully brought back to his senses, overarch the entire portion, yet the bridge is sometimes in the clouds, where we have to imagine, if we do not see it. To this image we have a right, inasmuch as we can ob- serve the two grand piers of the bridge rising, and bending toward each other as they rise. Still the main source of trouble is not the artis- tic, but the ethical difficulty. We can justify the discipline of Achilles; we feel that, after the re- jection of all overtures of reconciliation, he must be put under severe training by the moral govern- ment of the world. Having deserted his cause for a personal reason, he is to lose his honor; having abandoned his friends iu the hour of trial, they are to be taken away from him; the Hero is BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN. 385 to be castigated till he sees that he has become simply unheroic. But why such a fearful outpouring of calamity upon the Greeks? With the Hero are disciplined his people, though they have not withdrawn from their cause, though they have honored the Hero. Still the latter persists in his wrath, and Zeus, true to his character, says to him in substance: You, Achilles, must have your freedom, with all its consequences; you must work out this recon- ciliation from within, I cannot command it from without. You refuse to return and help your people in their sore distress, they must suffer till you learn. Through the defeat of the Greeks, Achilles ob- tains his experience. But these scourged Greeks still call our attention and sympath}'. Is it, then, the divine order that the innocent should be pun- ished to the end that the guilty may repent and be saved? Such has been the way of History since the beginning. The innocent person has often suffered thus; there is one supreme in- stance which we need not mention. But, in the present case, the people are smitten for the mis- takes and sins of their leaders. Quidqukl dcliraut reges, plectuutur Acliivi, as a Roman poet long ago observed, in his com- ment on the Iliad. Now, is th»rc any reason 386 BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN. for such a discipline, has it a rational ground in the supreme order? It may be said that the Great Men of a people are the people themselves in their very essence. The Hero is what those who have made him a Hero are, or will be, he is their spirit in its most concentrated manifestation. His limits are their limits, his penalty is their penalty. What a les- son to those Greeks on their cardinal danger — excessive individualism ! To be sure, they are not directly guilty, nor is Agamemnon now ; yet their great failing is brought home to them the more keenly by feeling its consequences when they are not to blame. Achilles is still their Hero, even in his wrong ; we may affirm, by vir- tue of his wrong. Every Greek before Troy is a possible Achilles, the limit of the Hero is his own too. The Greeks, by their sufferings, be- hold the result of their conduct potentially, if not actually, and are thus purified to a degree, they are made not only to see but to feel their o;reat national weakness. Undoubtedly this is not the Justice which is organized in the State, and is dealt out to the offender according to the degree of his guilt. In- stitutional Justice can only follow the deed, not anticipate it with the purificatory ordeal of fire. Not so the Justice of the World-Order, which takes nations into its training-school. There is a providential discipline, not for the act but for BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN. 387 the character, not for guilt but for purijScation, not for cue individual but for the whole people. Institutional Justice breaks down at a certain point and another Justice must take the world in hand, must discipline and save it, of course through its own actions. The poem is now to show Achilles in his wrong, and his suffering for it till he lay aside his wrath and be reconciled with his people and their Leader. But at the same time it shows the ter- rible struggles and afflictions of the people who have been whirled into their present calamity by wrongs of Leader and Hero. What a far-reach - ino" insiirht into the order of thino-s lies at the foundation of this poetic picture ! The people must suffer ; this is the only means of reaching their Hero and transforming him, whereby they may in the end conquer. The people must suf- fer ; thus they are purified, not of the guilty deed after it has been done, but of the limit in char- acter which makes the guijty deed possible. It is not said that the poet utters these thoughts di- rectly in his poem; but they underlie and con- tain its action, its splendid movement of events and characters. The doctrine is implicit in poetry, but it is there nevertheless, and must be felt and seen, and finally thought. In the movement of these nine Books (about nine, not exactly ^, we notice three main sweeps, giving, on the one hand, various stages in the 388 BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN battle between Trojans and Greeks, and, on the other hand, various approaches toward a change in Achilles. As the Trojan victory becomes more and more decisive, culminating at last in the death of Patroclus, his dearest friend, the re-action takes place in the breast of the Hero. What is the best way of conceiving these three sweeps in the present portion of the Iliad? The whole seems to the reader at first view a confused jumble of Gods and men, of Greeks and Trojans, slashing riiiht and left, advancing and retreating without much order yet with horrible slaughter. Let us imagine the great pendulum of battle moving to and fro ; it swings first toward Greek success, then back toward Trojan success; the two oscillations forward and backward make one great cycle, and there are three such cycles, each of which is composed of tiiree Books, about. Three times do these terrific vibrations take place, still there is a o;eneral movement also toward the grand end, the will of Zeus is being accomplished. The events of each cycle are different; of them we may now take a survey in order. I. The first oscillation starts from the victory of the Trojans before the Greek wall and sweeps forward to Greek success, culminating in the ex- ploits of Agamemnon in the Eleventh Book. Then the second oscillation begins with the wounding of the Heroes, and sweeps backward to Trojan success, till the Greek wall is taken by BOOKS NIXE TO EIGHTEEN: 389 Hector. Such is the first cycle, in which Achilles also has his place ; Patroclus is sent to him by Nestor to persuade him to enter the contest, when the oscillation turns against the Greeks. In this cycle there is very little interference of the Gods ; Zeus is having his way, and mortals are fighting out their own quarrel under his decree. (Books 10, 11, 12o II. The second cycle begins with the oscillation from the last victory of the Trojans at the wall, and sweeps forward to Greek success in which the Trojans lose what they have just gained. This re-action has a divine starting-point; Neptune, aided by Juno, now makes himself the central influence of the poem. But Zeus asserts his sov- ereignty anew, and the oscillation sweeps back- ward again to the success of the Trojans who penetrate to the ships and try to set them on fire. Such is the second cycle in which Achilles is not forgotten; Patroclus, who has been detained, hurries to him, when the oscillation turns against the Greeks, for it is their defeat, not their suc- cess, which brings to mind their absent Hero. This cycle is full of divine intervention ; the old Olympian dualism appears again and has again to 1)0 suppressed by Zeus. We may call it the Neptuniad. (Books 13, 14, 15.) III. The third cycle begins with the oscillation from the last victory of the Trojans at the ships, and sweeps forward to Greek success, in wliich 390 BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN. the Trojans again lose what they have gained. This re-action has a human starting-point, Pa- troclus, who now enters the field. But he is slain, and therewith the oscillation starts toward the success of the Trofans, who again recover their lost ground and almost succeed in capturing the body of Patroclus. Such is the third cycle in which Achilles begins to assume his old promi- nence; he steps out of his background, is recon- ciled, and becomes henceforth the true Hero of his people and the central figure of the poem. This third cycle we may call the Patrocliad. (Books 16, 17 and part of 18.) It will be noticed that these three grand sweeps are constructed pretty much alike. Each starts with a Trojan success, on the plain, at the Greek wall, or at the ships, moves to a Greek success, in which they are repulsed from the point gained, then back to a Trojan success. That is, there are two grand oscillations in each sweep, accom- panied with many minor oscillations in the small combats, which image the ajreat total strug-crle. The earth trembles and the great cause trembles, fluctuating from one side to the other. "We shall give a brief account of the events in each of these cycles following the order of the Books. The Ninth Book, which was last considered, has no fighting in it, except with the tongue. BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN. 391 which weapon the Greeks used against one another with great success. In order to get the military situation, we must go back to the close of the Eighth Book, where Hector, victorious for the day, has been overtaken by night, and has built his bliizing camp-fires not far from the Greek wall, and so awaits the morning to renew the bat- tle. But before morning comes, the incidents of the Tenth Book (as well as those of the Ninth) have transpired, which we are now to consider. This division of the Iliad, as already stated, has two main elements, the struggling people who do the fighting, and the struggling Achilles, who is wrestlino; with his wrongful wrath. Both threads are carried along together. The starting- point of the fighting is at the end of the Eighth Book; but the starting-point of Achilles in the wrong is in the Ninth Book, where he refuses re- conciliation. After this refusal, the first deed of arms is recorded in the Book which now follows. Tenth Book. The narrative has a light, easy movement, and holds the interest. But it is not profound, it has no intervention of the Gods ex- cept one soft short whisper of Pallas ; the great problems of Homer's Universe are not called up in its words or deeds. The structure, therefore, does not move on the divine and human lines ; it is a skillful, but somewhat external adjustment of the parts of a story. I. The preparations for the adventure, which 392 BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN. take up more than half the Book, are given in a series of lively pictures. (Lines 1-339.) a. In the Greek camp, one hero after another is brought before us dramatically in character- istic touches till the right ones are selected — Diomed and Ulysses, b. In the Trojan camp, Dolon, a deformed un- heroical person, is the only one to offer himself, and to him is given a low motive. II. The adventure, which has two parts. (Lines 339-507.) a. Dolon is met and taken. He confesses, tells about Rhesus, and is killed as a spy. b. Rhesus and the Thracians are visited ; the leader is slain and his horses are captured and many of his followers killed. III. Warning of Pallas to return to the Greek camp, which the two heroes obey. They reach it safely with their booty, and have a jollification with their friends, ending with a banquet, the third one for that night. (Lines 507 till end.) The center of interest lies in the exploits of Ulysses and Diomed, who are now spies, seeking to enter the Trojan camp by night. Thus the Book shows a contrast.to the fighting by day, and is unique in the Iliad, It is, moreover, a Book of personal adventure, and has a special character and a special interest on this account. Undoubt- edly there is a great deal of personal combat else- where in the poem, but the army stands back of BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN. 393 the combatants ; even the duel takes place in the presence of all. But this story of adventure is very different, and suggests another kind of liter- ature. Still it belongs to the general picture of the Trojan war, which would not be complete without some such account. Espionage is a part of the military business, and has a right to a place in this most warlike poem. The Book hangs loosely on the organism of the work as a whole. Some ancient critics ques- tioned its right to a place in the Iliad on account of its episodical character. Certain liuguistic peculiarities connect it with the Odyssey^ as well as the fact that Ulysses is one of its two heroes. Most writers of the Wolfian school consider it the work of another Homer besides Homer. There is no doubt, however, that it is externally well adjusted to its present place, and gives variety as well as relief. We think, however, that it is not without some internal connection with the movement of the poem. It shows the beginning of the os- cillation toward Greek success which continues through a part of the next Book. The adventure too must have had its effect in rousing the droop- ing spirits of the Greeks. Then the information gained had its importance ; the anxiety of the leaders was allayed by the discovery that Hector was not going to make an attack by night. The Book also shows that the Greeks will still fiirht 394 BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN. thouffh the Hero refuse all offers of reconcilia- tion. The characters of Ulysses and Diomed link into the rest of the Iliad, they are the typi- cal persons for such an exploit. The man of daring and the man of prudence — the hand and the head — go together, in fact choose each other. The sending of the spies is motived by the new situation ; previously, whl?n Achilles was on hand, there was no need of such a precaution. In ten years there has been no such anxious mo- ment as the present. Yonder are Hector and the Trojans, no longer penned up in their city, but in the plain of Troy just before the Greek wall. Such is the great new fact of the war. Hector thinks of the same thing very naturally under the circumstances, and sends out his spy also. The two sets of spies meet — the result is the present Book. We may grant that it is not so intimately in- grown with the organism of the Iliad as some other Books ; we may grant that it has peculiari- ties of style and language; we may cheerfully grant many other demands made upon us ; but we cannot grant that there has yet been shown any inherent necessary ground for taking this Book away from Homer and the Iliad. The Tenth Book has another ground of fitness ; it takes its place naturally in the oscillation from defeat to success of the Greeks, which success reaches its height in the next Book with the BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN. 395 deeds of Agamemnon. Thus we ma}^ properly consider it a piirt of the first cycle, as already outlined. Eleventh Book. In this Book we see the ele- ments which now dominate the poem : Battle, with all its uncertainties for the Greeks on the one hand, and, on the other, the attempt to get back the man who can slop these uncertainties. I. The battle shows four important oscillations : forward to Greek success till Agamemnon is wounded; backward to Trojan success under the fresh attack of Hector who has been warned to keep out of the way of Agamemnon till the latter be disabled ; forward again to a brief Greek suc- cess under Diomed and Ulysses, who, however, get wounded; backward again to Trojan success in which two more Greek heroes, Machaon and Eurypylus, are wounded. The Greeks are now paralyzed through the want of leaders, five being wounded and out of combat. These oscilkitions are now the Homeric prin- ciple of battle, and will be continued in great waves and small tremblings to the end. Aga- memnon in this Book has his demonic war-spell, but it does not hold out very long, he can by no means take the place of the Hero. The Greeks and Trojans are in a balance swaying up and down; but the Greeks have the anxiety, for they are in a foreign land and are without the security which the walls of a city give. This anxiety is 396 BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN. the rack upon which they are stretched, not alone the rack of battle. Hence the longing for relief and the effort again made by Nestor to win back Achilles; the old hero now tries to work through Patroclus, after having failed in the Embassy, which was his scheme also. II. The second portion of the Eleventh Book comes to the point around which everything at present swings: Will Achilles return to the war? He is standing by his ship, and beholding the rout of his friends and people; will he hold out in his wrath? He shows a touch of sympathy; he sends Patroclus to ask who is that last wounded man. Yet the anger still breaks out along with this gleam of tender interest: *« Now I think the Greeks will soon stand at my knees in supplica- tion ; for a necessity no longer to be endured comes upon them." Evidently pity and wrath are struggling in the breast of Achilles ; wrath, however, is still the stronger. The passage just translated has obtained a good deal of importance from its place in the Homeric controversy. Because Achilles does not mention the fact that the Greeks have just been at his knees in the Embassy the night before, the infer- ence has been made that the author of this Book could not have known the Ninth Book. Then the still further inference follows that there must be several Homers (that is, none at all), and several Iliads within the Iliad. The. omission of BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN. 397 one little word in the above passage knocks the whole poem to pieces ; if Achilles had only said again, " the Greeks will stand at my knees again,'' ^ then we might have had one Homer and one Iliad. So a number of German writers, so Mr. Grote in substance. To be sure, they cite other passages iu the succeeding Books, which they claim to be inconsistent with the Ninth Book, but the above passage is as decisive as any. What a difference in human judgment ! To our mind this passage connects most intimately with the Ninth Book, specially in the character of Achilles. We recollect that it was the striking quality of his first speech before the Embassy to forget the present situation and go back to the first scene of the quarrel, he could not keep in mind that the restitution of Briseis and gifts and reconciliation had been offered. He was angry, and like an angry man remembered only the cause of his anger. The same trait is given in the pres- ent passage ; in his wrath he forgets the Embassy, just as he forgot it and its offers in its very pres- ence. It was the same hand that gave this unique touch of character to the wrathful Hero both in the Ninth and Eleventh Books, and bound them together by this subtle chord of unity. Achilles, as we sec him here, is changing, soft- ening, though still in wrath. We can also see how his friends, specially Nestor and Patroclus, regard him; they certainly think that he is iu 398 BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN. the wrong. Nestor distinctly hints his selfish- ness : " he alone will have the profit of his brav- ery " and not his people and friends; " hereafter he will shed many tears when the people have perished." Patroclus undertakes to bring him into the war ; which fact shows that Patroclus, too, thought further wrath should be laid aside. Thus we see the wrong of Achilles reflected both in Nestor and Patroclus. A very intimate con- nection we note herein with the Ninth Book, and with the general movement of the entire poem. Before the Embassy, Nestor deemed the wrath of Achilles justifiable, at least deemed that he had been wronged. Not so now. The same may be said of Patroclus. There is a point in the character of Agamem- non which is worthy of notice. He is much de- pressed in the Ninth Book ; he even advises the Greeks to return home. But in the Eleventh Book, on the next morning, he is brave, and for a time becomes the leading figure in battle. Why this difference? Already we have seen that Aga- memnon easily passes from exaltation to discour- agement, and back again. But now the main factor of his heroic part is the freedom from guilt ; he has undone his wrong toward the Hero, and he becomes therein a hero himself, which great change is manifested outwardly by his present deeds. He rebounds from the burden of his violation, and is a new man in spirit and in BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN. 399 action. To be sure nothing of the sort is directly declared ; but the two states are given side by side, as it were, whereby Homer tells his story, as he often does, in the most suggestive way. Twelfth Book. This may be named the Book of the Wall, and it continues the grand oscilla- tion toward Trojan success, which began in the Eleventh Book, and culminated with the wound- ing of the five heroes. Ajax was left standing like a human wall in that Book, keeping back the Trojans, but he has been compelled to retire behind the physical wall, which now becomes the great object of possession for both sides. This wall has such importance that the poet, in a kind of introduction to the Book, gives its character and fate, as if he were looking back at it from his own time a good while afterwards. It was not a divine work, it was built " without the favor of the Gods," being intended to shield the Greeks and nullify their Hero Achilles, against the will of Zeus and his promise to Thetis. " Without hecatombs to the Gods," without di- vine recognition it arose, hence it perished from the plain by the action of Apollo and Neptune, in which deities we may see a hint of the natural causes which swept it into the sea. Yet there was a divine cause too. The Trojan army of attack is now organized into five divisions, which are partially, but not always distinctly marked in the following Books. 400 BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN. Even in the present Book, only three of the divisions are brouglit into active battle. Hector is always the leader, and he passes easily from division to division, though he has his own special division. As fighting is the main fact of this Book, the Homeric principle in the descriptions of battles, namely, oscillation, enters prominently into the structure. We have already spoken of the greater oscillation, of which this Book is but a part, but it has also a number of minor oscillations within itself, as will be seen by the f ollowmg outline : — I. Introduction to the battle at the wall. (1-107.) a. History and fate of the wall. b. Preparation for battle. The Greeks, "tamed by the whip of Zeus" — a hint of their disci- pline — are driven inside their wall; Hector, undertaking to cross the ditch in his chariot, is thwarted by his horses shying before it. Poly- dumas and Hector organize the five divisions on foot to attack the wall. II. The battle, in which we mark four lesser oscillations of victory and resistance ; the sweep of the whole is, however, toward Trojan success. (107-471.) a. The attack of Asios on the left; it is met and repelled by the Lapithge. h. The attack of Hector, probably at the cen- ter, which is met and stayed by the two Ajaxes. BOOKS NINE TO EIGHTEEN. 401 c. The attack of Sarpedon, who assails the tower of Menestheus, making a diversion in favor of Hector; but he too is repulsed. d. Second attack of Hector, who breaks down the gate with a huge stone. The Trojans rush in, the Greeks flee to the ships. I-nside the wall, between it and the ships, lay quite a little space, over which the battle is hence- forth to fluctuate. The first grand oscillation toward Trojan success has now completed it- self. Here it is important to get some idea of the nature and situation of the Greek wall with its various fortilied points. Evidently there are in it three main places — center, right and left, to which the Trojan army has to adjust its attack. Probably there were three gates in the three parts. Along the wall were wooden towers, which protected the combatants within them, and from which they could discharge their weapons against the advancing foe. In front of the wall was a ditch, and between the wall and ditch was a nar- row space where warriors could .e limit of the Hero is transcended, another limit makes its appearance. The solution of one problem begets another problem even greater, and thus out of the First Part of the Iliad grows a Second Part. Eighteenth Book. This is probably the most significant and profound Book of the Iliad. We notice deep suggestions of s[)iritual things which are supposed to belong to a later epoch of the world — sorrow, repentance, reconciliation. It is a terrible personal experience; and on this in- (423) 424 BOOKS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN. ner axis of a human soul the poem turns. To the present Book, accordinorly, we may give our best and most sympathetic stud3^ In its structure, we observe four marked divis- ions : Achilles and Thetis, the recovery of the body of Patroclus, Polydamas and Hector, and the forging of the armor by Vulcan. But all these portions move about one thought, the change in Achilles. Hence we shall organize the Book ac- cording to this thou2;ht into two divisions: the internal change of Achilles and the external mani- festation of it in three ways; Among the Greeks, among the Trojans, and in Art. I. The main thing is that which is told first. The news of the death of Patroclus is brought to Achilles. He had already anticipated the calam- ity, and identified it with an old prophecy of his mother's. Achilles had a strong premonitory tendency in him. Fearful was his sorrow, he rolled in the dust, he poured ashes over his gar- ments, he tore his hair. Antilochus the messen- ger held his hands, lest he might cut his own throat. The sorrow of Achilles is not a piece of poetic extravagance ; it is the mighty breaking down of his wrath and pride, which shatters his frame and tosses his soul ; \t is the process of transforma- tion. Sorrow is the first step in repentance. This intense emotion swells up like the sea from the depths. BOOKS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN. 425 And behold here is the Sea, his mother Thetis, with the Nereids of the Deep around her weep- ing. She laments her maternity, " wretched mother of the Hero," of him who has to suffer much and then to perish. Such is indeed his fate from the beginning. She rises up at the ships and takes her son's head in her hands and tries to comfort him. Zeus has accomplished his prayer, has fulfilled the nod. That is, indeed, just the cause of the trouble. Achilles now sees in his distress what he has done by his wrath, and still more by his refusal of rec- onciliation. He has lost his hcroship, thrown it away: "I have been no help to Patroclus and my other companions, who have fallen by the hand of Hector." What then, is the good of being hero, if not to save your friends and your eause? " Here I sit a useless burden of the earth," though the greatest of these Achseans. Sorrow indeed clarifies the vision and opens the heart. What next? "Perish strife and wrath from among Gods and men; " he declares he is ready to be reconciled with Agamemnon. Guilt, sor- row, repentance are all here working out the re- demption of the soul. But there is one ominous note ; a new wrath rises against Hector, which seems to have in it the possibility of another excess. Hector has only done what Achilles intends to do ; if fate follows 426 BOOKS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN. the Trojan, why not the Greek on account of his fatuity? So Thetis prophesies, " after Hector, thy death." But he is ready to accept the call: "Then let me die." Still Achilles is transformed, is a new man ; he is to have a new divine armor, since Hector now has his old armor, taken from Patroclus, which belonged to his father Peleus, and was a present from the Gods. Deeply significant is this relation of Achilles to his divine mother. She comes now without his call, she hears the voice of sorrow in the bottom of the sea. In the First Book he prayed to her ere she came. She appears with a train of mourners; these added mourners outside the domestic relation are still common in Southern Europe. Here is suggested a deep, intimate communing of the Hero with the divine part of himself, being Goddess-born. When he comes to an important turn in his life, Thetis appears. She speaks to him ; he follows, he obtains the new insight. Thrice she comes to him in the course of the Iliad, each time is the period of a grand transi- tion in the soul of the Hero, which unites him with the movement of what is highest. In the First Book, when he is wronged she obtains for him the divine recognition of his heroic worth. Zeus gives the promise to honor her son. But she did not appear in the Ninth Book, when his wrath lapsed into wrong. But here she is again. BOOKS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN. 427 helping him secure his lieroship througli recon- ciliation. She will appear once more in the last Book of the poem, in order to rescue Achilles from his second wrongful wrath, and bring him back to his second reconciliation. Truly the divine element she is in her sou as well as in the world, lifting him out of his weak finite side, raisino; him above himself. She is connected spiritually with all his changes — with his first protest against wrong, with his first and with his second reconciliation. Thetis is a Goddess and immortal, yet she has entered into mortal relationships in the Family. The result is, she is represented in two different ways, and in two different localities. She comes from the depths of the sea like a marine deity, and has free access to Olympus. Still she is living with her mortal husband, Peleus, in Phthia, and speaks of her hope of welcoming her son back to his home after the war. I can find no authority in the poem for the statement of Naegelsbach and others that she had separated from her husband. She has the double life com- mon to the Greek Gods; Apollo, for instance, though gone to ^thopia, can hear the sacrificial hymn at Clnyse. In one place, yet elsewhere and everywhere ; it is the twofoldness of the finite and infinite familiar to the Homeric conception of deity. Even Hercules, a demigod, in the Od>/ssei/ has a double ; his eidolon or image is in Hades, 428 BOOKS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEK. whilst his real self, his Ego is on Olympus. Thetis is represented both in her finite rehition as wife and mother of mortals, and in her infinite character, as Goddess. II. Achilles has now undergone the grand in- ternal transformation. Certain signs of this are next to be given in the Homeric manner, certain reflections of it in order to hint its outward power and reality. The poet shows the changed man imaged in three very different ways, each of which has its significance. a. The first of these manifestations is the influence of his mere appearance on the battle- field over friend and foe. The body of Patro- clus is not yet recovered, is in fact, about to be lost, as it seems ; those who were carrying it off have been stopped. Under the order of the God, Achilles merely goes and shows himself at the ditch and yells; there is something miracu- lous in both his appearance and his war-whoop, both are the work of Minerva. Yet the true miracle is in himself, he has changed, the God can now use him. His will is henceforth to help the Greeks, a divine supernatural power he shows, striking terror into the Trojans and inspiring his own people. Still the corpse of his friend was easily rescued from the wearied enemy. h. Well may the Greeks feel this new appear- ance of Achilles among them as the prelude of victory. But how about the Trojans? We are BOOKS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN. 429 now to have a reflection of this change of the Hero in his enemies. A council is held; Poly- dainas, their wise man, advises withdrawal to the city dm'ing the night on account of the return of Achilles, who cannot take the walls of Troy. His speech is the voice of wisdom, but it is spurned by Hector, who deems himself quite the equal of Achilles, after ten years of experience to the contrary. This is again the fatuity of Hector. Victory has turned his head. The Trojans ap- plaud him, the madmen! All of them are about to make trial of the new Achilles. Nobody approves of the advice of the wise man. In Troy, however, there is one person who appre- ciates Achilles ; those who do not are iu the hands of Fate, and chiefly. Hector, Moreover, we see here the result of separating wisdoui from action, the thought from the deed. Hector and Polydamas were companions, equal in age, born in one night, halves of one spiritual whole. Achilles, too, had this infatuation once, but it is no longer his; he is coming out of it, while Hec- tor is going into it. Such is already the strong contrast in their development. In the Trojan as well as in the Greek camp, there is the division into men of action and men of counsel, and the two sides sometimes get into antagonism. As a confirmation of the speech of Polydum.-is, we hear the lament of Achilles again, as well as his vows of revenge. Patroclus is lying there as 430 BOOKS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN. the great incitement to renewed war; Zeus above recognizes the change in Achilles. But Hector and the Trojans do not yet feel what is coming; only their wise man who " sees things past and things to come," can behold that, and give a fruitless warning. c. We are next to have a reflection of the new Achilles in Art. He is to obtain new armor, specially a new shield, which he is to bear before him as his sign and as his defense. This is the simple situation which determines the work. "What is Achilles defending? The world, the Greek world; hence let it appear in image on his shield. Thus every foe and friend can see for what the Hero is fightino-. Then we can turn the thought around. What is that which defends, supports, glorifies the Hero? That same world; without it he is nothing. This has been" just his experience ; without his people, his cause, his world, for which he may oSer his life, he is "a useless burden of the earth." In his wrath he lost his heroship ; living for him- self he was not alive. Such is the new insight of the man ; let it now be expressed in plastic forms upon the great shield protecting him while he pro- tects his world. We shall find that the descrip- tion of this shield stands in intimate relation to the new Achilles. Not the selfish individual is the Hero now; what he does is universal, is for all. BOOKS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN. 431 The armor is, therefore, divine; it is to be made by a God, by the Olympian artist himself, Vulcan, who alone can put into actual forms such a lofty meaning. Accordingly we are transported to the celestial workshop, in which we note the two sides of all Art : the mechanical side in which the artist appears as the laborer, the blacksmith with his forge and tongs, even with his shaggy breast and sooty face. In a vein of decided humor this phase of the God is described; it is indeed a very necessary phase of the divine art, even on Olympus. Then the lameness of the God is in contrast with his own perfect beautiful shapes; he shares in the limit of nature. Also the legend is given whereby he was iiung out of Olympus, though a deity, as in the Greek world the artist, though the sharer of the divine by his genius, was not held in social esteem. This legend differs from that in the First Book, but fits here; it is evident that Homer regards the legends as so much plastic material Avhich he can mould at will after keeping certain general outlines. But there is also present here the ideal or divine side of Art. Those tripods which would roll in and out " of their own accord " were indeed a wonder, having made motion everlasting in a work of Art. Then the maidens who sup[)orted his weak footsteps, "like living girls, endued with mind and speech and strength," were the veritable fore- runners of all Greek statuary. From Homer the 432 BOOKS eighteen; nineteen. later Greek sculptors took many motives and hints ; indeed the poet suggests the living mar- ble. Thus the God, though lame, can overcome all lameness, all inadequacy by his constructions ; he can put life into stone and iron and bronze, life endurino;. It will be noticed that Thetis gives to the artist quite fully the history of Achilles and of the whole Iliad in its leading points: the wrong done to him and his consequent wrath ; then his refusal of all presents and of reconciliation ; then the sending of Patroclus with his own arms; now the need of new arms for the Hero, who is about to return to the war. Vulcan in this way gets the account of the man whose armor he is to make ; he is to show for what that man is fighting before Troy. Having this knowledge, Vulcan goes to work " with a knowini? heart." In regard to the description of the shield, the general outlines are clear, but many details are hard to understand. It was divided into five con- secutive layers or compartments, and each of these compartments furnished a field for the images. The three great divisions of its subject-matter corresponded to the three great divisions of the physical universe; Heaven, Earth and Sea. In the round field at the center we may place the Heavens with the Sun and Stars, as they are here indicated. The Earth follows next, in three concentric BOOKS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN. 433 fields, corresponding to the three classes of hu- man society, urban, agiicultural and pastoral. It is now the institutional world which is portrayed on the shield. First, then, is urban life in two phases : peace and war. Peace has the scenes of marriage and justice, or phases of the Family and of the State in a time of peace. Then follows the represen- tation of the city in time of war, with various phases: the defense, the ambush, the open bat- tle, like many scenes in the Iliad. Two divis- ions of one compartment we may thus conceive: city in peace and city in war. Second is agricultural life in its three phases at the three different seasons, forming a single layer in the total shield. The ploughing in the spring with the steers is the first scene. Then comes the harvest with reapers and binders, in the sum- mer. Finally is the vintage in the autumn with its music and dance. The third layer contains pastoral life in three phases. The herd of beeves is attacked by the wild beast — a scene which furnishes many of Homer's similes. Then the flock of sheep in the pasture with stalls and shepherd's hut is out- lined. Third is the dance, if this dance belongs to the pastoral scene — which is one of the doubt- ful points in the shield. Now four of the five layers are filled with figures, one for Heaven, three for Earth ; there 28 •434 BOOKS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN. remains one layer for the Ocean stream, which runs round the border, as it ran round the Earth according to the Homeric conception. Here then is the world, the physical, but chiefly the institu- tional, world; for it the Hero is to fight, and he is to preserve it as he is to preserve his shield. We may be sure that his other shield, now used by Hector, is a different affair. We would see in the whole the new spirit of Achilles, as well as the image which hovers before him now, and for which he is ready to give his life. Concerning the artistic points in this famous description, quite a literature has been written. The chief peculiarity is the almost entire exclu- sion of mythology ; the Gods appear only in the battle scene, as they do in the Iliad. It copies nature, it has a strong dash of realism; many of its rural scenes we may witness in Greece to-day. Still the fact of it is that it portrays the social totality, yet with a glimpse of the physical ; this contrast is acceptable to the reader, who has had so much to do with Gods and with war. Oriental Art is supposed to have contributed not a little to its form, though its conception be Greek. Brunn is inclined to connect it with Assyrian Art, entering Greece by way of Cyprus. Another question is : Did Homer have before him actual works of the kind, or is it the free product of his imagination? The probability is that he saw such works, at least as suggestions. Sm€LDofHCIilLL€S (435) 436 BOOKS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN. The appliances of Vulcan are simple ; they do not indicate a very advanced state of technical per- fection. It has been compared with Schiller's Song of Bell, though the latter stands by itself. Perhaps the main question with most readers will be : What is its connection with the rest of the Iliad, and with Achilles? Is it a mere external episode or an organic part of the poem ? Lessing maintains that this shield of Homer, in contrast to the shield described in Virgil, is a true out- growth of the poem. Achilles has to have a new shield, and it must be a divine one — a work of Art, showing both the new man and the world for which he is to fight. Nineteenth Book. As the preceding Book gives the internal reconciliation of Achilles, so this Book presents the external side thereof. The Hero and the Leader are now brought together in the Assembly, where the quarrel of the First Book took place. At the same time the transition is made in the present Book to the second great Wrath which is treated in the Iliad. That is, the main turning point of the poem, in its external structure, as well as in its internal meaning, lies in this Book. Accordingly it falls into two dis- tinct portions: the outer forms of reconciliation between Achilles and Agamemnon, and the prep- aration for the second wrath of Achilles. I. This external process of reconciliation must again begin with the Hero, for the Leader has BOOKS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN. 437 already done all that he could toward that end in the Ninth Book. Here, as usual, we note the two sides working together: the divine and the human. a. Thetis represents the divine side moving in the Hero and outside of him, too; she now brings him the Olympian armor, at the sight of which his eyes flash lire. He responds to its mean- ing, he delights in the workmanship, he is again ready to tight for his people. Still the thought of Patroclus fills him ; the mother has divinely to embalm the corpse in order to gratify the son. Later the marble will preserve the beautiful form forever. But the chief duty of Thetis is to give the command: Call the Achaean chiefs to the as- sembly, renounce the wrath against Agamemnon, then arm thyself for war. Truly a divine sug- gestion, coming from the highest part of the Hero's nature, which he at once obeys. b. Achilles calls the assembly of his own ac- cord, with his own shouts, in fact. He is also the first to speak and to confess his own mistake, addressing the Leader by name, though he does not absolve Agamemnon from wrong at the start, nor do we. He repeats his new insight, that his heroic worth has perished in the slaughter of his friends, the Greeks. The bitter confession of his soul is before his world. " Let by-gones be by-gones . Now I stop my wrath . ' ' Thus Achilles on his part completes the external act of recon- ciliation in the presence of the whole people. 438 BOOKS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN: Next follows the answer of Agamemnon, which is a very cui'ious speech. He blames, as is usual with him, somebody else for his own act; now it is Zeus mainly, yet he includes Fate, Fury and Ate, or blind fatuity. Concerning the last he gives a mythological fragment, which tells how Zeus was once caught by her malice. For this reason she was flung out of Olympus, from which Zeus has banished her forever. Wherein we may see a grand development of the Supreme God, by which he gets rid of blind fatuity; he puts down Ate, as he also must subject to himself Fate and Fury, and assert his rational sovereignty. In this legend Agamemnon intends to cast a hintful image of himself. He, the King, the Zeus on Earth, has also been victimized by Ate in this affair of the quarrel. Such is his confes- sion; he implies that he has gotten rid of his grand infatuation, " the delusive dream," and he still offers the mfts. But to them the new Achilles must be indifferent. It is the wise man Ulysses, however, who says that the gifts must be brought, and a complete reparation given. This is not only an act of justice toward Achilles, but it is needful for the discipline of Agamemnon: " hereafter thou wilt be more just to another." But the main thing in this act of restitution, we must note, is the case of Briseis. The Leader swears a mighty oath that she has remained in his tents undefiled. The BOOKS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN. 439 stress which the poet gives to this incident, indi- cates its importance. The taking of Briseis by Agamemnon was his great wrong; but he has re- garded the prospective tie and ethical relation between her and Achilles, and now she is restored. Thus the original deed of violation is undone, as far as lies in the power of the Leader. Both sides have now performed the internal and the external acts of reconciliation. Achilles sees clearly the hand of Zeus in this great trouble and calamity of the Greeks. It has been, in- deed, a fearful but healthful training. At this place we pass the turning-point of the Iliad, and begin to move in a new direction. II. This is the second Wrath and Reconcilia- tion, with which the rest of the poem is occupied. Two preparatory incidents are given in the re- maining portion of the present Book, leaving out all the thing's said about eatino; and drinkino;. a. The emotional phase, which is strongly manifested in the tent of Achilles, is shown in two laments over Patroclus. The first is that of Bri- seis, who has returned and found him dead who had consoled her in her unhappy lot, promising to elevate her from the slave to the wife of Achilles. This change had been her hope, a par- tial compensation for her lost family. Briseis, too, lays stress upon the ethical side in her rela- tion to Achilles, and praises Patroclus as the one who strove to bring it about t — the humane, we 440 BOOKS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN. might almost say, the moral man. Then that other passing glimpse: "With her the other women (captives in the Greek camp) wailed, in appearance for Patroclus, but in reality each one for her own griefs." The lament of Achilles expresses the friend- ship which has become stronger than the ties of blood. " Nothing worse could I suffer, not even if I should hear of the death of my father or of my son." Very tenderly the Hero tells what had been his hopes in case Patroclus had lived ; now they are all dashed to the ground, and I, too, am to die here far away from my aged parent, who sits expecting the sad news of my death. The Hero refuses all nourishment in his sorrow, but the Gods provide for him nectar and ambrosia. From the present elegiac strain, we pass to a strong martial spirit. h. This is the Hero putting on his armor, the divine armor which his mother had brought him. Then he mounts his chariot, when he hears the prophecy of his horse Xanthus, with bowed head and with mane sweeping the ground, announcing his death soon to occur. Some would cut out the passage in whole or in part. It is a note of pre- monition, when the dumb animal speaks and tells the future, as it often does in the folk-lore of the world. Here is a touch of the fairy-tale, and the Iliad would not be the Iliad without the talkins: horse. BOOKS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN. 441 The poetic effect of the passage cannot be questioned, and its suggestion is twofold. First, Achilles in his intense mood sees and hears in Nature what is in himself; what the horse pro- phesies, he knows already, and feels to be his fate. Secondly, Nature in certain moments, as all poetry declares, sympathises with Spirit, is in rhythm with it, and receives a thrill or oscilla- tion from it ; particularly the horse, so intimately companioned with man, has some strong secret affinity, and shows it often by unusual behavior. Still there is soiuething miraculous in the speech of the horse, something beyond Nature's law, and so the Erinyes put a stop to it. BOOKS 19-22. In the Nineteenth Book we have just seen the grand transition of the Iliad, from the First Wrath and Reconciliation to the Second. With the dissolution of the Assembly by Achilles (line 276) the pivotal point is reached and passed, and a new movement sets in. All alons; we have had intimation of a new Wrath of the Hero, even stronger than the primal one; the thirst for revenge is not the weakest of the motives which has driven him to his present reconcilia- tion. In the Introduction (page 38) we have given the outline of this. second movement of the poem, as it essentially reproduces the first in structure and thought, yet with wholly new inci- dents and results more complete in the end. We shall see that it is a symmetrical part of the Whole. The Wrath of the Hero is now turned against Hector and the Trojans, not against Agamemnon and the Greeks. Achilles is hence- forth the center of everything ; no longer in the background but in the foreground ; no longer passive, but active — the man of the deed. Now he is a second time to pass essentially through the same discipline. We are again to (442) BOOKS l^INETEEN TO TWENTY-TWO. 443 see Achilles in the Right ; then in his excess of wrath his Right becomes a Wrong, and finally he is to give lip his wrongful attitude, and be recon- ciled. First is the Hero fighting for his friend and his cause, wherein the Poet approves of his course. (Book 19, line 276, to Book 22, line 335.) Twentieth Booh. The Gods are now to enter the battle in person ; hitherto they have been kept out by command cf Zeus. Why this change in Zeus at the present turn of affairs? He has been disciplining his own people, upon whom he has inflicted defeat; the Greek partisan Gods have often tried to disturb his plan. Moreover the struggle has not really been between the Gods of the two sides, but between Zeus as sov- ereign and the refractory deities. The promise to Thetis, however, is fulfilled, and Achilles has returned to his people ; now the direct conflict between Greece and Troy opens. Thus the Gods of both sides may, indeed must fight, in view of the new situation. They must divide according to the principle involved in the war. In fact the Trojan conflict is at bot- tom nothing but a war of the Gods ; not much raeaninor it would have unless it were such a war. The spiritual conflict is the divine element; so the deities are now to fight. Two phases, accordingly, we find in this Book, 444 BOOKS NINETEEN TO TWENTY- TWO. as we have found so often in Homer — the Up- per World and the Lower. I. The Upper World is brought before us, in its gradation from the supreme deity, through the lesser Gods till the latter reach down and in- fluence mortals. a. Zeus is the highest, he gives the command for the grand Assembly of the Gods, with the permission to aid the Greek or the Trojan as each one listed. He is the sovereign, and the others are partisans or parts ; the monotheistic concep- tion again comes to the surface. Moreover, the deeper question arises: Is Fate over Zeus? Zeus says that the Trojans cannot stand before Achilles for a moment, so great is his physical superiority. Hence the Gods must interfere, and delay his course, else he may take Troy, and thus "transcend Fate." Hence a mortal may endanger Fate ; the Gods are to sally forth to preserve it, and will do so. Zeus, then, is the guardian of Fate, without his aid it might be set aside, when it would be no longer Fate. We see that Zeus is always behind Fate, and gives to it being and necessity; that is, Fate is nothing more than the side of necessity in the will of Zeus, as distinct from his human capricious traits. Thus we behold the dualism — Fate and Chance — for a moment in Zeus, and but for a moment, when all the Gods obey. BOOKS NINETEEN TO TWENTY-TWO. 445 b. These are the Lesser Gods, the partisans, who now pair off in opposition upon the Trojan struggle. It is quite a complete catalogue, at least more complete than we have yet had of the sympathies of the Olympians. Here the dualism makes itself valid on Olympus, and polytheism becomes the stand-point of the poet. Great is the hubbub, the Goddess Discord is present in person, and seems to take possession. Zeus thunders, Neptune shakes the earth, Pluto leaps on his throne iu the underworld in terror. This conflict of the Gods has a humorous touch even, here ; in the next Book it will pitch over into the burlesque. Why should it not? The polytheistic conception reduces itself to nought by its own inherent contradiction, and becomes self-annul- ling, comic. c. Then comes the influence of the Gods upon the world below, for the Upper World must also be shown, not merely in itself, but making its imprint upon the Lower World. First Apollo stirs up ^neas on the Trojan side, who, how- ever, hesitates, remembering how Achilles " chased me from Ida once with his spear." Bui Apollo appeals to him a second time by reminding him of his Goddess-Mother, Venus, who is higher than the Goddess-Mother of Achilles, Thetis. This passage is interesting; it hints that the two heroes, Achilles and ^neas, obtainod their heroic power from their divine 446 BOOKS NmETEEN TO TWENTY-TWO. mothers. On the Greek side Juno proposes to Neptune and Pallas to aid Achilles, but Neptune dissuades her for the present. The two sets of Gods take position on two opposite hillocks in the plain of Troy, but neither side seems ready to begin the conflict. II. After this exposition of the divine side, we have the battle waged among mortals. Of course Achilles is the man around whom the action moves; he is now the Hero who is to be brought into the foreground always. Omitting the lesser combats there are two of importance. a. The combat with ^neas. This is preceded by a long dialogue in which ^neas tells his gene- alogy. We note in him an element counter to the rule of Priam. ' Still JEneas will fidit against the invader; he is about to perash when, strange to say, he is rescued by Neptune. b. The combat with Hector. At first the latter keeps out of the fight at the suggestion of Apollo, then enters it again, when he sees his young brother Polydorus lying dead before him. He is saved in a cloud by the intervention of Apollo. In this Book, therefore, we find a new Olym- pian phase of the Iliad: the Gods are permitted, we might almost say, commanded to fight one another. In the first grand movement of the poem, there has been no such divine action. And on, the human side also we note a great "Change. As the Hero has come forth, irresistible in valor BOOKS ]S!INETEEN TO TWENTY-TWO. 447 and might, there can be no further oscillations of battle, such as we have hitherto seen. Still he must be impeded in some Avay; for unless some- thing from the Gods stems him, the Trojans can- not *' withstand him a moment," as Zeus says. Hence we shall now see the principle of retarda- tion, as we may name it, instead of the previous oscillation, which took place among warriors and between two sides that were quite equal. But the all-surpassing Hero has disturbed the former equilibrium of the opposing forces ; he enters the combat, but neither Hector nor ^T^neas can resist him. Still he must be. hindered, in order to show, if nothing more, his finitude ; so the Gods come in and rescue, in a very external manner, the two Trojan leaders. Deity alone can now thwart Achilles temporarily ; but this retardation is simply to throw a more dazzling light upon the Hero, who, being obstructed by Gods, will have to tackle them — whereof we have the example in the next Book. Twenty-First Booh. We find in this Book, as so often before, a sweep up to Olympus from the earth, then a drop back to earth again. In the preceding Book we had the struggle in the Upper World, then its transfer to the Lower World. In the present Book, the rise is from below to heaven above, then a descent. It is in certain respects a counter movement ; now the combat of the mortal seems to vibrate up to the immor- 448 BOOKS NINETEEN TO TWENTY-TWO. ' tals and set them in motion. We shall follow these two sweeps in order. I. In the rise to Olympus we have three main gradations : combat of mortal with mortal, of mortal with a God, of Gods with Gods. These three phases we may look at briefly. a. Achilles in driving his foes has reached the banks of the Xanthus. This river belonging to the Trojan landscape now l)ecomes a center. It winds through the first half of the Book, rising higher and higher in the scale from nature to spirit, till it takes on form and speaks as a God. Achilles drives the fugitives into the stream, and slays right and left, then he takes captive twelve Trojan youths to be sacrificed over the tomb of Patroclus. He slaughters Lycaon, son of Priam, who begs for mercy, while Xanthus, the Trojan stream, seeks to stem his prowess. Then Aster- opaeus, who is descended from the River-God Achelous, is slain by Achilles, and in general, the deities of the Rivers are contemned by the Hero, In this part of the combat we note the wrath of Achilles with his cruelty; yet his rage is directed toward living enemies. All war is heartless, barbarous. It is so to-day, in spite of improved weapons. You have to shoot down that enemy in front of you, and there is no getting round it. The soldier to-day is not think- ing in the heat of battle how gently and merci- fully he can handle the foe opposite who is trying BOOKS NINETEEN TO TWENTY-TWO. 449 to kill him. The object is to defeat, and any means is seized, for in war the supposition is that all other means have failed. A buttle in the pres- ent time is just as cruel and more bloody than in Homer's time. Nor are individual motives and acts so very different. In the pinch of the onset, bayonet to bayonet, who can think of mercy? Yet when the enemy surrenders he is entitled to his life from his foe. Achilles has often spared men; here he meets Lycaon a second time, whom he has once allowed to be ran.somed. b. The conflict with the River begins when the latter addresses Achilles and tells him to stop choking his channel Vfith. Trojan corpses. But the Hero refuses, when Scamander (or Xanthus), puts forth all his might, and a great overflow comes down which follows Achilles through the plain till Vulcan suppresses the River. What is the meaning of all this? For mean- ing, yes conscious intention, we feel to be in it. First of all is the substrate of nature ; we have the sudden rise of the river, which in Greece to- day sometimes overtakes man and beast. Then there is the opposite energy, heat, which often makes the important river-bed dry in the burning Greek summer. Then the consolation of Nep- tune has its hints : Be not afraid, these waters will soon run out into my domain, the sea. The Xanthus (or Scamander) calls to his brother Simois ; both streams arc indeed full, and oifer 29 450 BOOKS NINETEEN TO TWENTY- TWO. resistance to the man who tries to cross them and assail Troy. If we have had the dominion of one element shown, now we behold the opposing element. Fire, fighting the waters. This Vulcan, or heat, is chiefly borne by the winds who dry up .the streams. It sounds as if the two extreme sea- sons, the wet and the dry, winter and summer, were compressed into an hour's struggle. The battle of Achilles with the Eiver, is a sub- lime conception and nobly executed. The very elements rise up and fight in the plains of Troy, taking sides for and against the Hero. And these physical eleinents, climate, river, mountain, are always a part of war — an enemy or a friend. The Hero has also to meet them, soon he finds out his weakness compared to the prodigious forces of nature. Still these forces can be turned against each other; so Juno, the Queen of Olym- pus, calls in Vulcan or Fire, to fight Water. c. After the end of this battle of a mortal with a God, which is gradually pushed forward till it becomes a battle between two Gods (Xan- thus and Vulcan), we reach another general bat- tle of Gods with Gods, such as was prepared for in the preceding Book. Four different com- bats we see, the Greek divinities being arrayed against the Trojan : — 1. Pallas vs. Mars and Venus. Pallas victori- ous. BOOKS NINETEEN TO TWENTY-TWO. 451 2. Neptune vs. Apollo. The latter withdraws. 3. Juno vs. Diana. Diana is beaten. 4. Mercury vs. Latona. The former declines. This conflict takes place below on the plains of Troy, while Zeus is in Olympus above all con- flict. It is clear that the Greek side of the Gods has won ; moreover Zeus gives no judsjment on the complaint of Diana to him, though he answered such appeals in the Fifth Book. What shall we say to this passage? We feel that its handling of the Gods is very diflerent from that of the preceding Book ; it is a parody rather. The one is sincere, but this is a bur- lesque. The intention can hardly be denied. On the whole, this is one of the most doubtfid passages in Homer. Many of the warmest de- fenders of the unity of the Iliad considers it an interpolation. Homer usually treats his Gods with humor, but not with mockery. They have a finite side for him, but also a divine and in- finite character ; now they are the weakest of weak mortals. We hear the prelude of the battle of the Frogs and Mice, and the early notes of the scofler Lucian. Still such a passage is an evolution of Homer, an outgrowth of his poetry and polytheism. The conflict of many Gods must finally become ab- surd, indeed a travesty. Has Homer then em- bodied this negative phase of his own work in his work? Has he given us every style of poetry in 452 BOOKS NINETEEN TO TWENTY- TWO. the Iliad, even the burlesque ? It is a continua- tion, or rather the carrying out of the battle started in the last Book, but that is in the man- ner of Homer, while this seems foreign to him. II. After Xanthus is conquered by the Hero, the last physical obstacle is overcome ; and as the Trojan deities have been driven from the conflict by the Greek deities, the divine obstacle no longer stands in the way. Still Apollo is active before Troy, active in deluding Achilles. There is now the sweep back to earth again. The Trojans are fleeing across the plain to the walls of the city. Priam orders the gates to be held open for the retreating crowd. Yet even thus he is afraid lest Achilles rush inside. But Apollo introduces a retarding element, draws Achilles off in pursuit of Agenor, which is a de- lusion, doubtless, in Achilles himself, but also helpful to the Trojans, and hence caused by their protecting deity. A God has again to thwart Achilles temporarily, from the great object, the combat with Hector. Twenty-Second Booh. Since the death of Pa- troclus, Hector has been withdrawn to the back- ground, and Achilles has come to the front. But all along the necessary trial of arms between these two heroes has been looming up in the dis- tance. One thino; and another have been intro- duced to retard the culminating event, yet to heighten the interest. BOOKS NINETEEN' TO TWENTY-TWO. 453 But now the final struggle is no longer to be deferred. The first lines locate Hector outside of the walls, while Achilles is running after Agenor, under a delusion, from which he soon recovers. Thus the two combatants are brought face to face. In this Book is also the transition from the right to the wrong of Achilles. Wrath will again carry him forward into violation, the heroic in- tensity cannot be held in the limits of wdiat is just. The Book thns is divided into two por- tions: The Death of Hector and the Wrong of Achilles. I. The fate of the Trojan Hero is very fully motived internally and externally by the poet. Hector is first to be seen, decreeing as it were, his own death. Then will come the decree of the Highest God, Zeus, in correspondence. Not till then can the blow of Achilles fall. These three stages in the fate of Hector may be glanced at separately. a. The first thing which shows itself is the moral weakness of Hector. The aged Priam, father and king in one, beseeches him, for the sake of father and fatherland, to come inside the city and save it and him. The mother comes also, and, with all the emotion of the Family in its maternal love, repeats the prayer. But he will not obey; why ? Listen : — "Ah, me ! If I now enter the gates, Polydamas 454 BOOKS NINETEEN TO TWENTY-TWO. will be first to cast a reproach upon me," because I disregarded his wise counsel through my own infatuation. That is, Hector refuses to go back to his own and manfully acknowledge his mistake ; he is not hero enough for that. But Achilles has done so, has confessed his wrong in open Assem- bly, and has been reconciled with his own. Here the Greek Hero clearly transcends the Trojan one, not merely in physical courage, but in moral also. His limit does not destroy him, he rises above it, and hence is not tragic, at least not in the Iliad. But Hector is unwilling to meet his error, and undo it, taking the consequences of it upon himself, and thus transcending it; his in- ternal weakness is manifested in his external want of valor. As he before fought for what he knew was wrong, so now he refuses to do what he knows is his duty in the very pinch of his coun- try's danger. Lacking the courage to face his mistake, he lacks the courage to meet Achilles.* Such is* the contrast, the inner contrast of character, betw^een the two heroes at this point. The main fact is, that the poet is most careful to show the internal ground for Achilles' superiority over Hector, before the two came to the physical test. Clearly to Homer, merely natural strength and courage, without the ethical side thereof, is meaningless. In minor touches we may follow the same trait; hence the treaty-breaking Trojan hears at the last moment the ominous words: BOOKS NINETEEN TO TWENTY-TWO. 455 " Speak to me not of treaties, perjured Hector." The latter runs, when the Hero appears, must run ; in comparison, he is not heroic, he cannot put down his infatuation, and be a greater than himself. Thus he who once seemed the moral hero perishes by moral cowardice, and the grand fatality of Troy enters and destroys its greatest and noblest man. b. Now comes the divine element. Hector has not, or cannot get rid of his pride, as Achilles has done. We are to see that this personal act of his strikes into the divine order, is a part thereof, and will determine the course of providence. Or, we may say, Hector's weakness, owing to the impor- tance of the man, changes the course of the World's History. The two sides go together; it is a ne- cessity that Hector should perish, yet it is his own act. So we have in this Upper World the side of Fate, yet even there Fate questions itself, and the dualism enters. The divine world is introduced just when the grand personal encounter is about to take place below, between Hector and Achilles. Zeus, supreme sovereign, declares his warm feel- ing for Hector. He goes further, and asks, Shall we rescue him from Fate? Here again the two sides of. the divine nature are in a play as it were ; the personal finite side talks with the nec- essary, infinite clement, which is here voiced by Pallas, who declares that Hector is doomed to 456 BOOKS NINETEEN TO TWENTY-TWO. perish. Thereupon Zeus assents, and she goes down to earth to help carry out the decree of Fate, which is really the decree of Zeus. For we are once more to see the All-Father sriving a final settlement of the contest by weighing the Fates of the two combatants and making the decision. The partisan deity, Pallas, merely carries out what has been decreed by the Highest. Still Zeus shows an emotional human sympathy for the person whom he has condemned to perish. c. Not till the inner weakness of Hector is shown, can Achilles strike the blow. The con- duct of Pallas in deceiving Hector in the unequal fight has been much condemned. She deceives him by assuming the form and voice of Deipho- bus, who spurs him to the fight. But it is clear that this delusion is internal for the short time that it lasts; *' I thought he was at my side." " Pallas deceived me," as she has the power of giving or taking away wisdom. He fully recog- nizes the truth: *' My hour at last is come; " he is undeceived. In like manner Apollo aids Hector in the combat with Patroclus in the Six- teenth Book. The cruel expressions of Achilles over the dying Hector are indeed barbarous, a part of the barbarism of war. In the heat of the contest men still say and do similar things. It is the outburst of his new and greater wrath; but he will not perform all that he says he will ; in the BOOKS NINETEEN TO TWENTY-TWO, 457 end he too will ransom Hector. But Achilles hears again that prophecy so often pronounced over him ; his fate is approaching. II. We have here reached the turning point in this Second Part of the Iliad. The Hero in- humanly perforates the feet of his dead foe, passes through the hole a thong and drags the corpse to the camp. The Poet now marks strongly his disapproval of the doings of Achilles ; up to this point the latter had the right to slay and destroy his enemies in war; he even might let them lie unburied, the food for dogs and worms. But in this positive maltreatment of Hector's corpse the wrong of Achilles begins. With the modern man it may have begun before, but now the Poet condemns. The draofojins: of Hector is seen from the walls of Troy, and we hear the lament of father, mother, wife. This lament ending the Book is the counteri)art to the urgent prayers of father and mother to Hector, who refuses to come back into the city for protection. Thus the Book be- gins and ends in a kind of lyrical trio, apart from a short introduction in which Achilles compels Apollo to reveal his deception. There is a pro- phetic vein in these laments; they hint of Troy feeling in advance her destruction. Hector, son, husband, defender of the city, is gone. This sympathetic strain of the poet rouses strong pity in the breast; to pity is added indig- 458 BOOKS NINETEEN TO TWENTT-TWO. nation at the wrong. But it is just this wrong from which Achilles is to recover, and to rise once more out of his wrath. Such is his charac- ter; if he did not fall into wrong, he could never show his recovery, and that ability of his to tran- scend the limit which nature has put upon him. We could never see the true Achilles unless we saw him overcoming himself. It is worth while to state again that the ethical stand-point here unfolded, modern as it may seem to the reader, is that of the poem, the very life-movement of its organism. The rioht and the wrong of Achilles, upon which the whole action turns, lie explicit in the poet's mind; he goes so far as to mark strongly this transition from right to wrong by his personal condemna- tion of the latter. So much reflection upon his theme even Homer shows outside of the action ; not altogether with him is the story left to tell its own moral. BOOKS 22-24. We have already marked the transition of Achilles from being in the right to being in the wrong, in the Twenty-Second Book. It begins at line 395, which reads; "Thus he (Achilles) spoke, and was minded to do disgraceful things to Hector. ' ' Note the condemnation of the act by the Poet, which will be more decisively expressed. It is the second time that he has gone through such a transition in the Iliad. The first time his wrath turned to a wrong when he refused recon- ciliation with his friends the Greeks; but now it turns to a wrong through his treatment of his chief enemy. Hector. Both Patroclus and Hector are lying in the peace of death — no longer f oemen to each other or to anybody. Both are equal now, deserve equal consideration in the sight of the Gods, in whose guardianship death has placed both. This right, the right of common humanity, is what Achilles interferes with in his wrath; at last he will call forth the opposition of Zeus, whose law is violated. Book Twenty- Third. The honors which Achilles pays to his dead friend are here shown (459) 460 BOOKS TWENTY-TWO TO TWENTY-FOUB. in contrast to the dishonoring of Hector, who is still lying in the Greek camp, the object of many indignities. Now Patroclus has the right to the honors, but Hector has the same right. Hence the shadow of the wrong of Achilles reaches over this Book too. But in the economy of the poem, we are now to witness the honors paid by Achilles to the memory of his friend. These are of two kinds, personal and public, which divide the Book into two parts. I. The first part, which pertains directly to the person of Patroclus — his corpse, his ghost, his burial — is the part of sorrow and death. (Lines 1-257.) The funeral banquet is pre- pared and ended. In the night the spirit of Patroclus appears to his sleeping friend, in which scene we gather many, curious hints con- cerning the doctrine of immortality as held by the old poet. Its supreme need is felt by Achilles just now ; he asks and he gets an an- swer from beyond. The great question at the death of the beloved will always be : Is he im- mortal? Shall I see him a^ain? Here is an ancient reply in the form of a dream. In our judgment the poet does not intend to make this ghostly ap])earance merely a subjective phantom on the one hand, nor merely an objective reality on the other ; it is both ; it lies in present state of Achilles to see such an appearance, and it ap- BOOKS TWENTY-TWO TO TWENTY-FOUB. 461 pears. Iii all these incidents the intense per- sonal ffrief of the Hero is manifested. The bringing of the wood, the burning of the body, with various ceremonies, the building of the monument are described, which complete the personal services in honor of the deceased hero. Then of a sudden we pass from gloom to sun- shine, from sorrow to the release from sorrow, if not to joy. Still the celebration is in honor of Patroclus; but we break away from death and return to life, of which a bright picture is un- rolled in the games. II. These games, by means of conflict, victory and reward, give an animated panorama of human existence ; they celebrate the dead man with life, not as dead, but as active. In this sense they form a relief as well as a contrast and suo-orestion. They moreover show what ceremonies belong to the death of the hero, whose life has been one of struggle, and of triumph, which makes him a hero. Achilles is still the center, not as a con- testant, but as the director of the games, and awarder of prizes. Herein also his heroic rela- tion is mirrored; only the lesser heroes can be competitors with one another, while he is over all, the Zeus of the games. Into the details of these contests we need not enter. They are told in a luminous way, and they belong just here specially, as they belong to the Iliad in general, which great poetic encyclo- 462 BOOKS TWENTY-TWO TO TWENTY-FOUB. pedia of the Greek world would not be complete without some representation of the games of Hellas. Critics have slashed at this Book in various places, and in various ways; some have cut out the whole of it, others a part of it, from the original Iliad. But they leave gaps unfilled, create greater difSculties than they obviate, and give back to us a mangled, bleeding Homer. We shall spare our readers the sight. The main point is to unite the poet, not to dis- locate him. In this Book, as in the others, we should see the connection with what goes before and what comes after. Two dead heroes, one Trojan and one Greek, are the result of the great battle; both are in possession of the supreme Hero of the poem ; what will be his conduct to- ward both ? The one, in the present Book, receives the honors due to his heroship; the other docs not, but will in the following Book, according to the decree of Zeus, who is over both Greek and Trojan. The real Patroclus exists no longer, he is put out of sight in the burial ; the ideal Patro- clus now receives his honors in the Games, which we may consider an ideal representation taken from the life of the hero. In the eye of universal justice, like honors are due to the other dead hero. Hector, from his people. This brings us to the Twenty-Fourth Book, which at the beginning emphatically declares the wrong of Achilles. It has stirred up Olympus, BOOKS TWENTY-TWO TO TWENTY-FOUB. 463 the Gods are disputing about it, and Zeus utters the decree. Wherewith we approach the second great change of the Hero, which will complete the cycle of his experience and end the poem. A glance backwards and forwards at the time- movement of the Iliad may here find a place. The long desperate battle, with its three grand oscillations recounted in Books 10-18, was con- fined to one day, the 26th day of the whole Iliad. In the 19th Book, with the return of Achilles, another day of battle begins, the 27th, which lasts till the 23rd Book, which Book occupies two more days, the 28th and 21»th. The action of the last Book of the Iliad begins on the evening of the 29th day, and reaches over a period of twenty- two days. Thus the art of the poet has com- pressed the poem within a short duration, yet it seems to be the story of the whole ten years' war; truly it is so in essence. BOOK TWENTY-FOJJBTH. This Book deserves special consideration from the student of Homer. Its literary merit is of the highest order ; it contains what is perhaps' the finest single passage in the entire Iliad ^ the scene between Priam and Achilles. The spirit of the Book is strongly averse to cruelty and war ; its soul is that of reconciliation and peace. Thus it is in decided contrast with what has preceded ; still it is the same person, the Hero, who is pass- ing through these various stages. One cannot admire enough the profound human instinct as well as the true artistic sense, which makes the last song of the great war-poem an utterance of harmony between the inner and outer man, be- tween Trojan and Greek, between the Gods and Men. It is also one of the most important of the organic members of the Iliad taken as a whole. It gives the second great change in Achilles, the change from wrath to reconciliation even with the supreme enemy of himself and of his world. This is the height of the poem, from which we may look back and see two other similar heights rising out of the great Trojan plain of struggle, (464) BOOK TWENTY-FOUirni. 4G5 discord and bloodshed. These two other heights are found in the Ninth and in the Eighteenth Books, which are the pivotal points of the poem. They reach up into the heaven of reconciliation, even of charity, and reveal one fundamental thought as well as one completely constructed editice. The speech of Phoenix in the Ninth Book, the transformation of Achilles in the Eighteenth Book, and the latter's reconciliation with Priam in the Twenty-Fourth Book belong together, being phases of the same conception and parts of the same plan ; they are the mount- ain peaks from which we behold one Iliad. Moreover, there is an intimate connection as well as contrast between this last Book and the first Book of the poem. There we have the primal wrath of the Hero, here it is his final rec- oncilement ; there we see the rise from earth to Olympus, and the appeal of the mortal to Zeus, the Highest, while here we see the descent from Olympus to earth, and the appeal of Zeus, the Highest, to the mortal. Between these two grand sweeps up to heaven and down again lies the action of the entire poem, which is thus seen to be a work of the mediation of man through the Gods. The wrong done to the individual and the wrong done by the individual are both to be mediated, that is, they are both to be gotten rid of through a grand outer experience and inner transformation; whereof the result is the har- 30 466 BOOK TWENTY-FOURTH. mony of the man with the divine order. At this point the Iliad stops; how could it proceed further ? Such is the inward, everlasting, necessary ele- ment running through the poem, that which is not of to-day nor yesterday, which always has been and always will be. But around this element of necessity hovers another realm, that of ca- price, discord, accident, combats and wars with all their uncertainties. Homer' is full of this secondary element also ; it is the world of ap- pearance, the side of mere reality ; here we can- not fail to discover disagreement, inconsistency, contradiction. This is just the sphere of the so- called Homeric criticism, which seeks the discords always, and very seldom finds the harmonies. That criticism has pointed out, in the present Book, nnmerous divergencies from the rest of Homer, and some contradictions with itself and other defects. The result is, the Book has been torn from its place in the Iliad, and cut to pieces in itself. It is a useless task, in our judgment, to sive the results of these voices of negation ; they never reach the heart of Homer, but tarry altogether in his superficialities. Certain critics, for instance, have declared that the tone of rec- onciliation in this Book is a good ground for taking it away from the author of the Iliad and giving it to another. One asks in surprise, Have you ever read the whole of the poem? That which really 500/1-' TWENTY-FOUllTH. 467 constitutes the axis of the entire action, namely, reconciliation, has never been seen by these men before the present Book, though it has been in the most emphatic manner brought out by the poet at two previous chief turning-points of the poem. Here we may let the critical school and its method rest ; it really can give us no help. Our next object will be to see this Book as an organic Whole in its own right, for, taken by itself, it constitutes a completely organized poem. As already stated, it has one grand sweep from Olympus to Earth; the divine descends and mediates the human. The first note struck is the wrong of the Hero to the dead Hector : this wrong must be gotten rid of, internally as well as externally. The ransom of Hector's corpse is important, but not the essential thing : the great fact is the reconciliation of Achilles with Priam and the Trojans, and this is truly a divine work, belonging specially to the Homeric con- ception of Zeus as the supreme deity. But such a work is also internal, must take place in the man, who is not to be forced, even by the Gods, to do his duty. In this respect the Book is in complete spirit- ual harmony with the rest of the Iliad, Avhich is always showing Providence and Fiee-Will as the two sides of the world-order. The reconcilia- tion of Achilles is his own act, as well as the work (»f the Gods. 46S BOOK TWENTY-FOURTH. This thought is what gives the structure of the Book, as structure in Homer is but the thought building itself into actuality. So we have the primal division into the Divine and Human — the world of the Gods and the world of Man — dis- tinct as heaven and eartli, yet both working to- gether and producing the great event in Time. The following outline sketches the movement of the Book. I. The divine element is manifested in three different phases; — a. The Gods among themselves — deliberation and decree. b. The Gods in relation to the Greeks — the sending of Thetis to Achilles. c. The Gods in relation to the Trojans — the sending of Iris first, then the sending of Mercury, to Priam. n. The human element follows the divine de- cree, yet through its own will. a. Reconciliation between Priam and Achilles with all its results. b. Stealthy return of Priam to Troy, aided by Mercury. c. Scene at Troy ; lament of the women and burial of Hector. In the beginning of the Book, the poet takes a general glance at the sorrow of Achilles, such as it has already been portrayed ; it is the motive for the maltreatment of Hector, who is dragged BOOK TWENTY-FOURTH. 469 thrice around the tomb of Patroclus and subjected to other indignities. The poet does not disguise his opinion of such conduct : " Thus he (Achilles) in his wrath treated shamefully godlike Heqtor." The cruel act is clearly against the common bond of humanity, as conceived by the old Greek bard ; it is also contrary to the idea of the highest Greek divinity: "The Gods looked down with pity." Herewith we enter the divine element of the Book. I. The Gods now deliberate in reference to this great violation below on Earth ; we are to hear the discussion between the partisan deities with the final decree of Zeus, who is also to get ready the instruments for executing his decree and send them forth to mortals. Again we behold the dualism on 01ymj)us, yet above the dualism the supreme unity in the Godhead. The same ulti- mate monotheistic view rules here as elsewhere in the Iliad. Zeus is above both sides, whether of Gods or of men ; he has, too, compassion, as well as sovereignty. a. In the divine assembly Apollo makes a fierce attack upon the Gods themselves, charging them with inhumanity and wrong. Still fiercer is his attack upon Achilles, who shows " neither pity nor reverence" — pity for men, reverence for 470 BOOK TWENTY-FOUBTH. the Gods. "In his wrath he disfigures an insen- sible piece of earth." Alas, the charge of Apollo is too true, then and now; the Gods still to-day, permit war, crime, poverty and general deviltry, as they did of old. But is there no corrective? A.pollo has voiced the side of humanity, though as a partisan ; we feel that his eye would not have been so keen in spying Greek offenses, if he had not looked from a Trojan stand-point. His offset is Juno, a parti- san on the other side, who also makes a speech. Her claim is that Achilles has the privilege of wronging Hector because of his higher birth. A very weak argument it is to us and to the poet, who seems to be indulging in a little irony at this point. Behold, after these two halves, now we are to hear the voice of the Whole. Zeus speaks, and his word is command. Achil- les must have the greater honor, already has — that of victory. But Hector too has his rights : he also belonged to the Hellenic world, and wor- shiped me specially with feast, libation, and burnt-offering. But mark: we the Gods must not steal him away from Achilles, " it is not in any manner possible." On the contrary we must move Achilles from within, we must get his consent, we must send for his mother to persuade him. Such is the true word of the Highest God, very different from that of those other Gods, BOOK TWENTY-FOURTH. 471 who would have Mercury go and steal the body of Hector. It declares that Achilles is to be mediated, is not to be deceived or compelled. The divine method is to prepare the way for the internal transformation of the Hero, by an act of grace, as we w^ould say in modern religious speech. From Zeus at once two streams of in- fluence go out, and descend to the earth : the one is to prepare Achilles, the other is to prepare Priam, for the grand act of restoration. Thetis is called to Olympus to receive the com- mand of Zeus. She is full of sorrow " over the fate of her son, who is about to perish;" she is in a tender mood, and the Father of Gods and of Men treats her very tenderly. He designs a new honor for Achilles; what is it? That he, the Hero, should voluntarily surrender the body of Hector, and be reconciled in his second great wrath. Such Zeus calls a new honor, and it is; we may well consider it, as the poet evidently does, the last and highest honor of Achilles. " Tell him that the Gods are angry at him, and I most of all" for his conduct toward Hector. b. Thetis passes down from 01ymi)us bearing the command of Zeus to her son. Yet it is no external authority which is employed ; the mes- sage is that the Gods are offended. Achilles at once adjusts himself to the divine order : " So be it ; let the body be ransomed, if such be the will of Zeus." The word of the mother is really his . 472 BOOK TWENTY-FOURTH. own as well; the divine element in him speaks through her. Twice before she had come to him ; each time was a turning-point in his career ; he had to assert a new heroism, and she always tells him what his higher self demands. The beginning, middle and end of the action of the Iliad is marked by the appearance of Thetis to Achilles. In the First Book he invokes her to help him meet the wrong done to his heroic honor; in the Eighteenth Book, she comes without being invoked, to help him pass out of his first wrath into reconciliation ; in the Twenty- fourth Book she comes, by command of Zeus, to help him out of his second wrath into reconcilia- tion. We see what she means to Achilles: she is to aid him to rise out of some weakness into the higher part of his nature; through her he transcends his limitation, and becomes truly heroic. For Achilles, like every human being, has a finite and an infinite principle in his character; he is born of a Goddess and a mortal, and has both in him; Thetis is the call of his infinite na- ture to his finite, to rise out of itself and come up higher. She is in him, yet outside of him too ; if she were not in him, he never could hear her call — but he always does and obeys. Thus it is the glory of Achilles that he is able to transcend his wrong, his wrath, though of course he may fall again. Our theory to-day is that every man BOOK TWENTY-FOURTH. 473 is the soil of God, not alone the Hero; every man, too, should reveal his infinite nature by overcomino; his finitude, which shows itself in folly, error, sin. Thetis, too, is one of the threads which bind the whole poem into an indissoluble, unity. All three Thetises, in the first, last and middle Book-^, spring from the same thought, are drawn by the same hand, and belong to the same plan. Such is this deeply suggestive passage. Note again that Zeus forbids the takingof Hector's body by stealth on the part of the Gods ; that would be no solution of the grand problem, namely, the wrath of Achilles. The Hero must be mediated internally, then the external restoration of the corpse can take plaee. That is, a merely arbi- trary use of divine power to circumvent the free- will of man is not permitted by the supreme deity. To be sure, there is a divine world outside of the human being, with which he is to bring himself into harmony ; the God still is and rules, though the individual may not know him or obey him. It is, however, the work of the Hero to transform himself, to make the rise into his new heroship, though Thetis be sent to help him. The sorrow of Thetis over the future fate of her son makes her tender toward the present fate of Hector; he is now what Achilles is soon to be. Achilles himself has strongly the element of tears in his nature ; he is aware, too, of his own im- 474 BOOK TWENTY-FOURTH. pending death. Why should he not begin to feel himself and see himself in the dead Hector? Pity must at last begin to start, had already started ; hence the instantaneous response to the appeal of his mother to obey the will of Zeus. The mother and the son have a common sorrow in the death of those most loved — he in that of Patroclus, she in his own prospective fate. Both must behold the image of their present affliction in Hector lying before them, and feel the sym- pathy which is the forerunner of reconciliation. Thetis, then, is in Achilles, and outside of him too. She is his mother-principle, which moves and elevates him within, but she is also the mes- senger of Zeus, who commands him from without. Yet both the man within and the God without are to become one harmony in the deed — the deed of reconciliation. c. We are next brought to see what is going on in Troy. The movement again starts from Zeus; Iris, the divine messenger, is sent to Priam, to bear the supreme command. The Trojan father and king is to proceed in person to the tent of the Achilles to ransom his son. It is a daring thought, but it is the only thing to be done. Moreover, we hear from the lips of Zeus an important fact about Achilles, who is evidently relenting already: " He will not slay thee or let others slay thee ; he is not senseless or heartless, but will humanely spare a suppliant man." Be- BOOK TWENTY-FOUBTH. 475 sides this divine influence, Priam says that a strong impulse " urges me to go to tlie Greek ships." So he too is ready for the word of the God. Hecuba strongly dissuades him, but he is resolved: " I myself have heard the voice and have looked upon the Deity." He makes haste to go ; he shows some impatience and some tem- per to the Trojan loiterers and to his sons; soon, with prayer and favorable omen, he is off. Now comes the second sending of a God in aid of Priam. Zeus commands Mercury, " to whom the companionship of men is most dear," to con- duct the aged Priam to the tent of Achilles. Very beautiful and skillful is this part of Mercury, who here assumes a human disguise, pretending to l)e a Myrmidon and a fellow-soldier of Achilles. He quiets the fears of the old man: "I shall not harm you, but protect you on your journey ; you look like my father." This suggests the motive which Priam uses to move Achilles. Mercury brings the Trojan parent to the tent where the son is lying, then he reveals himself just when he departs, as the Gods often do: "I am Mer- cury, ;in immortal deity; my father Zeus bade me conduct thee, old man." The sympathy of father with father reaches down from Olympus ; and the love between father and son is the strong emotion which pulses through this whole Book, affecting Priam, Mercury, and at last Achilles. Mercury makes another statement, which it is 476 BOOK TWENTY-FOURTH. well to ponder: " For an immortal God to favor openly a mortal would be a violation, a ground of Nemesis." On the contrar}^ the action of the Gods must be secret, must operate through the internal man, who still has to do the work him- self. So we must think that Mercury has not openly favored Priam, in the sense of doing his deed for him. The mortal must be ready and in action ; the Gods give him a world-order in which to act, and the secret impulse which comes from working in harmony with them. If we under- stand him, Mercury here suggests the doctrine that the Divine element must be at work in the man before he can be helped by the God , who has to give his favor secretly. Otherwise Mercury is guilty of a contradiction, and has himself given aid to Priam openly. But the old monarch is already in the presence of Achilles; the two influences, sent out from Zeus have wrought together to this one end. Wherewith we enter upon the second part of the Book. n. Here we enter upon the purely human portion of the Book; the divine portion, that which deals with the Gods, has just been unfolded. With one small exception, there will be henceforth no in- terference from above ; the deities have done their BOOK TWENTY-FOURTH. 477 work; man's emotions and passions are now the forces of the poem. The internal element of Human Nature is set forth with a stress and power that makes this portion of the Book sound like a modern work ; it has the subjective intens- ity of Shakespeare. The man now acts through himself, through his feelings and thoughts; there is no superior being who tells him what he shall do. Still this free-actino; individual has his free action in a divine order; the divinity of it is just to grant hitn his freedom, and to secure it firmly. The poet is always careful to give both sides, divine and human; just these two sides of the spiritual universe are the two parts of this Book, whose ver}" organism thus springs from the deep- est fact of the world. But the character is moved from within, the divine agency is man's own agency, whereby, however, it is none the less divine. What follows falls naturally into three divisions, according to the three localities, and the incidents which take place in them. a. The scene in the tent of Achilles, where the aged Priam appears as a suppliant grasping the Hero's knees, and kissing those " terrible man- destroying hands which had slain many of his sons " is the culmination of the poem. Here Achilles finishes his career, he can go no further. Let us trace the various psychological changes through which he passes, till he comes out a man transfigured. 478 BOOK TWENTY-FOUBTH. The first words of Priam strike the deepest and tenderest chord in Achilles: "Think of thy father, an aged man like me." This is the key- note of Priam's whole prayer to the Hero: Put thine own father in place of me, a father, and re- call my afflictions, and then ransom my son Hector . Priam makes his appeal to the common feelino- of humanity, to the universal brotherhood of men : Think yourself to be what I am ; then what I suffer, you will suffer and try to alleviate. We touch here a strand of an ancient religion of charity, best known to us in the Golden Rule and in the Lord's Prayer. Then comes that mighty utterance of sorrow and humiliation, which reaches the very source of compassion : " I have endured what no other mortal has endured — I have pressed my lips upon the hand of him who slew my son." Achilles responds, slowly but with certainty. He thinks of his old father, and weeps; then he speaks and offers consolation to Priam. He tells a little myth; he cites his own experience of misffortune and that of his father Peleus. " En- dure, and do not weep incessantly; " it is manifest that the inexorable man has yielded to prayer, that the pitiless slayer has pity. In due time the ransom is effected, not, how- ever, without a growl from Achilles on account of Priam's excessive haste. It is but a moment- ary turn back to wrath, suggesting the condition BOOK TWENTY-FOUETH. 479 which has been transcended. At last the much desired words are uttered: " There on a bier Hes thy son, old man, he is ransomed." In a still deeper sense the living man is ransomed by this deed. Achilles is the one who becomes free; at once he shows the new spirit in him by his next action ; it is hospitable entertainment as well as words of solace for Priam. *' Let us break our fast," says the Hero, in a mood truly heroic. Moreover, he tells, for ex- ample and consolation, the fable of Niobe, which makes the time pass and diverts the sorrowful mind in a sympathetic manner by a tale of sorrow. Already we have noticed this tendency in Achilles, he has a mythical vein in him, he is a poet and sings. The Embassy found him with a lyre to which he sang the deeds of heroes. Some would cut out this story of Niobe, but what a gap it would leave in the situation, in the character of Achilles, in the whole poem ! It is generally thought that the present passage gave the sug- gestion for the famous Niobe group. The mean- ing of the myth touches that everlasting Greek theme : the punishment of insolence toward the Gods. Achilles may, indeed, have been thinking on such a subject; he too, has had a bitter ex- perience with pride and has suffered. But he gives the story a turn to suit the moment- "Niobe, whose twelve children had perished in her halls, broke her fast," so shouldst thou. 480 BOOK TWENTY-FOURTH. Priam, in a similar sorrow not forget life and the living. Whereupon a little feast is prepared in the tent ; and the two enemies gaze at each other with cordial admiration. To complete the hospitality, Achilles causes a couch to be prepared for the old man, who had not closed his eyes, " since my son lost his life at thy hands." The host carefully guards against any possible disturbance of his guest; it is a gen- tle, very sympathetic trait in the once terrible man. One thing still remains to be accomplished : Peace with all the Trojans. This peace takes the temporary form of a truce for the burial of Hec- tor, still the spirit of the Hero is that of tender- ness and mercy; he of his own accord suggests the armistice. " I shall stop the war as long a time as thou commandest," are the last words that we hear from Achilles — words of supreme kindness as well as of peace and reconciliation. Such is the end of the scene, which, in our judgment, is the greatest in the Iliad. Since it WHS written, the world has been unfolding more and more into its spirit, and can still unfold a long time in the same direction. The poet's design becomes plain ; he will have us regard Achilles, not merely as a physical hero, but also as a spiritual one; the man is endowed with colossal passions, yet with the more colossal power of transcending them ; human he is to the last de- gree, yet also divine. Goddess-born. Heroism he BOOK TWENTY-FOURTH. 481 shows ill conquering Hector, but a greater hero- ism in conquering liimself . The changes through which Achilles passes in this scene makes one of the finest examples of soul-development in all Literature. The transi- tion is rapid, yet motived to its finest shadings. The supplication of Priam, the gradual yielding of the Hero, his giving consolation, his hospitality, finally his grant of peace are a speedy yet per- fectly ordered climbing of the ladder of the soul into the heaven of reconciliation. He has com- pleted his second and greatest cycle; the poem drops him at this point, can do nothing else, as he has reached the final universal deed in his career. h. But the poem is not yet at its end, quite ; it must bring Priam and Hector home, whereby we may witness the reality of the peace granted by Achilles. In the night, Mercury speaks to Priam of the danger of the situation, which, we must think is also Priam's own suspicion. Under the conduct of the God, he and his companion are soon outside of the Greek camp; at the ford of the Scamandcr, Mercury leaves them and passes to Olympus. The question arises, Has he openly befriended a mortal in the present case? It looks so; still the mortal has very actively befriended himself; the two forces, divine and human again work together. But this aid of the God is more external, than it often is. 3X 482 BOOK TWENTY- FOURTH. Cassandra from the heights of Troy is the first to see them coming; she calls all the city to look on Hector, " the joy of the whole people," The next is the final scene in Troy with which the poem closes. c. The lamentation of women over the dead is a custom belonging to ancient and modern Hellas. "Singers beside the bier beojan the dirg-e " — evidently the customary funeral song. Then the three prominent women of the poem, each ac- cording to her character, utter their laments over the corpse of Hector. Andromache, the wife, sees in the death of her husband the utter de- struction of the family, for now she and her child, as well as the city, must perish, being without his protection. If Andromache is inconsolable, Hecuba, the mother, consoles herself by thinking of the love of the Gods for her son, who have preserved his body so fresh, and also by calling up his slaughter of Patroclus, wherein she shows a spice of revenge, as is usual with her. But Helen's speech is the subtlest ; she recalls the kindness of Hector, who never gave her " an ill word in twenty years," — certainly very high praise. This trait of Hector she turns into a means for a scathing contrast of him with those before her now, " brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, wives of brothers-in-law, and mother-in-law," all of whom were in the habit of reviling her ; only Hector ajid Priam treated her kindly. A little BOOK TWENTY- FOURTH. 483 peep we here get into Helen's life in Troy; it is not pleasant, she has no love for that large house- hold of gossiping women; she, the Greek, would gladly return to her own. Thus the three women fulfill their parts. The hurial of Hector is the concluding act ; he, the enemy, obtains the same honor as Patroclus, the friend, through the mercy of Achilles, who, therein, has placed himself in harmony with the will of the Gods. Little is told of the cere- monies connected with Hector's funeral ; they are not needed in the poem, they have been given substantially in connection with the burial of Pa- troclus. Both heroes, resting in the equality of death, are alike in the sight of the Gods and of humanity. The two last Books of the Iliad, so different in many respects, touch ultimately in a common theme — the honors given to the dead Hero. Be he Greek or Trojan, friend or foe, he is to have this final recognition of his human worth. Thus the poem ends with Peace, internal and external — specially the peace of the Hero. It is true that this reconciliation with the Trojans is but temporary. Troy must be destroyed ; but that is not the sul)ject of the Iliad, which is a poem not a history. The poem gives the devel- opment of the individual, into which external events are woven as materials for his spirit ; the occurreuces are not the most important thing. 484 BOOK TWENTY-FOURTH. The grand spiritual cycle of the Hero is the true movement of the Iliad, which brings him to the topmost height of himself, and then drops him. We do not reach the end of the Trojan War, but the self-mastery and reconciliation of Achilles out of his double wrath. When he goes forth to fight the Trojans again, he is outside of the present conception of the Iliad. APPENDIX. In recent years new life has been infused into the Homeric controversy, especially among English-speaking peoples, by the publication of two books — one on each side of the question. The first of these books was the Companion to the Iliad by Mr. Walter Leaf, and the second was Homer and the Epic by Mr. Andrew Lang. Both of these gentlemen were well known as translators and students of Homer. The first book was an attempt to popularize what may be in general called Wolfian ideas, those of separa- tion and disinteorration of the Iliad, having been written " for English readers;" the second book was substantially an answer to the first, yet went beyond the examination of the Iliad and took in the Odyssey, supporting in both poems the {)rinciple of unity. The student has probably, or can have access to those two books, as they were published by the most noted London publishers, and were pretty well advertised and distributed throughout Anglo-Saxondom. They show the present state of the Homeric question, nml indicate its general (485)' 486 APPENDIX. character in an interesting manner, and they also give many instructive glimpses of the various ways in which Homer can be read and under- stood. We shall, therefore, consider them briefly in an appendix. But let us say at the start, that we have no intention of criticising these productions. They were written by able men, learned in Homer, men who have lovingly devoted a considerable fragment of their lives to the old poet, and who, therefore, have a right to speak of Homer with a certain degree of authority. It were indeed easy enough to pick flaws and to point out that they had failed in this or that matter according to our criterion. But we do not think that much progress can be made by that style of criticism, or perhaps by any style of criticism which sets itself up as judge of other men's works. Messrs. Leaf and Lang have their own standards for measuring Homer, and have a right to them against the whole world; then, we may add, we have ours, which is different from theirs, though they difl'er from each other. A comparison of the standards of judgment is more fundamental than the judgments them- selves. But it is better to go back at once to the mental attitude of the critic or interpreter. Accordingly we shall try to bring before the student three leading mental attitudes toward Homer, as manifested by three different men APPENDIX. 487 who have studied the aocient Greek poet all iheir lives, and who have written books about him. To be sure, it must always be remembered that we are giving our own mental attitude in this attempt, along with the other two, and hence may not be wholly free from personal bias. Mr. Leaf's attitude. At the start we desire to say an emphatic word in praise of Mr. Leaf's good temper, often shown under what seems to him, doubtless, great provocation. We hold him to be the best tempered commentator we have ever read after, which may not be saying very much, as commentators are, on the whole, an ill- natured, quarrelsome set. The business of Mr. Leaf is, to our mind, a most discordant one, nothing less than tearing to pieces the harmonies of old Homer, yet he preserves a most admirable serenity in his work of dissection and dilacera- tion. We have thought that in reading the Ger- man Wolfians we have observed a particular acerbity of temper begotten of their calling, espe- cially Lachmann and Kirchhoif affect us very disagreeably on account of their violent dogmatic tone, their ill-tempered, imperious manner; though they be industrious, learned and conscien- tious, in their writing they do not care to be gentlemen. But Mr. Leaf is always a gentlem.an in his most ardent discussion, and we grant that he has quite spoiled a little theory of ours that much occupation with Wolfianisni sours the dis- 488 APPENDIX. position and even leaves its trace upon the char- acter, having a tendency to make the human being querulous, fault-finding, discordant gener- ally, making of him internally what he makes of old Homer's poetry. So much for Mr. Leaf's temper in his work ; now we pass to consider his 'mental attitude toward the ancient Greek poet. 1. This attitude is openly a dissecting, disor- ganizing, disuniting one. He declares that " we have made up our minds that it (the Iliad) has to be dissected," and that the attention is to be concentrated upon finding the contradictions greater and less. He is on the scent for discrep- ancy, for discord; the first question which he asks of any passage is, How does this disagree, or how can it be made to disagree with other passages and with the unity of the poem in gen- eral? He is inclined to look underneath the text to spy out disagreement, when on the sur- face at least there is agreement. Such is Mr. Leaf's attitude undisguised, openly expressed, and carried out to the bitter end. Now we think that we can affirm that our attitude is just the opposite, we are strongly pre-disposed to see and to feel the unity of the Iliad; if on the sur- face we find disagreement, we shall look un- derneath the surface to find, if possible, the reconciling fact or thought. Let us bring: out the two different mental APPENDIX. 489 attitudes by some illustration.'^. Mr. Leaf thinks that the Fifth Book of the Iliad (the Aiisteia of Dioraed) must be a different poem from the original Iliad because the mythology (p. 37), or rather the theology of it is peculiar. He alludes to the fact that the mortal Diomed fights with the Gods — Mars and Venus ; this fact is, indeed , quite unique in the Iliad. Hence, infers Mr. Leaf, this Fifth Book, because it is different from the rest of the Iliad, must be by a different author. But to our mind just the opposite in- ference is the natural one ; the singer seeks not to repeat himself; the exploits of Diomed are designed by the one poet to be different from the exploits of Achilles or of any other hero, espe- cially in the matter of the Gods. Is it not the most reasonable conclusion that the one author brings about variety in his work? Thus the same facts become the basis of two directly opposite conclusions for two diverse mental attitudes. Let us take another illustration. Mr. Leaf finds a difficulty in the two duels (Book III. and Book VII.). He affirms, " it can hardly be main- tained that the two were meant from the first to stand side by side." But they stand over 2,000 lines apart. That the same kind of duel essen- tially should be repeated so soon is Mr. Leaf's trouble. Why fight the second duel after such an act of treachery as vvas witnessed in the first 490 APPENDIX. duel? Here again it is Mi\ Leaf's mental alti- tude that creates the difficulty. The two duels have resemblances, as have hundreds of others in Homer. But they are wholly distinct in pur- pose, in environment, in the character of the combatants; each can be seen to have its distinct place in the economy of the poem, that is, if one is inclined to see anything of the sort. Mr. Leaf openly abjures the attitude which renders such vision possible. But the psychology of the mat- ter is curious; in the previous case he suspects the Fifth Book because it is so different from the rest, but in the present case he suspects the second duel because it is so like the preced- ing one. Difference is the ground assigned then, likeness is the ground assigned now, for the dis- ruption of old Homer; but the real ground is manifestly the pre-disposition to tear him to pieces any how. Mark again, we are not criticising Mr. Leaf, we are trying to find his attitude, his frame of mind, which, being found, is the main point in this whole business; reasons he will give, but really they do not amount to much, being sometimes this, sometimes that, often exactly opposed to one another for doino; the same thing:. Reasons are indeed "as plenty as blackberries" for him or for anybody else who has already made up his mind, or has taken his attitude. 2. It is interesting to note that Mr. Leaf has APPENDIX. 491 hinted the chief cause of his preseot attitude toward the Iliad. It is the grand discrepancy between the Ninth Book and passages in two later Books (Eleventh and Sixteenth) which cleaves, he thinks, the whole poem wide open. This he declares to he " the most notable " inconsistency in the Iliad (p. 23), the one evidently which made him "pause and think" that the work was not that of a poet " with his mind fixed throughout on the subject as a single whole." The same discrepancy is strongly urged by Grote and by numerous German commentators (see Ameis-Hentze, Anhang ziir lUas, Heft III. Buck VIII.). It has propably furnished the basis for a more successful attack upon the unity of the poem than any other so-called discrep- ancy. We ourselves are free to confess that we have never seen it successfully explained. The fact is real and must be acknowledged, but instead of disrupting the poem and the character of Achilles, it is the strongest l)ond of unity for both. This is the thing: now to be shown. The essence of the hostile argument is that Achilles, speaking in two different passages after the Ninth Book, talks as if there had been no offer of reconciliation (which is the subject of the Ninth Book) ; hence Mr. Leaf and the sepa- ratists infer that the Ninth Book was unknown to the author of the later jiassages. But let us get at the cardinal fact in the matter: Achilles, 492 APPENDIX. . wrathful, ignores the embassy's offer of recon- ciliation in the very presence of the embassy offering it. Hear him in the Ninth Book (1. 335): "From me alone of all the Acheeans he took my dear spouse and keeps her; let him enjoy her I " Yet the embassy through Ulysses has just offered to restore Briseis unstained, with ample gifts of atonement from Agamemnon. The whole speech is largely an ignoring of the embassy's offers in its actual presence. Now let us penetrate to the meaning of the poet. He is characterizing a man in wrath, who in the presence of an apology still goes back and reiterates the offense. Has Mr. Leaf never seen an angry person do something similar, — ignore the apology and go back in his talk to the original offense? A little psychology would often go far toward helping the commentators out of their troubles. Here then is the key to the discrepancy in the later passages spoken by Achilles. In Book Eleventh (1. 609) he, still in wrath, says: " Now I think the Greeks will soon be standing about my knees beseeching me," as if they had not already besought him to return to the conflict. In Book Sixteenth (1. 56) he, still in wrath, goes back to the original wrong: " Agamemnon took away my maiden," but he is clearly relenting, since he declares a few lines later (1. 73) that he would soon put the Trojans to flight, *' if Agamemnon APPENDIX. 493 would treat me kindly." Yet Agamemnon has sought in every way to conciliate him. These two later passages then are strikingly harmonious with the Ninth Book, indeed are linked with it in a common conception of the wrath of Achilles. The main point is to bring to light the connecting thought, which, of course, will not come to anybody who is seek- ing to find only discrepancies in the poem. Achilles ignores the offer of reconciliation in the presence of the embassy making it; the fact that he ignores it afterwards when the embassy is not piesent, should not be deemed a ground of disrupting, but rather of uniting the two portions. Here we may once more note that it is the attitude which finally determines the opinion. If one is satisfied with finding inconsistencies, and stops when he finds them, he must leave the poem in pieces. But if the mind's bent is for unity and harmony, many an apparent contradic- tion will in the end be seen to be a means for a deeper reconciliation. 3. Still, even the Wolfians are not satisfied with division and destruction ; after having torn the poem to pieces, they seek in some fashion to put the parts together. Mr. Leaf has his own method of reconstructing the Iliad, throwing it into strata of which he designates specially three. We can only glance a moment at his 494 APPENDIX. First Stratum, the Menis or Wrath of Achilles. He takes merely those portions of the poem which show Achilles angry, and he leaves out entirely the side of this hero's reconciliation both with Agamemnon and with the Trojans. Mr. Leafs view of the character of Achilles regards him as a raging wild animal without compunction or self-restraint, pitiless, implaca- ble, inexorable. This is certainly one-half of his character ; but Homer makes Achilles placa- ble also, gives him the other human half, and portrays him reconciled twice with his chief ene- mies. Thus he is an entire character, and an entire man, with the strong interplay between the tiger and the angel, or between Wrath and Reconciliation. Need we say that we prefer Homer's conception of Achilles to Mr. Leaf's or Mr. Grote's? But it is again a question of mental attitude. The Iliad, Achilles, man him- self has the two sides, wrath and reconciliation, bad and good, the fiendish and the godlike. Our attitude may be to dwell on the dualism, or it may be to get out of it, and to strive for the harmonizing thought which brings all difference to unity, not by lopping off one-half of the con- ception and throwing it away, but by penetrating to the organic idea of the whole, which of neces- sity must differentiate itself in order to be an organic totality. Mr. Lang's attitude, Mr. Lang is an ardent APPENDIX. 495 supporter of the unity of the Iliad, wherein we airree with him. He has broucrht too^ether a srreat deal of instructive matter in his book, for which the student of Homer will be thankful. We must once more say that we do not intend to criticise his work but to contrast his attitude toward Homer with our own in certain leading points. 1. By unity Mr. Lang seems to mean chiefly unity of authorship. The statement of his posi- tion is " that the Homeric epics, in spite of certain flaws, and breaks, and probable insertion of alien matter, are mainly the work of one, or at the most, of two, great poets." As to the Iliad, he puts his chief stress upon the one author of it, not denying interpolation here and there. On the other hand, we are inclined to lay the far greater stress upon unity of structure, which, if it be clearly shown, carries with it unity of authorship. 2. We may next look at Mr. Lang's method of meeting the arguments of his adversaries, as it reveals a good deal about his general attitude. Repeatedly he shows that if the same microscopic tests which the critic applies to Homer for sepa- rating the Iliad into distinct lays, were applied to Milton, Scott, or any modern poet or novelist, they would reveal as great or greater discrepan- cies. The same kind of argument baa been em- ployed by Mure, Gladstone and others. Now we 496 APPENDIX. deem the argument to be good, good as far as it goes. But how far does it go? Manifestly it holds against the argument of your adversary, but does not prove your own position ; you may batter down the other man's reasoning against your opinion, but that does not make the latter valid in itself. Because somebody's argument against the unity of the Iliad is shown to be un- sound, does not necessarily prove the unity of the Iliad. In other words Mr. Lang's argument is mainly negative. We still cry out to the expositor: If the Iliad be an organic unity, show it, point it out in detail ; let us see all its parts fitting into one whole, constituting one grand totality. The demand is for the structural unity, which is the final positive proof; for if we once behold the entire poem organized, the negative argu- ment ceases to be of any intrinsic importance to us who see the positive. It need not be told to the reader of the pre- ceding commentary on the Iliad what strong stress has been put upon the structure of the poem. The Double Wrath and the Double Reconciliation state the constructive Idea which builds the entire poetic edifice from the first Book to the last. There may be corruptions and interpolations, still the Iliad is an archi- tectonic whole, is in its way a Greek temple as much as the Parthenon. It is put together with APPENDIX. 497 a perfect symmetry of the parts, which, of course, must be seen by the reader and made real to him by creatively thinking the structural Idea of the poem. 3. But the most distinctive contrast is fur- nished by Mr. Lang's attitude toward the Homer- ic deities. What does he do with that Upper Olympian world which is always descending to earth and interfering in terrestrial matters? The two primordial strands of which the Iliad is spun are the divine and human, Gods and Men. Mr. Lang is inclined to pass by the divine element, to dispense with any rational account of it what- ever. Of course he speaks of Zeus and the rest, they are a part of the story, but over and over again he proclaims their conduct inconsistent, confusing, an outside disturbance rather than an inner vital element of the poem. Verily Mr. Lang can do nothing with the Gods of Homer; he says that in reference to them *' modern crit- icism is silent." Especially does Mr. Lang seem puzzled by the conduct and character of Zeus, " father of Gods and of Men," ruler of Earth and Olympus, the Providence of the Iliad. Our attitude toward- the Homeric deities is most emi)hatically the opposite. The divine prol)lem is the most im[)ortant, the deepest, and doubtless the hardest in Homer, just as it is in life. The OIym[)ian household is an attempt on the poet's part, as we understand him, to set 32 498 APPENDIX. forth the idea and the workings of a Providential Order in the affairs of men. Homer is a great document in Universal Religion, according to our opinion ; otherwise he could not be the author of a Literary Bible. ,He brings before us the free-acting individual on the one hand, and on the other a Divine Direction of the World ; both must come together and co-operate in ordei- to bring about the grand Trojan deed. We are free to say that we would no more think of cast- ing the Gods out of Homer, than of casting God out of the Universe. Thus indeed we may get rid of difficulties, but what is left for the poet to sing unto his fellow-mortals? Mr. Leaf's attitude toward the Homeric dei- ties is pretty nearly the same as that of Mr. Lang; such, at least, is the opinion which we gather from a few scattered remarks, as well as from his omissions at pivotal points, where we would naturally expect some explanation. Mr. Leaf, too, can make little out of the Gods of Homer, regarding them apparently, as a kind of special machinery, more or less external to the real human interest of the poem. We might ask what greater human interest is there than the interest in the Gods? From a passage in his book (1. 64) we infer that Mr. Leaf leans to the opinion that Homer does not believe in his own Gods. Homer " is not reverent," is " far removed from any conception of primitive APPENDIX. 499 piety;" " the humor of Homer (which Homer?) is almost entirely confined to the scenes on Olympus." What we have especially empha- sized, what in fact we deem the leading matter of the Homeric narrative, namely the co-opera- tion of the God and the mortal hero for bringing about the deed, is left quite unnoticed by both Mr. Leaf and Mr, Lang. Possibly this is what " modern criticism " ought to be " silent " about, but such is not our attitude ; the student, how- ever, can have the advantage of choosing what he likes from the different attitudes of his three commentators. Special exposition. Each author has given a special exposition of the different Books of the Iliad, in which the mental attitude may be still further unfolded and compared by the student. A few leading points in this connection may be here noticed. The Second Book of the Iliad is a crucial Book in several ways. Says Mr. Leaf (p. Q^): *' The connection with the main story remains a hope- less puzzle." Then he tells why it is so: " This is precisely what we must always expect to find when a poem has been added in a place where it did not originally exist." Very naive and true is this statement. If we start with the pre-supposition that the Second Book is a dis- tinct and separate poem from the First Book, then it is a puzzle. Here peers forth the pre- 500 APPENDIX. determined attitude again . But what if we start- without any such fore-ordained opinion? We shall soon see. Well, what is the trouble? «« The great diffi- culty is to see why Agamemnon should wish to tempt the army at all." In the first place Agamemnon does not tempt the army ; the Greek word (peiresomai) here employed means to try, to test; it is strange that Mr. Leaf, who is cer- tainly an accomplished Homeric scholar, should introduce in this place the idea of temptation, to his own and his reader's confusion, especially when in his Translation of the Iliad he had cor- rectly rendered the same word to make trial. (See Translation by Leaf, Lang and Myers; first nine Books by Mr. Leaf. ) But the point of the difficulty remains: Why does Agamemnon wish to test the Greeks ? Let us give our answer at once : to see whether they will fight without their hero Achilles, who is now angry in his tent. Well may Agamemnon desire just at present to apply such a test! For ten 3'ears Achilles has been the all-conquering, heroic figure before Troy; what will the rank and file do in his absence? Nothing then, is more natural than the test at this point. But behold ! it involves the First Book, it is most intimately connected with the events of the same, the direct consequence thereof. But Mr. Leaf has sepa- rated the First Book /rom the Second, regard- APPENDIX. 501 ing the two as different poems ; is it a wonder that he is " puzzled?" But who has made tlie puzzle? Certainly not Homer. Mr. Leaf is simply caught in his own tangle, or in the tangle which he received from Mr. Grote, who obtained it from the Germans. For twenty centuries the vast majority of the readers of the Iliad had found no puzzle, but the most natural sequence, till this maggot was hatched in a brain, and is pretty certain henceforth to be propagated in other brains to the end of time. The real difficulty of the Second Book is the conduct of Zeus in sending the delusive dream to Agamemnon. But neither Mr. Leaf nor Mr. Lang seriously tackle this problem ; why should they if the latter holds that modern cnticism has to be silent in the presence of the Gods, and the former that Homer is poking fun at his own deities? Our attitude toward these difficulties of the Second Book we need not here repeat, as we have fully set it forth in the preceding Com- mentary (p. \^9i, et seq.). What will Mr. Leaf do with the Books of re- conciliation? Book Nineteenth shows Achilles re- nouncing his wrath and being reconciled with Ao^amemnon. Mr. Leaf implies that all this is " an afterthought," not an integral [)art of the conception of the Iliad or of the character of Achilles. Says he: "It is not only consonant with the character of Achilles, but it materially 602 APPENDIX. aids the movement of the story, if ive suppose that on hearing of the death of Patroclus he set out to avenge it witiiout more ado." But this is not Homer's Achilles, but Mr. Leaf's and Mr. Grote's. Now, for us just this change in the hero from wrath to reconciliation is the turning- point of the whole poem, the axis on which it primarily revolves. Achilles as merely wrath- ful without the inner reaction is not a liuman character at all, but a wild beast, and we refuse to believe that the old [)oet ever conceived of such an animal and called it a hero. Least of all does there seem to us any call to cut him to pieces, and then patch together such a monstrosity out of the shreds, when he stands before us a total human character. The other great Book of reconciliation in the Iliad is the Twenty-Fourth, to the beauty of which Mr. Leaf does full justice. But he feels called upon to separate here too, it has no place in the original Iliad, and is attributed mainly to the author of the Odyssey. That it is the counterpart to the Second Wrath, and that this Second Wrath and Reconciliation forms a sym- metrical whole with the First Wrath and Rec- onciliation is not observed by Mr. Leaf, nor by Mr. Lang, nor by any other critic of Homer within our knowledge. Yet what can seem plainer, when it is once pointed out? Of course if our attitude is not to see, we have simply to close our eyes. APPENDIX. 503 Another point we cannot help noticing, :is it has a bearing upon our present work. The greatest objection to Wolfianism has been that it requires several Homers, whereas the true literary instinct of mankind has generally felt that there can be but one Homer in one epoch, there can be but one maker of a Literary Bible at a given time. Mr. Leaf is well aware of this objection, and casts a stone at it repeatedly in passing. He declares that " it is in direct contradiction to the teachings of history," and that *' the genius of supreme capacity has been surrounded by men of "little less power," when- ever he has appeared among men " through all time." Shakespeare is cited as an example, chief of the Elizabethan dramatists ; but is there one of these who approaches the chief? Shakes- peare may drop to Fletcher or Marlow or Jonson in inferior moments, but do these ever rise to Shakespeare at his best and in his total- ity? Not only in degree, they are qualitatively distinct from him ; they all together would not make him. Mr. Leaf cites also the age of Louis Fourteenth with its Corneille, Racine, ]\Ioliere ; but is there a Homer or Shakes- peare among these? Ho also alludes to the group of English {)octs at the beginning of the present century — Shelley, Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, Scott. Again we ask. Is there a Homer, a Danto, a Shakespeare, or a Goethe 504 APPENDIX. among the whole set, great as they are? Mr. Leaf himself would probably not say so. Thus " the teuchings of history " teach differ- ent things to different men. Taking Mr. Leaf's own examples we would still infer that the Great- est Poets, authors of the Literary Bibles, arc unique men, very few, appearing singly in the lapse of centuries, by no means appearing to- gether in a cluster. But the secondary poets, still very great, do have a tendency to appear in clusters, sometimes with, but oftener without the Greatest Poet. Such is the law, as we have read it, set down in the ages, and hence it comes that we have conceived the idea of writing this Commentary on the Greatest Poets, authors of the Literary Bibles of the Occident. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY Return to desk from which borrowed. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. filzr7 49Rf Tl0ct'59CRt, OCT 25 1959 IN STACKS rEC'D LD ^^^ REC'D L.D ^,gV63»^^ 4IU 15*66 -4 PM REC'D LD •63-^2 71985 ^ CEC.clR.MR(29'84 NOV 9 X^.'i'i '" tit'' RECD UD H0V29'65-SP» LD 21-100?n-9, '48(6399816)476 YB A0984 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY