THE COMPOSITION OF 
 
 
 THE 
 
 ILIAD 
 
 
 AUSTIN 
 
 SMYTH 
 
 
 
 imamisaabiksfi 
 
(, 
 
THE COMPOSITION OF 
 THE ILIAD 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/compostionofiliaOOsmytrich 
 
THE COMPOSITION 
 OF THE ILIAD 
 
 AN ESSAY ON 
 A NUMERICAL LAW IN ITS STRUCTURE 
 
 BY 
 
 AUSTIN SMYTH, M.A. 
 
 LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
 LIBRARIAN OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 
 
 0^04 yap TYjv 'Ofvqpov TroLrjariv crKeSacr^cwrav ifivrjfwvevov 
 jcat iTTijyyeXXoV' eAv/A^vavro Se avrrjv Travv. 
 
 Scho/. Find. Nem. II. i 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 
 
 1914 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The object of this essay is to demonstrate that 
 the Iliad of Homer at one time consisted of 13,500 
 lines, neither more nor less, divided into 45 sections 
 of 300 verses each, with major divisions after the 
 15th and 30th of these; from which it follows that 
 the remaining 2193 verses, which appear in our 
 present texts, are more recent additions and ought 
 to be removed. 
 
 The importance of this proposition, if established, 
 will be evident to lovers of the poem. I will not 
 dilate on it, but endeavour to establish it, after 
 saying one thing more. 
 
 I profoundly dissent from that general view of 
 the poem which regards its constitution as a secular 
 growth, and of which, no doubt, the foremost expo- 
 nent in our country is Dr. Leaf. And I am obliged 
 to controvert his views at particular points, while 
 heartily agreeing at others. It is possible that, in 
 the ardour of discussion, I may have used some 
 words which seem to disparage this eminent scholar. 
 
 nOi f\Or^ 
 
vi THE COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 though I cannot think it the case. But should any 
 such impression arise, I desire to efface it by saying 
 the truth, that his edition of the Iliad commands 
 my deepest admiration, and that without it, as the 
 reader will shortly perceive, I could hardly have 
 proceeded at all. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 rxcB 
 
 Preface v 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Book the First to Book the Eighth . . . i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Book the Ninth to Book the Sixteenth . . 53 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Book the Seventeenth to Book the Twenty- 
 Fourth 106 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Book the Second, Book the First, and Con- 
 clusion 160 
 
 Appendix on the Odyssey 219 
 
THE COMPOSITION OF THE 
 ILIAD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BOOK THE FIRST TO BOOK THE EIGHTH 
 
 As the use of writing appears to have been but little 
 known to the Greeks of Homer's age, it seemed to 
 me a natural thing to inquire whether there might 
 not be found in the Homeric poems some artificial 
 aid to their preservation in the memory of man. 
 The simplest of such aids is that of number. I 
 therefore started an inquiry into the numerical length 
 of any distinct group of incidents in the structure of 
 the Iliad. For if it was known that each such group 
 was exactly comprehended in a certain number of 
 lines, then the several persons to whose memory it 
 was committed could test the accuracy of their 
 knowledge from time to time, and, if it was found 
 to be at fault, could easily repair the defect by 
 communication amongst themselves. In the course 
 of this inquiry I could not help being struck by the 
 fact that the incidents which fall between two im- 
 portant moments in the poem are often comprised 
 
 A 
 
2 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 'within ei'thfef the "exact number of 300 lines, or a 
 number not much exceeding it. And upon examin- 
 ing the latter class of cases still further, in the light 
 of those suspicions which scholars had antecedently 
 been led to cast on particular lines, I found that they 
 could be reduced to the round number of 300 with 
 surprising neatness and ease. And upon applying 
 this observation to passages of larger extent, which 
 lie between two of the others, I found that the sus- 
 pected passages regularly increased in size as well, 
 being chiefly composed of long genealogies or popular 
 tales, not very relevant to the context. And upon 
 pursuing this hint in a systematic way throughout 
 the poem, I gained so clear an idea of its articulation 
 and proportion as to convince me that I had dis- 
 covered an instrument which, whether it was designed 
 or not to preserve the purity of the poem, might 
 enable us to fix the extent of its interpolation after 
 a time when this law of composition was either for- 
 gotten or ceased to be observed, and to mark down 
 in most cases with practical certainty the interpolated 
 lines. 
 
 The First Book affords a fitting introduction to 
 our theory. It contains 611 lines. A natural pause 
 occurs at verse 311, with the breaking up of the 
 assembly, after which the action follows two main 
 branches : first, the voyage of Odysseus to Chryse, 
 and then the taking away of Briseis from Achilles, 
 with the subsequent interview of Achilles and Thetis, 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 3 
 
 and the consequent interview of Thetis and Zeus. 
 These events are exactly comprised in the last 300 
 lines of the book. This leaves us with 311 lines in 
 the first part. Now there is a passage of Nestor's 
 speech to the kings, in which he names the chiefs 
 of the Lapithae, touches on their battle with the 
 Centaurs, and describes the part that he played in 
 it himself. One of these verses has excited the 
 suspicion of every modern scholar, because it men- 
 tions the name of Theseus and recurs in the Hesiodic 
 poem of the Shield of Heracles ; but Dr. Leaf is dis- 
 posed to regard the whole passage relating to the 
 Lapithae as an interpolation, this being a very favourite 
 Attic legend, not much known elsewhere. But all 
 that is said about the Lapithae is exactly contained in 
 the II verses 262-272. These you can detach, and 
 leave a perfectly coherent text ; but you cannot detach 
 another line without injuring the context. " Ere 
 now," says Nestor to the wrangling kings, " I have 
 mixed among warriors even better than yourselves, 
 and never used they to make light of me. And 
 they would attend to my advice and hearken to my 
 words. Then hearken also you." This is all quite 
 coherent. But between the first and second sentence 
 come the words, " For never yet have I seen, nor 
 am likely to see, such men as Peirithous and Dryas 
 and Caeneus and Exadius and godlike Polyphemus 
 and Theseus, son of Aegeus, who resembled the 
 immortal gods," and so on for 1 1 lines. The neat- 
 
4 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 ness with which the verses go out would in any case 
 be some argument for their interpolation. The fact 
 that, when excised, they leave exactly 300 lines before 
 the pause is to myself, knowing what I do, a con- 
 vincing proof that they ought to be removed. We 
 shall hereafter find two facts in support of this view ; 
 first, that the speeches of Nestor are a regular matrix 
 for the foreign ore, and secondly, that a Lapith 
 or the Lapithae are thrice again excluded by the 
 tercentenary test. 
 
 We thus obtain two distinct passages of 300 lines 
 apiece, which I call Canto I and Canto II. Now it 
 might easily be an accident that the First Book 
 consists of 600 lines. But it is not so like an 
 accident both that it should consist of 600 lines 
 and that its bisection after verse 300 should coin- 
 cide with a natural division of the incidents. This 
 reveals some first faint traces of design. 
 
 I pass over for the present the first part of the 
 Second Book, for it is well known to be one of the 
 most puzzling series of incidents in the whole of 
 the poem, and I must inspire greater trust in the 
 mind of the reader before asking him to accept my 
 solution. Perhaps nothing could be better adapted 
 to increase his confidence than the Catalogue of the 
 Ships. For here is a distinct episode, which, on our 
 presumption, ought to be contained either in 300 
 lines or in some multiple of it, with a pause after 
 each third hundred. Well, the Catalogue of the 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 5 
 
 Ships, from ea-irere vvv juloi M.ovaai in verse 484 down 
 to fJidXa S^ wKa Si€7rpr](r(rov TreSloio in verse 7^5> J^^k^^s 
 302 lines. There is very little doubt that one of 
 these verses is spurious. It is the famous verse 558, 
 in which Ajax is said to have stationed his ships 
 where Athenian columns stood. For not only was 
 there a strong tradition in antiquity that it was 
 imported into the Catalogue by Solon, or else by 
 Peisistratus, to serve a special end, but it contra- 
 dicts other parts of the poem itself. The ships of 
 Ajax are at one extremity of the Greek camp, as 
 appears from XI 5-9, and next to them are not 
 the columns of the Athenians, but the ships of 
 Protesilaus, as we learn from XIII 681. Another 
 harsh verse, which had better be gone, I regard as 
 equally clear. It is 741, which interrupts the con- 
 struction of the sentence in which it occurs, and 
 hence is called by Dr. Leaf " a very clumsy line as 
 the text stands." It ascribes the parentage of 
 Peirithous to Zeus; and Peirithous is a Lapith. 
 Remove these two verses, and you will have the 
 Catalogue in substance as it came from the mouth 
 of its composer. This is Canto IV. 
 
 Now if the reader will turn back to the first line 
 of the Catalogue, he will see that it is preceded by 
 a group of six similes, one after the other, in verses 
 455-483. That these similes should come after the 
 Catalogue, and not before it, is as nearly as possible 
 proved by the single word ip-xpniei/wv in verse 457, 
 
6 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 which takes up epj(oiuLevcov in the last line of the 
 Catalogue, and forms the transition to Canto V. 
 How they have been displaced is easily explained. 
 In some of our manuscripts the Catalogue is omitted, 
 only the appeal to the Muses in verses 484-493 
 being retained ; while in most of the others it is given 
 a new title apart from that appeal, which means that 
 it was often omitted in reading. But if the Catalogue 
 is dropped, then the similes, which describe the 
 appearance, the noise, the number, and the regula- 
 tion of the host, must either be dropped as well, or 
 else be removed from their original place at the 
 close of the Catalogue, and be placed before the 
 appeal to the Muses, so as to be readable when the 
 Catalogue was left out. This was the object of that 
 transposition. But transpose them back to their old 
 place at the end of the Greek Catalogue, and they 
 are wonderfully apt. For after the series of similes 
 we turn to the Trojan scout Polites, or rather Iris, 
 who has just assumed his form, and the first thing 
 on which his words lay stress is the great magnitude 
 of the Greek host, which has been so profusely 
 depicted in the previous similes. He uses the very 
 same comparison of it to leaves on the trees, which 
 occurs among the similes themselves, and the whole 
 proceeds in perfect harmony. And it is surely 
 natural that these noble verses should come as a 
 sort of relief, after the hearer's attention has been 
 a little fatigued by the long enumeration, instead of 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 7 
 
 coming before it, when his interest is still fresh. 
 Well, if the reader will transfer the 29 verses to 
 their proper place, and subjoin the next 30 verses, 
 which are necessary to bring the two hosts together, 
 but leave out the Trojan Catalogue from Tpwa-l jnev 
 ^ye/uLoveve in verse 816 to the end of the book, he 
 will have 303 lines to the close of the Teichoscopia 
 at Book III 244, where there is an obvious pause 
 in the action. 
 
 I need not waste many words in attacking the 
 Trojan Catalogue, because I suppose that but few 
 would be found to defend it. Compared with the 
 Catalogue of the Ships, which gives us every kind of 
 original information about the Greek chiefs, it is 
 a jejune and lifeless production, very largely com- 
 piled from other parts of the poem, and sometimes 
 very carelessly compiled. For instance, at verse 862 
 Ascanius is said to be leading the Phrygians into 
 battle; but we know from XIII 794 that Ascanius 
 had not as yet arrived at Troy. And an opposite 
 mistake is committed about Asteropaeus, an im- 
 portant leader of the Paeonians, who is left out 
 because it is stated at XXI 156 that he had only 
 been ten days at Troy ; but the ten days will easily 
 include the day supposed in the Catalogue. Hence 
 we hear of a line by some put in to supply the 
 omission of this important person. Then in verse 
 848 the Paeonians are described as emphatically 
 bowmen, which agrees indeed with the Doloneia at 
 
8 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 X 428, but disagrees with XXI 155, where they 
 are emphatically spearmen, and with XVI 287, 
 where they are horsemen in accord with the last. 
 Then both the Leleges and Caucones are left out of 
 the list of Trojan allies, though the former are 
 alluded to at XX 96 and XXI 86, and the latter 
 at XX 329. Then in verse 841 the Larissa to 
 which Hippothous belongs is evidently meant to 
 be the town in the Troad ; whereas in XVII 301 it 
 is far away from Troy. Then Nastes, or it may be 
 Amphimachus, and Ennomus are said in verses 875 
 and 861 to have been slain by Achilles in the river; 
 but none of them are mentioned in Book XXI, though 
 the first two are leaders of the Carians ; and the last 
 is here said to be a leader of the Mysians with 
 Chromis, though in XIV 512 their leader is Hyrtius. 
 And in verse 827 it is said that Apollo himself gave 
 Pandarus his bow, which recalls a phrase about 
 Teucer in XV 441 ; but there is a long passage in 
 IV 105-111, which describes how Pandarus got the 
 bow by shooting a wild goat and fashioning the 
 weapon from its horns with his own hands. Finally, 
 the true Trojan Catalogue comes in Book XII 88-107, 
 where the Trojans and their allies assault the Wall 
 in five companies under fifteen chiefs; but here 
 they cut so poor a figure after the copious Catalogue 
 of the Greeks, that there could be very little credit 
 in defeating them, and no good artist would have 
 made the disparity of force so evident. 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 9 
 
 The conclusion of the canto, then, I place at the 
 end of the Teichoscopia ; and this canto, together 
 with the canto of the Catalogue, introduces us to 
 the Greek host and its prominent leaders, which 
 explains the reason why the poet connects them 
 together rather more closely than usual. But now 
 we have to ask whether three verses can be excised, 
 in order to reduce the number 303 to 300. And 
 the answer is that there are just three verses which 
 can be so treated, and no more. The first is III 14, 
 
 €p-)(OfjL€V(i)v ' jLMxAa B" <j)Ka SuTrp'qcra-ov ircSioto, 
 
 which is a repetition of the last line of the Catalogue, 
 and which we have already seen to be there per- 
 fectly in place, the word ep^o/uLei/oov being taken up 
 by ep-^^ojULevcav m the following simile ; and it is most 
 unlikely that the poet would repeat it after so short 
 an interval and in a pointless manner here. The 
 sentence ends much better without it. The next is 
 III 144, where the names of Helen's handmaidens 
 are given as Aethra, daughter of Pittheus, and ox- 
 eyed Clymene. A very sober critic, the late Mr. 
 Monro, says, " This story, however, like most 
 legends of Theseus, is unknown to Homer, and 
 accordingly there seem to be only two possible ex- 
 planations of the present passage. Either it is an 
 interpolation, as Aristarchus thought, inserted in 
 order to introduce a reference to the later story of 
 Aethra : or (what seems more probable) the names 
 
lo COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 AWpr] and KXvjuLevr} are brought in here merely to 
 give an air of reality to the narrative, and the coin- 
 cidence of name with the Aethra of Attic tradition is a 
 mere accident." But surely the view of Aristarchus 
 is far the more probable ; for there is a double coin- 
 cidence, in the name of Aethra and in the name of 
 Aethra's father, which can hardly be the mere effect 
 of accident. The line is an Attic interpolation. 
 Away then with Aethra, daughter of Pittheus, and 
 with ox-eyed Clymene, and let Helen go forth with 
 a pair of handmaids whose names are not recorded, 
 as Penelope does in Odyss. I 331, and ought to do in 
 Odyss. XVIII 207. The third verse is III 224, 
 
 ov Tore y 58' 'OSvarjos ayao"(ra^e^' ciSos ISovres, 
 
 which in its present position can hardly be con- 
 strued. Mr. Monro says, " The line, however, is 
 generally thought to be spurious. It makes a weak 
 and awkward conclusion to the speech ; and the 
 neglect of the digamma in two words (fef^o? and 
 FiSovTcg) confirms this view." The true ending of 
 the speech is with the verse above, 
 
 ovK av €7r€LT* 'OSva-rjt y €pL(T(r€i€ /Sporh^ aXA.os, 
 
 and the false one may be a sort of alternative to it ; 
 but to keep the two alternatives in the text makes a 
 laughable effect. We have now produced 300 lines, 
 all of which are perfectly coherent, by transposing 
 the similes to their original place, removing the 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH ii 
 
 feeble Trojan Catalogue, and excising three most 
 suspicious verses ; and I feel pretty sure that there 
 is not another verse in the whole of this passage 
 which affords just ground for suspicion. 
 
 The next canto, which relates the ritual of the 
 Oaths and the Single Combat of Menelaus and Paris, 
 I terminate at Book IV 85. This is the moment 
 when Athene enters the Trojan host, in order to 
 persuade Pandarus to take a shot at Menelaus ; and 
 here begins the Rupture of the Truce. The poet 
 marks the termination of the canto by giving us the 
 thoughts of the Greeks and Trojans as they behold 
 the goddess darting from the sky, ending up with 
 
 after which we turn to the action of Athene. Well, 
 from the end of the Teichoscopia to that point is 302 
 lines. Now this is a singularly flawless stretch, in 
 which critics of the most disruptive tendencies find 
 practically nothing to touch. But there are two 
 verses on which the keen eye of Aristarchus fastened 
 as improper to their present context. Hera says to 
 Zeus, " I have three cities, Argos and Sparta and 
 Mycenae, which are far the dearest to me. Sack 
 them, whenever they displease you ; I do not grudge 
 it or defend them. But neither ought you to 
 frustrate my labour for the destruction of Troy." 
 This is all quite coherent. But now, between the 
 offer and the counterclaim, some unlucky hand has 
 
12 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 stuffed the two verses IV 55-56, "For if I do 
 grudge it and refuse to let you sack them, I do no 
 good by grudging, for you are far the stronger." 
 This, says Aristarchus, destroys the whole grace 
 of Hera's offer, if Zeus can have what he likes with- 
 out asking her leave. I think that most readers 
 will acknowledge the truth of Aristarchus' remark, 
 although Dr. Leaf considers it insufficient ground for 
 condemning the lines. But it is not the best way of 
 making a bargain, to admit that your goods can be 
 had without payment ; and Hera is the last person 
 likely to think so. The verses are enclosed in 
 brackets in the Teubner text of Dr. Hentze, who 
 seems to feel the force of Aristarchus' objection ; 
 and perhaps they will be conceded us in establishing 
 a presumptive case. This set of 300 lines is 
 Canto VI. 
 
 In the next canto the truce is broken, and Aga- 
 memnon marshals his host for battle. The pause I 
 place after IV 402, where Diomede, being chidden 
 by the monarch for his sloth, is abashed by the 
 rebuke and receives it in silence : a silence which 
 marks the precise end of the episode known as 
 Agamemnon's Patrol. If the Iliad were a drama, 
 the direction at the verse should be this : " Aga- 
 memnon departs." But before he gets clear off 
 the scene, not Diomede himself, but Sthenelus his 
 squire has a fling at him ; and then follows Diomede's 
 reply, not, however, addressed to Agamemnon him- 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 13 
 
 self, who by this time is evidently gone (for he is 
 spoken of in the third person at verse 413), but 
 administering a sharp rebuke to the saucy rejoinder 
 of Sthenelus. So we pass on to the Prowess of 
 Diomede, which is the principal subject of the next 
 four cantos ; and an artful transition it is. 
 
 I dwell on this particular break, because the 
 reader might perhaps expect the pause to be placed 
 20 lines lower down, where the hosts advance 
 to battle. But I am confident that the poet 
 meant the cantos to be divided as is shown above. 
 For the very sound of the line, 
 
 aiSecr^cts fSaa-tXrjos eviTrrjv alSotoio, 
 
 marks it out as one on which the voice should dwell ; 
 and a fresh reciter, or pair of fresh reciters, might 
 well come on with Sthenelus and Diomede, with 
 perhaps yet a third for the narrative. And here I 
 will interpose some general remarks on the nature 
 of the tercentenary pause. I do not maintain that 
 the strongest pauses in the poem are always to be 
 found after each 300 lines ; for it is quite as much 
 the poet's object to prevent his narrative falling 
 asunder as to mark its several divisions. This is 
 patent from the way in which he interweaves his 
 incidents from one of the cantos to another. Thus 
 in Canto V the heralds were sent to fetch Priam 
 out of Troy ; then came the Teichoscopia ; and 
 then, with the opening of Canto VI, we returned to 
 
14 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 the heralds again. And so the poet often throws 
 a separate stage of a previous incident into the 
 subsequent canto, and after going on for another 
 lo or 20 or 30 lines or more, breaks off with the 
 phrase, " so they were doing so and so," and intro- 
 duces there the new matter of the canto. Again it 
 is evident that he sometimes means that two or 
 three cantos should be taken together, the whole 
 forming a section of 600 or 900 lines, with sub- 
 ordinate pauses after each 300 verses. We shall 
 find good examples of this in the Slaying of Hector 
 and the Funeral Games of Patroclus, which form 
 distinct episodes of 600 and 900 verses apiece, with 
 a secondary pause after each 300 lines. Hence the 
 turns in the action at the beginning and end of 
 each canto are not always more distinctly marked 
 than some which arise within it. And if the 
 reader reflects, he will see that this is necessarily 
 the case. For the great changes in an action like 
 that of the Iliad must occur when it passes from 
 day to night or from night to day, and from earth 
 to heaven or from heaven to earth. But it would 
 be hard if, whenever the poet carries us from night 
 to day or from earth to heaven, he were always 
 obliged to open a new canto. Consequently some 
 of the greater changes must occur within the 
 triacosiad. What I contend for is that there is 
 always a noticeable pause or turn in the action after 
 every genuine set of 300 lines, counted from the 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 15 
 
 opening of the poem, but not necessarily an abrupt 
 pause or a violent turn. It would not do, however, 
 for the tercentenary pause to descend in the middle 
 of a speech. 
 
 To return now to Canto VII, the Rupture of 
 the Truce and Agamemnon's Patrol. These make 
 up 317 lines. But the 17 verses which may be 
 removed are marked out as if with a blue pencil. 
 They are IV 382-398, in the rebuke of Agamemnon 
 to Diomede, where the story is told of Tydeus' 
 adventures at Thebes. "Why are you shirking 
 and staring about, son of Tydeus ? " asks the king. 
 " It was not the way of Tydeus to shirk like this, 
 but to fight with his enemies far in advance of 
 all his friends, as they said who saw him at work. 
 I never met him or saw him myself; but they say 
 that he was beyond compare. He came to Mycenae 
 as a peaceful visitant, along with godlike Polyneices, 
 to collect a host. They were then about to march 
 against the sacred walls of Thebes, and earnestly 
 entreated our people to give them allies ; and they 
 consented, but Zeus changed their minds, by dis- 
 playing unlucky signs. Such was Tydeus the 
 Aetolian ; but he begot his son worse than him- 
 self at fighting, though better at talking." You 
 see what is the point of Agamemnon's rebuke. 
 Tydeus was a mighty man of arms, who was fond of 
 fighting himself, and who came to Mycenae to get 
 others to join him ; but all his eloquence collapsed 
 
1 6 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 after the unlucky signs of Zeus. Diomede is just 
 the opposite. He is a very good talker, for he con- 
 stantly speaks out in the council when all the rest sit 
 silent, and here he is supposed to be chattering away 
 with Sthenelus. But he is a very poor fighter, says 
 the king, for he is standing still while others are 
 advancing to the war. Now this point is obscured, 
 if not completely lost, when an untimely tale of 17 
 lines about Tydeus* adventures at Thebes is inter- 
 posed between the failure of his oratory at Mycenae 
 and the determined loquacity of his son. We have 
 forgotten one member of the contrast before we 
 reach the other. Besides, the genuine story of 
 Tydeus' famous exploit is told by Athene in Book 
 V 800-813. Tydeus was sent as an emissary to 
 Thebes by his companions in arms, and there he 
 boldly challenged the Cadmean youth to feats of 
 strength, and beat them every one. But our story- 
 teller, not content with this, adds that the Cadmeans 
 were so enraged at it, that they laid an ambush for 
 him as he was going away, and that he slew them 
 all but one ; which is a fiction in itself exceedingly 
 improbable. Then there is a very barbarous use of 
 the word ^elvos in verse 387, of which Dr. Leaf says 
 that it " must here mean * a stranger,' z.e, virtually 
 under the circumstances an enemy, whereas in 377 
 it means a friend. But the word never acquired in 
 Greek the connotation of the Latin koslis, and in 
 ordinary cases to be a ^eivog in any sense was a 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 17 
 
 reason for expecting friendly treatment, not trea- 
 chery." And the three names Ai/jLovlSr]^ and 
 AvT6(f)ovo9 and UoXiKpouTijg for the leaders of the 
 Cadmean ambush are so manifestly made up for 
 the occasion, that we may take it to be an expansion 
 of the story told later on, but thrust in here, where 
 it delays the action too long. And the neatness 
 with which the 17 lines go out is a good argument 
 that they ought to be banished. 
 
 The next canto, which embraces the first encounter 
 of the armies and the first part of the Prowess of 
 Diomede, I terminate at Book V 165, where we 
 are first introduced to Aeneas, who is a very great 
 man in Homer. This makes 307 lines. Here I 
 admit that it may not be quite so evident which 7 
 verses ought to be removed ; but the way in which 
 I would do it is this. If the reader will compare 
 V 40-42 and V 56-58, which describe the deaths 
 of Odius and Scamandrius respectively, he will see 
 that these triads are very similar to one another. 
 This similarity, occurring at such close quarters, has 
 occasioned much offence ; and in some good recent 
 texts it has been mitigated by enclosing in brackets 
 the last verse of the first triad and the middle verse 
 of the second triad. And yet it is only the middle 
 verses of each triad that are identical, 
 
 and one of these alone would I strike out, giving 
 
 B 
 
1 8 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 the preference to the one that comes first, and 
 supposing the other one to be a careless repetition 
 of it, like that of III 14 pointed out above, caused 
 by the general likeness. As for the remaining 6 
 verses, I would seek them in IV 446-451, which 
 are repeated word for word in VIII 60-65. They 
 would do equally well in either place, because in 
 both they describe the first encounters of the hosts 
 on different days ; but it is not likely that the same 
 striking verses occurred twice over. Probably they 
 were inserted for use when Book IV was read apart 
 from Book VIII, or was sold apart for instruction 
 in schools. But here the interval of the meeting 
 of the hosts is bridged by a very fine simile of two 
 torrents plunging into the junction of two ravines, 
 which has no counterpart in the other book, and in 
 which the word /uLia-yoimevajv seems to repel the fact 
 that the battle is already joined. In one minute 
 respect I confess that it might be preferable to remove 
 them from the other context, the phrase TroXvs 
 S^ opvimaySog opwpei being repeated at VIII 59 and 
 6 2 ; and the reader may be able to discover 6 other 
 verses which can equally well be excised. But we 
 shall find it convenient to retain the lines later on ; 
 and it is safer to strike out repeated verses than 
 others which have no good ground of objection 
 against them. This, then, is Canto VIII. 
 
 Canto IX, which contains the second part of the 
 Prowess of Diomede, and includes his combat with 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 19 
 
 Aeneas, his wounding of Aphrodite, and his vain 
 attack upon Apollo, extends down to verse 470, 
 where Ares at Apollo's bidding infuses fresh life 
 into the beaten Trojans. The next canto first 
 introduces us to Sarpedon, who is another great 
 man in Homer. The former one contains 305 
 lines. Here I hold it to be quite clear which 5 
 verses can and ought to be expelled. They are 
 449-453, in which Apollo, who has saved Aeneas 
 by wrapping him in a cloud and transporting him 
 to his temple in Troy, is represented as creating a 
 phantom of him, over which the Greeks and Trojans 
 struggle. The last two of these verses are borrowed 
 from XII 425-426, the interpolator's invention 
 having sunk exhausted after its creation of the 
 phantom. But at verse 514 Aeneas returns to his 
 comrades, restored to health and strength by Leto 
 and Artemis, so that there must be a moment 
 when the real man and the phantom are together 
 in the field. Now we should expect to hear some- 
 thing of this strange duplication, or else to have 
 already heard of the withdrawal of the phantom, as 
 we do in the Helen of Euripides. But not a word 
 is said of either ; and though heroes are repeatedly 
 rapt away in Homer, nothing like the substitution 
 of a phantom ever occurs again. " Apparently," as 
 Dr. Leaf says, " some rhapsodist thought it necessary 
 to explain why the disappearance of Aeneas did not 
 stop the fight," and therefore added these five verses. 
 
20 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 There remains, of course, the undoubted marvel of the 
 real Aeneas returning to the field miraculously cured. 
 But then the poet carefully explains that his com- 
 rades did not question him at all, because the stress 
 of battle was too strong ; which, whether an adequate 
 apology or not, shows that he was alive to the true 
 part of the wonder, but knew nothing of the false 
 addition of the phantom, whose way of dissolving he 
 never explains. 
 
 In the next canto the Trojans, rallied by Ares, 
 advance under Sarpedon and Hector and the restored 
 Aeneas, while Diomede gradually retires. It goes 
 down to verse 777, at which moment Hera and 
 Athene arrive at Troy, bent upon driving Ares off 
 the field. There is an excellent pause at the end of 
 the canto, where the goddesses halt their steeds at 
 the conflux of the rivers Scamander and Simois, and 
 Simois supplies them with ambrosia on which to 
 browse, while the goddesses proceed into the fray. 
 The pause is well marked in the Oxford Homer of 
 the late Provost of Oriel and in the Cambridge 
 Homer of Mr. Piatt, who both begin a new para- 
 graph here ; but not so well in the Teubner text of 
 Dr. Hentze, or in the last edition of Dr. Leaf, who 
 both go on without indentation. The canto contains 
 307 lines. Here again it may be a little doubtful 
 which seven verses can be challenged ; but I should 
 pitch upon the genealogy of Crethon and Orsilochus, 
 sons of Diodes, in verses 543-549. There is little 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 21 
 
 to be said against the verses, except that a pedigree 
 is in its own nature suspicious, and that this one 
 seems to have been drawn up from Odyss. Ill 488- 
 490, where Alpheus is the great-grandfather as 
 here, and the grandfather Ortilochus, as also in 
 Odyss. XV 187 and XXI 16, but here Orsilochus, 
 being changed to suit the name of the grandson, 
 who is not referred to in the Odyssey. And the 
 circumstance that the father Diodes was a wealthy 
 man may be taken from the fact that Telemachus 
 twice lodges in his house, and receives a present on 
 both occasions. Then the place of their home is 
 here called Phere, but elsewhere it is Pherae, both in 
 Iliad and in Odyssey. And again the young men 
 are said to be " well skilled in all manner of fight- 
 ing," though it appears from what follows that this 
 is their first campaign. These verses, then, I should 
 discard ; and this is Canto X. 
 
 And now, for reasons which are reserved to a later 
 stage, we take a wider sweep, and place the close of 
 the next canto after Book VI 236. It comprises the 
 wounding and departure of Ares, and the Colloquy 
 of Glaucus and Diomede, ending with their exchange 
 of armour and the celebrated verse, 
 
 Xpvcrea ;(aA,K€i(uv, eKarofijSot' ivveajSolcov. 
 
 There is a manifest transition in the story here ; for 
 with this incident the poet disposes of Diomede for 
 the rest of the day, and with the first verse of the 
 
22 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 next canto Hector reaches the Scaean gates of Troy. 
 Then follows his intercourse with Hecuba, with 
 Paris, with Helen, and lastly with Andromache, 
 after which he rejoins the Trojans in the field at the 
 seventh verse of the Seventh Book. This is one of 
 the most perfect expanses of poetry in the whole 
 Iliad, of which so subversive a critic as Dr. Leaf says, 
 "With the exception of one point, to which we 
 shall return, all that follows is so perfect in narration 
 as well as in conception as to call for no criticism ; 
 admiration is enough.*' I omit that one point, as 
 I think that there is but little in it, and leave the 
 reader to seek it in Dr. LeaPs Introduction to the 
 book. Well, from the moment when Hector enters 
 the Scaean gates until the moment when he rejoins the 
 Trojans in the field, there are exactly 300 lines. 
 This is Canto XII. 
 
 Let us return to Canto XI, and fix our attention on 
 the Colloquy of Glaucus and Diomede. Both ancient 
 and modern scholars have found much to question 
 here. It has often been objected to the colloquy 
 that it is far too long for its present position. The 
 whole battle seems to stand still, while Diomede 
 retails to Glaucus the story of Lycurgus in twelve 
 lines, and Glaucus responds with the story of 
 Bellerophon and his family in fifty-six. Now the 
 entire canto consists of 368 verses. Cut out the 
 account of Lycurgus from the speech of Diomede, 
 cut out the history of Bellerophon from that of 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 23 
 
 Glaucus, and you have exactly 300 lines. This is 
 surely remarkable ; for both the cuts can be made 
 with perfect ease. "And who are you.''" asks 
 Diomede of Glaucus ; " for I have never seen you 
 in the battle before ; but now you have advanced far 
 in front of the rest, through your own high spirit, 
 mine being the spear that you have ventured to 
 withstand. But unhappy are the parents whose 
 children encounter my might. If you are one 
 of the immortals, who has come down from Olympus, 
 I would not fight with the heavenly gods. But 
 if you are one of the mortal men who consume 
 the fruits of the field, draw near, that you may the 
 speedier reach the end of death." Between the two 
 conditional sentences has been inserted the story of 
 Lycurgus. " For neither was Lycurgus so long- 
 lived, who strove with the heavenly gods," and so on 
 for twelve lines. The insertion is so clearly marked by 
 the virtual repetition of verse 129 at verse 141, that 
 I refrain from dwelling on objections of detail, such 
 as a legend of Dionysus in Homer. Take again the 
 tale of Bellerophon. " Proud son of Tydeus," replies 
 Glaucus, " why do you inquire after my race ? Such 
 as is the race of leaves, such also is that of men. Of 
 the leaves, some are poured to the ground by the 
 wind, while others are produced by the flourishing 
 wood, and come on in the season of spring ; so of 
 the generations of men, while one is producing, 
 another is leaving oflF. But Hippolochus was sire 
 
24 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 unto me, and from him I say that I am sprung. 
 And he sent me to Troy, and charged me again and 
 again, always to be the best fighter and to excel all 
 others, and not to disgrace the family of my fathers, 
 who proved themselves to be far the best both in 
 Ephyre and in the broad land of Lycia. Such is the 
 lineage and blood of which I boast that I come." 
 Quite short, quite appropriate, and noble beyond 
 words. But now, between the likeness of the rising 
 generation to the growth of leaves and the naming 
 of Hippolochus, come the words, " But if indeed you 
 desire to find out about this also, that you may 
 perfectly understand our lineage, and many men 
 know of it ; there is a city Ephyre," and so on with 
 the genealogy of Sisyphus, Glaucus, and Bellerophon ; 
 the account of Bellerophon, Proetus, and Anteia ; and 
 the three children of Bellerophon, who are Isander, 
 Hippolochus, and Laodamia. The selfsame words 
 are used to introduce the long genealogy of Aeneas 
 in Book XX 213-240, which is removed with equal 
 ease, leaving 300 behind. And the story of Bel- 
 lerophon, though perfect in itself, is a fairy tale 
 quite foreign to the Iliad. The reader will observe, 
 however, that in the second speech of Diomede 
 there is a notice of Bellerophon, whereas we have 
 cut out the mention of him here. But this seems 
 perfectly natural. The naming of Hippolochus and 
 Ephyre and Lycia by Glaucus gives the cue to 
 Diomede, who takes their ancestry a generation 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 25 
 
 higher up, at which point there was some connection 
 of friendship between his own grandfather Oeneus and 
 Bellerophon, the grandsire of Glaucus. He assumes 
 that Oeneus' name is known to Glaucus, though 
 nothing has been said of him before, not even in the 
 verses we omit ; and so we may suppose that he 
 knows about Bellerophon, without Glaucus having 
 to tell it. The reader will likewise observe that in 
 cutting out this story we cut out the mention of the 
 crrnxaTa Xvypd in verse 1 68, and with them the sole 
 indication that Homer's audience was familiar with 
 any form of writing. 
 
 We now go on to Canto XIII, which is con- 
 cerned with the Duel of Hector and Ajax, this day's 
 warfare ending, as it began, with a single combat. 
 The pause we set at VII 344, after the short pouncil 
 in Agamemnon's tent, to which Ajax is conducted 
 in triumph. The next canto begins with the Trojan 
 assembly on the citadel of Troy. This makes 337 
 lines, which seems a mighty number. Yes, but there 
 is a speech of Nestor in it, and Nestor's speeches 
 will often yield an easily detachable story. And 
 here there is a passage of a regular type, introduced 
 by a regular formula, " O would to father Zeus and 
 Athene and Apollo, that I were as young as when 
 such and such an event took place." We shall 
 learn that passages of this sort always go out with 
 the utmost facility wherever they occur. Here it is 
 the story of Ereuthalion, and a most untimely tale 
 
26 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 it is ; for Hector has issued his challenge, and it is 
 all important that there should be no delay in 
 taking it up. The first 8 lines of Nestor's speech 
 exhort the rest rightly to promptitude, but when 
 he himself goes on for another 29, the effect is 
 wholly spoilt. And the internal difficulties of the 
 story are great. Here is a note of Dr. Leaf's: 
 " 133. This passage cannot be reconciled with 
 geographical facts, ^eid is no doubt the same as 
 ^eal in Elis ; but that was a maritime town, not near 
 Arkadia ; there is nothing known of a Keladon or 
 lardanos anywhere near it, nor, it would seem, are 
 there any rivers that could correspond." The things 
 denied in the note are all asserted or implied in the 
 text. And here is another : " 149. It is clear that 
 if the now aged Nestor took the armour in question 
 in his early youth (153) from the man who had it 
 from Lykoergos in his old age, the Are'lthoos from 
 whom Lykoergos took it cannot by any reasonable 
 chronology have left a son young enough to be 
 fighting in the tenth year of the siege of Troy : yet 
 in line 10 this would seem to be implied. Moreover, 
 Areifthoos of line 8 lived in Arne in Boeotia, whereas 
 Areithoos here seems to be an Arkadian." So that 
 the story twice seems to contradict an earlier passage 
 in the same book. Dr. Leaf continues : " But diffi- 
 culties of this sort are familiar in the tales of Nestor's 
 youthful exploits, all of which bear the mark of late 
 work, introduced with no special applicability to the 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 27 
 
 context, but rather with the intention of glorifying 
 the ancestor of Peisistratos." So that the passage is 
 one of a difficult class ; and every one of them will 
 on our principle be found to disappear. The proper 
 end of Nestor's speech is at verse 131 ; and the 29 
 verses 132-160 ought to be removed. This leaves 
 us with 8 verses over the 300. It is strange, but 
 true, that exactly 8 verses in the speech of Nestor 
 at the end of the canto are devoted to the project of 
 Building the Wall. 
 
 Students of the Homeric problem will at once 
 perceive the bearing of this fact. It is well known 
 that inconsistency about the Wall is one of the great 
 engines of the disruptive critics of the Iliad. They 
 infer from it that the Wall never formed part of the 
 original scheme of the poem, and they use its pre- 
 sence or absence as a rough sort of test in attempting 
 to determine the primitive plan, which is sometimes 
 called the Menis, though that title truly belongs to 
 a series of incidents in the First Book of the Iliad. 
 Now I see not the slightest reason for doubting that 
 the existence of the Wall was an integral portion of 
 the earliest poet's plot. From the Twelfth Book 
 onward you simply cannot detach it from the poem 
 without resorting to processes which are a confu- 
 tation of the theory on which you proceed. For it 
 is entwined with things that lie at the inmost heart 
 of the story ; and therefore it is not surprising that 
 nobody has yet offered to the public a satisfactory 
 
28 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 scheme which excludes the Wall. But I see now, 
 and always have seen, the very gravest reason for 
 supposing that the Building of the Wall never stood 
 as an incident in the Iliad of Homer ; and here I 
 believe that the whole inconsistency lies. Homeric 
 critics sometimes overlook the fact, that when an 
 inconsistency between two things occurs, it is not 
 essential to do away with each, but only with one. 
 The existence of the Wall I hold to be genuine and 
 consistent with the rest of the Iliad; the Building 
 of the Wall I hold to be false and inconsistent. 
 
 The whole story of the Building of the Wall is 
 contained in these 8 verses 336-343, where Nestor 
 proposes the measure, and in the 32 or 34 verses of 
 the next canto, which begin at verse 433, where the 
 project itself is put into execution; after which 
 Poseidon and Zeus have a short talk about it. Now 
 the proposal to build a wall, whenever it occurred, is 
 obviously the proposal of a most important step. 
 And yet it is first broached as a sort of happy 
 thought at the end of Nestor*s speech, after his 
 most timely suggestion that Agamemnon should 
 make a truce with the Trojans, in order to cremate 
 the dead ; and not one of the elders has a word to say 
 about it, but all assent straight off. Can we not 
 imagine what opportunities for debate and display 
 of his characters the real Homer would have found 
 in such a scene.'* How Diomede would arise and 
 bluntly declare that the arms of the Greeks were 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 29 
 
 adequate to the defence of the camp, and remon- 
 strate against yet another day's interruption of the 
 fighting ? How Odysseus would get up and assert 
 that Diomede was valiant in spirit but young in 
 years ; that he would have said the same himself in 
 his earlier days, but that his valour had been tem- 
 pered by experience ? How, after further debate, 
 Nestor would rise to reinforce his original proposal, 
 and Agamemnon would close the conference by 
 saying that he had given just the right advice as 
 usual ? Nothing of the sort. Then if we turn to 
 Book XII 1-33, which everyone must take to be 
 the first formal introduction of the Wall, at a most 
 convenient time, when the Trojans have reached it 
 in their victorious advance, it is manifestly implied 
 that the Wall was built long ago to protect the ships 
 and booty, and not two days before. And surely the 
 nature of the case declares that such a measure, were 
 it undertaken at all, would suggest itself and be 
 carried out shortly after the formation of the camp 
 upon the Hellespont. For it has often been observed 
 what an odd moment is this for building a wall, about 
 the end of the ninth year, and after a day of fight- 
 ing in which the Greeks have got the better. 
 
 Then if we sift the proposal of Nestor more 
 closely, it occasions three great difficulties. He 
 advises that after collecting and burning the dead, 
 under an armistice with the Trojans, they should 
 raise over the pyre a common tomb, and build the 
 
30 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 wall on to it or against it. But in the first place 
 this flatly contradicts his proposal two lines higher 
 up, that the bones of the dead should be preserved 
 and taken home, which was the original poet's idea. 
 Then, again, the tomb, which must be meant to 
 serve as a bank of earth behind the wall, must itself 
 be a most important part of the fortification. But 
 when the Trojans have won the Wall at the end of 
 Book XII, and we should expect so conspicuous a 
 feature of the defence to come into sharper promin- 
 ence, it is not once alluded to. At the second 
 assault of the Trojans, in Book XV 355-364, Apollo 
 levels the banks of the trench outside the Wall, and 
 he smashes down the Wall itself like a castle of sand, 
 but of the tomb behind it not a word is said. And 
 in the final obliteration of the Wall by Poseidon and 
 Apollo, which is given by anticipation at the begin- 
 ning of Book XII, not a syllable is said about the 
 tomb. But a greater difficulty still is want of time. 
 As a result both of the Greek council and of the 
 Trojan assembly, held on the same night after the 
 first day of battle, the two parties early next morning 
 agree to suspend hostilities for so long a time as is 
 necessary to burn the dead. This is all completed 
 on the evening of that day. Well, in the early 
 twilight before the dawning, up get the Greeks and 
 set about building their wall. This work occupies 
 all the rest of the day, and is finished at sunset. 
 But this was not in the bond. They were to have 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 31 
 
 so much time as was necessary to burn the dead, and 
 no more. And are we to suppose that the Trojans 
 sit idle throughout the whole of this second day, 
 while their enemies, contrary to the agreement, carry 
 out in peace this defensive operation ? Then it seems 
 very doubtful whether " a chosen people of the 
 Greeks," as they are called, could accomplish in a 
 single day a work of fortification so vast as that 
 which is implied in Book XII 1-33. It is true that in 
 Book VIII 178 Hector describes the wall as weak and 
 negligible. But we shall find fair reason to suppose 
 that passage spurious; and because of those words 
 I should judge that it was put in by the same man 
 who put in the Building of the Wall, or else by 
 somebody who saw that the work of a single day 
 could only be a puny affair, and was betrayed by 
 the spurious incident into disagreement with other 
 parts of the poem. But there is little doubt that 
 this second day has been foisted into the poem ; for 
 the poet does not mark the fall of the preceding 
 night, as his manner is elsewhere, and so we can 
 pass straight on to the marketing and nightfall with 
 which the book concludes. 
 
 We therefore strike out the 8 verses in which 
 Nester proposes to build the wall, and all is clear in 
 Canto XIII. But in the next canto, before we come 
 to the building itself, there are two isolated verses 
 which must certainly depart. The first is verse 353, 
 which cannot be construed, was stigmatised by 
 
32 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 Aristarchus, and is bracketed or otherwise got rid 
 of in all recent texts. It is a lame attempt to help 
 out the meaning of the phrase rw ou w n KcpSiop 
 riiMv in the verse above. The other is verse 380, 
 which says that the Trojans took their supper in 
 regiments on the field, whereas they have left the 
 field and returned to Troy for the assembly on the 
 citadel. The verse is omitted from many manu- 
 scripts, it is borrowed from XVIII 298, where it is in 
 place, and it is bracketed in all recent texts. Now the 
 beginning of the interpolation about the wall is quite 
 clear at verse 433 ; but it is a very nice question 
 where we should put the end. It might seem 
 simple to place it after the two verses 465-466, 
 which close the previous incident, 
 
 hvcrero S' •j^eA.tos, rerkXicno Se 'ipyov *Axat(3v, 
 I3ov<j>6veov Se Kara kXlct las koI Sopirov 'dXovTO. 
 
 But we may notice that these verses will equally well 
 close the incident of the funeral, which terminates 
 now at verse 432, just before the interpolation 
 begins. The word cpyov will apply to the funeral 
 pile just as well as to the wall, and we shall preserve 
 the explicit mention of the nightfall, although the 
 same thing is implied by irawvyj.oi lower down. 
 And the interpolation will equally well conclude 
 with the verse before, 
 
 ws ot jLtev TOtavTa Trphs aXX-qXavs dyopcvov, 
 
 which relates to the duologue of Poseidon and Zeus. 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 33 
 
 I am persuaded that this is right for several reasons. 
 Firstly, if we cut out the two verses, we curtail 
 the mention of the Greek supper on the night of 
 the funeral. But this is to be a night of revelry, 
 and it is natural that the poet, who is careful to 
 explain how the Greeks got their wine, should 
 explain how they came by abundance of meat ; 
 which is done by the word ^ovcpoveov. They made 
 a wholesale slaughter of oxen. But again this word 
 is said to have a ceremonial sense, which chimes very 
 well with the rest of the funeral incident ; for after 
 that pious labour comes the religious funeral feast. 
 And for the same reason it could scarcely have 
 occurred to the interpolator. For he, obedient to the 
 hint which is given him in XII 6, makes it one of 
 the grievances of Poseidon in his duologue with 
 Zeus, that the Greeks did not offer hecatombs of 
 oxen after building the wall. So that the verses 
 evidently came at the end of the funeral, where they 
 are highly appropriate, but were used by the inter- 
 polator to conclude his account of the Building of 
 the Wall, regardless of the fact that the word 
 povcpoveov contradicts what he told us 16 lines above. 
 We therefore retain these verses and reject the rest, 
 together with the 2 spurious ones above, and this 
 leaves us 104 lines to the end of the book, with 
 which to find the tercentenary pause in the next. 
 
 Now it is clear that, wherever else a pause may 
 occur, one must be placed at the end of the Eighth 
 
 c 
 
34 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD ^ 
 
 Book. For here the poet winds up his description of 
 the panic flight of the Greeks, and of the Trojan 
 bivouac on the plain, with the magnificent simile 
 which compares their watch-fires to the aspect of 
 the starry heavens ; while the next book begins 
 with the consternation of the Greeks which brings 
 about the Deputation to Achilles. We shall find that 
 with this Eighth Book concludes the 15th Canto of 
 the poem, which has 45 in all. So that one third 
 of the Iliad begins with the Wrath of Achilles, 
 and ends with the first defeat of the Greeks; and 
 the next third begins with the Embassy which 
 vainly endeavours to appease his wrath, and ends 
 with the Death of Patroclus at the close of Book XVI, 
 which is of course another most important moment 
 in the poem ; while the last third is devoted to 
 the consequences of that momentous event, and 
 especially to the vengeance of Achilles. This whole 
 arrangement is so likely in itself, that it affords 
 no small confirmation of our view. And I mention 
 it here in hope to fortify the reader's belief; for 
 we are now on the brink of a somewhat anxious 
 situation. 
 
 Well, if we look back about 300 lines from the 
 end of Book VIII, we shall discover a very convenient 
 pause after verse 252. This is the one moment 
 when the Greeks, who in the previous canto have 
 been stricken with a supernatural terror by Zeus, 
 suddenly regain new courage owing to an omen 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 35 
 
 which he sends to them in merciful response to 
 Agamemnon*s prayer. The chiefs repass the trench, 
 with Diomede at their head, but the proper hero 
 of the ensuing verses is Teucer. The exact number 
 of lines to the end of the book is 313. How can 
 we excise the odd 1 3 verses ? There is no obvious 
 single passage of that extent, such as a genealogical 
 story or a reminiscence of old Nestor, so that we are 
 compelled to pick and choose. But I need not 
 say that the Eighth Book is one which furnishes 
 a good many particular grounds of complaint to the 
 critic, some of which appear to be solid and firm. 
 The first verse on which I should fix is 277, which 
 tells us that Teucer brought all of those named 
 before to the ground in quick succession. It is 
 omitted by the majority of manuscripts, is repeated 
 at XII 194 and XVI 418, is enclosed in brackets by 
 Mr. Monro and Dr. Leaf and Dr. Hentze, and is 
 printed at the bottom of the page by Mr. Piatt. 
 
 The next verses are 332-334, in which, after 
 Teucer has been disabled, and Ajax has run forward 
 and put his shield about him, it is stated that two 
 trusty comrades, Mecisteus, son of Echius, and high- 
 born Alastor, carried him to the ships heavily groan- 
 ing. The same three verses are repeated word for 
 word in XIII 421-423; but there it appears that 
 Mecisteus and Alastor are the comrades of Anti- 
 lochus, or else of the wounded Hypsenor, over 
 whom Antilochus throws his shield, as Ajax throws 
 
36 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 his over Teucer here. Now the verses cannot be 
 right in both places ; but it is a question in which 
 place they originally stood. Dr Leaf holds that 
 they are original here ; for he thinks that Hypsenor 
 is killed outright, and therefore cannot be carried to 
 the ships heavily groaning. But with all deference 
 to so great an authority, I take the contrary view. 
 For there is nothing to show that Hypsenor is killed 
 outright, though he is desperately wounded, being 
 struck upon the liver below the diaphragm, which 
 accounts for his heavily groaning ; and the boast of 
 Deiphobus, that he has sent Hypsenor to keep com- 
 pany with Asius on the way to Hades, shows that 
 he is conscious of having dealt a mortal wound, but 
 not that Hypsenor is slain outright. And why 
 should Antilochus so rashly drop his shield about him, 
 if it is so very plain that he is killed upon the spot ? 
 But nothing worse happens to Teucer than the 
 numbing of his hand by the blow of a stone ; which 
 by depriving the part of feeling releases it from pain, 
 and would not be so good a cause for heavy groans. 
 Then again, nothing further is said about Mecisteus 
 and Alastor in this place ; but the story of Mecisteus 
 is followed up in Book XV, which is a later stage of 
 the same battle as that in which he rescues Hypsenor, 
 he being slain with his father Echius at verse 339. 
 The same device is used in the case of Ascanius 
 and Morys, sons of Hippotion. They are first 
 introduced to us at XIII 792, and then Morys 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 37 
 
 and his father Hippotion are slain at XIV 514. So 
 that the one instance supports the other, and all hangs 
 together, showing that Mecisteus and Alastor be- 
 long to that place. Then if we cut out the verses 
 in Book XIII, the incident ends very lamely. For 
 there the fight is at close quarters, and Antilochus is 
 left standing with his shield over Hypsenor, and not 
 a word further is said. But here the opponents are 
 at a long distance from each other, as is shown by the 
 use of arrows and stones ; so that Ajax might well 
 be understood to remain a little while exposed, when 
 his shield is over Teucer, until Teucer recovers and 
 retires. Besides all which, a great deal has been 
 made of the shield of Ajax in the preceding verses, 
 Teucer coming out from under it to shoot, and then 
 retreating under it again when he has taken his shot ; 
 so that it forms a very fair conclusion to the incident 
 to say that Ajax carries forward his shield to the 
 wounded Teucer, instead of Teucer, as before, re- 
 treating under the shield of Ajax. These three 
 verses, then, I should detach. 
 
 The next verses are 466-468, in which Hera 
 declares that she will hold aloof from the battle at 
 the command of Zeus, but that she will suggest 
 some beneficial advice to the minds of the Greeks, 
 that they may not all of them perish. The same thing 
 has been said in the same words by Athene at the 
 beginning of the book, in verses 35-37, where it is 
 more appropriate ; for there the battle is just about 
 
38 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 to begin, but here it is nearly over for the day, 
 night falling in the next paragraph. The three verses 
 are omitted from many manuscripts, and are marked 
 as superfluous in all the texts aforesaid. 
 
 And now we come to a peculiar case. The four 
 verses 548 and 550-552 do not occur in any of our 
 manuscripts, but they are quoted in connection with 
 verse 549 in the Platonic dialogue Alcibiades II, 
 whence they were inserted in the text by Joshua 
 Barnes. It is said in the dialogue that you will 
 find them in Homer, when the Trojans are making 
 a night-watch ; but Dr. Leaf affirms that they have 
 no claim whatever to be in the text. But I must 
 avow that I should be most sorry to part with 
 them ; for they are remarkably apt to their present 
 context. They describe the Trojan offering of 
 hecatombs to the gods, which is just what we 
 should expect after their marvellous victory in this 
 book. And if we leave them out, the word Kvlarr] in 
 the genuine verse 549 must refer to the fumes of 
 their roasted sheep and oxen, but of the roasting 
 itself there is nothing said at all ; whereas it almost 
 always means the sweet savour of a sacrifice, and 
 this meaning the mention of their hecatombs in the 
 verse above immediately provides. Then I do not 
 well see how to account for the explicit statement of 
 the author of the dialogue, and for his connection of 
 verse 549 with the rest. People do not in our time 
 write things that can be convicted of falsehood by 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 39 
 
 turning the leaves of a Bible ; nor in ancient times 
 did they write things that could be proved untrue 
 by turning the pages of Homer. Dr. Leaf thinks 
 that he did not mean what he says, but that the 
 passage may come from some other " Homeric " or 
 Cyclic poem than the Iliad. But surely the chances 
 are very numerous against both a Trojan bivouac 
 and verse 549 being found together in some other 
 poem as well as in the Iliad. What curious things 
 the Cyclic poems must have been, if they went on 
 at this rate ; for they must have copied the Iliad 
 almost line for line. Mr. Monro seems to have 
 thought that the verses might be genuine, when in 
 editing the Iliad he spoke of them as being pre- 
 served in the dialogue ; though in his edition of 
 the Odyssey, p. 428, he calls the last three clearly 
 spurious. But we cannot reject these three without 
 rejecting also verse 548, which has no better warrant, 
 and then the difficulty about kvio-i] confronts us 
 again. And the words ovpavov eia-w in the genuine 
 verse seem meant to prepare us for the three which 
 follow, and which tell us that the gods refused to 
 partake of the savour of the hecatomb, because 
 sacred Troy had become to them most hateful ; a 
 statement which is puzzling to Mr. Monro, but 
 which is explained by the tyrannous edict of Zeus 
 on her behalf, at the opening of the book, when he 
 insultingly forbids all the gods to take part either 
 for or against. Now if there is no sacrifice, but 
 
40 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 only the regular evening meal, nor any mention of 
 the gods, but all is concerned with men on earth, 
 there is much less point in saying that the fumes of 
 their feast were carried up by the winds " into 
 heaven," than if we were to hear in the very next 
 lines how the gods in their disgust would have none 
 of it. Hence there is something to be said for 
 the verses after all. And may it not be possible that 
 these four verses were supplanted when another four 
 crept in ? For there are four highly suspicious 
 verses at the end of the last paragraph, 538-541, 
 introduced by the trailing tautologous phrase, i^eXlov 
 avi6vT09 eV avpiov, itself an odd expression, which 
 prompted the conjecture of ovpavov to Nauck ; and 
 going on with two verses, one of which is identical 
 with XIII 827, and ending up with 
 
 which again is identical with XIII 828, and is there 
 in place, but here quite out of it. For if aupiov is 
 right, ^/uLeprj ijSe must mean to-morrow, which usage 
 forbids. And if avpiov is wrong, yet the phrase 
 with ovpavov comes to the same, and vi^Gpri ijSe still 
 makes a jar; for this day's fighting is now at an 
 end, and Hector does not mean to renew the attack 
 until the morrow. I therefore submit it to the judg- 
 ment of the reader, which set of 4 verses ought to go. 
 The one set is not in the manuscripts, but the verses 
 are quoted as occurring here or hereabouts, where 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 41 
 
 they are certainly appropriate, if not indispensable. 
 The other set is in the manuscripts, but the verses 
 are almost the same as XIII 825-828, where they 
 are as easy as possible, but here make a puzzling 
 opposition to the context. Whichever set we reject, 
 we shall have disposed of 11 of our 13 verses by 
 arguments which seem to have no little force. 
 
 The last two verses, I regret to say, come out of 
 the famous simile at the end of the book ; but the 
 case is too strong against them to allow of their 
 being left in. They are 557-558, which describe 
 the illumination of the peaks and promontories and 
 glens by the moon, and the breaking open of the 
 sky. They were omitted by Zenodotus, and 
 obelized by both Aristarchus and Aristophanes, as 
 a wrong repetition of XVI 299-300. Dr. Leaf 
 says, " There can be little doubt that this judgment 
 is right, fine though the verses are in themselves ; 
 the repetition of alOrjp is awkward, and the strong 
 phrase vireppayri is far more appropriate in the later 
 passage, where the clouds are represented as being 
 actually * burst open ' by a gust of wind, than here 
 where the air is still. So also the aorist €(j)avev 
 implies a sudden glimpse through the clouds. 
 Here, too, the peaks and points are less in place than 
 where the mountain to which they belong has been 
 already mentioned." And we may add that it 
 would be strange if the poet, who has given the 
 verses a substantive footing of their own in XVI 
 
42 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 299-300, where, in Dr. Leafs words, " the sudden 
 gleam of new hope is magnificently compared to a 
 sudden burst of light through clouds hanging over 
 a mountain peak, as though a cleft were opened 
 into the very depths of heaven," if the poet, I say, 
 had employed them merely to fill out a simile of quite 
 another kind. No doubt their beauty led to their 
 insertion here for use apart from Book XVI. But 
 I must not disguise a slight difficulty which occurs 
 on cutting out the lines. The word aa-rpa in verse 
 559 comes a little too close to the same word in 
 verse 555 to be wholly pleasant to the ear. But 
 the reader best may judge if this awkward eifFect 
 does not vanish, or at least become more faint, 
 when an emphasis is laid upon the epithets of the 
 word in either sentence, on apiirpeiria in the first and 
 on iravra in the second. You see that the poet first 
 adverts to the brightness of each particular star, and 
 then insists on the appearance of the stars shining 
 all together, which makes the shepherd glad. And 
 this notion is borne out in the case of either 
 sentence by the distinction of (palverai from e^Serai : 
 nor is there any other reason for telling us twice 
 over that the stars are visible. Then the repetition 
 of aarrpa, instead of being superfluous, serves to 
 show us where the emphasis should lie, which is 
 hardest upon Trai/ra, and throws the contrast of its 
 epithets into stronger relief. And this supplies a 
 further argument against the two intrusive verses, 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 43 
 
 which interfere with the contrast, and which by 
 their very different movement seem to me to deaden 
 the lovely choral rhythm of the rest ; though in 
 other respects it is a pity that the passage, which has 
 been endeared to English readers by the skilful 
 translations of Tennyson and Worsley, cannot be 
 left to stand in its present form. So much for 
 Canto XV. 
 
 We have now to go back and be certain about 
 Canto XIV. We carried over 104 verses from the 
 Seventh Book, and we placed the pause after verse 
 252 of the Eighth. This makes up 356 lines, which 
 is a great deal in excess of our limit. But there is 
 fair reason for thinking the whole passage 160— 
 212 not to be genuine, which makes 53 lines; and 
 the three verses 224-226 are almost undoubtedly 
 wrong. We will despatch the latter first. They are 
 repeated in XI 7-9, where none of our manuscripts 
 omit them, whereas a very great number omit them 
 here. They describe the situation of the huts of 
 Ajax and Achilles at either end of the camp, in 
 both cases measuring the range of a shout from the 
 ship of Odysseus, which was the middlemost of all. 
 Now in Book XI the shout is uttered by the goddess 
 Eris, in the stillness before the fight, and of course 
 might carry so far. But here it is a shout of Agamem- 
 non, in the middle of a battle, which is not so likely 
 or so proper ; for it diminishes our notion of the size 
 of the camp. The verses are rejected by all four 
 
44 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 texts said above. Well, now we return to the other 
 passage, which contains a taunt of Hector as Diomede 
 withdraws, an exhortation of Hector to the Trojans, 
 an address of Hector to his horses, and a short col- 
 loquy of Hera and Poseidon, ending with the formal 
 line 
 
 ws ol fiev roiavra 7rph<s dWrjXovs dyopevov, 
 
 after which we go back to the retreating Greeks. 
 Now by far the most objectionable part of the passage 
 is Hector's address to his horses ; and I confess that 
 this could be cut out alone, by going on after verse 
 183 with w? €(paT €v-)(oiuL€vog in verse 198, instead of 
 w? eiTu)v lirTroKnu e/ce/cXero. But after this has been 
 done, all the rest of the passage, unless perhaps the 
 first 12 lines, must be taken together or left to- 
 gether. For it is chiefly made up of speeches, and it 
 is always the poet's way to mark the close of a speech 
 with an expression like " so he spake," or " so saying," 
 or "then somebody answered," or "while he thus 
 pondered." But if we begin to break up the passage, 
 we find that the verses which contain this necessary 
 adjunct take us on to the next incident. Hence all 
 hangs together ; and then there are a number of ob- 
 jections, singly slight but strong in accumulation, 
 against the entire passage, which render it better to 
 join it all on to Hector's address to his horses, though 
 this is by far the most suspicious piece, and to throw 
 out the 53 lines together, than to make up the 
 number required by culling them out elsewhere. 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 45 
 
 I say this, because it is well known that the first part 
 of the book contains a large number of repeated 
 verses, and there are some isolated verses against 
 which objections are brought. But the repeated 
 verses are mostly epic commonplace, and are all very 
 apt to the context ; and the only grammatical objection 
 which seems to me to have much weight is to the 
 dual eCearOrjv in verse 74, where the Greek Kvjpe^ settle 
 down in the scale. For it is certainly rather odd that 
 they should have but a couple of /ciy^e?. But we do 
 not know how the poet conceived of such an object, 
 when it became concrete enough to go into a balance. 
 And we may remember that in Book IX 41 1 Achilles 
 has Si-)(OaSia^ Knpa9, two alternative fates by which to 
 meet his end ; so that a nation, as well as a man, 
 might be thought to have two different ways of 
 dying, either in the field or in the arms of friends 
 at home. And in any case this objection lies against 
 the word, as often happens in all authors, and not 
 against the line ; for the couplet is otherwise good. 
 
 Now for Hector's address to his horses. In the 
 first place there are four of them ; a thing absolutely 
 unknown to Homer, the only other vestige of a 
 four-horse chariot being in a long story of Nestor at 
 XI 699, which goes out as we should expect, and in 
 a passage of the Odyssey. Then their names are all 
 taken from horses in other parts of the Iliad or 
 Odyssey. Then Andromache is said to mix them up 
 wine to drink, which is ridiculous ; and if we reject 
 
46 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 the verse, with Aristophanes and Aristarchus, the 
 queer result is that she gives Hector grain. Then 
 there is mention of a shield of Nestor, the fame of 
 which reaches to heaven, and of a breastplate of 
 Diomede, which was wrought by the labour of 
 Hephaestus. But, says Dr. Leaf, from whom I 
 copy these objections, " a famous shield of Nestor is 
 as little known elsewhere to the Iliad as a divine 
 breastplate of Diomedes"; and this seems to ignore 
 the late exchange of armour with Glaucus. And 
 last of all. Hector expresses a hope of setting the 
 Greeks on shipboard that very night ; though his 
 object in the present book rather is to set the ships on 
 fire and prevent them getting aboard. This passage 
 is undoubtedly spurious. 
 
 The chief objections to the colloquy of Poseidon 
 and Hera are that it is pointless in itself, for nothing 
 comes of it, and that it hangs together, as has been 
 said, either with the address to the horses or with 
 the exhortation just before it, against which graver 
 objections may be brought. It much reminds us 
 of the former colloquy of Poseidon and Zeus after 
 the Building of the Wall, and I should ascribe it to 
 the same hand. Particular objections will be found 
 in Dr. Leaf's notes. He says that verse 199, near 
 the beginning, seems a poor imitation of a famous 
 one in the First Book ; and that verse 207, near 
 the end, is quite inconsistent with the introduction 
 to the book, though here I am not certain that I 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 47 
 
 seize his point. And he says that the whole passage 
 from 184 down to 212 "has given rise to many 
 well-founded suspicions." But 212 is the very 
 verse where our excision ends. 
 
 Now let us turn to Hector's taunting of Diomede 
 at verse 160. This was a good opportunity to 
 start interpolation, for Diomede has said to Nestor 
 just above that he does not like to retreat, because 
 Hector will brag about it among the Trojans ; and 
 then may the earth gape wide for Diomede ! But 
 Nestor, with a timely compliment, persuades him 
 to retire, and off they go after the retreating Greeks. 
 Well, up sure enough comes Hector at this moment 
 and delivers his taunt, though what I believe the 
 genuine poet meant was that Hector would brag 
 about it over his cups in Troy ; and some strange 
 expressions he uses. He begins, "Tydeides, the 
 Greeks honour you above the rest with a chief 
 seat and with flesh and with flowing cups." Quite 
 untrue. It is true of Agamemnon and Idomeneus, 
 as stated by the former in IV 257-263 ; but then 
 one is the great king, and the other is an elderly 
 man, rightly treated with respect. And the same 
 thing is true of Sarpedon and Glaucus in Lycia, 
 as stated by the former at XII 310-312, from 
 which one of the lines is borrowed. Now Hector 
 might without much harm make a statement that 
 is false, meaning, "Tydeides, the Greeks think a 
 great deal of you, but now they will think less." 
 
48 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 But the particularity of the falsehood adds nothing 
 to its point, but rather defeats its object, and it 
 would have done just as well if he had used the 
 regular expression, " they honour you as a god " ; 
 whereas it confuses our idea of Diomede to have 
 it said in the very special terms that are used to 
 mark out a different class of man. For Diomede 
 is a young man, whose feelings are strong, but 
 who seldom dares speak out till late, when all the 
 rest sit silent in council over the wine, which here 
 is meant. The others treat him for the most part 
 to an admiring surprise on account of his youth ; 
 but the sharp rebuke of Agamemnon shows us 
 very well the bounds of his esteem. Then Hector 
 vituperates him as KaKrj yXtjvrj^ which to Dr. Leaf 
 implies no more than " you pretty toy," but which 
 I should rather have supposed to mean " false jewel," 
 alluding to Diomede's martial appearance and un- 
 military flight. But the point cannot well be 
 decided ; for among all the taunts, of Homeric 
 warriors the like of it never occurs again. Then 
 Hector threatens him, irapo^ tol SaljuLova Scoaco, " first 
 I will deal you a demon," apparently meaning " a 
 death " ; another strange expression never used again, 
 though it is musical enough and might have been 
 expected. So that it all looks as if a later hand was 
 active here, and no incompetent one either, but out 
 of keeping with the first ; and both Aristarchus and 
 Aristophanes thought the same. 
 
 \ 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 49 
 
 Then Diomede, being stung by the taunt, thrice 
 meditates to turn about, and thrice Zeus thunders 
 from Ida ; which is an instance of what Dr. Leaf 
 calls "a somewhat monotonous interference on the 
 part of Zeus " in this book. For he has already- 
 thundered once from Ida, and put the Greeks to 
 flight, at verse 75, and has already thundered and 
 thrown a thunderbolt before the horses of Diomede 
 at verse 133, and here is Diomede advancing yet 
 again, and again Zeus thunders thrice from Ida ; 
 which is thrice too often for the credit of his 
 bolts. But we are never told the result of Dio- 
 mede's reflections, but are left to presume that 
 he flies. For here comes in Hector's exhortation 
 to the Trojans, in which he bids them not forget 
 to bring fire to burn the ships, a premature com- 
 mand, and refers to the " contrivance of the wall," 
 which he describes as aPXr/xp' ovSevoa-copa, weak and 
 negligible ; the last of which words never occurs 
 again till Oppian, and is wrongly formed besides. 
 Now Hector here again might employ a con- 
 temptuous, if false, sort of phrase. But then we 
 must remember that if we were correct in cutting 
 out before the Building of the Wall, which was done 
 on very strong grounds, this is the first mention 
 of that structure ; and it is not just so likely 
 that the first impression of it, stamped upon our 
 minds by the poet, would be one to contradict 
 the conception that he means to make use of 
 
 D 
 
50 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 hereafter. For we learn from Book XII 19-33 
 that it required the force of eight rivers discharging 
 all together against it for nine days on end, and 
 Zeus raining continuously to swell the stream, and 
 Poseidon working away with his trident, to obliterate 
 its traces, even after Apollo had wrecked it utterly 
 in Book XV. So that the Wall is evidently meant 
 to be far from weak and negligible. But I believe 
 that the first true mention of the Wall occurs at 
 verse 213, the very verse after the passage which 
 we are proposing to leave out ; and that the man 
 who represented it as built in a single day wanted 
 to get his arrow in first, and implant in the minds 
 of his hearers a notion not so repugnant to his 
 own composition. This seems to me the motive 
 of the whole interpolation, except the address to 
 the horses, which betrays an inferior hand. For 
 the man who built us the wall is quite a re- 
 spectable poet, but t he other is a wretched one, 
 and inconsistent with the interpolator into whose 
 work he has foisted his own interpolation. Well, 
 I admit that all these are rather delicate threads. 
 But taking them all together, and seeing that the 
 passage consists of exactly 53 lines, and leaves a 
 coherent text when removed, and that there is 
 little or nothing to question elsewhere, I am of 
 opinion that they guide us safely to conclude that 
 the verses ought to go. 
 
 But before we quit this canto there is another 
 
BOOK FIRST TO BOOK EIGHTH 51 
 
 slight objection which ought to be met. We are 
 so accustomed to open our Homer and find the 
 Eighth Book beginning with a new morning and an 
 edict of Zeus, that it might seem to the reader as if 
 a separate division of the poem ought certainly to 
 start at that point. But I interpret the poet's inten- 
 tion in this way. He meant the two cantos to go 
 closely together, the first beginning on the first 
 evening with a Trojan assembly on the citadel, and 
 the second ending on the second evening with a 
 Trojan assembly on the plain. The intermediate 
 verses are devoted to explaining the cause of this 
 striking alteration in their favour. The cause is the 
 direct intervention of Zeus and the panic flight of 
 the Greeks ; and the whole section is exactly divided 
 at the moment when the Greeks rally for a little 
 before their final discomfiture on the day. And you 
 will notice that the poet appears to insist upon the 
 continuity of time between the books by the re- 
 peated words iravvif^^LOL and irawvyio^ in Book VII 
 476 and 478, where he tells us that all night long 
 the Greeks and Trojans feasted, and that all night 
 long Zeus was occupied with the project which 
 comes to birth at break of day. The poet therefore 
 begins the canto about nightfall, as he starts about 
 midnight at the beginning of Book II, that is. Canto 
 III, where the first step in the design of Zeus is 
 taken ; while he reserves the commencement of a 
 new canto with a new day until the opening of Book 
 
52 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 XI, where the third and most disastrous step in the 
 design of Zeus begins. But it would certainly mark 
 the continuity of Book VIII with the end of Book 
 VII a little better, if instead of 'Hw? imev in the first 
 verse we might read 'Hw? Se, as it is in Book XXIV 
 695, where the same verse is repeated. For then it 
 joins on to iravpuxio? at once, and connects the pre- 
 vious assembly on earth with the ensuing assembly 
 in heaven. However, we see jmev thus used at the 
 opening of a new day in VII 421, where the con- 
 tinuity is complete. And the poet may mean that 
 the assembly in heaven, at the beginning of Book 
 VIII, was held during that sleep which, at the end 
 of Book VII, he tells us succeeded the nightlong 
 feasting ; a slight retrogression which is better marked 
 by jmev than by a directly continuous Se. So that it is 
 best to let all things stand as they are. 
 
 This early morning sleep perhaps will account for 
 the shortness of the battle, which in the title of the 
 book is called the Curtal Fight ; for as to the other 
 end, it continues to sunset as usual. And this small 
 sign of harmony with what has gone before we 
 might not have expected, if Book VIII was simply 
 composed, as some have averred, to bring in the 
 Deputation to Achilles. 
 
 And now we have finished off one third of the 
 Iliad, except a portion of the Second Book, and find 
 ourselves in smoother waters for a while. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 BOOK THE NINTH TO BOOK THE SIXTEENTH 
 
 Cantos XVI and XVII coincide with the Ninth 
 Book ; and here, as regards the Greeks, begins the 
 great nychthemeron or space of four and twenty 
 hours from sunset to sunset, of which the main 
 divisions are marked by the dawn at XI i, the early 
 forenoon at XI 86, the late afternoon at XVI 779, 
 the twilight, which appears to be supernaturally pro- 
 longed for the struggle over the body of Patroclus, 
 at XVII 366-376 and 644-650, and the nightfall 
 at XVIII 239. The two cantos with which it opens 
 are occupied with the Embassy to Achilles. The break 
 comes after verse 306, and is a good example of 
 its use, which is artistic and not alone mechanical. 
 Before the break comes the long speech of Odysseus 
 in 82 verses, in which he conveys Agamemnon's 
 offer of redress, and invites Achilles to take pity on 
 the Greeks. A pause ensues, during which we may 
 suppose that his auditor is collecting his thoughts ; 
 and then follows the long rolling eloquence of 
 Achilles in 122 verses. The break very much 
 reminds us of that which comes between the Eighth 
 
 and Ninth Books of the Odyssey, where the long 
 
 53 
 
54 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 narrative of Odysseus opens with the same verse as 
 the long harangue of Achilles. The 6 verses which 
 ought to be left out of the first canto are to myself 
 fairly clear. They are 57-62 in Nestor's speech 
 to the assembly. One of them, 59, says Dr. Leaf, 
 " is generally rejected by modern critics, after Bekker, 
 as weakly tautological " ; while the other five, if not 
 so bad, produce a rambling and dilatory effect ; and 
 Nestor is anything but a rambling old man in 
 Homer, though he has been made very like one by 
 the reckless interpolation of his speeches. 
 
 He addresses himself first of all to Diomede, who 
 was the last to speak, and he says, " Son of Tydeus, 
 you are distinguished by strength in war, and in 
 council you have turned out the best amid all of 
 your own age ; not a man among the Greeks will 
 quarrel with that word of yours, nor will any gainsay 
 it ; but the last word in our parley, reached it have 
 you not. To clan, to law, to home a renegade is he, 
 who hankers after freezing civil strife." The last 
 sentence reproves the sharp personal attack on Aga- 
 memnon made by Diomede, which, as Nestor says, is 
 not the best way of ending a discussion ; while the 
 last but one before it approves the confident word 
 of Diomede, that God is on their side in warring 
 against Troy. This is all in perfect keeping. But 
 before the last sentence he is made to say, " To be 
 sure you are also young, and you might even be a 
 son of mine, youngest by birth ; but there is wisdom 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH S5 
 
 in your words." Now the particles of connection 
 here do not truly connect this with what is said 
 before. Young as well as what ^ As well as wise, 
 we should understand, did not the next words show 
 that this thought has yet to be enforced in opposi- 
 tion to his youth ; and its enforcement there repeats 
 what Nestor said above, but had qualified by saying 
 that his wisdom has its limits. The truth is that 
 these particles are incorrectly used, and their right 
 use may be seen in II 291. He next is made to say, 
 " Come then, I, who claim to be an elder man than 
 you, will say my say and will pursue it to the full ; 
 nor will any man underrate my word, not even our 
 ruler Agamemnon." We now expect some decisive 
 word from Nestor, which all will accept, and which 
 will relieve the cruel situation of the king. But 
 what he proposes is the posting of sentinels and 
 an immediate adjournment to Agamemnon's tent. 
 There he does suggest the one and only course, to 
 pacify Achilles, but not here, and for a very good 
 reason, as we shall see later on, when we consider 
 Grote's objections to the Embassy. The verses, 
 then, in which he is made to say that he will speak 
 the final word at once, are both out of place them- 
 selves and the cause of the two next, which denounce 
 intestine strife, being out of place ; and they seem to 
 have been put in to soften an abruptness in that 
 denunciation, which, however, has a very forcible 
 effect. But here the best argument is to ask the 
 
Se COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 reader first to peruse those 6 verses with care, and 
 then to read the speech without them ; and perhaps 
 he will admit that the ease with which they dis- 
 appear, together with the improvement that their 
 disappearance makes, is sufficient warrant to con- 
 demn them. 
 
 But now the reader may be appalled to learn that 
 the rest of the book contains 407 lines. Yes, but 
 Homer has another old man who is made to tell 
 long stories, besides Nestor, and he is Phoenix. 
 Phoenix was a native of Hellas, who came to Phthia, 
 where he was kindly received by King Peleus, and 
 appointed tutor to his infant son Achilles. Such 
 a liking did Achilles take to Phoenix, that he would 
 never touch a bit of food until he was set upon his 
 tutor's knees, and received his sop of bread and wine 
 from his tutor's hand. And when the aged Peleus 
 parted with his only son for Agamemnon's campaign, 
 he sent the venerable Phoenix along with him, to 
 instruct his inexperience in the council and the field. 
 So Nestor with great sagacity pitches upon this man 
 to guide the two envoys, Ajax and Odysseus, into 
 the presence of Achilles ; while the two heralds, 
 Odius and Eurybates, complete the train. Well, 
 the two envoys advance into the tent of Achilles, 
 Odysseus leading, and are received by its master 
 with every token of affection and esteem. The 
 formal hospitalities are concluded, and Ajax makes 
 a sign to Phoenix that all is ready to begin, meaning 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 57 
 
 him no doubt to put in a few smooth words of 
 transition to the difficult business in hand. But 
 Odysseus, encouraged by the warmth of Achilles' 
 reception, and completely deceived about the dif- 
 ference of his sentiments toward Agamemnon, with- 
 out waiting for Phoenix, charges a cup with wine, 
 pledges Achilles' health, thanks him for his hospi- 
 tality, which he compares with that of Agamemnon, 
 and plunges headlong into his commission. His 
 oration is a total failure. Achilles replies in words 
 of burning indignation ; both the envoys are silenced ; 
 and at last the aged Phoenix speaks. So far all is 
 superb. But now Phoenix speaks on for 172 verses, 
 3 1 of which inform us how he seduced his father's 
 concubine at his mother's request, was cursed by his 
 father for doing it, was resolved to quit his angry 
 father's halls, was kept in honourable confinement 
 by his cousins and his kinsmen camping all around, 
 but on the tenth night of captivity broke loose and 
 escaped out of Hellas ; and 76 of which narrate the 
 still more irrelevant story of Meleager. Can any 
 man believe that these merry tales were told at this 
 solemn moment? Few believe it, I am sure, and 
 therefore I pass to my impending point. If 31 be 
 added to 76, it makes 107 ; and if 107 be deducted 
 from 407, it leaves 300. The speech of Phoenix is 
 thus reduced to the modest dimension of 65 verses, 
 which bears a very natural proportion to that of 
 Odysseus in 82, and that of Achilles in 122; and 
 
58 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 it is composed of an affecting account of the infancy 
 of Achilles, and the celebrated allegory of the 
 Prayers. 
 
 Now the whole question here is whether the joints 
 are plain, or whether we have chosen the points of 
 junction solely to suit our purpose. I assert that in 
 the case of each story the limits of its interpolation 
 are as clear as daylight. The first insertion lies 
 between the words 'EXXa^a KaXXiyvvaiKa inverse 447, 
 and the words 'KWaSog evpv^opoio in verse 478, with 
 which the storyteller conducts us round to the exact 
 spot from which we diverged. " I would not con- 
 sent to be left behind by you," Phoenix says to 
 Achilles, who thinks of going home, " not even if 
 a god himself were to promise to strip off my old 
 age and make me young and fresh, as when first I 
 forsook Hellas with its fair women, and came to 
 fertile Phthia, mother of sheep, even to King Peleus." 
 All is quite coherent. But here our storyteller has 
 a chance of explaining why Phoenix forsook Hellas 
 with its fair women, and came to fertile Phthia ; and 
 after that phrase he adds, "flying from the abuse 
 of my father Amyntor, son of Ormenus, who was 
 exceedingly angry with me about a comely concu- 
 bine. . . . Then I fled away through Hellas with 
 its wide dancing grounds," and came to fertile Phthia. 
 It is a capital story, but not the least in place. So 
 with the other one. " If Agamemnon did not proffer 
 gifts and mention more to come, but were to persist 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 59 
 
 for ever in his harshness, I would not be the man to 
 urge you to throw aside your wrath and succour 
 the Greeks, however sore their need. But now he 
 both offers you many gifts at this moment, and has 
 promised more hereafter, and has chosen the noblest 
 men in all the Grecian host, and the men who are 
 dearest to yourself, and has sent them forward to 
 entreat you. Do you not put to shame their elo- 
 quence and their errand ; though hitherto it was 
 excusable that you should be angry. Nay, do not 
 conceive any such design yourself, and may no evil 
 spirit prompt you to that course. It will be harder 
 to help us when the ships are already burning. 
 Accept the gifts, and come.'* This again is all 
 coherent. But after the verb "be angry" in verse 
 523 comes "So also have we heard the famous 
 stories of the warrior heroes of old, when one of 
 them was seized with furious anger," which is 
 manifestly the transition to the story of Meleager ; 
 and the end is at kgkov S' f/juLvve koi avrco^ in verse 
 599, because it is the last thing said about him. So 
 that here are two stories often thought out of place, 
 the beginnings and ends of which are clear, and which 
 when taken together make up 107 verses, and which 
 when subtracted from a total of 407 leave exactly 
 300 lines between two important pauses in the poem; 
 and if this be an accident, after all that is shown 
 above, there is no meaning whatever in the word 
 design. 
 
6o COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 The Tenth Book, which contains the Deeds of 
 Dolon, I give up altogether. It is generally ad- 
 mitted by modern critics not to be part of the 
 original plan of the poem, and some ancient critics 
 thought so too. " This rhapsody is said to have been 
 drawn up independently by Homer, and not to be a 
 part of the Iliad, but to have been arranged for in- 
 clusion in the poem by Peisistratus," says a Scholiast. 
 And Mr. Monro, so cautious elsewhere, is positive 
 here, calling it in his edition of the Odyssey, p. 
 291, "undoubtedly," and p. 371 "certainly," later 
 than the rest of the Iliad. Sir Richard Jebb uses just 
 the same words, and, needless to say, a similar view 
 is held by Dr. Leaf. The late Mr. Andrew 
 Lang, for whose views on Homer I feel a deep 
 respect, upheld the book ; but it seems to me that 
 in this instance he weakened his general case by 
 pushing his defence too far. The more recent 
 defence of the book by Mr. Shewan proves indeed, 
 to my mind, that its language is like the Homeric ; 
 but we must distinguish, in estimating the value 
 of this argument, the question of authorship and 
 age. I will not waste time by repeating the familiar 
 arguments against it, nor have I any to add ; for 
 as I can hardly assume that the truth of my view 
 has yet established itself in the mind of my reader, 
 it will not do to argue that it is excluded by the 
 tercentenary test. But I may state that it can 
 neither be divided up within itself, containing as 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 6i 
 
 it does 579 verses, from which you cannot take 
 279 and leave anything coherent ; nor be connected 
 with the Eleventh Book in such a way that, by 
 striking out some suspicious passage, you can make 
 the contents lie in groups of 300 verses between 
 three natural pauses in the poem. There is no 
 passage of Book X more suspicious than the rest, 
 though there may be a later line here and there ; 
 and it is evident that no pause could be more 
 natural than that which comes before the beginning 
 of Book XI. I like the book myself, as I like many 
 of the things which we have ventured to exclude. 
 But I do not like the way in which they are thrust 
 into their present places, injuring the context and 
 suffering themselves, destroying the proportions of 
 the poem and distorting the lines of the characters. 
 If the reader agrees about this, he will see how the 
 state of the argument really lies : that so far from 
 it being an objection to the tercentenary test 
 that it excludes such things as these, if it did not 
 exclude them, but left them where they are, it 
 would have little plausibility at all. 
 
 Well, now we come to Canto XVIII, the begin- 
 ning of which coincides with that of Book XI, and 
 the end of which I place after verse 309. It con- 
 tains the Prowess of Agamemnon, and terminates 
 at the time when Hector, who during Agamemnon's 
 career has withdrawn from the battle by order of 
 Zeus, is by the wounding of the great king released 
 
62 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 from his inaction and slays a number of Greeks. 
 This Httle episode serves to sunder the Prowess 
 of Agamemnon from the progress of the lesser 
 chiefs, who at the beginning of the next canto come 
 forward one by one, and are in succession nearly all 
 disabled. The 9 verses which I should strike out are 
 223-231, which relate the bringing up of Iphidamas, 
 son of Antenor, by Cisseus of Thrace, who gave 
 him his own daughter in marriage. For they offer 
 us the repulsive information that Iphidamas married 
 his mother's sister, Cisseus being the father also 
 of Theano, who is Antenor's wife. Such horrid incest 
 I believe to be absolutely unknown to the veritable 
 Homer, the only other instance being given by 
 the genealogy of Diomede in Book XIV 1 15-125, 
 which together with Book V 412 produces the 
 result that this splendid hero was the brother-in- 
 law of his father Tydeus. But on other grounds 
 I feel certain that the genealogy of Diomede is false ; 
 and the fact that both the passages concur in this 
 particular, which is otherwise unknown in the Iliad, 
 may confirm our belief that the one before us is 
 spurious as well. Then, again, the present passage 
 does not face quite the same way as what is said 
 about the marriage of Iphidamas 12 lines lower 
 down, though it may not be flatly opposite. For 
 here it is said that Cisseus put pressure on Iphidamas 
 to stay with him, when he had arrived at years of 
 manhood, and offered him his daughter in marriage ; 
 
f 
 
 BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 63 
 
 which implies that Cisseus was ambitious of a match 
 with the Trojan prince. But down below this eager- 
 ness is seen on the side of Iphidamas, who gave first 
 of all a hundred oxen, and afterwards promised a 
 thousand, goats withal and sheep, before he could 
 wed the bride. And here it is said that after his 
 marriage he came out of his bridal chamber to 
 follow the fame of the Achaeans ; but down 
 below it is said that he knew no joy at all of his 
 wedded wife, for all the price he paid, which appears 
 as if he never had entered it. And why does not 
 the poet despatch the whole matter of the marriage 
 straight off, instead of giving us the first part up 
 above and then retreating on his traces to give 
 the second part lower down ? But I believe that 
 the second passage only was genuine, and that he 
 never told us who the wife of Iphidamas was ; and 
 therefore another hand put in the first passage, which 
 informs us that she was his aunt. We may notice 
 that Iphidamas is not named as a leader of Thracians 
 in the Trojan Catalogue ; but it is only in the 
 spurious passage that he is so described, bringing 
 them in 1 2 ships which he left at Percote. So that 
 either it is another instance of careless compilation 
 by the author of the Catalogue, or else this passage 
 is a later addition to the poem even than that. And 
 here are 9 most suspicious verses, which vanish with 
 ease and leave no trace behind them, making the 
 number of verses exactly 300. 
 
64 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 The end of Canto XIX we place after verse 617, 
 where Patroclus leaves the side of Achilles to in- 
 quire about the wounded Machaon ; and with the 
 beginning of the next we go back to Nestor, whom 
 we left a little higher up bringing the wounded 
 Machaon off the field. The former has 308 verses. 
 First of all there are a pair of isolated verses, one of 
 which probably, and the other certainly, ought to be 
 removed. The one is 515, which was obelized by 
 Aristarchus and Aristophanes, and omitted by Zeno- 
 dotus. The physician Machaon is wounded, and 
 Idomeneus at once urges Nestor to carry him off, 
 adding, " for a man who is a doctor is worth a host 
 of others " ; to which is now subjoined, " to cut out 
 arrows and apply soothing medicines." The ancient 
 critics objected with reason, firstly, that there is no 
 necessity to enumerate the duties of a doctor, and 
 secondly, that by limiting them to the extraction of 
 arrows and medication of their wounds the notion 
 of a doctor is degraded. Dr. Leaf affirms that the 
 line fairly represents the primitive stage of Homeric 
 medicine. But if this was all the length it went, 
 a practitioner of it is not well described as worth a 
 host of warriors. Dr. Hentze brackets the verse. 
 The other verse is 543, which is found in none of 
 our manuscripts, but is quoted in connection with 
 542 in Aristotle's Rhetoric and by Plutarch, whence 
 it was inserted in the text by Wolf. But unlike the 
 former instance of this kind, it can hardly be con- 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 65 
 
 strued ; and of the four places in which it is quoted, 
 it is quoted differently in each. It says that Zeus 
 was indignant with Hector, whenever he fought with 
 a better man ; and it purports to give the reason 
 why he avoided fighting with Ajax. But that Hector 
 should be scrupulous about fighting with Ajax, after 
 the duel in Book VII, we readily grasp; and the reason 
 here alleged is absurd, for the very next thing done 
 by Zeus is to terrify Ajax himself, since Hector will 
 not do it for him. The verse is bracketed or re- 
 jected in all the texts. So much for 2 of our 8 verses. 
 Now there is a simile of 10 lines in verses 548- 
 557, wherein the retreating Ajax is compared to a 
 lion who reluctantly leaves a fold of oxen, although 
 longing for the flesh, being driven off by the javelins 
 and burning faggots of the countrymen. But 6 of 
 the 10 verses are repeated word for word in Book 
 XVII 659-664; and since this simile is almost 
 immediately followed by another long simile of 
 8 lines, in which Ajax is likened to an ass cudgelled 
 out of a cornfield, most editors reject the other here. 
 But Dr. Leaf thinks it appropriate here and pointless 
 in the other place. I suspect that his belief in the 
 originality of this part of Book XI and his want of 
 faith in the originality of that part of Book XVII 
 may have influenced his decision about this vigorous 
 simile; but it may not be so, for Professor Gilbert 
 Murray agrees with him. But with all due respect 
 to these excellent scholars, I see strong ground for 
 
 £ 
 
66 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 an opposite conclusion. For you can cut out the 6 
 repeated verses here, leaving in the 4 original ones, 
 which by themselves make up a compact little simile 
 before we come on to the long one of the ass ; and 
 this is the poet's manner again and again. But in 
 the other place you cannot cut out the 6 repeated 
 verses without making nonsense of those that are 
 original. So that if you remove the simile there, 
 you lose five original lines of the poet ; but by merely 
 removing the repeated verses here, you do not lose 
 a single original line. Nor is the simile in the other 
 book so pointless after all. For there it is applied to 
 Menelaus, who is slowly withdrawing from the body 
 of Patroclus ; and he is very well compared to a 
 lion who leaves the flesh that he longs for. But 
 here Ajax has no corpse in front of him at all ; so 
 that it is not half as appropriate. I would therefore 
 remove the six verses here, and make the main simile 
 that of the ass. And is it not most odd that by 
 this simple operation we produce the round number 
 of 300 lines ? 
 
 The next canto carries us on into the Twelfth 
 Book. But it will be more convenient to start from 
 the end of that book, where there is an unmistak- 
 able pause. For at that moment the Trojans carry 
 the Wall, and Zeus turns around his eyes to the 
 Thracians, the Mysians, the Hippemolgi, and the 
 Abii, justest of men ; and Poseidon has an innings. 
 And here we come to what I consider one of the 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 67 
 
 most convincing examples of our theory ; for it 
 solves a difficulty which has perplexed Homeric 
 critics for 1760 years. I say this to rouse the 
 reader's attention, on which the solution makes some 
 demand. Well, if we look back about 300 lines 
 from the end of the book, we shall find a most 
 suitable pause after XII 174. For at this point 
 Asius, son of Hyrtacus, who has made a confident 
 charge at a gate, but has found himself foiled by 
 the presence of the two Lapithae, Polypoetes and 
 Leonteus, upbraids Zeus in words of bitter disap- 
 pointment; after which the poet tells us in two 
 lines that Zeus was not at all moved by it, for he 
 meant to give Hector the glory of first getting over 
 the Wall. And here we part company with Asius 
 until Book XIII 388, where he is slain by Idomeneus, 
 so fulfilling what is stated by anticipation at verse 
 1 1 7 of our present book. 
 
 But here we seem face to face with a staggering 
 difficulty. For from this point to the end of the book 
 there are only 297 lines; and there is no ground 
 for supposing any verses to be lost, the tendency in 
 Homer being all the other way, to put in verses that 
 ought not to be there. And what makes the matter 
 worse, the first 7 of these verses are almost certainly 
 spurious. They are completely pointless in themselves ; 
 the ancient critics all rejected them ; the first of them 
 is evidently borrowed from XV 414; the second is 
 
 dpyakiov 8€ ^u ravra dihv ws ttcii/t' dyopcvcrat, 
 
68 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 said in the person of the poet, which is very rare ; 
 the third and fourth contain a violent disjunction 
 of rei^og from its epithet Xai'vov, with Trvp coming in 
 between, which has led some annotators to give it 
 the epithet ; and as for the last of them, more anon. 
 The difficulty is not in deciding that the verses 
 ought to be rejected, for every man must feel that 
 they are false, but in discovering why they were 
 ever put in. For although there is a mention of 
 the Lapithae in the last, yet this verse so abruptly 
 closes the paragraph at the end of which it stands, 
 that it seems quite impossible to suppose that the 6 
 preceding verses were concocted to lead up to it ; 
 and there is a perfectly genuine mention of the 
 Lapithae 53 lines higher up, which makes it super- 
 fluous to remind us that the heroes who now come 
 on the scene belong to that tribe. Dr. Leaf con- 
 siders that they were meant to support a theory 
 about the gates of the Greek camp. However this 
 may be, spurious the verses undoubtedly are ; and 
 so we are left with only 290 lines. 
 
 But there is a difficulty ten times greater up above in 
 this book, and perhaps the one will assist us to sur- 
 mount the other. If the reader will look at verses 
 1 3 1- 1 40, he will see that in this passage the two Lapith 
 chiefs are described as standing before the gate like tall 
 oaks upon the mountains, which withstand the wind 
 and rain for days and days, so firmly fixed by their 
 great stretching roots. But again, if he goes 5 lines 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 69 
 
 lower down, he will find these same Lapith chiefs 
 charging out of the gate like a pair of wild boars ; 
 which is a mere impossibility. You cannot be 
 planted before a gate like a tall oak, and at the same 
 time go charging out of it like a wild boar. This 
 difficulty perplexed the ancient critics horribly, and 
 well it might ; for nobody but a lunatic could think 
 of such a thing, however fine the language in which 
 it is said. Porphyry tells us that some of them 
 wished to transpose verses 141- 153, which contain 
 the simile of the wild boars, to a position higher up ; 
 and Hephaestion has another way out of it. But 
 the true solution is to take the 10 verses just above 
 Porphyry's, verses 1 31-140, which contain the simile 
 of the tall oaks, and put them into the place of the 
 7 spurious verses which we have expelled, and to 
 which no doubt their displacement is due. The 
 planting before the gate will then follow the rushing 
 out instead of preceding it, which was the object 
 of the ancient transposition ; and we shall have 
 exactly 300 lines to the end of the book. This 
 makes the same junction of verse 130 with verse 
 141 that Porphyry's critics proposed, but of course 
 not the same at the other end, the piece that we 
 move up being longer than theirs. The narrative 
 now flows on with a pellucid smoothness. The 
 two Lapithae charge out and stop the rush of 
 Asius, much to his disgust. Then follows the little 
 episode of his indignation against Zeus, with its 
 
70 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 concluding couplet. And then, with the beginning 
 of the next canto, we go back to the Lapithae again : 
 " So they two stood before the lofty gate like tall 
 oaks upon the mountains," and so on to the exploits 
 of Polypoetes and Leonteus respectively. And here, 
 by the way, I must correct what I said about Asius 
 above ; for after this transposition we do not take 
 quite a final leave of him at the end of the last 
 canto, but he is once more mentioned as leading on 
 the Trojans against the Lapiths. But the pause is 
 good and clear all the same, and the mention makes 
 no difference. This is Canto XXI. 
 
 We now return to Canto XX, adding what re- 
 mained of the Eleventh Book to what is left of 
 the Twelfth before the pause, less the lo verses 
 which we put at the beginning of Canto XXI. 
 The sum is 231 + 174—10 = 395. The reader 
 doubtless surmises what this large figure imports. 
 The canto contains a long story of Nestor. But 
 before we come to it, there is a single verse which 
 must necessarily go. It is XI 662, in which Nestor 
 tells Patroclus that Eurypylus is wounded, as well 
 as Diomede and Odysseus and Agamemnon. This 
 is hardly possible; for Nestor left the field before 
 it happened. The verse is omitted in a great 
 many manuscripts; it is obviously borrowed from 
 XVI 27, where Patroclus repeats Nestor's words 
 about the other chiefs to Achilles, but adds the 
 name of Eurypylus from his own knowledge ; for 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 71 
 
 he meets him coming wounded from the field on 
 leaving Nestor's tent. Hence all texts bracket the 
 verse. Well, now we expect to find 94 verses 
 which go out of Nestor's speech of 148. And 
 sure enough we find them all, waiting there ready 
 to depart, setting out with the last third part of 
 verse 668 ov yap e/x^ *?, which paves the way for 
 the digressional formula elO' cog ^/Swoijull just below, 
 and ending up with the first two thirds of verse 
 762 cog eov, ei ttot eov -ye, julct avSpdcrij/, which 
 close the story. Cut it all out, and the first 
 two thirds of the one verse will fit on to the 
 last third of the other without leaving a trace of 
 the operation, and we have our 300 lines. 
 
 But I admit that at first sight it looks as if we 
 ought to begin our excision 4 lines higher up, with 
 the words avrap 'A^AXet'?, which are the very words 
 with which we resume below; and so Dr. Leaf 
 says, "From avrap ''A')(iW€vg here to the same 
 words in 762 is beyond a doubt a later passage." 
 But I am persuaded that it is otherwise, and that 
 the words are a rhetorical repetition, and a very 
 fine one too. For if we cut out what comes 
 between avrap ^A')(iX\evg and ov yap ijULrj *g^ we shall 
 lose some most appropriate verses. " Diomede is 
 wounded, and Odysseus is wounded, and Agamem- 
 non is wounded," says Nestor, "and here am I 
 bringing Machaon also wounded from the field. 
 But Achilles, whole though he is, has neither 
 
72 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 care nor pity for the Greeks. Is he waiting till 
 our ships are burning with the enemy's fire, and 
 ourselves are slain one after the other? But 
 Achilles will enjoy that integrity all by him- 
 self! Yet I think that he will shed many tears of 
 repentance, when the people have utterly perished." 
 You see how well the repetition of the name marks 
 out Achilles from all his wounded and dead com- 
 panions, whose life alone could lend enjoyment 
 to his strength and his eminence in arms. And 
 surely the connection of eaOXog and t?? apeTtjg on 
 either side of the interpolation is intentional, the 
 definite article with aperrjg referring back to the 
 ability for service expressed in iarOXog^ not to mention 
 the opposition of the terms to the disabled chiefs 
 and burning ships. Then if we remove what lies 
 between the repeated names, we lose the notion 
 of the successive slaughter, a thought suggested 
 to Nestor by the successive wounding in this day's 
 fight, than which there is nothing more natural. 
 And again it is just at the point of junction which 
 we have taken that absurdity first begins. "Is 
 he waiting till our ships are burning with the 
 enemy's fire ^ For my strength is not what it 
 formerly was in my flexible limbs. Would that I 
 were as young as when," and so on to the 
 following story. But who is this braggart, who 
 imagines that the safety of the whole Greek host 
 might be reckoned to depend upon himself.'* For 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 73 
 
 the emphasis on the pronoun distinguishes him 
 as the natural alternative to Achilles. Not our 
 old friend Nestor, who is as full of modesty as 
 he is full of wisdom ? No, but the phantom of 
 Nestor, which is used as a vehicle for the long 
 self-laudatory tales throughout the poem, and which 
 here goes on for 94 lines. And as for the story 
 itself, these are Dr. LeaPs words: "This lifelike 
 picture of a little border raid is in itself inimitable, 
 and we may well be grateful for it. But yet, if 
 we take it with its context, we are forced to 
 admit that it has no bearing on the situation, 
 and is grotesquely out of place at a moment 
 when Patroklos has refused even to sit down, 
 in order that he may return with all speed to 
 Achilles. It spoils the effect of the other story 
 at the end of the speech, which is essential. The 
 language is notably Odyssean in character, as is 
 pointed out in the notes. The four-horse chariot 
 is a mark of late origin." None of this can be 
 gainsaid, and there is more of it which I omit to 
 quote. But observe that our theory, while ex- 
 cluding the story which is said to be grotesquely 
 out of place, does not touch a line of the story 
 which is said to be essential. 
 
 We proceed to Canto XXII, the beginning of 
 which falls in with that of Book XIII, and the end 
 of which I place after verse 329, this being the 
 moment when Idomeneus and Meriones, after some 
 
74 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 little preparation, re-enter the battle. The next 
 canto begins with the Prowess of Idomeneus. The 
 canto before is largely occupied with the cautious 
 exertions of Poseidon, while the eyes of Zeus are 
 turned away, which become more pronounced two 
 cantos later on, when Zeus is tricked to sleep. And 
 here again our doctrine adjusts itself as if by magic 
 to the previous suspicions of scholars. For though 
 there is no untimely tale or long genealogy of 29 
 verses, there is a passage every whit as clear. Look 
 at Dr. Leafs introduction : " Doubts have also been 
 thrown on 266-294, but they cannot be regarded as 
 fundamental." Turn to Dr. Leafs notes : "266- 
 94 is a passage which has aroused general suspicion, 
 so inappropriate does this verbose vaingloriousness 
 seem at so critical a moment. Beyond this general 
 ' subjective ' difficulty, however, there is no serious 
 cause of offence, if we except 268, which is very 
 strange, as we should have supposed that Meriones 
 and Idomeneus, so closely connected in every way, 
 must have had huts near together." To the sub- 
 jective difficulty of the passage I apply an objective 
 test, and find that the two coincide exactly ; for 
 266-294 is exactly 29 lines. And you will ob- 
 serve that what is here called " very strange " occurs 
 in the third line of the passage ; so that the inter- 
 polator could not go on for three lines together 
 without betraying himself. And the beginning and 
 end of the passage are well marked ; for you can 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 75 
 
 continue with w? (pdro, Mrjpiovrjg Se in verse 295 as 
 well as with t6v S' au Mrjpiovrjg, and leave no per- 
 ceptible trace. 
 
 What happens is this. Meriones breaks his 
 spear on the shield of Deiphobus, and goes to 
 his tent to fetch another. There or thereabouts 
 he meets Idomeneus coming from his own tent 
 fully armed. For Idomeneus had left the battle 
 before, to give a charge to the physicians about 
 a wounded comrade, and now resumes his arms 
 in order to re-enter the fight : this of course being 
 designed to account for the previous silence about 
 Idomeneus, during the attack on the Wall, the 
 poet finding it convenient to hold over his exploits 
 to the following canto ; though he kept us in mind 
 of his valour by what he said about Asius above. 
 Now the fact that Idomeneus has laid aside his 
 armour has aroused some suspicion, which would 
 extend the range of the interpolation in a manner most 
 unsuited to our theory. But in the first place you 
 cannot detach that part of the episode without being 
 drawn into wider ravages, which are wholly im- 
 probable. And in the next place the suspicion itself 
 is all a mistake. The Homeric heroes lay aside 
 their armour as soon as ever a chance is given them. 
 This is shown by Book VII 1 01-193, where between 
 Hector's issuing a challenge and the settling who 
 shall accept it, Menelaus and Ajax and others have all 
 laid down their arms, and indeed long before, during 
 
76 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 the delivery of the challenge itself, when Hector 
 has stopped the fight for a moment to make it ; as 
 we may learn from the first of those verses. Well, 
 Meriones and Idomeneus meet, and Idomeneus is 
 surprised that his friend has left the field. Meriones 
 briefly tells him why, and Idomeneus proudly replies 
 that he will find standing in his tent a score or more 
 of spears, which he has taken from the Trojans. 
 We now expect Meriones to run and take a spear, 
 and hasten back with his comrade into the field ; 
 and so he does 30 lines lower down. But mean- 
 while the words of Idomeneus, which again are only 
 meant to remind us of his valour and to send him 
 off into the fight with an air of success, are con- 
 strued by Meriones as an affront upon himself; and 
 in this way the interpolator makes a setting for his 
 gem, which is one indeed, being a little general 
 account of an ambuscade, where the worth of a man 
 is chiefly seen. " So have I," says Meriones, " so have 
 I plenty of Trojan spoils; but they are far away 
 where I cannot come at them. And I am every bit 
 as eager to fight as yourself; and you of all the 
 Greeks should know that best." Then Idomeneus : 
 "I know your worth very well. Why say these 
 things ? For if at this moment all the best of us 
 here by the ships were to be chosen for an ambush," 
 and so on with the behaviour of the coward and 
 the hero respectively in that trying incident of war. 
 And all this at a moment when Poseidon him- 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 77 
 
 self has urged Idomeneus to be quick, and when 
 Meriones is in a passion to get back at Deiphobus 
 with another spear ! Good, but out of place, must 
 again be our reflection ; and the linguistic difficulties 
 of this passage are great. 
 
 Canto XXIII is the central one of the poem, 
 having 22 cantos on each side of it. And we may 
 notice, as a small indication of the truth of our 
 theory, that it is assigned to the warrior who is 
 stated to be jjLearaiTroXLog, half-grey or middle-aged ; 
 which is perhaps the reason why the poet has held 
 back this respectable hero, though unwounded, for so 
 long. But this intimate touch, like his solicitude about 
 an unnamed comrade in XIII 210-214, his infirmity 
 in his feet in XIII 512-515, his trouble with his eyes 
 in XXIII 457-477, and his iterated confidence in 
 doctors, suggests special knowledge of the Cretan 
 prince. And the great deference shown to him 
 by Agamemnon in IV 257-264, together with the 
 lack of any real zest in describing his actual per- 
 formances, may lead us to think that the poet had 
 a courtly motive for giving a place of honour in the 
 poem to his deeds. 
 
 But before he fairly embarks us on his exploits, 
 he sums up the situation in what now appear as a 
 couple of paragraphs, the second of which ends 
 with the metaphor of a tug of war ; which again is 
 not unsuitable here in the middle of the poem. 
 The pause I set after verse 642, where the canto 
 
78 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 is wound up with a very striking speech of Mene- 
 laus over the dead Peisander, and 3 more verses 
 which end the incident ; after which a new incident 
 begins, which is not so very striking in itself, except 
 for a curious oversight on the poet's part, but 
 which serves to bring forward Paris, as the last 
 canto closed with Menelaus. So that the principal 
 parties to the quarrel are with much art brought 
 before us in the middle of the poem, and then again 
 permitted to retire. The former canto has 313 lines. 
 Well, if the reader will look at the second of the 
 two paragraphs said above, verses 345-360, he 
 will see that 13 of these 16 verses are devoted to 
 explaining the sentiments of Zeus and Poseidon 
 respectively. Dr. Leaf says, on verse 345, "The 
 following passage — to 360 — is clearly out of place ; 
 there appears to be no other case of such a lengthy 
 and superfluous recapitulation in Homer. Perhaps 
 it may have originally formed the proem to this 
 book, and been superseded by the more elaborate 
 passage which now begins it." Now I should not 
 myself have condemned the passage on this ground ; 
 for on my view it is not so unnatural that the 
 sentiments of the two opposing gods should be 
 distinctly stated here. Nevertheless I am confident 
 that the first 13 lines of the passage are false, and 
 that the opportunity which the situation afforded 
 of saying something about the two gods, in addition 
 to what is said about the two armies in the previous 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 79 
 
 paragraph, has been seized by some clever hand. 
 There are particular difficulties in the lines; but 
 the plain and simple reason is that their insertion 
 has made the 3 remaining verses unintelligible. 
 These verses contain the metaphor of the tug of 
 war, the important pair being 
 
 Tol S* fjOtSos KpaTeprjs kol ofxoitov TroXe/xoto 
 Tret/oap €7raAAa^ai/Tes Itt' dfx<f>OT€poL(Ti rdvvacrav. 
 
 The words as they stand refer to the two gods, 
 though it ought to be rw as at the beginning of 
 the paragraph, and they mean, "And they, alter- 
 nately giving and taking, stretched tight above 
 both parties a rope of strife and war." But can we 
 conceive of such a rope, presumably meant to pull 
 about the hostile parties, being stretched above 
 their heads ? What manner of influence could it 
 be thought to have, unless some mode of connection 
 with those below were indicated ? And how could 
 it be possibly stretched tight by the two gods, Zeus 
 sitting up on Ida, with his eyes averted to the close- 
 fighting Mysians and milk-eating Hippemolgians, 
 and Poseidon walking down on the plain, in the 
 likeness of Thoas the Aetolian ? Homer is seldom 
 as confusing in his imagery as this. The tug of 
 war must take place between the parties themselves, 
 not over their heads, just as when Poseidon and 
 Hector have a tussle, in XIV 389 alvoTarnv epiSa 
 TTToXejuLoio ravvcra-avy the selfsame metaphor as here. 
 
8o COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 We ought then to throw out the 13 verses about 
 the gods, and rectify the mistake that their insertion 
 has caused by reading eV aWriXoiari^ " stretched tight 
 against each other," and join the 3 verses on to the 
 end of the last paragraph about the armies, as toI 
 sufficiently shows. And this same word aXXr/Xoto-f, 
 though it does not appear in any of our copies, was 
 a variant in the text of Aristarchus. This makes 
 our 300 lines. 
 
 We advance to Canto XXIV, the end of which 
 cannot be placed earlier than Book XIV 134. For 
 there is begun, with the familiar words ovS' aXao- 
 a-KOTTirjv, the episode known as the Deception of Zeus, 
 which was designed to give Poseidon a free hand 
 on the plain ; and things go swimmingly thereafter. 
 This makes 329 lines. There are two isolated 
 verses which must certainly go. The first is XIII 
 731. Polydamas says to Hector, "To one man 
 God has given works of war, but in the bosom 
 of another, Zeus places serviceable wit, and many 
 are the men who benefit by that " ; which is the 
 precise distinction between Hector and himself. 
 But between the two comes "and to another man 
 dancing, and to a different man lyre and song." 
 The verse is omitted in a number of manuscripts, 
 and we are told the name of the man who put it in, 
 a certain Zenodotus of Mallus, who thought our 
 Homer a Chaldee. All the texts that I have seen 
 reject it. The other verse is XIII 749, in which 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 8i 
 
 we hear that Hector, pleased with the wise sug- 
 gestion of Polydamas, sprang from his chariot to the 
 ground. This is impossible. Hector and the other 
 Trojan chiefs all left their chariots outside the 
 trench, as we are told at XII 80-85 > ^^^ ^^^ ^^^Y 
 one who brought his across was Asius, driving 
 straight over a causeway up to the gate where he 
 found the two Lapithae posted. And consistently 
 with this, we find at XIII 385 that he alone of 
 all has got his chariot through the gate, when the 
 Greeks have yielded the Wall ; a verse on which 
 Dr. Leaf most unfairly fixes, when he says that 
 chariots are introduced exactly as if the battle were 
 in the open plain, meaning to show that the Wall 
 is ignored, the poet not having occasion to mention 
 it between verses 124 and 679. But this was an 
 exceptional case fully explained before ; and why we 
 should expect to hear much about the Wall, when 
 we have left it behind us and are getting on to the 
 Ships, I do not quite conceive. But to conclude, 
 some manuscripts omit the verse, which is wrongly 
 repeated from XII 81, where the circumstances 
 are similar, and the texts as a rule put it out. Now 
 it might be supposed that we ought* to prune an- 
 other pair of verses ; for into this canto come the 
 famous pair, XIII 658-659, in which Pylaemenes, 
 king of the Paphlagonians, who was taken off by 
 Menelaus at V 576, comes to life again and follows 
 his son Harpalion's body back to Troy, shedding 
 
 F 
 
82 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 tears the while. But with most modern editors 
 I regard this as a perfectly genuine oversight, and 
 not to be touched for an instant. For not to 
 insist upon the wide interval between the Fifth and 
 Thirteenth Books, with the innumerable names of 
 killed and wounded in between, we can see how 
 easily the poet might slip into the mistake. He 
 has told us up above how Harpalion followed his 
 dear father to the war, and never came back to his 
 own native land ; and it makes a very good ending 
 to the incident to tell us how the father followed 
 his dear son to the tomb, from which he would 
 never return. 
 
 We must therefore find 27 verses elsewhere, if 
 our theory is to hold water ; but we have only to 
 divide the number into 1 6 and 1 1 to note how it 
 can be done. For the 16 verses XIII 685-700 are 
 very suspicious, as all admit, containing the sole 
 mention of lonians in Homer, and seeming to make 
 them identical with or to be fully represented by the 
 Athenians; the sole use of the name Phthians, 
 whose leaders are stated to be Medon and Podarces, 
 whereas in the Catalogue Medon succeeded to the 
 command of the disabled Philoctetes, and Podarces 
 to that of the buried Protesilaus, over different 
 though neighbouring tribes ; and the three chieftains 
 of the Epeians here named are all different from 
 the four in the Catalogue, where one of them, Meges, 
 is leader of the Dulichians. Then the two epithets 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 83 
 
 €\k€')(ltoi)V€9 and (j)aiSiiuL6evT€9 never occur again in 
 Homer; while the first is absurdly misapplied to 
 soldiers engaged in fighting, and the second is in- 
 correctly formed. Nor have I noticed another 
 instance in the Iliad where the poet introduces heroes 
 with the words evOa Se, as he does here, though he uses 
 €v6a and cvO' au often enough ; which is a small point, 
 but a straw will show what way the wind is blowing. 
 And near the end there are 4 verses, which inform 
 us that Medon was a natural son of O'lleus, and the 
 brother of Ajax, but dwelt in Phylace, having slain 
 a kinsman of his stepmother Eriopis, whom O'fleus 
 had to wife ; which 4 verses are repeated word for 
 word in XV 333-336, and this sort of thing cannot 
 be told twice. Leave out the 16 verses, and the 
 paragraph opens very well by telling us that Ajax, 
 son of O'lleus, no longer stood apart from Ajax, son 
 of Telamon, not for a moment ; for we heard before 
 how they were separated by an urgent call from 
 Menestheus at Book XII 331-370. 
 
 The other 11 verses are XIV 1 15-125, which 
 contain the genealogy bringing out the fact that 
 Diomede married his aunt. But I need not waste 
 time in attacking it. For, in the first place, it is a 
 genealogy ; and, in the next place, it goes out with 
 perfect ease. And it leads off in the regular strain, 
 UopOei yap rpeig iraiSes and SO forth, which every 
 man who reads this short and hurried consultation of 
 the chiefs must condemn as out of tune. Dr. LeaPs 
 
84 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 instinct has fixed the limits with almost perfect 
 precision : "But the whole passage from 114 to 125 
 is not only needless but incongruous, and quite 
 alien to the character of Diomedes, who is fond of 
 alluding to his father's prowess, but could hardly 
 give a jejune catalogue of his relationships at such 
 a moment." I leave in verse 114, which closes 
 the preceding sentence, and seems to me fine and 
 grand ; but, for the rest, the passage which is both 
 incongruous and needless to Dr. Leaf is exactly the 
 one that we excise. 
 
 On we move to Canto XXV, the Deception of 
 Zeus and Poseidon's open succour of the Greeks. 
 It goes down to verse 439, where the first and fore- 
 most object is attained, that of getting Hector out 
 of the way. He is wounded by Ajax, carried off 
 the field by his comrades to the Ford of Scamander, 
 where he swoons a second time, and there for the 
 present he is left. This makes 305 lines. Now for 
 the most part this canto is admitted to be nearly 
 perfect. " Only one passage," says Dr. Leaf, " the 
 ' Leporello-catalogue ' of 317-327, has been widely 
 questioned from Aristarchos onwards." It contains 
 a list of ladies beloved by Zeus, but is not rightly 
 called a catalogue. It is rather a crescendo or 
 climax, in which Zeus says to Hera that he never 
 felt a passion for one of them, no, nor for Hera her- 
 self before, comparable to that which he feels for her 
 at present. But what does indeed make it look like 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 85 
 
 a catalogue is, not the naming of the ladies them- 
 selves, but the five alternate verses 318, 320, 322, 
 324-325, in which the offspring of each of them is 
 stated, and which sadly retard the growing excite- 
 ment of the climax. And the very first name is 
 Peirithous the Lapith, this being a verse not unlike 
 the one that we struck out of the Catalogue, and 
 designed to confer on him the parentage of Zeus. 
 So that if we remove these 5 verses, we shall have 
 our 300 and a much better story. But here a hitch 
 occurs. For there is another verse in this canto, 
 verse 269, which possesses slight manuscript autho- 
 rity. It names Pasithea, one of the younger Graces, 
 whom Hera promises to Hypnus as a reward for 
 putting Zeus to sleep. But the verse is repeated 7 lines 
 lower down, where Hypnus mentions the particular 
 one of the younger Graces whom he wants, which 
 Hera could hardly know before, and from this posi- 
 tion it has almost certainly been foisted in above. 
 
 And here the reader will with justice wish to 
 know whether there are not in our previous cantos 
 some more of these isolated verses, which rest upon 
 little manuscript authority, and which when thrown 
 out would reduce our number below the 300. I 
 will answer in this way. Hitherto our rejection of 
 this species of verse has included, with one excep- 
 tion, all those that are bracketed in the Oxford text 
 of the late Provost of Oriel, a man of the most 
 steady judgment, and of course in the front rank 
 
86 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 of Homeric scholars ; so that if there are any other 
 verses which can fairly be impugned on the ground 
 of insufficient manuscript authority (but I do not 
 believe that there are), it can always be replied that 
 it was not so clear to this excellent critic that they 
 ought to be excised. The sole exception is V 808, 
 but there it is scarcely a question of manuscript 
 authority ; for not a single manuscript omits the 
 verse. It was omitted by Aristarchus, but re- 
 tained by Zenodotus, a critic more severe, who was 
 always cutting out verses that had the least thing to 
 be said against them. And one of Mr. Monro's 
 objections, that the verse is repeated at IV 390, we 
 have removed by cutting out the story of Tydeus in 
 which the repetition occurs. And his other objection 
 is not well founded. For Athene there narrates, 
 that when Tydeus had run into a difficulty at Thebes 
 by challenging the natives counter to her orders, 
 still she came to the rescue and pulled him out of 
 it ; and so she bids his son Diomede trust to her aid 
 now when she urges him to fight : a point which is 
 not seized by those who would exclude the line. 
 But, for the rest, our excision includes all the verses 
 excised by Mr. Monro. Nor will we part company 
 from him here. For if the reader will look again at 
 the verses which I labelled alternate above, he will 
 see that the expression is incorrect, as verses 324- 
 325 are consecutive. The son of Zeus named in the 
 first of those two verses I would alone retain, and 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 87 
 
 banish all the rest, who are Peirithous, Perseus, 
 Minos and Rhadamanthus, and Dionysus. But the 
 other is Heracles, one of the few heroes, other than 
 those who figure in the main story, whose legend is 
 somewhat copious in Homer. And he has been 
 mentioned just above, in the colloquy of Hera and 
 Hypnus, where the timorous Sleep reminds the god- 
 dess how he was maltreated by Zeus, when he 
 played the same trick on him before at Hera's 
 bidding, that she might molest Heracles. And we 
 learn, when Zeus wakes up, how he punished Hera 
 for it too. Hence it is like his spiteful fun to 
 throw in the name of Heracles, as he does the 
 names of Hera's feminine rivals, at the moment 
 when he is confessing himself her slave. And it all 
 accords with what the poet told us above, that Hera 
 thought Zeus repulsive at present, but sacrificed her 
 feelings to her care about the Greeks. And Alc- 
 mena is the last of the mortal ladies named, so that 
 there was a place for the mention of Heracles at the 
 end of the list. And what clinches the matter is 
 that Zeus speaks of himself as loving Alcmena in 
 Thebes, a circumstance which he puts in about none 
 of the rest, and which must be meant to prepare us 
 for the notice of Heracles. I would therefore keep 
 in verse 324 and throw out the other four, which 
 have little or nothing to do with the matter, together 
 with the wrong one about Pasithea above ; and this 
 reduces 305 to 300 exact. 
 
88 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 Canto XXVI goes on from the wounding of Hector 
 and the shortlived recovery of the Greeks, which is 
 soon arrested by Zeus waking up, down to Book XV 
 217, an important moment when Poseidon, ordered 
 off the field by Zeus, under protest departs. With 
 the next canto we return to pick up Hector, who at 
 a like command of Zeus is revived by Apollo. The 
 former canto causes us no trouble. It has exactly 
 300 lines, without a verse subject to serious charge. 
 By this time, methinks, our cumulative proof has 
 begun to grow crushing, and we might as well turn 
 it about, and claim that instead of our theory having 
 to conform to the suspicions of scholars, the suspicions 
 of scholars should be guided by it. We might speak 
 with more freedom of our tercentenary pause as a 
 tercentenary test. But we will not do this, but go 
 steadily on, for there are still some breakers ahead. 
 
 And here they come rolling down upon us in 
 Canto XXVII, in the shape of 185 verses, which 
 must somehow be disproved; for the pause cannot 
 well be placed earlier than verse 702, that is 485 
 lines later, after which things go smooth for a space. 
 The Trojans, in the previous canto driven back over 
 the trench, are in the present one rallied by Hector 
 and Apollo, who terrifies the Greeks by waving an 
 aegis, as in the canto last but one Poseidon had dis- 
 mayed the Trojans by wielding a terrible sword. 
 Some retreating Greeks are slain, but the rest plunge 
 into the trench, and climb up and out behind the 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 89 
 
 Wall. The Trojans follow ; but this time Apollo 
 bids Hector order his horsemen to drive the chariots 
 over, and undertakes to smooth the way in front. 
 Hector does so, and down charges the whole array 
 with a frightful din, Apollo in front of them kicking 
 the dyke within the ditch, and wrecking the Wall like 
 a castle of sand. And so the Trojans are safely over, 
 and burst like a wave at the sterns of the ships. 
 At the moment of their assault upon the Wall, 
 Patroclus leaves the tent of Eurypylus, whose wounds 
 he has been curing, and goes to inform Achilles of 
 the state of affairs and urge him to fight. Mean- 
 time the Greeks are mounted on their ships, and try 
 to prevent the Trojans getting in among the ships 
 and huts with long poles shod with bronze. Neither 
 side gains or gives an inch ; and the strict tension of 
 the fight, with the Greeks in a line along the tops of 
 the vessels, and the Trojans in a line along the bottom, 
 is compared in an accurate simile to that of a cord 
 which a carpenter employs to produce a straight edge 
 in planing off a ship's plank. Hector goes straight 
 for the ship on which Ajax stands, and neither can 
 repulse the other, but Ajax slays Caletor, the cousin 
 of Hector, who is bringing a firebrand. Hector 
 thereupon exhorts the Trojans, and Ajax exhorts 
 the Greeks. The Trojans spring at the ships like 
 ravening lions. Hector, roused by Zeus, who knows 
 that his end is approaching, rages like a fire in a 
 forest, making a bold attempt to break the ranks. 
 
90 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 Then three moments are distinctly marked by three 
 successive similes, which illustrate the phrases iJiivov 
 cfAireSov and eSat^ero OvjULog and Oeanrea-icog e(p6fit]0€y^ 
 which themselves denote the successive effects of 
 Hector's fury on the Greeks : they stand firm, they 
 waver, they fly in stupid terror. Hector is delayed 
 for a minute by killing Periphetes, son of Copreus, 
 and the Greeks rally behind the first rank of ships, 
 before the first row of huts. Nestor implores them 
 to stand fast ; Athene restores them to their senses ; 
 and so they take cognizance of Hector and his com- 
 rades, both those in the rear and those right up at 
 the ships. Then Ajax, the first to recover his full 
 power of action, rushes forward and remounts the 
 decks of the ships. He strides across the gaps, like 
 a rider of four horses at a show, wielding a huge 
 pike and yelling to his comrades to save the ships 
 and huts. Hector on his side dashes forward from 
 the Trojan throng ; the rest close up about the 
 chiefs; and again the battle is joined. At this 
 moment of renewed equilibrium the poet gives us 
 the sentiments on either side, the Greek despair of 
 final safety, the Trojan hopes of burning the ships 
 and slaying the Greeks. And there the canto ends. 
 With the opening of the next, Hector lays his hand 
 on the ship of Protesilaus. 
 
 Such I conceive to be the true outline of this ex- 
 citing passage of arms. It is a terrific rush on the 
 part of the Trojans, headed by Apollo, which is only 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 91 
 
 arrested at the ships ; then a moment of sudden panic 
 on the part of the Greeks, caused by the irresistible 
 rage of Hector, urged on by Zeus ; then an instant 
 of delay, during which Athene dispels the blindness 
 of their terror, and the situation is retrieved by the 
 steadiness of Ajax. But it is wretchedly disfigured 
 by the intrusion of four episodes of 25 verses, of 14 
 verses, of 67 verses, and of 77 verses each, which in 
 all make up 183; the remaining 2 verses I leave for 
 the present. The first comes shortly after Hector 
 has been revived by Apollo, and before Apollo has 
 begun waving his aegis in order to paralyse the 
 Greeks. It is composed of a panegyric of Thoas, a 
 very subordinate person, and a piece of advice on his 
 part, to draw oiF the main body of the warriors to 
 the ships, while the leaders stand still to cover their 
 retreat. The chiefs are said to assent, and the troops 
 to withdraw to the ships. But in the very next para- 
 graph we are told that the Greeks remained all massed 
 together, and made a stout resistance, until Apollo 
 began waving his aegis. Dr. Leaf says in his intro- 
 duction : "The speech of Thoas, 281-305, is full 
 of difficulties, which are pointed out in the notes. . . . 
 It is not easy to see what was the reason of the inter- 
 polation, unless it may have been desired for local or 
 family reasons to bring in the curious eulogy on Thoas, 
 who at once disappears from the scene, together with 
 his futile tactical advice." Again at 281 : "The 
 authenticity of the following passage, to 305, is very 
 
92 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 doubtful. The plan of sending the troops to the 
 rear (295-299) at a moment when it would seem that 
 every nerve should be strained to defend the wall is 
 quite inexplicable. Besides, aoXXee? (312), Xao? (319), 
 and the similes in 323 clearly show that the host of 
 the Achaians is in the passage immediately following 
 regarded as still united. The phrase used in 284 is not 
 Homeric. The omission of the F of FeKaarov (288) 
 cannot be remedied by conjecture, and avw^ofiev (295) 
 is a doubtful form." The 25 verses 281-305 I 
 should excise. 
 
 The second passage is 367-380, when the Greeks 
 stop at the ships, and Nestor is said to uplift a 
 prayer to Zeus, which Zeus, paying heed to the old 
 man, the son of Neleus, answers with a loud peal of 
 thunder. And what is the result.'* "But the 
 Trojans, when they heard the thunder of Zeus, 
 rushed with all the greater fury on the Greeks, and 
 recollected their might." Little wonder that Dr. 
 Leaf goes on : " The omen of the thunder, too, 
 seems to miss its mark and produce the opposite 
 effect to that intended." And he has other ob- 
 jections to the passage, with which I need not weary 
 the reader. The 14 verses go out with absolute 
 ease, they forestall the appearance of Nestor later 
 on, and only interrupt the Trojan rush. 
 
 And now we come to another highly suspicious 
 episode. The Greeks are massed in close columns 
 on the ships, a formation naturally imposed on them 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 93 
 
 by the configuration of space at the sterns. The 
 Trojans are beneath, at such a distance as may be 
 measured by the length of pikes shod with bronze, 
 which are raised to keep them off. The tension is 
 strict ; and Hector and Ajax are almost hand to 
 hand. Ajax slays Caletor, the cousin of Hector; 
 and Hector thereupon exhorts the Trojans to save 
 his body, lest the Greeks strip it of its arms. He 
 himself slays Lycophron, the squire of Ajax ; and 
 Ajax thereupon invites Teucer to avenge their 
 common friend. And now the whole strain of the 
 fight is relaxed as if by magic, in order to make 
 room for Teucer and his arrows. Teucer is said to 
 run up and stand close beside his brother Ajax, with 
 his bow and quiver in his hands. His arrows play 
 merrily among the Trojans, and he manages to hit 
 Cleitus at this range, but quite misses Hector, 
 thanks to Zeus, who breaks his bowstring and 
 knocks the bow out of his hand. Ajax mildly 
 advises him to let his bow alone and take to his spear. 
 Teucer withdraws to his tent to fetch his helmet, 
 shield, and spear, though he seems to have had 
 them all with him at XII 371-372, where Pandion 
 has to carry his bow, and at XIII 1 70-1 81, where he 
 kills Imbrius with his spear ; and again runs up and 
 stands beside his brother. Hector, encouraged by the 
 failure of Teucer's archery, again exhorts the Trojans ; 
 and all things are back where they were before, much 
 as if Teucer and his arrows had never appeared. 
 
94 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 This episode I believe to be spurious, chiefly 
 because it halts between two conflicting conceptions ; 
 that of a fight at close quarters from the ships, and 
 that of a fight at long range upon the plain. There 
 could be no room for Teucer to run about so freely 
 as he is said to do, in the dense situation of the 
 Greeks, without giving the Trojans just the opening 
 that they want. And if so uncertain a missile as an 
 arrow were used at this short distance, in preference 
 to a javelin or spear or pike, which are much more 
 certain and effectual weapons, yet the presence of 
 an unarmed archer is absurd ; for he would be 
 slaughtered off^ in an instant by the cast of a spear, 
 as befalls the panoplied Caletor. Then, near about 
 the point where Teucer comes in, there is an incon- 
 sistency with another part of the poem. At verse 
 437 Ajax says to his brother, " My Teucer, our 
 trusty comrade Lycophron is slain, whom we 
 honoured like to our dear parents " ; which is always 
 taken to imply that the parents of Ajax and Teucer 
 are the same. For there is no distributive word to 
 mark the difference, but the dual is used to unite 
 the brothers more closely. But Ajax was a legitimate 
 son of Telamon, and Teucer a bastard, as is stated 
 in Book VIII 284; and the mother of one was 
 Eriboea, but of the other Hesione. So that the little 
 episode designed for the glory of Teucer, of whorn 
 we heard quite enough for his importance in the 
 Eighth Book, is probably false. And now the question 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 95 
 
 is where to fix the limits of this interpolation. I 
 believe that the beginning falls within the first 
 exhortation of Hector, on seeing his cousin Caletor 
 slain, and the end within his second exhortation, 
 after the failure of Teucer's archery ; and that 
 the latter part of the last should be joined to the 
 former part of the first, following on after verse 426 
 with the words aWa yua^eo-^' CTri vtjvarlv aoXXee? in 
 verse 494, instead of aXX' via KXvrloio crawareTe. 
 What Hector says, on seeing his cousin slain, I 
 take to be this : " Trojans and Lycians and Dar- 
 danians, do not yet give way in this terrible strait, 
 but fight all together up to the ships ; and whoever 
 of you is wounded or struck to the death, there let 
 him die ! It is no disgrace for a man to die in 
 defending his country ; but his wife and his children 
 will be safe hereafter, and his house and his heritage 
 stand unimpaired, if the Greeks be got back to their 
 own native land." You see how Hector is justified 
 in giving this severe admonition to the rest by the 
 fact that his own cousin is the first to suffer by it. 
 And it fits in very well with his previous announce- 
 ment, in verses 347-351, that he will kill on the 
 spot any man whom he sees going aside to pick up 
 the spoils, instead of pressing hastily on to the ships. 
 What the interpolator makes him say is just the 
 reverse : "Do not yet give way in this terrible strait, 
 but save the corpse of Caletor, lest the Greeks strip 
 off his armour amongst the ships " ; an action of 
 
96 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 which there could be no likelihood at present, for it 
 is expressly stated that Caletor falls down below. 
 He thus perverts the supreme patriotic aim of 
 Hector into a project of selfish and secondary- 
 interest, and so passes on to the episode of Teucer. 
 This I consider to be depravation of the original 
 poet's idea ; and the 67 verses that lie between the 
 first and second aWd I should cashier. 
 
 Our last large passage is 5 1 5-591 . This is not so 
 bad a passage in itself, but is fairly described by Dr. 
 Leaf as " rather commonplace and entirely without 
 significance in the story." But the fatal objection to 
 it, in its present context, is that it is an ordinary 
 fight on level ground, which contradicts the whole 
 situation. The Greeks are conceived as a line of 
 armed men posted before the ships. There are the 
 regular front rank fighters, with the heroes who 
 spring out before the front rank, and then retire 
 after doing execution ; which in the situation before 
 imagined would bring them toppling off the sterns. 
 And there is stripping off of armour, an action for- 
 bidden on pain of death by Hector on the Trojan 
 side, and impossible for reasons of urgency and posi- 
 tion on the Greek. Then we are occupied with 
 a totally new band of minor heroes, Otus, Dolops, 
 Croesmus, and Melanippus, who are killed off with- 
 out any preparation. But if the reader will take the 
 pains to follow the fortunes of the lesser heroes from 
 the Twelfth Book down to this point in the Fifteenth 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 97 
 
 he will find that they are hardly ever killed without 
 some little introduction higher up. I verily believe 
 that the only men in the whole of this stretch who 
 are brought in and killed at once, if we except 
 Harpalion, are that same Peisander over whom 
 Menelaus uttered his striking speech, and Caletor, 
 the cousin of Hector ; both which cases are excused 
 by the interest, not of the men themselves, but of 
 that which their deaths occasion. And just at the 
 point where these new worthies come on, new difficul- 
 ties arise. For Schedius, the leader of the Phocians 
 slain by Hector, is in the very first verse called the 
 son of Perimedes, whereas in Book II 518 he is 
 called the son of Iphitus, if the same man be 
 meant, as at first seems not unlikely. And yet he 
 cannot be the same man, for Schedius, son of 
 Iphitus, is slain by Hector at XVII 306 ; so that 
 either the Catalogue is deficient of this second 
 Schedius, which is improbable if he was a genuine 
 leader of Phocians, or else the present passage is 
 spurious. And here again Meges is evidently a 
 leader of Epeians, as in the spurious passage excised 
 from Book XIII. Cut out the whole of this con- 
 tradictory episode, and the narrative goes far better. 
 For after the stirring address of Hector has been 
 met by an equally stirring address of Ajax, instead of 
 this somewhat tame and tedious fight, the Trojans 
 spring like lions at the ships ; a comparison which 
 shows that the old position is now correctly conceived, 
 
 G 
 
98 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 with the Greeks above and the Trojans below, and 
 all is clear to the end of the canto. And Dr. Leaf 
 is of much the same opinion as myself, though he 
 has not the same motive as myself for holding it. 
 
 Now as to our remaining 2 verses I confess that 
 I am exceedingly doubtful ; but I am inclined to 
 single out verses 504-505 in the exhortation of Ajax. 
 For if the reader will look at them, he will see that 
 they have some appearance of being an alternative to 
 the two which succeed, both pairs being couched in 
 the form of a sarcastic rhetorical question, either of 
 which would do just as well if the other were away. 
 But there is this difference, that the second distich 
 leads on directly to what follows, whereas the first is 
 left without development. Then the first couplet 
 contains an immedicable violation of the digamma in 
 cKaoTTog. And the sense of it is this : " Do you 
 expect, if Hector destroys the ships, to return on 
 foot each to his native land ? " But this so much 
 resembles the saying of Telemachus in the Odyssey, 
 " For I suppose that you have not come to this 
 island on foot," as to create a suspicion of its being 
 more humorous than the present crisis admits, and 
 of its having been put in by somebody who liked the 
 joke, and who saw a chance of repeating it. Fick 
 goes so far as to call the couplet " absurd." 
 
 But almost every other verse in this much 
 challenged portion of the Fifteenth Book I would 
 most stubbornly defend. And I say so, because there 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 99 
 
 are two short passages toward the end of the canto, 
 which it seems to me that Dr. Leaf and Dr. Hentze 
 surrender far too readily to the objections of the 
 Alexandrian scholars, whose imagination was not 
 always in a measure with their acumen. The first of 
 them is 610-614, where Dr. Leaf says that the 
 addition of "E/ctojoo? is quite needless. But not so, 
 when Hector fighting is distinguished from Hector's 
 tossing helm, as cause from effect, much as in I 46- 
 47 the moving Apollo is distinguished from the 
 rattling quiver on Apollo's shoulders. Then he says 
 that Zeus is on Ida, not eV aiOepi. But is not the top of 
 Ida ev aiOepi too ? Again he says that julovvov eovra is 
 a strange expression, as Hector has his whole army 
 with him. But to these words the poet joins irXeovea-a-i 
 /jl€t' ai/Spda-i and r/yua Koi KvSaive, and the Special point 
 is that, although Hector has his whole army with 
 him, yet Zeus reserves the glory of firing the ships 
 to this one single man among them all. Finally he 
 says that the prophecy in 613 is against the usual 
 practice, and that it is a departure from the accepted 
 theology to make Athene carry out the work of fate. 
 What is here termed a prophecy is the statement that 
 Hector's hour of death was drawing nigh, at the 
 hands of the son of Peleus, brought about by Pallas 
 Athene ; which is the reason why Zeus gave him so 
 much honour in the present. But I deny that the 
 poet does not often state things by anticipation ; for 
 he does it again and again, in instances too numerous 
 
loo COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 to mention. And whatever the accepted theology 
 may be, certain it is that Athene brings about the 
 death of Hector at the close; so that here is a 
 departure from it too. And the verses are defended 
 by the letter M itself, which unites them in one 
 music with the context. 
 
 The other passage is 668-673, where Athene 
 is said to disperse the vecpos a')(\vo9 Qea-irea-iov from 
 the eyes of the Greeks. Now if the phrase be taken 
 to mean a darkening of the sky, or an atmospheric 
 mist, or anything else of the sort, as the Alexandrian 
 critics took it, it is certainly surprising, for no such 
 thing has been described as coming on. But it is the 
 hebetude of vision caused by mortal terror, as the 
 words air 6(p6aX/uLwv sufficiently show ; and it corre- 
 sponds with our metaphor of a blind panic. And the 
 same thing is shown by Oearirea-iov, which connects 
 the phrase directly with Oea-irea-lm ecpo^rjOev in verse 
 637, and intimates that the man is no longer master 
 of himself, but is the sport of an instinct too power- 
 ful for his will to control. So in Book V 127 
 Athene removes the mortal hebetude (a-)(Xvi/) from 
 Diomede's eyes, whereby he is enabled to behold 
 those that are immortal. And so in Book XX 321- 
 342 Poseidon sheds on Achilles' eyes a marvellous 
 mist {oi-)(\vv OearTrea-irjv), that he may not see Aeneas 
 swept away, and then disperses it again. And the 
 word (ppdcra-avTo^ " marked," signifies of itself that 
 they have come to their senses out of the dazed con- 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTfik^ftHf ' i&i 
 
 dition that they were in before. And it all fits in 
 with the permission of Zeus at VIII 35-40, that 
 Athene may influence the minds of the Greeks, 
 though she must not herself take part in the fight : 
 which answers an objection recorded by the Scholiast, 
 that Athene is not present owing to the threat of Zeus; 
 for a mental operation may be done at a distance, as 
 we learn from XV 242 and XVI 103. And as to the 
 last two verses, they seem to be merely misconstrued. 
 For they are made to refer to the Greeks, part of 
 whom stand aloof in the rear, and part right up at the 
 ships; which of course contradicts verse 638, where 
 we hear that they fled one and all. But they refer 
 to the comrades of Hector, part of whom stand up 
 beside their leader, and part of whom stand ofi^ 
 behind for want of room ; as the order of words 
 alone declares. And when the poet applies the same 
 word a(p€(rTaarav to the Greeks, as he does in the 
 next paragraph, he is careful to specify their name. 
 And having applied the word to each in turn, he 
 applies the words c^eVrao-ai/ aX\i]\oia-iv to both at 
 verse 703, when the fury of the combat is renewed. 
 And so much for Canto XXVII. 
 
 Canto XXVIII extends down to Book XVI 256, 
 which is the moment when Achilles, having offered 
 up a solemn prayer for the safety of Patroclus and 
 poured a libation to Zeus, takes his stand before the 
 tent to survey the progress of the fight. The pause 
 is not well marked in the Teubner text, which 
 
idi COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 puts a colon only here ; but is well marked by 
 Mr. Monro, who closes the sentence with a full 
 stop after this verse, and opens a new paragraph 
 with the next ; as though an instinct taught him that 
 here the Prowess of Patroclus begins. On the other 
 hand, Dr. Hentze has the advantage at the com- 
 mencement of the canto, where he opens with a 
 new paragraph, while Mr. Monro has only the 
 full stop. The canto, which is chiefly taken up with 
 the interview of Achilles and Patroclus, and the 
 mustering of the Myrmidons, has exactly 300 lines ; 
 which makes us some amends for the long time we 
 tarried on the last. 
 
 The Patrocleia occupies the rest of the Sixteenth 
 Book, and contains 611 lines. The pause we place 
 after verse 562, which leaves 306 verses on one side 
 and 305 on the other. This is the moment when 
 the career of Patroclus has been crowned by the 
 slaying of Sarpedon, and both sides brace them- 
 selves afresh at the prospect of a struggle over his 
 body. The remainder of the book is occupied with 
 the final exploits of Patroclus down to his death at 
 the hands of Hector and Apollo. Now beginning 
 in due order with Canto XXIX, we meet with a 
 verse which all texts bracket. It is 381, which 
 describes the horses of Achilles as immortal, and as 
 given to Peleus by the gods. It is repeated in the 
 last line of the book, whence it has been inserted 
 here to correct a slight ambiguity between the Trojan 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 103 
 
 horses and those of Achilles, which Patroclus uses ; 
 but many manuscripts omit it altogether. The other 
 5 verses I take to be 367-371. For they contain 
 a plain contradiction of one 4 lines higher up, in 
 which we were told that Hector, although he knew 
 the tide of battle had turned, yet stood his ground 
 and sought to save his comrades. But here we are 
 told that Hector's horses swept himself and his 
 armour swiftly away, so that he forsook the Trojan 
 host that was checked by the deep trench ; which is 
 quite unlike his character. Then it is difficult to 
 see why the footmen are impeded by the trench, 
 when Hector and his horses get so quickly over ; and 
 this overlooks all about Apollo's filling up the trench. 
 And in the very first words there is a strange ex- 
 pression, where it is said that they did not cross 
 back Kara /noipav, which is meant for Kara kog-julov^ 
 but is not so used elsewhere. And in the very last 
 words there occurs a monstrous violation of the 
 digamma in dp/tAar avwcTcov, of which there is no 
 probable cure. I should therefore put a period 
 after (po^og re in verse 366, and drop these lines, 
 which make no difference. But I do not consider 
 the preceding simile obscure, as it appears to Dr. 
 Leaf; for the shrieking and flight of the Trojans 
 are aptly compared to a howling tempest that in- 
 vades a sky serene. 
 
 So now we come to Canto XXX, which has 5 
 lines over our limit. But two pair of these arc 
 
I04 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 already marked out for us by brackets in all the 
 texts. The first pair is 614-615, which say that the 
 spear of Aeneas spent its force by quivering in the 
 ground, after it had left his hand in vain. But it is 
 repeated from XIII 504-505, and much the same 
 thing has been told us in the verse above ; and a 
 vast majority of manuscripts omit the lines. The 
 second is 689-690, of which I suppress the sense, for 
 here they have none, but are copied from XVII 
 177-178. So much for 4 of our 5 verses. Now 
 at verse 736, in the combat of Hector and Patroclus, 
 we are told that Patroclus seized up a stone and 
 hurled it with all his weight, ovSe Srjv d^ero cpwrog, 
 which cannot be construed. For dl^oniai always 
 governs an accusative, and expresses a sense of 
 religious awe, so that Dr. Leaf makes it mean that 
 Patroclus did not long stand in awe of Apollo 
 because of Hector; which is very forced and ob- 
 scure, there being no mention of Apollo in the 
 sentence. Nor is the conjecture of X"^^'^^ much 
 better, for it ought to mean that he did not long 
 withdraw from his man ; which is absurd, when 
 Patroclus has been rushing at Hector for 3 lines past. 
 And it does not appear that either of these senses 
 makes a proper opposition to the words that come 
 next. If we could correct Srjv d'^cro into something 
 which would import " nor did he hit his man," then 
 ovS' a\l(jocre fieXos would follow very well ; for he misses 
 Hector, but hits Cebriones his charioteer. But I do 
 
BOOK NINTH TO BOOK SIXTEENTH 105 
 
 not see how this can be done, and incline to think 
 that the phrase is false. But the first part of the 
 verse, $/ce S' epeKrd/iievogf seems to be sound. Again 
 it is doubtful whether ovS' oXlooa-e /SeXo? is a correct 
 expression. You can talk of frustrating the inten- 
 tion of Zeus, as is done in Odyss. V 104 and 138 
 Aio? voov aXicoa-ai. And a man may frustrate his 
 own word, by not doing as he said, as in Sophocl. 
 Trach. 258, Kov-x^^Xlcoa-e tovtto^. But how a man can 
 be said to frustrate his own shot, when the stone has 
 left his hand, is not so clear. I should therefore be 
 disposed to join the first part of the one verse on to 
 the last part of the other, 
 
 ^K€. 8' ep€i(rdfji£vos, pdki 5' "Ekto/oos ijvtox^a, 
 
 leaving out what lies between. But I am not quite 
 satisfied with this ; and perhaps somebody will be 
 able to clear up these difficulties and to point out 
 a still more objectionable line. And so, with the 
 death of Patroclus, we finish off another third part of 
 the Iliad. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 BOOK THE SEVENTEENTH TO BOOK THE 
 TWENTY-FOURTH 
 
 The opening of Canto XXXI coincides with that 
 of the Seventeenth Book, and here begins the 
 Prowess of Menelaus ; some little delay being in- 
 terposed between the death of Patroclus and the 
 carrying of the news to Achilles. The break we 
 find at verse 455, which seems a long way off. 
 But it is surely a strange thing that you can go 
 on from vpx^ <^* ^V "^'^'^f^p in 107 to the self- 
 same words in 262, which makes exactly 155 lines, 
 and discover an excellent pause at the verse said 
 above. For with it Zeus concludes his famous 
 speech to the ageless and deathless horses of Achilles ; 
 and off they move at the beginning of the next 
 canto, with Automedon behind them, whose business 
 occupies us some little while after. And the ex- 
 cluded verses are so full of difficulties that one 
 hardly knows where to strike in. But, to make 
 an effort, there are three matters which about this 
 point the poet asks his hearers to understand, 
 without express mention, though he has sufficiently 
 
 intimated them all. The first thing is that Hector 
 
 106 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 107 
 
 now wears the arms of Achilles, worn by Patroclus. 
 This was intimated at Book XVI 799-800, where 
 it was said that Zeus gave him at that time to 
 wear on his head the helmet of Achilles, but his 
 death was nigh at hand ; and Hector might easily 
 put it on, together with the rest of the arms, 
 somewhere between Book XVII 274, where the 
 Trojans repulse the Greeks from the corpse of 
 Patroclus, and XVII 450, where Zeus says that 
 he has them, or again XVII 473, where he is 
 explicitly said to have them on. But before the 
 verse first named, as I conceive the matter, he 
 could hardly have done so; for he is engaged in 
 pursuing the immortal horses, and meanwhile at 
 XVII 13 the spoils, though possibly not the helmet, 
 are regarded as still lying near by the body of 
 Patroclus. The second thing left to us to gather 
 is the reason why the Trojans struggle with the 
 Greeks to possess the unarmed body of Patroclus. 
 But it is sufficiently implied by touching on the 
 glory of the thing itself at XVII 287, and on 
 the value of the body to Achilles at XVII 104 
 and elsewhere, and we may imagine that it would 
 command a very fair ransom if carried safe to 
 Troy. And the third thing is the withdrawal of 
 Menelaus in quest of Ajax, to help him in re- 
 covering the body of Patroclus; which is con- 
 veyed by the words of Menelaus himself at XVII 
 102-105, but is not explicitly described, because 
 
io8 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 the poet has to describe a similar withdrawal later 
 on, in quest of Antilochus, who is to carry the 
 news to Achilles. And there he does it at length, 
 using the simile of the lion, which we came across 
 in treating of the Eleventh Book; but here he 
 marks his absence by a short and successful dash 
 of the Trojans at XVII 263-277, until the Greeks 
 are rallied by Ajax at 278, which shows that 
 Menelaus has found his man, whose influence now 
 begins to tell. Well, these three things the in- 
 terpolator explains at large in the 155 verses; and 
 in each case he has involved both himself and 
 us in difficulties by doing it. 
 
 We will begin, as he begins, with the last. At 
 verse 108 he describes the withdrawal of Menelaus 
 and his meeting with Ajax, when the first invites 
 the last to proffer the corpse of Patroclus to 
 Achilles, since it is all that they can do, now 
 that Hector has his arms. Very good. But then, 
 in the next paragraph, we are told that when 
 Hector has stripped Patroclus of his arms, he 
 drags his body ; which ought to have come first, 
 if it came at all, before the departure of Menelaus, 
 so that Menelaus could know for certain that 
 Hector had the arms. But it ought not to come 
 at all, for Patroclus was divested of all his armour 
 long ago by Apollo, at the time of his slaying 
 by Hector in the last book ; and without reclothing 
 a corpse you cannot strip it twice. And again 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 109 
 
 at verse 205 of this spurious passage Zeus is 
 made to say that Hector took the arms from the 
 head and the shoulders of Patroclus, which was all 
 done by Apollo in Book XVI ; from the head 
 at verse 793, and from the shoulders at verse 802, 
 as our faithful editor notes. 
 
 Well, Hector having taken off the arms, as 
 here supposed, gives them to his comrades to carry 
 away to Troy. Then follows an unpleasant scene 
 between Glaucus and himself, in which Glaucus, 
 using some uncouth and unparalleled phrases, calls 
 him a coward, warns him that the Lycians have 
 no interest in the war, upbraids him for abandoning 
 the body of Sarpedon to the Greeks, threatens the 
 departure of the Lycian troops, and enlarges on 
 the advantage of bringing the body of Patroclus 
 into Troy, in order to effect an exchange with 
 the body and the arms of Sarpedon. This was 
 designed to meet the second thing understood, 
 why they should struggle for the naked body of 
 Patroclus ; notwithstanding the fact that Sarpedon's 
 corpse was rescued at Book XVI 678-683 by 
 Apollo, at the bidding of Zeus, and long ago 
 despatched to Lycia by the hands of Sleep and 
 Death ; which if Glaucus could not be expected to 
 know, yet it is silly of the author to try to arouse 
 our interest about a project which, as we foresee, 
 can never be accomplished. And the whole tone 
 of this speech quite spoils the delightful character 
 
no COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 of Glaucus ; nor is it very fit to be spoken to Hector, 
 who has slain the man who slew Sarpedon. 
 
 However, Hector rudely defends himself, and 
 bids Glaucus stand at his side and watch whether 
 he is a coward or not. And then what happens? 
 But here the words of an ancient critic are better 
 than mine. " One would have expected," says the 
 Scholiast, " that after being so taken aback by the 
 utterance, and so moved at the incident, he would 
 abide by his own professions. But he forgets the 
 words he has used himself, and overlooks the taunts, 
 and turns to tricking himself out " ; which refers to 
 the fact that, instead of entering the battle, the 
 thought occurs to him to leave the field and apparel 
 himself in those same arms which, even before the 
 stinging taunt of Glaucus, he was quite content to 
 send away to Troy. This was intended to meet the 
 first thing understood, that Hector wears the arms. 
 As he puts them on, Zeus makes a speech about 
 him, which weakly anticipates part of his speech to 
 the horses, and then nods (as Dr. Leaf observes) all 
 to himself. Hector reappears for a moment to the 
 renowned allies, shining in the arms of Achilles; 
 and after all the long rigmarole about the donning 
 of the armour, not a word is said of its effect on 
 Greek or Trojan. And the mighty strength, which 
 Zeus is made to say that he will bestow on him, 
 melts into nothing; for the Greeks succeed in 
 drawing off the body of Patroclus after all. 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR iii 
 
 There never was such nonsense as the whole of 
 this passage contains, and it has oddities of diction 
 all the way through, with which I do not trouble 
 the reader, but which are faithfully recorded by Dr. 
 Leaf. But just to mark the latter end of the inter- 
 polation, there is a bad violation of the digamma in 
 ovvo/maT eliroi of verse 260, and one in cKaa-ro^ at 
 252. And its lapses disgust the reader at the out- 
 set with what is in the sequel one of the most 
 glorious struggles in the whole of the Iliad, waged 
 about the body of Patroclus. There is only one 
 thing that I regret in cutting out these 155 lines, 
 and not so much on my own account as that of 
 another. We cut out the simile in 133-137, where 
 Ajax is compared to a lion whom huntsmen meet 
 leading along his cubs, who glares in his strength and 
 draws down all the skin of his forehead, covering up 
 his eyes ; which the late Sir Richard Jebb thought 
 perhaps the finest of Homeric similes drawn from 
 the lion, though the ancients found it false to 
 nature, because it is the lioness, and not the lion, 
 who leads the cubs along. And there is another 
 simile borrowed from the lion in Book XX 164— 
 175, which has been thought the finest Homeric 
 simile of all. Hitherto we have happened to include 
 within our scheme most of the fine and famous 
 things in Homer, except the popular tales which are 
 of a totally different type ; but the cut is too clear, 
 from ?jOx^ to vpx^y to permit this simile to stay. 
 
112 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 And it may comfort us to find that our excision 
 ends immediately before the simile of a river meet- 
 ing with the sea, which caused Solon or else Plato to 
 burn his poems in despair. 
 
 Now the results of this imposthume wake in one 
 a pain. For instead of its being excised as incon- 
 sistent with other things in the Iliad, other things in 
 the Iliad have been questioned as inconsistent with 
 it. As Hector here strips off the armour, which is 
 not consistent with ApoUo^s doing it before, it has 
 been argued that the whole notion of Patroclus 
 wearing and losing the arms of Achilles was no part 
 of the original poet's scheme, but was invented by 
 another hand, in order to introduce the episode of 
 the Forging of the Armour ; and so would disappear 
 the Shield of Achilles, and much else, if by any 
 means it could be detached. But the reticence of 
 the poet about Hector putting on the arms of 
 Achilles, and the little that is said about his wear- 
 ing them, though enough is said for the purpose in 
 hand, is of course designed so as not to interfere with 
 the effect of the celestial suit of armour shortly to 
 come. The case is much the same as with the 
 Building of the Wall ; which being not consistent 
 with what is said about the Wall elsewhere, the 
 entire existence of the Wall itself in the original 
 scheme has been denied. But again, of two incon- 
 sistent things, it is only necessary to do away with 
 one ; and here that one which ought to be struck 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 113 
 
 out is the stripping of Patroclus by Hector, and not 
 the stripping by Apollo, which magnifies our notion 
 of Patroclus, and belonged to the original poet's plan, 
 and was by him designed to bring about the 
 Forging of the Armour. 
 
 We proceed to Canto XXXII, which terminates 
 at the end of the book, and has now 306 lines. 
 There is a spurious verse at 585, which is omitted 
 by several manuscripts, was unknown to Zenodotus 
 and Aristonicus, and which all texts bracket. It 
 says that Apollo addressed such an one in the 
 likeness of such an one, and is a mere repetition of 
 326. The remaining 5 verses I take to be 612-616, 
 which cause such a complication of the sentence in 
 which they occur, that modern editors are obliged to 
 put dashes on either side to clear up the tangle ; 
 and how an ancient reader may have been expected 
 to cross safely through it I cannot conceive. What 
 happens is that Hector hurls a javelin at Idomeneus, 
 who stands in a chariot, but narrowly misses him and 
 hits Coeranus, the squire and charioteer of Meriones, 
 who followed his master from Lyctus. Then it 
 proceeds, " For he came at first on foot, when he 
 left the ships, and would have bestowed a great 
 victory upon the Trojans, had not Coeranus quickly 
 driven up his swift horses, and come as a light to 
 him, and averted the day of his despair, though he 
 lost his own life at the hands of Hector." From 
 the latter part of this sentence it appears that the 
 
 H 
 
114 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 subject of the main clause is neither Coeranus nor 
 Meriones, but Idomeneus, which is very difficult. 
 And how Coeranus could defend his life by driving 
 up his horses, when Idomeneus already stands upon 
 the car, as appears by the narrow miss and verse 622, 
 which show that the chariot of Idomeneus and 
 Meriones is one and the same, nobody can imagine. 
 These verses are as clearly spurious as if they had 
 come down to us enclosed in a rectangle. 
 
 Canto XXXIII, which opens with the first verse 
 of the Eighteenth Book, we close at verse 313. 
 The news of Patroclus' death is brought to Achilles, 
 who moans aloud in anguish. His mother hears 
 him in the depths of the sea, and wails amid all the 
 assembled Nereids. She visits her son, and promises 
 to fetch a new suit of armour from Hephaestus. 
 Iris is sent by Hera to press Achilles to show him- 
 self over the trench ; for though the Greeks have 
 succeeded in bearing off the body of Patroclus, 
 they are hotly pursued by Hector and the Trojans, 
 who would have plucked it back, the poet tells us, 
 had not Hera taken this step. Achilles thrice shrieks 
 across the trench, and the Trojans fly in terror. 
 Night falls, and the Trojans hold an assembly on 
 the plain, too frightened even to sit down ; and 
 with its close the canto closes too. It will not 
 delay us long. The catalogue of Nereids goes out 
 in 1 1 lines, beginning and end as plain as sun and 
 moon at verses 39 and 49, and suspected by every 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 115 
 
 scholar. The remaining 2 verses are as clear to me 
 as they are to Dr. Leaf. They are 200-201, in the 
 speech of Iris to Achilles, which are repeated from 
 XI 800-801 owing to the similarity of the verse 
 above in either case, and some resemblance in the 
 circumstances. Iris here urges Achilles, as Nestor 
 urged Patroclus there, to show himself in the field, 
 that the Trojans may abstain from fighting and 
 the Greeks recover breath, though brief the breath in 
 war. "They are not in place here," says Dr. Leaf; 
 " Achilles is not to be roused into action by any 
 sympathy for the weariness of the Greeks, but only 
 by the desire to save his friend's body " ; which was 
 the one motive used by Iris in her former speech. 
 
 Canto XXXIV concludes with the close of Book 
 XVIII. It first lightly touches on the supper of the 
 Trojans, a thing the poet likes to mark ; opposes to 
 them the Greeks, who spend the night in mourning 
 for Patroclus ; and then passes on to Olympus and 
 the Forging of the Armour. This makes 304 lines. 
 Now toward the end of the description of the Shield 
 of Achilles there are 4 verses which present a 
 great difficulty. They are 603-606, which relate 
 that a mighty throng stood round the lovely dance, 
 delighting in it ; and among them an inspired 
 minstrel was singing to his harp ; and two tumblers 
 over against them, while he led off the song and 
 dance, whirled in their midst. The last three verses 
 are repeated word for word in Odyssey IV 17-19, 
 
ii6 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 where Menelaus gives a wedding feast to his neigh- 
 bours and kinsmen ; and I am convinced that they 
 belong to that place, and have nothing to do with 
 this, but carry the fourth verse along with them. 
 For in the first place the sentence about the minstrel 
 does not appear in any of our manuscripts, but 
 was inserted by Wolf from Athenaeus, who blames 
 Aristarchus for striking it out ; which is a censure 
 rather improbable in itself, for Aristarchus was very 
 cautious about striking verses out, though he stigma- 
 tised them freely as spurious. And this evidence 
 is cancelled by the further statement of Athenaeus, 
 that the same critic inserted the sentence in the 
 Odyssey ; for any objection that Aristarchus might 
 have felt to it here, which seems to have been the 
 use of jmeXirea-OaL for making music, attaches to it 
 with equal force in the other place. So that instead 
 of being struck out of the text by Aristarchus, the 
 sentence most probably never was in it ; being left 
 behind, when the rest was repeated from the Odyssey, 
 as ill suited to the first verse about the great throng ; 
 which itself replaced the neighbours and kinsmen of 
 the Odyssean line, it being wanted to provide spec- 
 tators for the tumblers. But a minstrel in the 
 middle of a mighty throng, intent on other things, 
 is apt to harp in vain. And if we insert the sentence 
 with Wolf, we are compelled to alter e^dp^ovreg to 
 e^dpyovTog in the next ; since it is absurd that the 
 minstrel should be singing, yet that the tumblers 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 117 
 
 should lead off the song. So that it is not a simple 
 insertion, but requires a change of the text in defiance 
 of all the manuscripts ; and there is no hint of a 
 variant to help us here. 
 
 But now, if this sentence is left out, the rest of 
 the passage does not run very well. For then the 
 tumblers are said to lead off the song and dance, 
 which to anyone who has seen a tumbler at his tricks 
 must seem a thing well-nigh impossible. And here 
 the observation of Athenaeus seems perfectly just, 
 that by the omission of the minstrel the word 
 i^dpxovreg becomes an incurable blot, though he was 
 mistaken in imputing that defect to Aristarchus. But 
 if we concede to Aristarchus that jmoXirri never means 
 music in Homer, but only sport, which is very 
 doubtful, yet it is still far from clear to whom the 
 tumblers give the lead. For the frolic of the 
 tumblers and the dance of the youths and maidens 
 seem two totally disparate things; and if they are 
 not, then the leaders ought to have been mentioned 
 a dozen lines above, before the dance begins. And 
 the whole picture is confused, though in the Odyssey 
 it is all clear. For there the guests sit round the 
 hall, and among them a minstrel plays; and over 
 against them, in their midst, the tumblers freely 
 whirl. But here the floor is occupied by the dance 
 of youths and maidens, who at one time go 
 round in a ring ; and if the tumblers were in their 
 midst, they could not well be seen by the mighty 
 
ii8 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 throng. But at other times the youths and maidens 
 advance in rows to meet each other; and what 
 becomes of the tumblers at this crisis it is not easy 
 to say. The compartment is too crowded, with the 
 dance and the mighty throng and the tumblers, not 
 to mention the minstrel, and should be left to the 
 dancers alone ; and this can be done by leaving out 
 the 4 lines, and then 300 remain. 
 
 The beginning and end of Canto XXXV I re- 
 gard as coincident with those of the Nineteenth 
 Book, which has 424 lines. And here I admit that 
 there may be some doubt about the precise applica- 
 tion of our doctrine, but not about the doctrine 
 itself, or about the limits of the canto ; for there is 
 both an excellent pause at the end of the book and 
 a crowd of objectionable matter in between. But I 
 confess that at this juncture I use the theory rather 
 more freely as an independent test, to fix the exact 
 limits of this undesirable matter, instead of using it at 
 once to corroborate and derive corroboration from 
 existing ^grounds of suspicion. The canto begins 
 with the new morning and the return of Thetis, who 
 brings the new armour to her son ; proceeds with the 
 public renouncement of his wrath; and concludes 
 with his arming and the famous prophecy by the 
 horse Xanthus of his master's coming doom. First of 
 all there is a verse which, as it appears, must certainly 
 be excised. It is verse 77, which says that Agamem- 
 non addressed the assembly from his seat, just where 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 119 
 
 he was, without standing up in the midst. The 
 curious thing about the verse is that none of our 
 manuscripts omit it, though Zenodotus did so, and 
 it is not wholly clear why it was ever put in ; and it 
 seems at first sight to be strongly defended by the 
 stress which is laid on Agamemnon's wound 25 lines 
 higher up. But the fatal objection to it is that it 
 makes nonsense of his very first words. "Aga- 
 memnon," as Dr. Leaf remarks, "is mortified and 
 hampered by the loud applause called forth by 
 Achilles' speech." He therefore begins with a brief 
 protest, in which he says that it is only fair to listen 
 to the man who is on his legs, and not to interrupt, 
 which puts an orator out, and makes both hearing 
 and speaking difficult. The word ea-raorog, which 
 he uses, plainly implies that he himself is standing 
 up. We must suppose that the stress laid on the 
 wound accounts solely for the fact that Agamemnon 
 is the last of all the kings to enter the assembly, 
 which is itself expressed in emphatic terms; and 
 indeed it is striking, when he is the chief person 
 interested, though at the same time one can almost 
 feel the pause of hushed expectation until the second 
 party to the quarrel appears. But our interpolator, 
 ill displeased with this, made him not only the last 
 to enter, but also to speak sitting down ; an unlucky 
 addition, for Agamemnon's wound was in the arm, 
 and would not hinder at all his standing up, though it 
 might prevent him moving about very quickly. But 
 
I20 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 to conclude, the verse is one of the few which have 
 good manuscript authority and which yet are re- 
 jected by Mr. Monro ; and most other texts do the 
 same. 
 
 Now we continue with Agamemnon's speech. 
 When I admitted above that the legend of Heracles 
 was somewhat copious in Homer, I never bargained 
 for so big a dose as this. For here he goes on for 
 42 lines about him, verses 95-136, during which 
 we must needs forget the feverish impatience of 
 Achilles, and take leave of the whole situation, and 
 fly away to Thebes at first, and next to Olympus, 
 and thence to Argos, and up again to Olympus, and 
 after this wide circuit descend with Ate to the same 
 point from which we set out. But attend to Dr. 
 Leaf: "95-136. This long episode, which the last 
 few lines (from 88 or 90) are designed to introduce, 
 has all the appearance of having been worked into 
 the story from an independent Herakleia, It is 
 needless to point out how unsuitable such a digres- 
 sion is at this point ; though indeed many speakers 
 with a bad case take refuge in telling stories. — It 
 will be seen that the doings and even the very words 
 of the gods are narrated by an actor in the story ; 
 elsewhere they are told only by the poet himself, 
 who knows them of course by direct inspiration. 
 This no doubt was the case in the original 
 Herakleiay So that our excision, up to this point, 
 tallies very closely with the faults found by scholars 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 121 
 
 after all. But observe that Dr. Leaf concedes that 
 many speakers with a bad case take refuge in telling 
 stories. Yes, and Agamemnon does it too, but does 
 it at reasonable length, in the little allegory of Ate 
 which comes just before the long account of 
 Heracles. He actually calls it tovtov ixvOov, "this 
 parable," and says that he has heard a good deal of 
 it in the last few days. I cannot admit that the 
 verses in which it is told were designed to introduce 
 the tale of Heracles. For it is too like the allegory 
 of the Prayers in the speech of Phoenix, and the 
 allegory of the Casks in the speech of Achilles at 
 XXIV 527-533, to let us doubt that their author 
 was the same ; and I regard them all three as 
 thoroughly Homeric. " Awful is Ate the daughter 
 of Zeus," quoth the king, " who blinds the wits of 
 all, woe worth her ! And hers are tender feet ; for 
 she draws not nigh upon the ground, but she 
 marches over heads of men, hampering all man- 
 kind — well, at least there is one other whom she 
 has pinioned down (meaning Achilles as well as 
 himself). But since I have been blinded, and Zeus 
 took from me my senses, I am willing to make 
 friends again and pay a priceless recompense." Now 
 the word erepov in verse 94, by which the king in 
 self-excuse glances at the other party to the quarrel, 
 is taken by the interpolator in quite a different way. 
 " For once upon a time she blinded also Zeus, who 
 is said to be the best of men as well as gods " ; 
 
122 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 which is next to nonsense, but was forced upon him 
 by the emphatic avOpwirov^ in Agamemnon's speech, 
 with which Zeus was somehow to be joined before 
 he could come in ; though the real poet meant the 
 very opposite, that Ate the daughter of Zeus was a 
 plague peculiar to mankind. So this fixes the first 
 line of the interpolation, and the last line fixes itself. 
 Well, Agamemnon finishes off his speech of 25 
 lines instead of 67, and Achilles makes a short reply, 
 in which he says that he is indifferent whether he is 
 to get gifts or not, but is very earnest about getting 
 to work on the Trojans at once. Then Odysseus 
 dissuades him from urging the Greeks to fight with- 
 out breaking their fast, and bids him grant them 
 time to do so, while Agamemnon is to bring the 
 gifts before them all, that Achilles may be gratified by 
 the public exhibition of so magnificent a recompense. 
 He next turns to Agamemnon, and in a few brief 
 words says that he has lost no dignity by doing the 
 right thing, and will know the better in future how 
 to treat his subject kings. And here, if I mistake 
 not, this stage of the transaction was wisely closed by 
 Odysseus going directly for the gifts to Agamemnon's 
 tent, as he is now made to do 54 lines lower down at 
 verse 238. But between these two limits there lies 
 another speech of Agamemnon, which is very flat, 
 another speech of Achilles, which is very good, and 
 another speech of Odysseus, which is better still. 
 And I suspect that the flat speech was put together 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 123 
 
 to connect with the context the other two, which 
 were composed apart by a real poet, whoever he 
 was, and incorporated here. For good though these 
 speeches are in themselves, they have in their 
 present context this sad defect, that they prolong 
 beyond endurance the debate as to whether Achilles 
 and the rest are to have their breakfast or not, 
 before they begin to fight. This is the matter 
 which has caused the most crying offence to readers 
 of the book, and it provokes the ridicule of Dr. 
 Leaf. The last two would do very well if the first 
 were away ; for they contain in themselves about as 
 much of this subject as we can stand, but are 
 intolerable when added on to the other. But the 
 other two are also good in themselves, with one 
 exception to which we shall return, and cannot be 
 detached without causing incoherence ; whereas these 
 will go out with facility. Then, as I have stated, 
 the words which close the first speech of Odysseus 
 have every appearance of winding up the scene 
 between Agamemnon and Achilles, where shortest 
 surely is best. And I think that most readers will 
 detect at once in the second speech of Odysseus, 
 although not perhaps in that of Achilles, a marked 
 difference of style, which chiefly consists in a love of 
 pithy sententious sayings, most happily expressed ; 
 a fact to which I draw the reader's attention, if he 
 has not noted it before, because I believe that we 
 shall meet with this author again. 
 
124 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 But now let us examine the interpolation a little 
 more closely. If the reader follows on at once from 
 verse 183 to verse 238, he will see that there was 
 given an opening here. For Odysseus, after sug- 
 gesting that Agamemnon should produce the gifts, 
 very sensibly joins to himself the sons of Nestor and 
 goes off to fetch them without delay from Aga- 
 memnon's tent : a liberty that he was entitled to 
 take, firstly because of the king's readiness expressed 
 in verses 140-144 to produce the gifts either 
 directly or later on, whichever were most agreeable 
 to Achilles, a matter which Odysseus has argued 
 in his speech and now settles by his action ; and 
 next, because Odysseus himself had been com- 
 missioned to offer these gifts to Achilles at the time 
 of the Embassy, a fact which is also mentioned by 
 the king in the same passage, and which is as good 
 as a hint to Odysseus. And again we may recall 
 the propensity of Odysseus to act without waiting 
 for others, which miscarried before at the time of 
 the Embassy, but here succeeds, so that the poet 
 now makes him amends. All this is so clearly 
 understood that it does not need to be expressed. 
 Then the gifts are produced, and Talthybius brings 
 a goat to sacrifice, and Agamemnon takes an oath 
 that he has never known Briseis ; all which is 
 despatched without previous order to Talthybius to 
 bring the goat, or intention here expressed of taking 
 the oath, for the simple reason that the ceremony of 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 125 
 
 the oath bears a near resemblance to that of Book 
 III 103-120, where Talthybius performs the same 
 function ; while his willingness to take the oath has 
 been avowed by Agamemnon at Book IX 132-134 ; 
 so that these things also could be understood without 
 repeating them thrice. And last of all the elders 
 gather around Achilles and entreat him to join 
 them at table; but it is not said where, for we 
 know from VII 313 and IX 90 that their high repasts 
 are regularly held in Agamemnon's tent. 
 
 Now from these several delinquencies of the 
 poet has been constructed that bald and bare address 
 of Agamemnon, as well as another short passage, to 
 which we shall recur. There he names Odysseus as 
 the very man to bring the gifts, and there he 
 commands Talthybius to bring the goat; and so is 
 found an excuse for another reply of Achilles to 
 Agamemnon, and another reply of Odysseus to 
 Achilles, which may be the motive of the whole. 
 There is nothing inconsistent in Agamemnon's 
 speech, although it has some oddities, but it is 
 almost prose when it is not made up from what 
 follows ; and at this point I place the beginning of 
 the interpolation which, as all will admit, gives us 
 far too much about eating and drinking. Well, 
 now let us turn to the first speech of Odysseus and 
 fix our attention on verses 175-180. There he 
 suggests that Agamemnon should take the oath, and 
 there he suggests that the king should feast Achilles 
 
126 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 in his tent ; which completes the circle, and causes 
 all these subjects to be repeated thrice. But this 
 passage, unlike the other, oiFers something definite 
 to lay hold on. For the couplet 176-177 is re- 
 peated from IX 275-276 in a purely mechanical 
 manner, as is shown by the way of mentioning her 
 bed, the pronoun, as Dr. Leaf says, "having no 
 reference, as Briseis has not been named or even 
 remotely alluded to ; whereas in I she is the subject 
 of the preceding line." And this couplet carries 
 the verse above along with it. And the next verse 
 is omitted from many manuscripts, and is bracketed 
 in all the texts. Then in the last verse of the six 
 there is a very strange use of the adjective eTriSeue^, 
 which seems to be used for an abstract substantive 
 meaning "deficiency." So that I believe these 6 
 verses to be false; and if we leave them out, the 
 words of Odysseus addressed to Achilles will end 
 with lavOri^, and those addressed to Agamemnon 
 with ■)(a\€Tr-nvri, which is a small but elegant point. 
 
 And how stand we now with respect to our 
 numbers ? The sum of our excision hitherto is 
 I + 42 + 6 + 54 = 103 ; which leaves us to find 2 1 
 lines before we have reduced 424 to 300. But 
 there can be little doubt where we are to look 
 for them. The lament of Briseis for Patroclus 
 sounds a fine sort of thing until you come to 
 read it with care. There is perhaps no very obvious 
 reason why Briseis and the other captive women 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 127 
 
 should weep for him at all. For when in Book 
 XVIII 28-31 the female slaves shriek out and beat 
 their breasts, it is at the sight of Achilles col- 
 lapsed in the dust and tearing his hair, and not at 
 the news of Patroclus' death, of which they have 
 not heard. And in the nightlong mourning for 
 Patroclus at XVIII 314-355 the Greeks and 
 Myrmidons take part, but the women not at all ; 
 which is no more than natural. But here the 
 lament of Briseis proceeds on the extravagant sup- 
 position that Patroclus had promised to legitimate 
 her union with Achilles, and console her for the 
 loss of her former husband, by making her the 
 wife of the very man who slew him ; on which 
 Dr. Leaf remarks, " The idea of a marriage between 
 Achilles and a captive is alien not only to the 
 rest of the Iliad but to all the manners of the 
 heroic age." And as for the other women, who 
 bear the burden, they are brought in by saying 
 that all of them made moan for Patroclus as a 
 pretext, but each for the sorrows of themselves ; 
 a point which has been much admired, despite 
 the note of insincerity it strikes, but one which 
 I hold with Heyne to display a penetration alien 
 to the genius of our poet. Consider how the 
 real poet does it. The elders gather round Achilles, 
 who makes a pathetic speech, in which he refers 
 to his aged father Peleus and his infant son Neop- 
 tolemus, for whom he had hoped that Patroclus 
 
128 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 would live on, since he himself is destined to die 
 at Troy. " So spake he weeping, and the old 
 men mourned as well, remembering what each 
 had left behind him in his halls " ; which rings 
 sincere and true. And to give a notion of the 
 linguistic character of the lament, take this note 
 of Dr. Leaps. " Apart from the question of style 
 and other difficulties, it contains many non-Epic 
 expressions ; kiXf] for FiKeXrj^ a-e eXenrov with hiatus 
 illicitus^ etSov (292) which cannot be resolved into 
 efiSov, eKOLCTTr} for FeKacrrfj. -Trpocjyaa-iv, 302, is also 
 doubtful. Tearing the skin (285) is not elsewhere 
 found as a sign of grief; heroic mourners do not 
 go farther than tearing the hair. But this may pos- 
 sibly be meant for a * barbarian ' custom." The 
 remark about tearing the skin I do not adopt, 
 as it seems to conflict with II 700 and XI 393 ; 
 but there is surely enough without it. And all 
 this within the compass of the 21 verses 282-302, 
 which may be removed with ease, so leaving 300 
 behind. 
 
 And here for the second time we part company 
 from Mr. Monro by retaining the 4 verses 365-368, 
 which he has enclosed in brackets. But this time 
 again it is a question not of manuscript authority 
 but of taste ; for all the manuscripts present them. 
 They describe the teeth of Achilles as rattling, 
 and his eyes as blazing like a fire, and his heart 
 as being filled with intolerable anguish; and how 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 129 
 
 in bitter rage against the Trojans he put on the 
 gifts of the god, which were wrought by the 
 labour of Hephaestus. I think them myself a 
 little overstrained, but not to be expunged. The 
 doubt upon the point is illustrated by what is 
 told of Aristarchus, that he first affixed his spits, 
 but afterwards took them away, considering the 
 nature of the hero's noise poetical. Perhaps the 
 poet was somewhat at a loss to complete the 
 triacosiad ; and Dr. Leaf defends the lines from 
 the charge of being grotesque on the ground of 
 barbaric grandeur. 
 
 And now, to give the reader rest, let us pass 
 over for the present the Twentieth Book, and go 
 on to verse 526 of the Twenty-first. There, with 
 the words kcrrnKei S' 6 yipwv Hpia/uLog, begins the 
 episode known as the Slaying of Hector, which 
 is continued down to the close of the Twenty- 
 second Book ; for at the verse aforesaid the scene 
 is cleared by the return of all the gods to Olympus 
 except Apollo, who enters sacred Ilios anxious for 
 the safety of her wall. The first part of the 
 episode is composed of the hurried flight of the 
 Trojans into Troy before the terrible Achilles, who 
 is arrested by a combat with Agenor, and diverted 
 by Apollo in Agenor's form ; the heroic resolve 
 of Hector to withstand Achilles before the walls; 
 its shattering at his awful enemy's approach, and 
 his pursuit by Achilles. The second part con- 
 
 I 
 
I30 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 sists of the slaying of Hector and the wailing for 
 his death. The whole passage is very nearly perfect, 
 as all admit, and it contains 60 1 lines. The odd 
 verse is stigmatised by brackets in all the texts. 
 It is XXII 121, which is omitted by several manu- 
 scripts, is repeated from XVIII 512, and makes 
 a tautology here. The tercentenary break comes 
 after XXII 215, just before the words of Athene 
 to Achilles, which mark the beginning of the end. 
 It is a curious pause ; for we might have expected 
 it to come 2 verses higher up, where Apollo 
 leaves the side of Hector; after which Athene, 
 despatched from Olympus by Zeus, takes her stand 
 by the side of Achilles. But I think that we 
 can guess what the poet's intention was. He has 
 told us just above how Hector's fate settled down 
 in the scale, and so he throws the two verses 
 into the previous canto as a sort of final ounce, 
 thus overshooting slightly the even division of the 
 incident, to adapt his artistic form more close to 
 the facts described. Then follows as it were an 
 universal hush, and at last the solemn but trium- 
 phant words of Athene break upon the ear. She 
 begins with the impressive phrase vvv Srj vm y 
 eoXiray which reminds us that the moment fore- 
 told in Book XV 613-614 has at length arrived, 
 when Hector is to meet his death at the hands 
 of the son of Peleus, brought to pass by Pallas 
 Athene. The dual is used to mark the strict 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 131 
 
 alliance of the pair henceforth, as Athene's approach 
 to Achilles was subjoined to the desertion of 
 Hector by Apollo before the pause to emphasize the 
 solitude of Hector. And let us add, that as no 
 man who had heard the first part of this episode 
 could depart without hearing the last, so the poet 
 might be less careful to assign a distinct point 
 where the recitation could be broken off, and 
 might take a slight liberty with his usual pause 
 for the sake of artistic effect. What precedes and 
 follows the division we call Canto XXXIX and 
 Canto XL. 
 
 We go next to the Funeral Games for Patroclus, 
 which, with all that introduces and closes the epi- 
 sode, embrace the whole of the Twenty-third Book 
 and terminate at verse 21 of the Twenty-fourth. 
 Their figure is 918 lines. The 18 verses 629-646 
 are those which I exclude ; and perhaps by now the 
 reader will be satisfied without further argument, 
 when he hears that they contain a reminiscence of 
 Nestor, that they begin with cf'^' wg ^^woi/jh, that the 
 end is clearly marked by the koI in verse 646, and 
 that they make not the slightest difference to the 
 context on either side. I will only quote the words 
 of Dr. Leaf, that the couplet 639-640 "defies inter- 
 pretation " ; so we seem to be lucky in losing it. 
 And now for the two tercentenary pauses. They 
 descend of course after verse 300 and after verse 
 600 of Book XXin. The first falls just before Anti- 
 
132 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 lochus enters as the fourth competitor in the chariot 
 race. The reason of his separation from the three 
 others is that he is privileged to receive from his 
 father Nestor a long lecture on artful driving, which 
 results in his securing a second place with poor 
 horses, but involves him in a quarrel with the com- 
 petitor whom he outwits. He mollifies the excited 
 Menelaus by resigning the prize, and the canto ends 
 with a simile which describes the soothing effect of 
 the generous act. During this second pause we may 
 suppose the last ebullitions of Menelaus' irritation to 
 subside ; for when he resumes, with the beginning of 
 the next canto, he is calm. The pauses here again 
 are lighter than usual, although quite distinct, the 
 three cantos being meant to go together. They are 
 XLI and XLII and XLIII. 
 
 After the gay, the grave once more. At verse 22 
 of Book XXIV begins the episode entitled the Ransom 
 of Hector, the first part of which closes at verse 321, 
 making exactly 300 lines. It is the moment before 
 Priam issues from the town of Troy on his perilous 
 visit to Achilles, just after Zeus in response to his 
 prayer has sent an eagle on the right, which comforts 
 and rejoices the souls of the trembling watchers. This 
 is Canto XLIV. 
 
 But now what are we to do ? For here we are left 
 with 483 lines to the end of the poem. I will dis- 
 close the secret at once. First remove the spurious 
 verse 790, which many manuscripts omit, which is 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 133 
 
 thrice repeated in the Odyssey, and which all texts 
 bracket or reject. Next remove the little apologue 
 of Niobe that Achilles tells to Priam in verses 602- 
 620. Lastly remove whatever is said about Hermes, 
 and you will have removed most of the Odyssean 
 character which has so often been felt to belong to 
 this book, and will have exactly 300 lines left. Per- 
 haps I may be given leave to state that this was the 
 canto which finally convinced me of the truth of our 
 theory. For as a mere coincidence it seemed to me 
 incredible that you could detach these three things 
 in their entirety, without breaking into the rest, and 
 find yourself left with exactly 300 lines, all of them 
 coherent, while at the same time many puzzling 
 problems disappeared. But it was also the canto 
 which cost me the most trouble to determine, though 
 it is simpler in itself than some of the others. For 
 having left behind at first the less straightforward 
 cases, and having come along so smoothly through 
 the last six cantos, I was suddenly brought up against 
 this ultimate stretch of the story, which at all events 
 must be reduced, or else the theory would fail. It 
 was therefore my first experience of one of the more 
 complicated cases of interpolation ; but after it had 
 yielded, I felt more confidence in dealing with the 
 rest, because it gave me a distinct idea both of the 
 lengths and of the limits to which such work could 
 
 go. 
 
 About the tale of Niobe there is not much to be 
 
134 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 said. It is beautifully told in i6 verses, with 3 
 more to bring us back to our muttons. But the 
 speech of Achilles surely ends with his words in verse 
 601, vvv Se /JLvrja-do/ULeOa SopTrov^ "but NOW let US think 
 about supper," after which he cannot without impro- 
 priety go on for another 20 lines, but ought to suit 
 the action to the word at once by killing his sheep 
 at verse 621. Nor is the legend of Niobe found 
 anywhere else in Homer. The case of Hermes, 
 however, requires some care, and it will usefully 
 serve to introduce the reader to the more com- 
 plicated cases hitherto postponed. I assume that 
 he has his text of Homer at hand ; and if he will 
 be so good as to follow my direction, while I point 
 out how this episode can be detached, he may 
 possibly feel an inclination to smile both at the in- 
 genuity with which it has been woven in and at the 
 facility with which it can again be disengaged. He 
 was another real poet who devised this insertion, and 
 he has done his work with more art than the rest. 
 Well, let the reader put one bracket before verse 
 322, either in his mind or upon his page, and another 
 after verse 348. He will thus enclose two para- 
 graphs, in the first of which Hermes is sent by Zeus, 
 while the second conveys him to Troy. Now he 
 will notice that the first contains a direct contra- 
 diction of the paragraph above it, which closed the 
 canto before. For here it is stated in verses 327- 
 328 that Priam was pursued by all his friends deplor- 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 135 
 
 ing him much, as if he were rushing to his death ; 
 but there it is stated in verses 320-321 that as soon 
 as Zeus had sent the omen of the eagle they rejoiced, 
 and the spirit of all was comforted within them. So 
 dangerous a thing it is for a man, poet though he be, 
 to meddle with another man's conception ; and this 
 author's miscarriage at the outset affords a fair pre- 
 sumption that we ourselves are right in what we are 
 setting about. 
 
 And now let us leave in the next 2 J verses, 349- 
 351 down to €v TTOTa/xft), which bring Priam and 
 Idaeus beyond the Tomb of Ilus, after which they 
 halt the horses and the mules in the river, in order 
 that they may drink ; but let us put a bracket before 
 Srj yap Koi eiri KV€(pag tjXvOe yaiav. This was the point 
 chosen by the interpolator for the meeting of Hermes 
 and Priam. And you will see that at this point there 
 is a slight inconsequence ; for the further reason why 
 the mules and the horses are halted to drink can 
 hardly be, strictly speaking, because it has also grown 
 dark, which would have made it a matter of some 
 trouble to water them, but because there is also water 
 where they stop. But the object was to account for 
 Priam's going unobserved through the Greek lines, 
 and hence the mention of the darkness. But the 
 circumstance is sufficiently understood from the 
 moment when Priam enters Achilles' tent, where 
 we hear at 475-476 that the master's evening meal 
 is over, though the table is still spread ; and up to 
 
136 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 that point we know how Priam went safely through, 
 because in verses 153-154 of the last canto Zeus has 
 announced his intention of attaching Hermes to his 
 train. " But what is this ? " the reader will ask ; 
 " then Hermes appears after all ? " No, not appears ; 
 for the meaning of Zeus was that he would accom- 
 pany them invisible, just as it was before proposed 
 in heaven that he should steal away the corpse of 
 Hector. And this is proved by the fact that at 
 verses 182-183 ^^^^ repeats to Priam the words of 
 Zeus, in order to give him courage ; and yet, says 
 Dr. Leaf, " he does not mention it to Hekabe, nor 
 does he recognise his guide when he meets him ; 
 Hermes has to tell his name at the last moment." 
 Hence some suspect the verses in which Iris informs 
 him of the intention of Zeus. But the better solu- 
 tion is to reject the meeting of Hermes and Priam, 
 which conflicts with them ; for it is understood 
 throughout that Hermes is invisible, in perfect keep- 
 ing with his character, and therefore naught at all is 
 said of him by Priam. But the interpolator makes 
 him take the form of a beautiful youth, so as to work 
 in the scene between Priam and him ; on which Dr. 
 Leaf has to say : " It is strange that the description 
 should suit only the youthful Hermes of the great 
 age of Greek art ; for in works of the archaic period 
 the god is always represented as bearded." And once 
 more he says on 339-345 : " The whole of this pas- 
 sage, with the employment of Hermes as messenger, is 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 137 
 
 thoroughly Odyssean." But Hermes as the invisible 
 conductor belongs to the Iliad ; for so he is called or 
 implied at II 103 and XXI 497. Well, now let us 
 place our second bracket after 'Kp/meiag in verse 469. 
 So we get rid of him, as far as the outward journey 
 is concerned ; and you will note that the next words, 
 when united with ip irorafxw in verse 351, make a 
 very musical line. 
 
 But this causes the incident to take a different 
 turn, and one which is much more natural. When 
 Priam and Idaeus halt at the stream, Priam leaps 
 down and leaves Idaeus with the horses and the 
 mules, and goes ahead direct to the hut of Achilles. 
 The interview takes place, in which he informs 
 Achilles at 502 and 556 that he is bringing a vast 
 treasure, and implores him to render up the body of 
 Hector. Achilles invites him to sit down, but Priam 
 asks to be let off, so long as Hector's body is still 
 unredeemed. Achilles is nettled, and warns Priam 
 not to provoke him too far, for he is sure that a god 
 must have brought him as a suppliant to the ships, 
 and he would not transgress the will of Zeus. But 
 not a word does the trembling Priam speak to con- 
 firm in his auditor this salutary belief; which is 
 strange if he had parted from Hermes just before. 
 Then Achilles, followed by Automedon and Alci- 
 medon, dashes out of doors ; they unyoke the horses 
 and mules, and fetch in the herald Idaeus ; and they 
 bring the ransom of Hector from the chariot, and 
 
138 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 replace it with his corpse. So Priam and Idaeus sup 
 and sleep the night in the vestibule of the building, 
 under the verandah, to avoid inconvenient visitors to 
 Achilles, who sharply hurries them up. This is all 
 quite simple. But in the passage which we bracket 
 it is represented otherwise. Hermes leaps upon the 
 chariot, and drives the mules and horses up to the 
 wall and the trench, where he opens a gate and 
 thrusts aside the bars, and brings Priam and the 
 herald and the ransom all inside ; a needless service, 
 since the whole structure was ruined by his brother 
 Apollo long ago. And we may wonder how, if 
 Achilles had chanced to receive Priam with acerbity, 
 the miserable Idaeus and the ransom would have got 
 back safe across the river. Howbeit they advance to 
 the hut of Achilles, of which a brief description is 
 given, from which it appears to be a remarkably 
 massive house. There Hermes deposits Priam and 
 the glorious gifts, advising him in what form to 
 beseech Achilles (a piece of advice which Priam in 
 the sequel quite ignores), reveals his name, and so 
 departs to Olympus ; at which point precisely was 
 our second bracket placed. The result is that Priam 
 leaves the herald and the ransom and the live stock 
 standing outside in the court, while the interview 
 takes place within ; which again can only be deemed 
 a most precarious situation. 
 
 So now we come to the return journey. Let the 
 reader place a bracket before verse 677 and another 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 139 
 
 after verse 694. By excluding these 18 lines he will 
 exclude all that is said about Hermes, and the para- 
 graph will begin with 
 
 'Hws §€ KpOKOTTcrXos c/ciSvaTO irao-ov ctt' a?av, 
 
 a type of verse that does not often occur between a 
 pair of commas. In this passage we are told that 
 other gods and men slept all night, but that Hermes 
 did not sleep, pondering how to bring Priam back 
 from the ships, eluding the sacred warders of the 
 gate; a matter about which he experienced no 
 trouble before, for he put them all to sleep at 
 verse 445. And the gate again creates a difficulty, 
 although in the genuine verses 566-567 Achilles 
 naturally speaks of the sentinels of the Greek camp, 
 saying that Priam would not have eluded them, nor 
 would easily have heaved back the bar of his own 
 door, without some god to guide him ; which, by 
 the way, gave a good chance to the interpolator in 
 verses 453-456 to describe this beam, which re- 
 quired three men to strike it home and three to open 
 it up, though Achilles could do it alone. There it 
 was opened from outside by Hermes in visible form ; 
 and we may suppose that the same god's unseen 
 hand assisted Priam with the real bar, not elsewhere 
 described as remarkably heavy. And in the spurious 
 passage it must from the sense belong to the door 
 of the forecourt ; but in the true it belongs to 
 the hut itself, for there is no allusion to any such 
 
I40 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 enclosure except in the spurious verses. And surely 
 it was labour lost to contrive so mighty a barrier for 
 the court, when legs and a ladder would render it 
 vain. For the close stakes which he plants around 
 the court at verse 453 are of little avail, unless some 
 insuperable height is specified, and only show the 
 interpolator's shifts. So that the whole idea of this 
 weighty beam is absurd ; for it would give more 
 trouble than ever it was worth. Well, Hermes 
 wakes up Priam, and drives his team as far as the 
 Ford of Scamander, after which he goes away to 
 Olympus ; all of which, though not objectionable in 
 itself, can be perfectly well dispensed with, as the 
 reader will see on consulting the text. The purpose 
 here was to get Priam thus far before dawn ; but 
 his safety was sufficiently ensured by the care of 
 invisible Hermes, as well as by the promise of 
 Achilles overnight, that he would suspend all hos- 
 tilities until after Hector's funeral. 
 
 We thus obtain our 300 lines. But I must not 
 conceal from the reader that there is a verse which 
 the recent texts seclude, but which it is incumbent 
 on us to retain and defend. It is 558, the last of 
 these four in a speech of Priam to Achilles : 
 
 Xvo'oVf iv' 6<f>6aXnoL(rLv tSco, a-v Se Se^at ctTrotva 
 
 TToWd, TO, TOL <f>€pOfX€V' (TV Be TlOvS' (XTTOVaiO, Koi lA^OlS 
 
 (rrjv Is 7raT/5t8a yatav, CTret fxe irpioTOV eacras 
 avTov T€ ^(ueti/ Kttt opav c{>dos 'qeX.Loio. 
 
 Some manuscripts omit the verse, and editors agree 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 141 
 
 to discard it as a mere expletive of eaa-ag. But in 
 the first place it appears to have very fair manu- 
 script authority; and, again, it seems to be quite 
 requisite to the sense. For without the verse surely 
 the distinction of a-ijv from /me, together with the 
 addition of irpwrov, compels us to supplement 
 eaara^ from eXOoig, with the meaning, "may you 
 enjoy these gifts, and may you come to your own 
 native land, since you have first permitted me (to do 
 the same) " ; which is absurd, when Priam is standing 
 in his own native land. But if we retain it, with 
 the meaning, "since you have first permitted me 
 myself to live (at the moment) and to behold the 
 light of the sun (hereafter)," there is an excellent 
 point. For it glances at the doom laid upon the 
 youthful warrior, that he never was to return to his 
 native land, but was fated to die at Troy; and the 
 prayer of the grateful old king that it might haply 
 be remitted, in consideration of his mercy for another, 
 could not be more delicately expressed. But with- 
 out the verse this notion does not arise at all. Dr. 
 Leaf quotes in defence of eaa-as without an infinitive 
 verse 569, 
 
 jx-q are, ykpov, ov8^ avrhv €vi KXL(rirj(riv lacro). 
 
 Yes, but there is no irpwrov here, and no possible 
 ambiguity about the meaning. "Do not provoke 
 me," says Achilles, " lest even as you stand within 
 my tent, old man, I let you not alone " ; where the 
 
142 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 reticence itself adds a terror to the threat. Next he 
 quotes verse 684, which is found in our rejected 
 passage, and of which I will only say that again 
 there is no possible ambiguity. Thirdly, he quotes 
 XVI 731, Aavaovg ea ovS' evapiXev^ where the mean- 
 ing of ea is instantly conveyed by the words which 
 follow it. And lastly he quotes Odyss. IV 743-4, 
 Karcucrave vtiXei ;(aX«:w, ^ ea, where the sense of ea is 
 instantly conceived from what precedes. The last 
 two instances tend to show that the sense of iirei fxe 
 TTptoTou eaa-ag^ unless it is followed by an infinitive, 
 ought to be completed from the context; which 
 if it be the case, the clause by itself is not alone 
 ambiguous but openly absurd. 
 
 It is time to go back and direct our attention to 
 that stretch of poetry which extends from the first 
 verse of the Twentieth Book to verse 525 of the 
 Twenty-First. It consists of 1028 lines in all. 
 Now you may try every way to divide up these 
 verses as they stand, but you will not find that two 
 satisfactory pauses can be produced, between which 
 they will lie in three sections of 300 lines, after 
 rejecting passages or particular verses antecedently 
 suspicious. But there is one set of verses which 
 seems to be marked out for the application of our 
 method. It is that which begins at Book XX 176 
 and continues down to the close of the same book. 
 The anterior limit is the moment when Achilles and 
 Aeneas, whose encounter has already been promoted 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 143 
 
 by Apollo, come actually face to face. And we may 
 observe that just before the break occurs the long 
 and splendid simile, alluded to above as one of the 
 finest in Homer, in which Achilles is compared to a 
 lion lashing himself to fight, and meditating either 
 to slay some man or to perish in the foremost throng. 
 "It stands out from the context," says Dr. Leaf; a 
 remark which we may convert to our own account 
 by saying that the poet knows how to set off his 
 jewel by placing it before the pause. The posterior 
 limit is the moment when Achilles, in his tremen- 
 dous onslaught upon the Trojans, arrives at the 
 Ford of Scamander; and here again the poet has 
 summed up the situation in a pair of useful similes. 
 The whole is 328 lines. But there can hardly be 
 the slightest doubt about the odd 28. They are 
 verses 213-240, in which Aeneas retails the long 
 genealogy of the Trojan royal family, setting out 
 with Zeus and going on with Dardanus, Ericthonius, 
 Tros ; Ilus and Assaracus and Ganymede, sons of 
 Tros ; Laomedon, son of Ilus ; Tithonus and Priam 
 and Lampus and Clytius and Hicetaon, the sons of 
 Laomedon; Capys, son of Assaracus, Anchises, 
 Aeneas; and Hector, a son of Priam. And all 
 this solemn deduction of his pedigree takes place in 
 answer to a few bantering words of Achilles, which 
 import that Aeneas was ambitious to sit upon the 
 throne of Troy himself. The tree is introduced by the 
 very same words as were used in tracing the genealogy 
 
144 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 of Glaucus in the Sixth Book, " But if indeed you 
 desire to find out about this, that you may perfectly 
 comprehend our lineage, and many men know of it " ; 
 and it ends immediately before another verse occur- 
 ring in the former passage, " Such is the lineage and 
 blood of which I boast that I come," which properly 
 applies to his statement in the genuine verses that 
 his father was Anchises and his mother is Aphrodite, 
 and as worthy a pair as Peleus and Thetis too. I 
 cannot agree with Dr. Leaf, when he avers that in 
 the speech of Achilles there is not one word belong- 
 ing to the situation ; but I do agree with him when 
 he ridicules the lengthy Trojan pedigree, which 
 Aeneas has begun by asserting that Achilles well 
 knows already. 
 
 But once again there is a single line which all 
 the recent texts seclude. It is verse 312, and 
 it happens to be of the same nature as the last, 
 being commonly rejected as intended to provide 
 an infinitive for ida-yjg in the verse above. It was 
 lucky that we had good grounds for holding on 
 to the other one ; for here the manuscript autho- 
 rity is slighter, and there are less forcible links to 
 chain it to the context. But are we not fairly 
 entitled to assume that the same unhappy influence 
 which operated in the former case has operated 
 here, and that the difference of manuscript autho- 
 rity merely measures the different degree of facility 
 with which the line could be done without, when 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 145 
 
 once the notion of its wrongness was started ? The 
 greater the ease with which it could be dropped, 
 the more the copies that would thenceforth omit 
 it ; but all the same it may be a perfectly genuine 
 line. Hera says to Poseidon concerning Aeneas, 
 who is highly thought of on both sides of Olympus, 
 " You must consider for yourself, whether you will 
 rescue him, or whether you will leave him 
 
 TlrjXetSr) 'A>(tAiJt Saiirjfievat^ ecrdXhv lorra, 
 
 to be slain by Achilles, son of Peleus, worthy 
 though he be." Now there is no doubt that 
 we could easily dispense with the infinitive here ; 
 for the meaning of eda-rig is amply explained by 
 that of epva-a-eai before it. But neither again is there 
 harm in completing it ; and the first three words 
 in a manner revert to Poseidon's phrase IliyXe/cow 
 Sa/uLch "Al'Soa-Se Kareicri in 294, after which he had 
 digressed a little on the merits of Aeneas. And 
 we may observe that ia-OXov has its correct Homeric 
 sense of useful, serviceable, good for something; 
 which refers to the welcome gifts that Aeneas 
 always gave to the gods, as stated by Poseidon at 
 299, and accounts for their interest on his behalf. 
 I must frankly confess that had it suited my 
 purpose to leave out the line, I should have done 
 so without scruple ; but since the opposite is the 
 case, I am predisposed to defend it. And perhaps 
 our criterion, if once it is established, will lend its 
 
 K 
 
146 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 support to this innocent line. This is Canto 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Now deducting 328 from 1028, we are left 
 with 700 lines, of which 175 come before the 
 canto last determined, while 525 follow after it; 
 these being the residual portions of Book XX and 
 Book XXI respectively. I am about to invite the 
 reader to take a Napoleonic step, vast but simple. 
 If he look at the title of the Twentieth Book, he 
 will see that it is inscribed as Theomachia or the 
 Battle of the Gods. But he will look in vain for 
 any such battle in the book itself; for it does 
 not begin till the next. Nor is it a mere example 
 of misnomer, but affects the artistic course of the 
 narrative. These are the words of Dr. Leaf : " There 
 is in <X> a real battle of the gods; but all that we 
 have here is a bombastic introduction (1-74) which 
 leads to nothing whatever, and is in quite ludicrous 
 contradiction to the peaceful mood of 133 ff. 
 It is likely enough that the prologue here really 
 belongs to the battle in ^; for ^ 385 or 387 
 might follow on Y 74 with much gain to the 
 significance of 55-74.'* With the main objection 
 urged I fully agree. It is ludicrous that Zeus 
 should remove his veto on the intervention of the 
 gods, and awake incessant war; the gods go forth 
 to battle, and range themselves against each other, 
 and encourage the mortal combatants ; grievous 
 strife break out among themselves; Zeus thunder 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 147 
 
 horribly from on high, Poseidon from below shake 
 the tops of the mountains, and Hades tremble 
 lower still at the conflict coming on; and then 
 that the whole heavenly host should quietly go 
 and sit down in two bodies, one around Poseidon 
 and Hera at the wall of Heracles, and the other 
 around Apollo and Ares upon the brows of Calli- 
 colone; where they remain sitting peacefully 
 throughout the space of 732 verses, and at length 
 begin the battle for no particular reason at XXI 
 385. But instead of inferring that the prologue 
 here really belongs to the battle in XXI, I infer 
 that the battle in XXI really belongs to the pro- 
 logue here. For consider what Dr. Leaf says 
 himself in his introduction to Book XXI : " The 
 Theomachy (385-513) is one of the very few 
 passages in the Iliad which can be pronounced 
 poetically bad. Unlike the really Homeric episodes, 
 it does not come at a break in the main story, but 
 interrupts meaninglessly Achilles' career of ven- 
 geance. In place of the imposing conflict of the 
 divine powers which we were led to expect at the 
 beginning of Y, we are presented only with a ridicu- 
 lous harlequinade, having no reference to the story, 
 poverty-stricken in expression, and owing what 
 little interest it has to the reminiscences of the 
 wounding of Aphrodite in E, on which it is doubt- 
 less founded . . . . It is noteworthy, however, 
 that the episode is remarkably free from linguistic 
 
148 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 oiFences, such as 'violations of the digamma' and 
 other signs of late composition. The author of 
 it must have had an accurate sense of the old 
 Epic language." I should not exactly term the 
 Theomachy a ridiculous harlequinade, nor its pro- 
 logue a bombastic introduction ; but the latter 
 is perhaps a little overwrought, and the former 
 is couched in a lighter vein. And yet, perverse 
 as it may seem, I regard it as an instance of sound 
 judgment in our author. For he was aware that 
 he could describe no effects at all adequate to a 
 conflict of divinities, but that each successive stroke 
 could only prescribe a limit to their powers. He 
 therefore withholds the greater gods, Poseidon and 
 Apollo, from the fray; grants the greater god- 
 desses, Athene and Hera, an easy victory; makes 
 the throes of nature as terrific as he can ; but 
 dissolves the whole in laughter, and interposes 
 this humorous episode as a sort of relief before 
 the tragic climax of his story. And perhaps there 
 are few phrases in the poem more stupendous than 
 ajuLCp], Se a-aXTTiy^ep jixiyag oupavog, or the one next be- 
 fore it, PpoL')(e S^ evpela x'^^^i ^^ which you can almost 
 hear the wide earth creaking with the weight of these 
 heavenly combatants; not to speak of the freedom 
 from linguistic offence which Dr. Leaf allows. 
 
 But on the main point I agree with him again. 
 In its present position the Theomachy meaninglessly 
 interrupts Achilles' career of vengeance, and ought 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 149 
 
 to come before it. And the place where it ought 
 to come is waiting ready for it at verse 1 5 5 of Book 
 XX, shortly before the career of Achilles is opened 
 by the gradual approach of himself and Aeneas, 
 during which the poet depicts his hero's gait in the 
 long and elaborate simile with which the canto 
 closes. Interpose the whole Theomachia in XXI 
 385-514 between verses 155 and 156 of Book XX, 
 and watch how the narrative runs. Poseidon and 
 other gods, Oeol aWot in XX 149, sit down at the 
 wall of Heracles ; while others sit opposite, around 
 Apollo and Ares, on the brows of Callicolone. But 
 among yet other gods, ev S^ aWoiari Oeola-iv in XXI 
 385, strife fell with heavy weight. The whole uni- 
 verse rings. Zeus sitting on Olympus hears it and 
 laughs, when he looks on gods engaging in war. 
 Then those others no longer stood aloof; for Ares 
 led them on. He singles out Athene from the 
 opposite side ; and so the battle is fairly joined. 
 Now surely the connection and contrast of Oeoi 
 aWoi with aWoicrt Seoicriv^ together with the reference 
 of o7 ye in XXI 391 to OL in XX 151, superadded 
 to the fact that such a transposition can be made 
 without a jar, is sufficient proof that originally the 
 one passage followed directly on the other. And 
 the careful distinction of the gods who commence 
 the fray from those who sit about Poseidon and 
 Apollo produces a very good point ; for so it often 
 happens that when insignificant ones begin to quarrel, 
 
I50 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 their betters are apt to be drawn into it too. Well, 
 now let us come to the other end. The battle goes 
 blithely on, until Hera chastises Artemis, who pro- 
 ceeds to Olympus and complains to Zeus of her 
 stepmother's conduct. The interview closes with 
 the familiar verse wg ol fxev roiavra : and here, but 
 for the subsequent fight of Achilles with the River, 
 which leads on to the fight of the River with 
 Hephaestus, the Battle of the Gods is brought to 
 an end. Then we return to the mortal actors, who 
 have all this while been marshalling around their 
 respective chieftains, at XX 156 roov S' dirav eirXw^n 
 ttcSlov . . . avSpwv i^S^ I.ttitodv. Achilles and Aeneas 
 advance into the middle, as arranged by Apollo 
 before the Battle of the Gods began ; the canto 
 closes with the simile so often noticed ; and with the 
 beginning of the next the two champions fall to 
 work, marking the exact moment at which the 
 triumphant career of Achilles begins. Nothing 
 could be more coherent, nothing better subordinated, 
 or more cunningly contrived. 
 
 And now what is the numerical result of this 
 transposition ^ There are 155 verses before the 
 Theomachia, which itself contains 130, and is 
 followed by 20 to the end of the canto ; making 
 305 in all. Two of these verses are enclosed in 
 brackets in all the texts. The first is XX 135, 
 which many manuscripts omit, and which is repeated 
 from VIII 211, owing to the similarity of the verse 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 151 
 
 above. The second is XXI 510, in the Theomachia 
 itself, which is omitted by a large majority of manu- 
 scripts, and is identical with V 374, where it follows 
 on the wounding of Aphrodite, as here on the 
 chastisement of Artemis. As to the remaining 
 three, the conclusion is irresistible. They are the 3 
 verses XX 153-155, which were put in to delay the 
 Theomachia to a later stage : "So sat they on each 
 side devising their plans ; but both sides shrank from 
 beginning the war, though Zeus sitting on high was 
 urging them on." They form a little paragraph all 
 by themselves, as marked in the text of Mr. Monro. 
 Even if we keep them in, the narrative would cohere 
 as suggested above. But I do not think that there 
 are three other verses that can equally well be done 
 without ; and they delay the connection of aWoi 
 and aWoia-iv a little too long. Then again, though 
 I have tried to give the most natural meaning to 
 Zev9 S' rjiuL€vo9 v^i /ceXeue, yet it is not wholly correct. 
 For it ought to mean that Zeus was commanding 
 them to fight ; which if he could command, when 
 seated on Olympus, yet it fails of its effect, 
 for they begin for a different reason. But Dr. 
 Hentze and Dr. Leaf think it ought to mean, " And 
 Zeus sitting on high was supreme over them " ; which 
 may be even more correct, but is still more irrelevant. 
 So that the verses are not without a difficulty in 
 themselves. Now if anyone should ask how the 
 dislocation of the Theomachia came about, the cause 
 
152 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 I take to be this. The poet, as we saw, finished off 
 the battle with a scene in Olympus, before the career 
 of Achilles began. But he could not explicitly state 
 that it was over, because he wished to restart it with 
 Hephaestus and Scamander, when the River tries to 
 overwhelm Achilles. But the diasceuast, so to call 
 him, had the misery to ask himself what the gods 
 were imagined to be doing, if their fighting was 
 stopped, during the first part of Achilles' career; 
 to which the true answer is, that anyone who could 
 turn his attention from that exciting theme might 
 think whatever he liked. But not content with this, 
 he made the gods sit devising their plans during 
 half of Achilles' career, and kept them sitting there 
 until the Fight with the River, and then at length 
 brought in the Theomachia ; so that to solve his 
 own silly problem he raised another far worse. So 
 much for Canto XXXVI. 
 
 The next canto, which embraces the career of 
 Achilles till he reaches the Ford of Xanthus or 
 Scamander, we have already settled ; and now we 
 have to deal with Canto XXXVIII, which begins 
 with the beginning of Book XXI and extends down 
 to verse 525. But we have taken out the Theo- 
 machia in the 130 verses 385-514, and are therefore 
 left with 395 lines. Are there 95 verses which would 
 be better away .? I hold that there are exactly that 
 number. First of all let us despatch the spurious 
 verse 158, which many manuscripts omit, and which 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 153 
 
 all the texts enclose. It says that the river Axius 
 sends forth the fairest water of all upon the earth, 
 repeating II 850 in the Trojan Catalogue, which we 
 cut out before. But it does not suit in either place, 
 and caused great difficulty in antiquity ; for, as Dr. 
 Leaf informs us, "it is and always was, apparently, a 
 very dirty stream." We are now left with 94 lines ; 
 but it is surely a strange thing that you can go on 
 from avTcip 6 fin in verse 205 to avrap 6 fitj in verse 
 299, which makes 94 lines, and get rid of some grave 
 perplexities by doing so. And here let us interpose 
 a few words about the topography of the Troad, as 
 it is conceived by the author of the Iliad. The two 
 distinctive features of the scene are the Greek camp, 
 resting on the Hellespont to the north-west, and the 
 town of Troy, reposing on an eminence at the foot 
 of Mount Ida to the south-east. South and north 
 therefore, roughly speaking, face the foes. Between 
 them is the Trojan Plain, the middle point of which 
 is marked by the great Tomb of Ilus, as stated at 
 XI 167. Let us start from the Scaean gates of Troy 
 and advance beyond the Tomb, as Priam and Idaeus 
 did at XXIV 349, and we come to the Ford of 
 Scamander, whither Hector was carried back from 
 the ships when wounded by Ajax at XIV 433. The 
 river is imagined as flowing across the plain, which 
 it divides into two unequal parts, the wider toward 
 Troy and the narrower toward the camp ; after which 
 it sweeps round to the north, along the western side 
 
154 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 of the plain, and flows into the sea somewhere about 
 the ships of Achilles, past the right of the Greek 
 camp. About the bend, as it would seem, it is 
 joined by the river Simois, where Hera and Athene, 
 coming from Olympus, halted their steeds on the 
 first day of battle at V 774. We may say, for sim- 
 plicity's sake, that the Scaean Gates, the Tomb of 
 Ilus, the Ford of Scamander, and the Ship of 
 Odysseus lie in one straight line north and south ; 
 though the name might import that the Scaean gates 
 lie somewhat to the left of it, being balanced by some 
 other gates on the right. How far this supposition 
 fits the real facts, so well described by Dr. Leaf in 
 his recent book about Troy, we do not at present 
 inquire. 
 
 Well, Achilles first drives the Trojans across the 
 narrower portion of the plain, between the ships and 
 the river, until they come to the Ford. There he 
 cuts them into two parts, scaring half of them over 
 the Ford to what is called by eminence the Plain, 
 being the larger width of it, whence they fly to the 
 city ; while the other half he catches on the Greek 
 side, huddled up in the bend of the river. They 
 plunge into the stream ; he lays his spear on the 
 bank and leaps in after them with his sword alone, 
 hewing right and left until he is tired. Thence he 
 takes out alive twelve Trojan youths to be sacrificed 
 to Patroclus, binds them, and hands them over to 
 his comrades to convey to the ships. Then he darts 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 15 j 
 
 back again, no doubt this time by the Ford, for he 
 carries with him his weighty spear. He meets Lycaon 
 escaping out of the river, slays him, and pitches his 
 body back into the current, adding some contemptu- 
 ous words which infuriate the River, already angered 
 by the havoc in his stream. As he faces the river, 
 Asteropaeus escaping from it also meets him, is slain, 
 and left lying on the sand. Achilles proceeds to 
 the Plain ; but the wrathful River, resolved to stop 
 his course, swells the tide and floods the ground, 
 calling on his brother Simois to do the same. The 
 flood is described, and Achilles is almost swept away, 
 when Hera rouses Hephaestus to burn up the stream 
 with fire. The fight of the elements is described, 
 until Scamander pleads with Hera for mercy, who 
 thereupon restrains Hephaestus. Then Apollo enters 
 into Troy ; the rest of the gods depart to Olympus ; 
 and Achilles continues on his way to the city, dealing 
 death as he goes. And here follows next the Slaying 
 of Hector. 
 
 This is all quite simple and coherent ; but there 
 are two small matters which might alarm an unin- 
 structed reader. At verse 298, where we resume 
 after the interpolation, it is said that Achilles pro- 
 ceeded to the Plain, because a behest of the gods 
 did mightily urge him on. Now in the interpolated 
 passage a suggestion of this sort is made to him by 
 Poseidon at verse 293 ; and it looks as if by cutting 
 it out we should destroy the reference of the phrase, 
 
156 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 although the behest, if it can be so called, is not 
 urged by the gods but enjoined by Poseidon alone. 
 But if the reader will turn to Book XV 593 he will 
 learn that this is a general phrase, meaning only that 
 it was the will of heaven that he should continue his 
 career of vengeance. For there it is stated that the 
 Trojans, when attacking the ships, were performing 
 the behest of Zeus ; on which Dr. Leaf comments, 
 " The charge which Zeus has laid upon them, not in 
 direct words, but in his own counsel, as is explained 
 by what follows.'' What there follows is that Zeus 
 aroused a mighty strength within them ; and what 
 follows here is that Athene put a mighty strength 
 into Achilles. So that the one passage will bear out 
 the other in all respects, and there is no need for the 
 behest to be directly given. The other small point 
 is this, that by removing the Theomachia and going 
 on from verse 384 to verse 515, we shall hit on the 
 word avTOip thrice in the same paragraph, at 383 
 and 515 and 520; which might offend our ears. 
 But it marks the three successive stages in clearing 
 the scene for the Slaying of Hector ; first the cessa- 
 tion of the Fight with the River ; next the departure 
 of the gods ; and then the return to Achilles. So 
 that the repetition of the adverb is strong and dis- 
 tinct, instead of weak or careless. 
 
 Well, now to deal with the interpolation itself. 
 It states that, after slaying Asteropaeus, Achilles 
 went on to pursue the Paeonians ; which is not 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 157 
 
 much amiss in itself, for they may be presumed 
 to be near their leader Asteropaeus, although it 
 strikes Dr. Leaf as strange that nothing has been 
 said of them before. Then, according to this 
 author, the River assumes a human form and 
 bids Achilles slay the Trojans upon the Plain, if 
 he must, instead of damming up the stream with 
 their corpses. Achilles promises so to do, and 
 dashes after the Trojans. The River reproaches 
 Apollo for abandoning the Trojans, but Apollo 
 vouchsafes no reply, and appears in fact to be 
 nowhere near at hand. Then to our astonishment 
 Achilles, supposed to be pursuing the Trojans to 
 the town, is said to leap into the stream, which 
 swells up high and all but drowns him. He 
 escapes on the roots of an elm, but is pursued 
 by the River over the Plain, a chase which is very 
 well described, but which anticipates the future 
 description of the rising stream. Achilles is again 
 nearly drowned, when Poseidon and Athene in 
 human form catch him each by a hand and confirm 
 him — how ? With words ; after which they depart 
 to join the other gods. Here the interpolation 
 ends, and the genuine poet resumes with the flood- 
 ing of the Plain, and we have much the same 
 thing over again, except that at the close the 
 divine intervention is effectual ; for Hera sends 
 Hephaestus to burn up the stream with fire. One 
 part is a repetition or expansion of the other by 
 
158 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 somebody who wanted more of this attractive 
 episode. I will end by quoting the words of Dr. 
 Leaf: "It is however in the Fight with the River, 
 from which the book takes its name, that we find 
 the real crux. As to the wild grandeur of this 
 splendid scene there cannot be two opinions. Yet 
 our complete enjoyment is somewhat marred by 
 a want of clearness in the motives, which may 
 be focussed at two points. The first of these is 
 at the beginning, 211-27, where Skamandros bids 
 Achilles, if he must slay the Trojans, to slay 
 them on the plain ; and Achilles replies ' it shall 
 be done as thou biddest, but I will not stop till 
 I have driven them to the city.' So far all is 
 simple; we imagine that Achilles, true to his 
 promise, has left the river and attacked the fleeing 
 Trojans in the plain ; if the narrative continued 
 with 540 we could not find anything to object 
 to. But instead of this we first have a passionate 
 appeal from the River to Apollo (228-32), and 
 then to our surprise find that Achilles, instead of 
 carrying out his promise, leaps into the middle 
 of the stream (233). This undoubtedly contradicts 
 the plain sense of what has gone before." And 
 again about the other difiiculty: "In 284 Poseidon 
 and Athene come to Achilles' aid. But they 
 confine themselves to empty promises. They tell 
 Achilles that the River 'will soon assuage,' and up 
 to 304 we seem to see Achilles in a fair way to escape. 
 
BK. SEVENTEEN TO TWENTY-FOUR 159 
 
 But in 305, instead of assuaging, Skamandros grows 
 'still more wroth/ and all but overwhelms the 
 hero, till Hera herself, evidently ignorant of her 
 friends' intervention, is * sore afraid ' for Achilles 
 (328), and takes the practical step which the 
 others have so unaccountably omitted." These 
 inconsistencies are removed by going on from one 
 avTap 6 ^rj to the other, which gives us exactly 
 our 300 lines. And so we finish off the last third 
 part of the Iliad. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 BOOK THE SECOND, BOOK THE FIRST, 
 AND CONCLUSION 
 
 It only remains to deal with the first part of the 
 Second Book, that is, Canto III. This is a canto 
 about which I am not most doubtful myself, but 
 am most doubtful about convincing the reader, as 
 it is not easy to explain its original form, in so 
 clear a way that he can grasp its constitution, 
 without reprinting the text. I have therefore left 
 over its statement to the last, that it may derive 
 as much strength as possible from all that precede 
 it. There are 483 lines down to the commence- 
 ment of the Catalogue, with which our Canto IV 
 began ; but the reader will perhaps recollect that 
 we transferred the 29 verses 455-483, which con- 
 tain the six similes on end, from their position 
 before the Catalogue to a better one after it, which 
 leaves us to deal with 454. The difficulties of 
 the first portion of the book are only too well 
 known ; and Dr. Leaf does not go beyond the 
 mark in calling it "this wonderful medley of in- 
 consistent and self-contradictory motives." The in- 
 consequence centres in the conduct of Agamemnon. 
 
 z6o 
 
BKS. SECOND ^ FIRST : CONCLUSION i6i 
 
 A baleful dream is sent to him by Zeus, bidding 
 him arm his host with all haste, for the gods 
 are agreed to let the town of Troy be taken at 
 once ; a passage, by the way, which throws a doubt 
 on Mr. Monro's objection to VIII 550-552, spoken 
 of above, that there is no sign of any such agree- 
 ment among the Olympian gods. 
 
 Well, Agamemnon awakes, clothes himself in a 
 soft tunic, and at dawn commands the heralds to 
 summon an assembly of the Greeks. But first of 
 all he holds a privy council of the chiefs near 
 Nestor's ship, at which he communicates his dream ; 
 repeating almost the same words as are used to 
 describe the incident itself, but adding four verses 
 of his own, in which he proposes arming the 
 Greeks, but first " to tempt them with words, as is 
 right," and command them to fly with the ships, 
 while the other chiefs are to check them with 
 words, one on one side and one on another. Nestor 
 rises and remarks, that had any other Greek but 
 Agamemnon mentioned the dream, they would 
 disbelieve him, and proposes arming the Greeks; 
 with which the council ends. Well, the Greeks 
 assemble, and up gets Agamemnon with his famous 
 sceptre in his hand, and informs them that Zeus 
 has utterly disappointed him, and orders him to 
 return inglorious to Greece, since he has lost much 
 people ; using word for word the same 8 verses as 
 he uses in Book IX 18-25, ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ defeat of 
 
 L 
 
1 62 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 the Greeks. He then goes on to state how dis- 
 creditable it is that such and so plentiful a people 
 of the Greeks should fight in vain against the 
 Trojans, who are less than a tenth part of their 
 number; while their wives and children have been 
 nine years awaiting them at home, and their ships 
 and ropes have rotted away, and still their end is 
 unattained. He concludes by suggesting that they 
 should fly with the ships to their own native land, 
 for they will never take the town of Troy ; which 
 3 verses again he repeats word for word in IX 
 26-28, after the first Greek defeat. We are told 
 that he stirred the spirit of all amid the crowd, as 
 many as had not heard of the council. The whole 
 multitude is shaken ; they rush shouting to the 
 ships, and prepare to draw them down. Athene 
 descends from Olympus, and tells Odysseus to stop 
 them. Odysseus, accepting the suggestion as a 
 divine monition, takes the sceptre from Aga- 
 memnon's hand. Whenever he comes across a 
 royal and eminent man, he uses persuasion, among 
 other things asking whether all have not heard what 
 the king has said in council, or else saying that all 
 have not heard it ; for verse 1 94 is construed 
 either way, and creates a difficulty in both : either 
 that the council was unusually large, which is not 
 likely at so short a notice ; or else that Agamemnon 
 was not distinctly heard, which is improbable if it 
 was as small as usual. But when he finds a common 
 
BKS. SECOND ^ FIRST : CONCLUSION 163 
 
 man, he beats him with the sceptre, and advises him 
 to sit quiet and listen to others, saying that a 
 multitude of rulers is a bad thing ; there ought to 
 be but one king, but one ruler, and he the man 
 appointed by Zeus. And so they are brought back 
 to the assembly again, where all sit down except 
 Thersites, who could never stop talking, and who 
 now reviles Agamemnon to the secret indignation 
 of the Greeks, and ends by suggesting the very same 
 thing as the king had suggested before, that they 
 should all go home with the ships, saving only 
 that they should leave Agamemnon at Troy. But 
 Odysseus soon settles him, amid general applause, 
 with a stroke of the sceptre. Then up arises 
 Odysseus himself, and delivers a lengthy speech, in 
 which he reproves the Greeks for failing in allegi- 
 ance to their king; reminds them of the omen of 
 the serpent and nine sparrows, which he declares to 
 have been witnessed yesterday or the day before, 
 when the ships were assembling at Aulis; and 
 concludes by exhorting them all to remain until 
 they have taken the town of Priam. Then Nestor 
 follows, with words to the like effect, but ends by 
 advising Agamemnon to separate the troops by 
 tribes and clans, that he may judge who is a bad 
 leader and who is a good. Agamemnon rejoins with 
 a spirited speech, after which they all disperse and 
 take their morning meal. The great king offers 
 sacrifice to Zeus, and invites the greater chiefs to 
 
164 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 partake of it, which all of them do. Nestor 
 recommends no further delay, and an order is issued 
 to recommence the war. 
 
 Such is the extraordinary train of events springing 
 out of the dream despatched by Zeus. The reader 
 will ask at once why Agamemnon, with that divine 
 assurance, should want to try the temper of his 
 people at all. Next, the result turning out as it 
 does, why none of the chiefs in council have a word to 
 say either for or against, not even Nestor, who speaks 
 to his other proposal of arming the Greeks. Thirdly, 
 why Agamemnon, in his speech to the assembly, 
 should insist on the disgrace of having failed in their 
 object, and then suggest a step which is not only 
 far more disgraceful in itself, but makes success 
 impossible. Fourthly, why he should point out the 
 fact that the ships are rotten, at the very moment 
 when he is suggesting, "what is only right," that 
 they should use them. Fifthly, why not one of the 
 chiefs stirs a finger to stop them, until Athene tells 
 Odysseus to do the very thing that it was seemingly 
 reserved for all the chiefs to do ; and why it needs 
 an injunction of the goddess to put it into the head 
 of Odysseus. Sixthly, why the men of royal birth, 
 whoever they may be, are involved in the scandal. 
 Seventhly, why the vulgar are reproved for setting 
 up as kings, when they have as good as obeyed a 
 command of Agamemnon. Eighthly, why Thersites, 
 who could never stop talking, has not a word to say 
 
BKS. SECOND fc? FIRST : CONCLUSION 165 
 
 until the second assembly ; and why he, the meanest 
 of all the Greeks, is made to propose the same 
 measure as the noblest of all, Agamemnon; and 
 why the Greeks, who heard it with approval a short 
 time before, are so greatly delighted when Thersites 
 is set down. Ninthly, why the omen of the serpent 
 and the sparrows is regarded as so recently seen, 
 when it took place nine years ago at Aulis. Lastly, 
 why Nestor's advice to separate the people into 
 tribes and clans, in order that ,the merits of the 
 leaders may be known, is considered as accepted, 
 when the leaders never observe the rule throughout 
 the rest of the poem. 
 
 There must be something wrong about this. And 
 surely it is not hard to lay our finger on the spot. 
 When we find that the reckless suggestion of Aga- 
 memnon is contained in exactly the same 1 1 verses 
 as are used in propounding it in the Ninth Book, at 
 a time when it is natural and proper, we begin to 
 suspect that it was not made at all ; and that the 
 perfunctory council in which it is arranged, where 
 16 of the 33 verses are a mere repetition of others 
 earlier in the book, and most of the remainder occur 
 in other parts of the poem, is a contamination devised 
 to bring it in ; and that Agamemnon never told his 
 dream any more than Priam told Hecuba what Iris 
 said to him about the invisible Hermes. The same 
 suggestion to draw down the ships is made in other 
 words at Book XIV 65-81, where it is even more 
 
1 66 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 natural and proper than in the Ninth ; but it borders 
 on the ridiculous that he should make it thrice, and 
 here it is neither proper nor natural. Cut out the 
 whole council in verses 53-85, and you will see that 
 the verse above adapts itself to the verse below with 
 perfect fitness, 
 
 ol fJL€v €K7]pv(ra'ov, Tol S' riydpovro fid\' (5/ca 
 (rKrjTrTOV)(OL /^a(riXrje<s' erreo-crcvovTO Se Aaot, 
 
 and so we are into the assembly at once. Cut out 
 the 8 repeated verses 111-118 and the 3 repeated 
 verses 1 39-141, in which the suggestion of flight is 
 proposed, and then see how the speech of Agamem- 
 non runs. It turns out to be a strong appeal to the 
 Greeks to put the work through at once, on the 
 ground of disgrace in not having done it long before, 
 instead of a weak argument for running away ; and 
 the notice of the rotten ships becomes significant and 
 apt. But the reader, who may not be familiar with 
 minute points of Homeric style, will perhaps be sur- 
 prised that, after the first formal line of address, he 
 goes on with ala-^pov yap. But this is the habit when 
 either an abrupt or a tentative tone is assumed by the 
 speaker; and so Nestor begins, after a like formal 
 line, with iroWoi yap in VII 328 ; and so Achilles 
 uses it in I 123 and 293. Yes, but why should the 
 king assume a tentative tone, when the dream has 
 arrived to render him positive ? The secret is divined 
 by Dr. Leaf: " On the meeting of the army Thersites, 
 
BKS. SECOND ^ FIRST : CONCLUSION 167 
 
 before anyone else can speak, rises and attacks Aga- 
 memnon for his lustful greed in terms strictly appro- 
 priate to the occasion; 87-99 were immediately 
 followed by 212-42." In other words, the scene 
 with Thersites precedes Agamemnon's speech. That 
 is why Thersites is described as an immeasurable 
 chatterbox; and because he always says what he 
 imagines will amuse the Greeks, he is taken as 
 representative of the feeling of the moment, after 
 the nine days' plague and the quarrel with Achilles ; 
 and because he proposes their running away, that 
 is why Agamemnon, when he rises, speaks in so 
 chastened a mood, and remarks that the ships are 
 rotten. But I do it in a rather different way from 
 Dr. Leaf. For I take the whole of the scene with 
 Thersites, from oXXol jnev p el^ovro in 2 1 1 down to 
 cog (pda-av ^ TrXrjOvs in 278, and place it after 98 (not 
 99), with which it coheres very well. The result is 
 that the heralds first stop the bustle and noise in the 
 assembly, in order that the kings may get a hearing. 
 Then all the rest sit still, but Thersites alone chatters 
 on. He reviles Agamemnon and advises their running 
 away, until he is silenced by Odysseus, an achieve- 
 ment which the people applaud. Then after w? cpda-av 
 tj TrXrjOus I continue with ciJ^a ^e Kpeiwv ^ Ayajuiejuivcov in 
 100, instead of dvd S^ 6 7rTo\iiropQo<s ^OSuacrevg^ as 
 now it is ; and so comes in Agamemnon's speech, 
 in the silence won for him by Odysseus, and so it 
 takes its tone from the bitter attack of Thersites. 
 
i68 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 Well, the king concludes his speech, as amended 
 above, and it is said to stir the hearts of all amid the 
 crowd, Tracri lULera irKriQuv : and here it is that I go on 
 with ava S' 6 irTo\liropOo<s 'O^uo-o-eJ?, placing it after 
 the very same word irXtjOu^ as stands before it now, 
 but in a different context. But next to TrXtjOvv now 
 there is oa-oi ov ^ovXrjg eiraKova-av^ he Stirred the hearts 
 of all in the crowd, as many as had not heard of the 
 council ; which is absurd in itself, for none of the 
 commonalty could have heard of what happened in 
 the council, so that their hearts could not have been 
 unstirred on that account. Besides, we have cut 
 out all about the council, and this must follow it 
 too. And here begins the long interpolation which 
 was beyond a doubt the motive of the whole. For 
 after falsely making Agamemnon urge their all going 
 home to Greece, the word opive is taken in the sense 
 of stirring them to fly ; whereas, when his speech is 
 truly given as above, it means that he stirred them 
 to a sense of their duty, and shamed the discontent 
 revealed by the slanders of Thersites. However our 
 interpolator, once resolved that they should fly, and 
 having next thrust into the king's speech the borrowed 
 verses, so as to bring it about, fly they do in the 
 following lines, or rather set out to do so, until 
 Odysseus at the word of Athene goes round and 
 hunts them back to the assembly at verse 210, 
 where the scene with Thersites now comes in, which 
 we moved higher up before the rising of Agamemnon; 
 
BKS. SECOND &f FIRST : CONCLUSION 169 
 
 and after it comes the rising of Odysseus, which we 
 placed just after Agamemnon's speech. So that we 
 exclude first of all the council, in which the tempta- 
 tion of the people is proposed, next the verses in 
 which the flight is suggested to the people, and lastly 
 the breaking up of the assembly and the flight itself; 
 and we have one continuous assembly, in which the 
 scene with Thersites is followed by the speech of 
 Agamemnon, and after him Odysseus speaks, and 
 after Odysseus speaks Nestor. And when we have 
 so done, we have removed the first 8 of the ob- 
 jections stated above by removing the passages on 
 which they are founded. The scene of the flight 
 is a capital one in itself; and the similes in 144-149, 
 which describe the gradual commotion of the assembly, 
 have always seemed to me as good as any in the poem. 
 I have tried every way to save the scene by introduc- 
 ing it at what might seem its natural place, in the 
 Ninth Book, after the same words of Agamemnon 
 as are used to open it here ; but it deranges every- 
 thing there, where all works well without it. And 
 you will observe that there is the same pithy sen- 
 tentious turn in the words of Odysseus, ovk ayaOov 
 TToXvKoipavlri^ as we noticed in his speech at XIX 216- 
 237 ; and as that speech, with the speech of Achilles 
 before it, was apparently designed as alternative to 
 the two which precede, so this scene of the breaking 
 up of the assembly was perhaps designed as an alter- 
 native to the scene with Thersites. But the inclusion 
 
I70 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 of both has caused the dislocation of the last, and has 
 produced a hopeless inconsequence in the motives, in 
 the words, and in the actions of Agamemnon. 
 
 And now for the numerical effect of these changes. 
 First of all we cut out the 33 verses about the 
 council; then the single line and a half 99-100 
 ending with TravcrdjULevoi KXayyrjg^ which was set in front 
 of ava oe Kpelwv ^AyajuiijuLpoyi/^ when w? (pd(rap t} TrXrjOug 
 was taken from before it, in transferring thence the 
 scene with Thersites; next the 11 verses in which 
 the flight is suggested ; and lastly the other half line, 
 o(Toi ov ^ovXrjg eTroLKovorav^ with the 67 lines that 
 follow it, which depict the scene of the flight. 
 The sum total is 33 + i|-+ 11 +67I = 113. Deduct 
 113 from 454, which was our residual number after 
 transposing the similes, and we have 341 left. By 
 removing the odd 41 verses we remove our two 
 remaining objections. The first relates to the story 
 of the serpent and the sparrows, verses 299-330 in 
 the speech of Odysseus, where the portent is said 
 to have appeared x^^^^ '^^ '^"^ '^P^^^'^y 3. day or two 
 before ; which with the largest allowance of time will 
 scarce take us back nine years to the muster of the 
 fleet at Aulis, where it is said to have happened. 
 So that time and place conflict in this account, which 
 evidently belonged to some moment of discourage- 
 ment earlier in the war, to which also may pertain 
 the scene of inceptive flight. The beginning of the 
 story is clearly marked at verse 299 and the end at 
 
BKS. SECOND ^ FIRST : CONCLUSION 171 
 
 verse 330, which is repeated at XIV 48 in conclud- 
 ing an account of Hector's words, as here an account 
 of the words of Calchas. We leave in the last two 
 verses of the speech, which are apposite to what was 
 said before, and fitly close the allocution of Odys- 
 seus, long enough in 17 verses without the other 32. 
 The remaining 9 come out of Nestor's speech, 
 verses 360-368, in which he counsels the separation 
 of the people into tribes and clans, that the worth of 
 the leaders may be known. Some motive was sup- 
 plied for their insertion by the following Catalogue, 
 in which the tribes are enumerated under their 
 several leaders; but this is a very different thing 
 from proposing that the leaders should fight each 
 apart with his separate tribe. And if it was in- 
 tended to glorify Nestor, as seems to be the motive 
 of this and other interpolations in his speeches, it 
 fails of its eflFect ; for none of them observe his rule, 
 but each stands near and helps the other. The 
 verses all vanish as clean as you please; and the 
 speech of Nestor ends much better with the threat 
 against anyone else who, like Thersites, should 
 suggest their running away, Oavarov kol ttot/ulov 
 iiria-Trr]. Then the assembly closes with the spirited 
 words of Agamemnon, which, as Dr. Leaf affirms, 
 " are chiefly remarkable for the fact that they do 
 not show the least consciousness, much less contain 
 any explanation, of the diametrically opposite tone 
 which the king of men had employed when last on 
 
172 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 his feet " ; which is true, if his former speech con- 
 tained a suggestion of flight, but is not true, when it 
 makes an appeal to the host to stay and fight it out. 
 So much for Canto III. 
 
 And now we have finished off the whole of the 
 Iliad ; but while we are so near the beginning of 
 the poem, I will ask the reader to turn back for one 
 moment to Book the First. It is well known that there 
 occurs a bad discrepancy of time between our first and 
 second cantos, that is, between what precedes and fol- 
 lows verse 311. At verse 424 Thetis tells Achilles that 
 Zeus went " yesterday '' to visit the blameless Ethio- 
 pians, and that all the gods accompanied him ; for 
 which reason she cannot urge on him at once her suit to 
 avenge Achilles* wrongs. But yesterday Apollo was 
 shooting his shafts at the Greeks, and on this very 
 day he is to be found at Chryse, as we learn from 
 verse 474 ; and on the same day that Thetis is 
 speaking Athene has entered the assembly at verse 
 1 94, despatched from heaven by Hera, and returns 
 to Olympus to join the other deities at verse 222. 
 Now if the poet had left the matter alone, we might 
 imagine that the gods have the power of being 
 present in all places at all times, and the lapse 
 might possibly pass. But he cannot at once enjoy 
 the benefit of our belief, and ask us also to believe 
 that the reason why Thetis postpones her request is 
 that Zeus is nowhere about. Here is an incon- 
 sistency, if ever there was one ; and what are we to 
 
BKS. SECOND ^ FIRST : CONCLUSION 173 
 
 do ? Well, in the first place it does not touch our 
 view of the poem in particular, but affects all others, 
 I think, except that of Lachmann and those which 
 are derived from him, and which indeed are mainly 
 founded upon it. Lachmann dissected the Iliad into 
 a number of lays, composed apart by various authors, 
 the first of which he terminated at verse 347, before 
 the contradiction occurs. His general view is so 
 indefensible in itself, and is so much out of fashion 
 at present, that words would be wasted in attacking 
 it; but this special difficulty it does avoid. But 
 almost every other opinion is involved in it. For 
 almost all the rest are agreed that the First Book is 
 to lay the foundation of the following story, and 
 then either they must stomach a contradiction, in 
 which case they forfeit their right to disintegrate 
 the poem, when similar repugnancies afflict them 
 later on ; or else hold that it arises from working 
 over the poem, which renders it vain to argue about 
 its original form, as there is no beginning or middle 
 or end to such work. So that if the reader has 
 hitherto digested the difficulty, he may now repeat 
 the process upon accepting our theory as well as 
 another. But if he should feel, like myself, that such 
 inconsistencies mar his enjoyment ; if he find it hard 
 to believe that any man working with a free hand 
 would lightly commit so gratuitous a fault ; if he 
 perceives that the canon of reasoning about the 
 author's intention is itself destroyed, when a contra- 
 
174 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 diction of this kind is permitted to pass ; if, finally, 
 Bentley*s remark keeps sounding in his ears, that a 
 mistake about time is the surest way of detecting a 
 cheat ; then perhaps we may come to an agreement 
 that it ought to be changed. 
 
 Now long before the particular view that I am 
 advocating ever entered my head, I had frequently 
 thought that the difficulty could be turned, and a 
 blow be dealt to the theory of Lachmann, by using 
 a pair of simple expedients. Let us place the episode 
 of the voyage of Odysseus to Chryse, with the 
 restoration of Chryseis, before the taking away of 
 Briseis by Agamemnon's heralds, and Achilles' inter- 
 view with Thetis. In other words, instead of fol- 
 lowing on after w? ol imev to, irivovro Kara (TTparov in 
 verse 318 with ov^' ^ Ayafxeixvwv^ let us follow on 
 with avTOLp 'OSv(T(T€vg m verse 430. We have learnt 
 to regard such transpositions as possible ; and 
 surely this one no sooner is seen than it confirms 
 itself For there is at once an excellent contrast 
 between what is being done Kara a-rparov and what 
 is about to be done Kara ^pvcr^v^ if the phrase be 
 possible ; whereas now there is none, when the 
 cleansing of the camp and Agamemnon's activity 
 take place Kara crrpaTov alike. And, again, it is 
 surely natural that the king should put off his 
 other business until after this sacred day of atone- 
 ment, and should wait to be told that all was right 
 with heaven, before proceeding with his secular 
 
BKS. SECOND ^ FIRST: CONCLUSION 175 
 
 affairs; which he could not know until after the 
 return of Odysseus, when he hears that Apollo has 
 accepted the hecatomb, and is emboldened thereby 
 to proceed against Achilles. 
 
 Well, Odysseus sails to Chryse, sleeps the night, 
 and returns next morning at verse 487. Then fol- 
 low the five verses 488-492, which inform us that 
 Achilles sat all the while in anger at the ships, and 
 went no more either to the assembly or the war, 
 being wounded in his pride by Agamemnon. And 
 then comes in the further provocation of him by 
 the king's removal of Briseis, which drives him to 
 appeal to his mother for redress by getting the 
 Greeks defeated, instead of his simply withdrawing 
 from the war ; and thus the design of Zeus is set 
 afoot. So that here is the right place for 
 
 ov8' *Aya[X€iiv(i)v 
 \rjy' cpiSoSf rrfv TrpCrrov eTrrjTretX-qcr^ 'A^lXtjIj 
 
 and it instantly gives irpcorov a proper force, which 
 it has not now, when the outrage of the king follows 
 almost at once upon the quarrel in the assembly. 
 But here a hitch occurs, which calls for our second 
 expedient. When the voyage of Odysseus was 
 placed after the interview of Achilles with Thetis, 
 which ended by telling us that she left him 
 
 XCDO/Acvov Kara Ovixhv eiifwvoto yvvaiKos, 
 
 the diasceuast wanted two thirds of a verse to go in 
 
176 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 front of avrap 'OSva-a-ev?. And SO he put in tj/i/ pa 
 pin acKovTog oLTrrjvpcov^ which five words have two 
 objections against them. First, it is very unUke the 
 poet to say in a vague manner, "whom they took 
 away," meaning the heralds Talthybius and Eury- 
 bates, who have not been alluded to anywhere near ; 
 but he would put in ot ye, or better still KripvKeg, as 
 it is 40 verses above, if not the names themselves. 
 Then, again, one may notice that ^Iti aexovrog is a 
 twofold expression, doubly insistent, which ought 
 properly to mean, I believe, that Achilles had re- 
 sisted, or had only submitted to force, as Antinous 
 uses it in Odyss. IV 646 ; whereas he resigns her to 
 the heralds with the utmost courtesy and freedom, 
 mortally offended with Agamemnon as he is for 
 putting the service upon them. Hence I hold these 
 words to be false, and suppose the interview to con- 
 clude with verse 429 as quoted above; after which 
 should come verse 493, 
 
 dW 6t€ S-q pi* €K Toto SvwSeKarry yevcr' ijws. 
 
 Nor have we any need for the words, having put 
 avrap ^OSuara-evg, together with the episode of the 
 voyage, after w? ol /mev ra irevovro Kara a-rparov. But 
 now at the conclusion of the voyage, and after the 
 five verses about Achilles, we do require some words 
 to go before ovS' ^ Ay ajuie/uLvwv^ which held the other 
 place. And this I believe to be the sole phrase lost 
 in the whole of Homer, not counting conjectural 
 
BKS. SECOND & FIRST: CONCLUSION 177 
 
 alterations of particular words; and that loss was 
 caused by changing the place of avrap 'O^vo-o-eJ?, before 
 which the false phrase was inserted and the other 
 one struck out. But it is not hard to guess what 
 the missing words were. They were the regular 
 summary of the paragraph above it, which begins 
 avrap 6 /JLrjvie vrjval Traprj/mevog^ SO that after verse 492 
 we should doubtless go on with 
 
 ws o ye fJirjvLe VYjv(rl irapT^fievo^' ovS' *Aya/A€/iva>v 
 X.rjy^ €/)i8os, 
 
 which makes a very distinct contrast between the im^vig 
 of Achilles and the epK} of Agamemnon, the resent- 
 ment aroused by the original affront and the further 
 provocation of him here, which makes Achilles appeal 
 to his mother. And so we preserve our 300 lines. 
 
 And now where do we stand with respect to the 
 difficulty about time? It has all disappeared, and 
 another one too, which I did not mention before. 
 The assembly is dissolved, and Odysseus goes to 
 Chryse, sleeps the night, and returns next morning. 
 Achilles, we are next told, continued sitting wrath- 
 ful at the ships, and never went to the assembly nor 
 the war. Nor did Agamemnon give over his strife, 
 but sent the heralds to take away Briseis, as at first 
 he threatened to do. Achilles appeals to his mother 
 for redress, and she tells him that it cannot be done 
 just at once, for Zeus and all the gods went away 
 to Ethiopia yesterday, and will not be back for 
 
 M 
 
178 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 another twelve days. When the twelfth day from 
 that arrives, she soars to Olympus and intercedes 
 with Zeus. Now the period during which Achilles 
 sat in anger at the ships is indefinite, and we may 
 imagine it as long as we like ; which at once pro- 
 vides plenty of time for the gods to go away. But 
 take it to signify no more than the day of Odysseus' 
 return, and that the removal of Briseis occurs the 
 same day, as well as the interview of Achilles with 
 Thetis, which I rather think that the poet meant ; 
 yet her use of yesterday is quite correct. Apollo 
 gets his hecatomb at Chryse the day before, delights 
 at the sound of the psalm which is sung all day, 
 and goes off just before sunset (as it seems from 
 474-475) with all the gods to Ethiopia. And 
 although he is said to send the voyagers a favourable 
 wind on their way back next morning, still the poet 
 has allowed for it at verse 479, by giving him his 
 apposite title cKaepyog, working from afar. And 
 now we see clearly what the twelfth day ck toIo 
 means, namely from the day on which Thetis speaks 
 to Achilles. But in our common texts, in which 
 the voyage and return of Odysseus come between 
 the phrase and the speaking of Thetis, there is a day 
 too many for the reckoning of Thetis, or else e/c rolo 
 must be referred back over the day of Odysseus' 
 return to the day before ; which is unlike the poet's 
 usage, as may be seen from XXIV 31, where the 
 identical line is used again. 
 
BKS. SECOND & FIRST : CONCLUSION 179 
 
 There remains one small point to be settled. In 
 verse 390 Achilles uses the present tense ire/uLTrova-iv 
 in telling his mother that the Greeks send gifts 
 to Chryse; which might seem to import that the 
 mission is still going on, whereas on our view it 
 is over before his meeting with Thetis. But he 
 is telling the whole story of the quarrel, and it 
 is a historic present tense, employed for rapid or 
 vivid effect, as seems to be shown by the next 
 words v€ov KKidlriOev e/3ai/, which he uses of the 
 heralds, implying that the other event is more 
 remote. But perhaps it is safer to argue that he 
 had not yet heard of Odysseus' return. 
 
 Now what was the reason of this dislocation } 
 My belief is that it was due to the man who put 
 an additional day into the poem for the Building 
 of the Wall, which made it a desirable thing to 
 save a day elsewhere. For by placing the voyage 
 of Odysseus after the interview with Thetis, and 
 referring e/c toIo not to the day of his return, but 
 over it to the day on which Thetis spoke, as you 
 can at a pinch, you include the day of his return 
 among the twelve, so that it need not be separately 
 reckoned. He thus respected the poet's scheme 
 of 55 days; but he did not respect, or else did 
 not know, another feature of this scheme, which 
 is that you can divide it up into 5 periods of 1 1 
 days each, without infringing on one of the 3 
 spaces of 9 days, which are not in any way par- 
 
< 
 
 h 
 O 
 
 pq 
 H 
 
 > 
 
 Days. 
 Nine days' 
 fetching wood ^ 
 
 Pyre of Hector i 
 
 Tombof Hec-) 
 
 tor J>...i 
 Feasting ) 
 
 II 
 
 > 
 
 Days. 
 Nine days' dispute ) 
 of gods ) '•• ^ 
 
 Decision inOlympus ) 
 Exodus of Priam )•" 
 
 Return of Priam) 
 Wailing for Hector) " ^ 
 
 II 
 
 - 
 
 Days. 
 Return of gods ) 
 Design of Zeus ) " 
 
 First day of battle ) 
 Trojan agora ) ••" 
 
 Burning of dead ) 
 Feasting all night ) *" ^ 
 
 Second day of battle ) 
 Embassy to Achilles )"" 
 
 Third day of battle ) 
 Forging of armour)*" 
 
 Career of Achilles ) 
 Vision of Patroclus ) *•' 
 
 Pyre of Patroclus ) 
 Winds all night) - * 
 
 Games of Patroclus ) 
 Unrest of Achilles) •- ^ 
 
 Abuse of Hector's ) 
 
 corpse ) ••• 3 
 
 II 
 
 - 
 
 Days. 
 Gods in Ethiopia ii 
 
 II 
 
 1— 1 
 
 Days. 
 Nine days' plague 9 
 
 Assembly and quarrel ) 
 Odysseus at Chryse ) 
 
 Return of Odysseus ) 
 Achilles and Thetis f ^ 
 
 II 
 
 I 
 
BKS. SECOND &? FIRST : CONCLUSION i8i 
 
 ticularised, but are covered by the word evvrjfiap. 
 I adjoin a table of this scheme, marking only such 
 incidents as are necessary to distinguish the days 
 and, whenever it is possible, the nights. 
 
 On this table I will make a few remarks. First 
 of all, when the poet says e/c toIo SvcoSeKOLTij^ I take 
 it in what seems the natural way, namely, the 
 twelfth day after and exclusive of the period de- 
 noted by Toio. There is thus an interval of 1 1 days 
 clear, between the one on which Thetis speaks and 
 the one on which the gods are again in Olympus, 
 during which they are either in Ethiopia or else 
 on the way to and fro. All is simple until we 
 come to the same expression again in Book XXIV 
 31, where I take it in the selfsame way, after 
 and exclusive of the day which begins at verse 12, 
 when Hector's body is first abused by Achilles. 
 There is thus an interval of 1 1 days clear between 
 that day and the one on which Apollo speaks up 
 for Hector, which eventually leads to the Exodus 
 of Priam. Now we know from verse 107 how 
 the last 9 of these days were occupied, namely, 
 by disputation among the gods about the conduct 
 of Achilles; so that there remain 2 days of this 
 interval about which nothing is explicitly said. But 
 I think that the poet would have us understand 
 that they are devoted like the first to maltreatment 
 of Hector's corpse; so that I have added them 
 on to the first, making 3 days of abusive treat- 
 
1 82 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 ment, and have tabled the nine days' dispute apart, 
 as directed by the word ivi/tjimap at 107; thus dividing 
 up the whole interval covered by SvooSeKarrj. The 
 poet says, indeed, that Achilles dragged the body 
 thrice around the tomb of Patroclus; but he does 
 not definitely say that it was done on each of the 
 three days, which would have compelled us to 
 reckon SvajSeKarrj from the last. As it is, we reckon 
 it from the day which is expressly named. Next, 
 it is not quite clear whether the day of Priam's 
 return ought or ought not to be counted among 
 the nine days which follow. At XXIV 664 Priam 
 asks Achilles for 9 days in which to mourn for 
 Hector, but it is not stated whether they begin 
 on the day of Priam's return or on the morning 
 after it. It is true that some wailing takes place 
 as soon as Priam gets back, which looks as if 
 that day ought to be included. But this seems 
 to be only the first outburst of grief from the kin- 
 dred at the sight of Hector's corpse ; for the word 
 evvrjixap in verse 784, taken in connection with the 
 same word in verse 664, appears to mean a new 
 nine days starting after the day of Priam's return, 
 during which we may suppose the public wailing 
 to go on, while the wood is being fetched for 
 the pyre. And there is a circumstance which justi- 
 fies this view. Priam asks also for a tenth day 
 on which to bury Hector and feast the folk; and 
 an eleventh day on which to make a tomb for 
 
BKS. SECOND ^ FIRST : CONCLUSION 183 
 
 Hector. But we find in the end, at verses 788-802, 
 that the feast takes place on the eleventh day, 
 not on the tenth. So that the arrangement with 
 Achilles is not to be construed by the letter; and 
 then we may allow the generosity of Achilles and 
 the misery of Priam the benefit of the doubt. By 
 tabling the days as I have done, we can divide 
 up the period of 55 days into 5 periods of 11 
 days so neatly, the middle one being more detailed 
 than the pair on either side, that I am persuaded 
 that the poet's scheme was such as I have drawn. 
 Finally, if we count in another day at the end, 
 which is not a part of the time of the poem, but 
 is mentioned at verse 667 as the one on which 
 the fighting is to recommence, we shall have 56 
 days, that is, eight of our weeks or four of our 
 fortnights, which is an easy way to remember it. 
 
 I next insert (opposite p. 184) a Table of Cantos of 
 the Iliad, accounting for every verse in it, and ex- 
 hibiting the results of our previous discussion. It 
 is arranged in three parallel columns, according to 
 the three grand divisions of the poem. Each of 
 the columns is subdivided into another three, the 
 first of which shows the Canto ; the next the verses 
 of the Book or Books which compose it, together 
 with all those that are to be eliminated ; and the 
 last the total number of lines in each case, together 
 with the number that are to be subtracted, and 
 the result, which of course is always 300. In 
 
1 84 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 the second sub-columns I place at the top of each 
 compartment all the verses down to the end of the 
 Canto or the end of the Book, whichever comes first, 
 and underneath them I print in italics the verses 
 which are excised ; but if the end of the Book come 
 first, there I stop and dismiss the verses excised, 
 before going on with the verses of the following 
 Book which are wanted to complete the Canto. 
 When a fraction is placed before an integer in the 
 second sub-columns, it signifies that so much is to be 
 taken out of the verse above that denoted by the in- 
 tegral number ; and when it is placed after it, that 
 so much is to be taken out of the verse below. The 
 fractions are those of a verse of 6 feet. 
 
 I will add yet another table (p. 185), showing 
 the opening and closing words of each canto, as I 
 think that the reader may like to run his eye up and 
 down it. It reveals the remarkable fact, that not- 
 withstanding the number of repeated verses in the 
 Iliad, the poet never begins or ends a canto twice in 
 the same way. The nearest approximation is seen at 
 the close of Cantos III and V, at the close of Cantos 
 XLII and XLIV, and at the beginning of Cantos 
 XXVII and XXXII ; but even the first two cases 
 are sufficiently distinct, and the third is materially 
 different. The full significance of the fact I do not 
 myself quite clearly perceive, unless it was intended 
 to avoid confusion in enumerating the verses which 
 compose the diflFerent cantos, and so to assist a 
 
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1 86 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 memorial artifice ; or else to furnish a short title 
 for each canto, derived from its opening phrase, and 
 so to denominate the point from which a rhapsodist 
 might be requested to begin. 
 
 When Wolf in the years 1794 and 1795 set the 
 scholars of Europe by the ears about Homer, he 
 augured that it would perhaps be impossible to show, 
 even with probability, at what places exactly the later 
 shreds and patches set out from the primitive web. 
 The reader is asked to judge, in reference to the 
 Iliad, whether this presentiment was sound, or whether, 
 owing to a fortunate design on the part of the poet 
 and a fortunate discovery by one of his students, it 
 has at length been falsified ; for our demonstration 
 now is at an end. He will scrutinise without undue 
 severity the whole of our proceeding, and above all 
 will determine if the figures have unfairly been mani- 
 pulated. I am quite alive to the fact that the hand- 
 ling of figures is often a delusive exercise, and that 
 with the loose and easy syntax of the Iliad one could 
 produce almost any number that one pleases by 
 throwing out verses here and there. But I maintain, 
 in the first place, that our pauses are effective and 
 all distinctly marked ; next, that our cuts are in mosf 
 cases solid, simple, and clean ; again, that when iso- 
 lated verses are removed, they are either defective in 
 themselves or else deficient in manuscript authority ; 
 lastly, that the passages excised coincide to a striking 
 
BKS. SECOND &? FIRST : CONCLUSION 187 
 
 extent with those already liable to learned men's sus- 
 picions ; and upon the whole, that nothing has been 
 done without fair reasons shown. Nay, as regards 
 the long genealogies and tales in Nestor's speeches, our 
 dealing is so far from unprincipled that it brings to 
 light a principle of quite a different kind, which wears 
 a great appearance of truth. For we do not pick 
 and choose these tales and trees to suit our theory, 
 which would not have a very convincing effect, but 
 uniformly banish them all. And if other cases can- 
 not be so well reduced to rule, yet it is not wholly 
 strange that in going down the ages the great poem 
 has contracted some accretions of this sort, from men 
 who perhaps knew not how, for want of weight, 
 their thoughts and their fancies could be otherwise 
 preserved. Or if in some cases our arguments seem 
 slender, the reader will look to the force of the whole, 
 and will reflect that the interpolators could not always 
 be counted on to do their work so badly as to betray 
 itself clearly toView. The reader will be more inclined 
 to question if there are not other verses which ought 
 to be expelled ; for it has not been convenient to in- 
 terrupt our march, in order to defend all the verses 
 that anyone may ever have assailed. I can only re- 
 quest him to form his own opinion, from the instances 
 in which I thought it well to turn aside, as to whether 
 it was worth our while to linger over lines less 
 plausibly arraigned. My own opinion is that they 
 can all be validly defended. 
 
1 88 COMPOSITION OF THE lUAD 
 
 And now what is the meaning of the law of com- 
 position which regulates the poem from one end to 
 the other ? I have talked about the poet above, be- 
 cause the hypothesis of a single author, apart from all 
 additions that offend against the law, seems to me by 
 far the most simple of all. But there are two others 
 which suggest themselves at once. First, that the 
 presence of the law is a result of editing, and of a 
 desire by somebody felt to present to the world in a 
 systematic form the best remains of epic poetry. But 
 this notion no sooner will be clearly entertained than 
 it will be decisively rejected. Could the poem mani- 
 fest the splendour that it does, if once it was stretched 
 on a bed of Procrustes ^ Would it not be cruelly 
 truncated here and racked asunder there, and have 
 undergone most savage mutilation up and down, to 
 adapt it to a numerical scheme imposed from with- 
 out ? Take the canto which includes the intercourse 
 of Hector and Andromache. Are there any signs of 
 its having been spun out at the beginning, or lopped 
 off short at the close, or dilated or contracted in the 
 middle ? You could hardly deduct or annex a single 
 line without thus impairing the perfection of the rest. 
 Or take again the Slaying of Hector, and the Funeral 
 Games of Patroclus, and the Exodus of Priam, the 
 first and last of which appeal to every man by their 
 immortal merit, and about the second of which it was 
 said by Schiller, that no man who had read it had 
 lived in vain. It is here, in these passages owned to 
 
BKS. SECOND ^ FIRST : CONCLUSION 189 
 
 be sound, that our rule is applied with the greatest 
 facility. And in general, if you peruse the Iliad as 
 presented in our scheme, you will find it difficult to 
 point out a single passage which is simply a bridge 
 between two of the others. It is rather the poem as 
 it usually stands which offers us specimens of these ; 
 and these reveal the sure results of editing. Nor is 
 it at all likely that such editing would happen at a 
 date long before the numerous accretions which now 
 neglect its principle. The several parts must there- 
 fore have been framed first of all in the shape pre- 
 sented by the scheme, and not afterwards reduced to 
 mechanical conformity with a rigid external law. 
 
 A second supposition may perhaps seem more 
 plausible. There may have been more authors than 
 one, and the presence of the law will then be ex- 
 plained by its being a thing understood, that all 
 additions to the poem must contain 300 lines, and 
 not a verse under or above; a convention which 
 was afterwards ignored or forgotten. And we might 
 try to date the disappearance of the rule to a time 
 when the early inhabitants of Greece fled overseas to 
 Asia Minor, in consequence of some convulsion at 
 home, carrying the poem along with them ; for 
 certain it is that the law was at some time or other 
 forgotten or ignored. But this account will apply 
 just as well to the work of a single author ; and the 
 supposition itself creates serious difficulty. For even 
 if an author of surpassing power laid down the plan, 
 
I90 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 It requires great faith to believe that any of his 
 followers would ever have respected it. What he 
 found so suited to his genius might hamper theirs ; 
 and if they could not insert a canto without making 
 it consist of exactly 300 lines, we might expect to 
 find much greater weakness in certain tracts of the 
 poem than fairly lies to its charge. And the Doloneia, 
 which most modern critics reject, teaches us the truth 
 upon this subject. For here is a distinct composition 
 ascribed to another hand, though its language reveals 
 no great difference of age ; and here the law does not 
 apply. Besides, what sort of authority was there in 
 those remote times to enforce their respect for a rule 
 like this ? There was then no republic of letters that 
 we know of, as now there exists, to protest against 
 the violation of a law of composition, and one which 
 only few had an interest to observe. For what can 
 it have mattered to an audience whether a canto con- 
 tained 300 lines or 301 ? So that it all looks as if 
 the source of the rule were a single man, and he the 
 author of the poem, and as if he made it to guard 
 against others meddling with his work, without trust- 
 ing to the casual force of outside authority. And 
 deeply thankful must we feel that those who meddled 
 with it had the forbearance to keep in all his lines, 
 instead of cutting them out to make room for their 
 own. 
 
 But apart from all this, there is not only a 
 particular observance of the law, but a general 
 
BKS. SECOND &> FIRST : CONCLUSION 191 
 
 design expressible in equal numbers throughout 
 the poem. For the first third and the second 
 third and the last third of the total number of 
 cantos correspond with three broad divisions of 
 the story; and if several heads were at work on 
 it at different times, it would be strange that 
 they hit on this happy result. It would be strange 
 that they left Idomeneus in the central canto of 
 the poem. It would be strange that the two 
 opening cantos, those of the Plague and the Quarrel, 
 when united equate with the two closing ones, of 
 the Exodus of Priam and the Ransom of Hector; 
 and that the next three, of the Arming of the 
 Host, set oiF the penultimate three of the Games 
 of Patroclus; and the next six, of which two 
 are preliminary to the Prowess of Diomede in 
 the other four, subtend the opposite six, of which 
 two are preliminary to the Career of Achilles in 
 the other four. And here it is not wholly true 
 to say, as said by Dr. Leaf, that the exploits of 
 Diomede throw those of Achilles into the shade, 
 which is one of his arguments for breaking up 
 the poem ; but they balance one another at opposite 
 places in the poem, only that Achilles seems by 
 far the most tremendous of the two. But to go 
 on, it would be strange that the peaceful scene 
 between Hector and Andromache should come in 
 a canto corresponding with the peaceful scene of 
 the Forging of the Armour ; and the two cantos 
 
192 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 of the Embassy, in which Achilles is headstrong, 
 correspond with the two of the Acts of Patroclus, 
 in which he is punished ; and the fighting which 
 brings the Trojans to the Wall come in the Rvq 
 cantos before the middle one, while the fighting 
 in the five after it brings the Trojans at last to 
 the Ships. All this articulation and proportion 
 and correspondence, which the reader may pursue 
 for himself to further lengths, our theory for the 
 first time makes plain ; and it supports the hypo- 
 thesis of a single author, and itself from it receives 
 support. 
 
 And now what are the difficulties upon the 
 other side ? I really believe that if our scheme 
 is adopted, there is not a true inconsistency left, 
 except the one about Pylaemenes noted above. 
 But let us be clear about the terms. The word 
 contradiction is sometimes employed, by those who 
 have a mind to dismember the poem, where it 
 does not truly apply. I choose an instance, only 
 because it happens to serve my turn, from Dr. Leaf. 
 Speaking of some ancient critics, who transposed 
 the colloquy of Glaucus and Diomede to a different 
 place, he says, "Unfortunately we are not told 
 who these critics were, nor to what place or on 
 what grounds they transposed the colloquy. It 
 is highly probable that we have merely the record 
 of an opinion that it ought to come before the 
 words of Athene in E 124-32, and the subsequent 
 
BKS. SECOND ^ FIRST : CONCLUSION 193 
 
 victories of Diomedes over the gods; for with 
 those words and acts the words of Diomedes in Z 
 123-43 are in crying contradiction — a contradiction 
 perhaps the most patent in the Iliad^ and one 
 which can in no way be palliated." The words 
 of Diomede are those in which he asks Glaucus 
 whether he is a mortal or an immortal, and says 
 that he would not fight with the heavenly gods. 
 The reader will find a rough translation above, 
 where we treated of Canto XI. Now the case 
 stands thus. Athene clarifies the vision of Diomede, 
 so that he may know a god from a man, if he 
 should meet him in the fray. She then leaves 
 him with a warning not to fight against the other 
 gods, but if Aphrodite should enter the war, he 
 is to wound her with his sharp bronze. Diomede 
 encounters and nearly kills Aeneas; and sure 
 enough arrives Aphrodite, throws her arms and 
 mantle round her son, and tries to carry him off. 
 Diomede catches her up and wounds her on the 
 wrist ; whereupon she drops her son, who is saved 
 by Apollo, and drives away to Olympus. Diomede, 
 in the fury of the moment, forgets Athene's advice 
 and rushes at Aeneas in the keeping of Apollo. 
 Thrice he rushes on, and thrice Apollo makes him 
 reel ; but the fourth time Apollo sternly repri- 
 mands him, and Diomede retires in awe. After 
 a while Ares rallies the Trojans, and Hera and 
 Athene resolve to settle Ares. Athene darts to 
 
 N 
 
194 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 Diomede, and reproaches him for withdrawing 
 before the Trojans. He excuses himself on the 
 ground of fulfilling her own command by retreating 
 before Ares, who directs the Trojans ; for in fact 
 he had retreated the moment he perceived him at 
 V 596. Athene now bids him fear neither Ares 
 nor any other god, inasmuch as she is there to 
 help him, but to drive against him and to hit him. 
 She then mounts the chariot, puts on a cap of 
 invisibility, and when Ares reaches out across the 
 horses with his spear, she catches hold of it and 
 shoves from below ; whereupon Diomede wounds 
 Ares, Athene driving home the spear; and Ares 
 departs away to Olympus, Athene and Hera follow- 
 ing shortly after. A good deal later on comes 
 the colloquy of Glaucus and Diomede, in which 
 the alleged contradiction occurs, and it seems to 
 have two parts ; first, that Diomede should doubt 
 whether Glaucus is a god or a man, when his 
 vision has been purged by Athene ; and secondly, 
 that he should express a reluctance to fight with 
 the heavenly gods, when he has been fighting with 
 Aphrodite and Apollo and Ares. But can it in 
 no way be palliated ? Take the last part first. 
 Diomede, by special exception of Athene, wounds 
 Aphrodite. He forgets himself for a moment 
 and rushes at Apollo, but soon receives a lesson, 
 and never forgets it again. It requires a distinct 
 command and assurance of present aid from Athene 
 
BKS. SECOND ^ FIRST : CONCLUSION 195 
 
 to make him uplift a finger against Ares; and 
 when she leaves his side, he is back where he 
 was before, reluctant as ever; and so he says to 
 Glaucus. Now take the first part. It is not 
 stated how long the miraculous purging of Dio- 
 mede's vision is supposed to last ; and hence it 
 can always be argued that his question put to 
 Glaucus is the poet's way of intimating that the 
 scales are on his eyes once again. But let them 
 remain no less lucid than before. Is it an un- 
 natural thing that a man, in the height of his 
 surprise, should doubt the evidence of his senses ? 
 For it is the astonishment of Diomede at the 
 gallantry of Glaucus, who advances so far in front 
 of the rest to meet him in his victorious career, 
 that prompts him to inquire if he is a god or only 
 a man. And it magnifies greatly our notion of 
 Glaucus, and prepares us for his noble utterance 
 which follows; and such I believe to have been 
 the exact intention of the poet. I do not call 
 this a contradiction or anything like it ; and cases 
 of this sort I set on one side. 
 
 Now let us try our hand on another case, the 
 notorious one of the words of Achilles to Patroclus 
 in Book XI 609-610 and Book XVI 52-86, which 
 are often thought to reveal a total ignorance of the 
 Embassy in Book IX. And here I am certain to 
 arouse the reader's mistrust; for there is a weight 
 of sane and sober authority in favour of excluding 
 
196 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 Book IX from the original plan of the poem because 
 of those words. Grote states the case against it 
 with an apparent force which is quite lacking in his 
 exclusion of Books II-VII. The latter he excludes, 
 not to dwell on his objections indirectly met by our 
 excisions in Book II and in Book VII, chiefly on the 
 ground that the design of Zeus does not begin to 
 take effect until Book VIII. Even if it were so, 
 there is nothing very singular in Zeus not beginning 
 to act till the third day after his promise to Thetis, 
 unless we reckon length of time by books instead of 
 days. But the design of Zeus begins to operate 
 with the opening of Book II, when he sends the 
 dream to Agamemnon and Iris to the Trojans, in 
 order to bring the armies face to face, after three 
 weeks and more of inactivity ; and its development 
 is gradual, the Greeks not being defeated on the 
 first day of all, and the gods being allowed to mix 
 in the battle; which helps to acquaint us with the 
 usual mode of warfare and the sympathies of the 
 heavenly patrons. Then comes the day of truce 
 and cremation of the dead. And now the second 
 step is taken by Zeus, when he forbids the gods to 
 interfere, and himself dismays the Greeks ; a decisive 
 step, preparatory to which was his trial of the 
 temper of Olympus at the opening of Book IV, of 
 which Grote so groundlessly complains. Then 
 comes the Embassy to Achilles. And last of all is 
 taken the third step of Zeus, with the third day of 
 
BKS. SECOND tf FIRST : CONCLUSION 197 
 
 battle, when he glorifies Hector in the height, before 
 his death, and brings the Trojans down upon the 
 ships. If we quarrel with this gradual development 
 at all, we ought to place the continuation of Book I 
 much later than Book VIII, and indeed inquire why 
 Zeus did not reach his end at once, with a thunder- 
 bolt or two among the ships ; but of course there is 
 nothing offensive about it. Nor is Achilles lost 
 sight of in these books; for in all of them except 
 Book III, which does not well admit of it, he is 
 kept before our minds by reference and mention. 
 But to return to Book IX, so calm a critic as Sir 
 Richard Jebb declares that it cannot have been 
 known to the composer of Book XVI 52-87, and 
 that it certainly did not belong to the original form 
 of the poem. This looks bad for Book the Ninth. 
 But I beseech the reader to review the question 
 afresh, following the only safe way in such cases, 
 first to examine with the utmost care the actual 
 words of the poet, and then to reconstruct in his 
 own mind, with the utmost distinctness of which it 
 is capable, the entire situation that they paint, and 
 especially what is passing in the mind of Achilles. 
 If he comes across anything that he cannot reconcile 
 with the rest, in accordance with the common rules 
 of sequence and coherence, there is some incon- 
 sistency ; and if there is nothing, there is not. 
 
 Now what is the precise ground of the grievance 
 felt by Achilles, as it appears from his first words to 
 
198 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 Thetis down to what are almost his last to Patroclus ? 
 Apart from his affection for Briseis herself, and his 
 sense of Agamemnon's ingratitude, it is because the 
 prize awarded him by all the Greeks has been taken 
 away by Agamemnon alone. He is the victim of 
 an outrageous act of encroachment by the king 
 upon the rights of one of his freemen and one of 
 his peers. This is the point of the repeated avrog, 
 which signifies that Agamemnon is acting without 
 sufficient authority; first in I 137, e-yw Se kcv avrog 
 eXcoiuLai, where he threatens to do the thing in 
 defiance of the general decision ; next in I 161, avros 
 acpaiprjcrea-Oai aireiKeig^ where Achilles replies to the 
 threat; again in I 185, avrog Icov KXia-lrjpSe, where 
 the threat comes nearer home, and would have cost 
 the king his life, had not Athene intervened ; and 
 lastly in I 356, eXwv yap e)(€i yepag, avrog airovpag, 
 where Achilles complains of his action to Thetis; 
 the sentence being repeated by Thetis to Zeus in 
 I 507, by Thersites in II 240, and by Nestor in 
 IX III, except that here avros is replaced by ov n 
 KaO' ^fierepov ye voov. There is a sharp distinction 
 throughout between the sovereign body of freemen, 
 ufe? ^A-)(aiwv, and the chief magistrate, Agamemnon, 
 alike in I 135, 162, 240, 276, 392, 409; in XVI 
 56 ; and in XVIII 444. And even the advisory 
 council of elders disapproves of what the king has 
 done, as appears from Nestor's phrase cited above. 
 And who are the natural protectors of Achilles 
 
BKS. SECOND & FIRST : CONCLUSION 199 
 
 against this act of tyranny? They are that same 
 body of freemen, vleg ^A-xaiwvy who made the original 
 award. But they fail him altogether, afraid to 
 provoke the resentment of the powerful and vindic- 
 tive Agamemnon. Nestor puts in a few words 
 of advice at I 275-284, urging Agamemnon to 
 forbear from his design, and Achilles to show more 
 respect to the king. But the bitter words of 
 Achilles at I 293-299 evince that he considers his 
 cause to be lost, so far as popular support is con- 
 cerned. And indeed he had called them men of no 
 worth at I 231, and vowed at I 240 that the whole 
 body of the Greeks would rue their tame submission 
 to the king, when they felt the weight of Hector's 
 hand without his own to shield them. He accepts 
 the verdict, will not fight about a girl, but is resolved 
 upon abstaining from the war. Agamemnon, en- 
 couraged by the ceasing of the plague, persists in 
 fulfilling his threat. The temper of the assembly 
 in Book II shows only too clearly how unpopular his 
 action is. But Achilles remains publicly affronted, 
 publicly subjected to injury, and publicly left in 
 the lurch. He is treated like a settler without any 
 rights, aTijULr]Tov jULerai/darrriv^ as he complains both at 
 IX 648 and at XVI 59. In these circumstances 
 he appeals to heaven to hasten his countrymen's 
 defeat. 
 
 And now we come to the Embassy in Book IX. 
 Agamemnon is in despair owing to his own blind 
 
200 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 folly in alienating Achilles. But rather than openly 
 avow it and publicly stoop before Achilles, he pro- 
 poses in assembly that they should all go home 
 to Greece ; which draws down on him a smart 
 reproof from Diomede in return for the rebuke 
 which he administered to Diomede in the Fourth 
 Book. Nestor, perceiving the true solution, but too 
 anxious to save the great king's dignity, gets the 
 assembly out of the way by hinting at supper and 
 the posting of sentinels, and advises Agamemnon 
 to hold a privy council in his tent, without saying 
 for what. In this seclusion he presses the appease- 
 ment of Achilles on the king, who readily com- 
 plies, only too glad to get so quietly out of his 
 scrape. He offers to restore Briseis, offers one of 
 his daughters in marriage to Achilles, and offers 
 splendid gifts besides. Nothing could appear more 
 handsome and liberal than this offer; but it has 
 two radical defects. First, it is merely an offer, 
 a bargain, not a restitution ; and in the next place, 
 it is a clandestine negotiation, hatched in the re- 
 tirement of Agamemnon's tent, and designed to 
 spare that haughty ruler's feelings. The envoys 
 are the private envoys of the monarch, and not 
 the public spokesmen of the Greeks ; and they 
 discharge their commission under cover of the dark. 
 Indeed they are never called by the pompous name 
 of Ambassadors, nor their commission an Embassy, 
 at all ; and I suspect that the accident of an ancient 
 
BKS. SECOND £sf FIRST : CONCLUSION 201 
 
 title to the book is at the bottom of the whole 
 mistake. The proper way was to propose in full 
 assembly the instant restoration of Briseis, and then 
 begin to bargain with Achilles for his aid ; and, if 
 Agamemnon refused to be reasonable, to put com- 
 pulsion upon him, as Thersites suggested at the 
 outset, by declining to serve him any more. This 
 is what Achilles is waiting for, as the result of his 
 appeal to heaven. Then Agamemnon would have 
 undergone the same humiliation as himself; then 
 he would have got back Briseis from the Greeks, 
 whom he had inculpated in the wrong of her 
 removal; and then he would have got the gifts 
 as a public compensation for the damage to his 
 credit in putting up with the disgrace. But is it 
 likely that he would submit to this secret healing 
 of the quarrel, only to have Thersites and the 
 rest making fun of him next day, and saying 
 that Agamemnon had got the better of him twice ? 
 For the opening sentence of Odysseus, who seems 
 to mismanage the furtive affair, betrays the fact 
 that he comes from a council in the monarch's 
 tent; and Achilles has a notion what that means. 
 There is no suggestion of a public assembly in 
 which to make a public reparation ; the envoys 
 arrive at a suspicious hour; and Odysseus lays 
 much more stress on the fact that the offer is a 
 bargain, only to hold good if Achilles consents to 
 fight, than ever Agamemnon did himself. What 
 
202 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 wonder that Achilles opens his speech with words 
 that denounce this underhand intrigue? That he 
 expresses his abhorrence of dishonest lying talk? 
 That he says the king is not likely to persuade 
 either himself or any other Greek to fight, when 
 loyal and unselfish service is rewarded in such a 
 way as this ? That he dwells on the marked affront 
 of taking back his prize of war alone, and on 
 Agamemnon's trickery in dealing with him so ? 
 That he utterly distrusts the intentions of the king, 
 whose ways he knows only too well? That he 
 bids him contrive with Odysseus himself, and with 
 the other scheming kings, how best to keep the 
 fire off the ships ? That, as if in despair of reason- 
 able treatment, he talks of going home on the 
 morrow? That he pointedly directs Odysseus to 
 report his answer a/ncpaSov, openly in public, that 
 the scowling looks of the Greeks may be a warning, 
 if ever the king should be minded to practise the 
 like shameless trick upon another, the king who 
 has not dared to look him openly in the face ? 
 That he utterly rejects the gifts, and would not 
 accept them were they ten or twenty times as 
 great ? That he says Agamemnon will never bend 
 his will until he makes a full and perfect satis- 
 faction for the disgrace which is eating into his 
 soul? And that, with a final sarcasm, he bids the 
 envoys go and tell it all to the plotting chiefs 
 and elders, who have failed in their attempt to 
 
BKS. SECOND & FIRST : CONCLUSION 203 
 
 cheat him of his wrath by this stealthy reparation ? 
 " What more does Achilles want ? " somebody has 
 asked. He wants what any man of sense and 
 spirit would want in such a case ; a sincere ac- 
 knowledgment of his rights, as ample and as open 
 as their invasion was public and palpable, that he 
 may have some security against another repetition 
 of the outrage. It is principle, not pique, that 
 animates Achilles. 
 
 Well, now we come to his words addressed to 
 Patroclus in XI 609-610. "Patroclus," he says, 
 "now I think that the Greeks (^Axaiovg) will 
 stick about my knees in supplication ; for they 
 are reduced to desperate straits." Absolutely right, 
 and not to be bettered. It is the Greeks, the 
 public, the sovereign body of freemen, who have 
 never heard of or known or had anything to do 
 with the secret deputation, who are now to repent 
 of their supine neglect of his rights, who are now 
 to make a formal acknowledgment of his wrongs, 
 and by that very act publicly humiliate the king. 
 The distinction is surely not difficult to seize, when 
 the poet has so carefully described the mystery 
 with which the former overtures were conducted. 
 It is all a question whether Agamemnon is to 
 suffer the same mental torment that he has in- 
 flicted on Achilles, or is to get off by some other 
 means, with his feelings and his dignity unscarred. 
 If we read Grote's attack on the Ninth Book with 
 
204 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 this distinction in our mind, it is almost ludicrous 
 to observe how every one of his arguments turns 
 upon ignoring it. One would almost imagine that 
 he had seen the distinction and was determined to 
 obliterate it, so persistently does he go on about 
 " the outpouring of profound humiliation by the 
 Greeks," "the supplication of the Greeks," "the 
 honours of the Greeks," "the richest atoning presents, 
 tendered from the Greeks," all of which he falsely 
 supposes to have been made or offered to Achilles, 
 when not a Greek but Agamemnon and the elders 
 secluded in his tent has had a hand in the matter. 
 Nay, the very verses to which he directs our attention 
 should have opened his eyes ; IX 603, where there 
 is a very clear distinction between the ^A-^^aiol and 
 those who have offered the gifts ; and XVIII 448, 
 where there is another between the 'A^afo/ and 
 the yipovreg ^Apyeiwv, who have made the suppli- 
 cation. Surely, if the poet had meant that the 
 gifts were offered on behalf of the Greeks, he 
 could hardly have avoided dropping a word to 
 apprise us of his meaning ; whereas the distinction 
 throughout is steadily maintained. 
 
 Turn again to the words of Achilles in Book XVI 
 52-86. The same grievance is stated, that Aga- 
 memnon has by an arbitrary act defrauded his peer, 
 and dishonoured his best warrior like an unfree 
 alien ; a grievance still unredressed, as was before 
 implied by the words of Poseidon in XIII 111-113. 
 
BKS. SECOND & FIRST : CONCLUSION 205 
 
 " If he would but be kind to me in his conscience," 
 says Achilles, who is evidently longing to be in the 
 field again, " the Trojans soon would fly ; but now 
 they are fighting around the camp." He still awaits 
 some proof of Agamemnon's sincerity. Meanwhile 
 he sends forth Patroclus, so as just to save the ships, 
 instructing him how to act, " that you may procure 
 great price and credit for me from all the Greeks, 
 and that they may remove the lovely damsel back, 
 and furnish glorious gifts besides." It is to be a 
 complete public restitution, with adequate damages, 
 as the injury was public and the insult touched his 
 fame ; and nothing at all like the dark negotiation got 
 up to spare Agamemnon's pride. 
 
 The death of Patroclus forces Achilles' hand. 
 In Book XIX, regardless of all else but the memory 
 of his friend, he summons the assembly, and re- 
 nounces his wrath, and declares his intention of 
 fighting. Long and loud is the applause ; and con- 
 siderable is the confusion of Agamemnon. The gifts 
 are publicly exposed ; Briseis is publicly restored ; 
 and a public oath is taken, no doubt to confute 
 Thersites and his like, that Achilles is no sufferer by 
 her temporary absence. His formal reinstatement in 
 his rights is complete, and all is happily over. Not 
 a single contradiction occurs in the whole of it. 
 
 I choose a final instance of alleged inconsistency, 
 not because it is a serious one in itself, but because 
 it raises a question not without interest to readers 
 
2o6 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 who would distinctly grasp another conception of 
 the poet. In Book XIII 674-684, when the Trojans 
 have carried the Wall, but Idomeneus has re-entered 
 the battle, it is said that Hector did not know that 
 his host was being slaughtered on the left of the 
 ships, but held on where at first he sprang within 
 the gate and the Wall, where the ships of Ajax and 
 Protesilaus were, and the Wall was lowest built, and 
 where the horses and men were especially free to act. 
 Now Idomeneus, to whom this slaughter is due, 
 entered the battle on the Greek left, as appears 
 from his words in 312-327, where he tells us also 
 that the Ajaxes and Teucer are defending the ships 
 in the middle. Thus it would seem as if in the 
 previous passage the poet also meant the Greek left, 
 and therefore Hector's right ; from which it would 
 follow that Hector is somewhere about the centre. 
 But we are further told in that passage that Hector 
 was near the ships of Ajax, and yet we know from 
 Book XI 5-9 that the ships of Ajax are at one end of 
 the camp, and that the ships of Achilles are at the 
 other, while the ship of Odysseus is in the middle. 
 Then how can Hector both be in the centre and be 
 near the ships of Ajax ? This difficulty compelled 
 Aristarchus to suppose that the other Ajax, son 
 of Oileus, was meant. But we cannot accept his 
 view ; for Ajax, son of Telamon, is always meant 
 unless the other is specified, and in XV 705-746 he 
 is near about the ship of Protesilaus. Hence Dr. 
 
BKS. SECOND &> FIRST : CONCLUSION 207 
 
 Leaf says on 673, " Hector, it appears, is in the 
 centre of the battle'*; and again on 681, after 
 referring us to XI 5-9, " But we need not trouble 
 ourselves about the discrepancy with so late a passage 
 as the introduction to A " ; a passage which I hold 
 to be no later than the rest. How, then, are we to 
 reconcile this seeming discrepancy ? 
 
 First, I lay down that the poet does not use the 
 terms right and left from one point of view, but 
 varies it when he is speaking of a Trojan or a Greek. 
 Thus in XI 498 he says that Hector was fighting 
 toward the left of the whole battle, by which he 
 clearly means the Trojan left, because he adds, " by 
 the banks of the river Scamander," which in the 
 poet's view flows along the west of the plain, and 
 the Trojans face to the north. So, too, concerning 
 Ares, who befriends the Trojans, it is said at V 355 
 that Aphrodite, who is also their friend, found him 
 sitting on the left of the battle ; which is the Trojan 
 left, because he was set down by Athene on the 
 bank of Scamander at verse 36 of the same book. 
 Then again, when Idomeneus re-enters the battle, 
 it must be the Greek left, for Idomeneus is speaking 
 and says to Meriones at XIII 326, pcol'v S' cS^' iir' 
 apioTTep €)(€ a-T parody " hold On here toward the left 
 of the host TO us." And at XIII 675 in the other 
 passage it must be Hector's left again, because he 
 puts in the pronoun ol before vriwv eir* apicrrepd^ 
 "toward the left to him," that is, to Hector. 
 
2o8 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 Now the question is how Hector's left and the 
 Greek left alike mark out the place where Idomeneus 
 has been slaying. It is clear that Hector cannot be 
 in the centre, but must be on the Trojan right, 
 beyond the region where the Cretan hero does his 
 execution. And this is borne out by what is said of 
 his being near the ships of Ajax at one extremity of 
 the line ; nor is it very probable that the Wall would 
 be built the lowest in the middle, yet it is said to be 
 lowest where Hector and the ships of Ajax are. 
 But then it seems strange that Hector and Idomeneus 
 being so near at hand, one should not know what 
 the other is doing. This I take to depend on the 
 configuration of the Wall. I do not know how my 
 reader usually conceives of the Wall, whether as one 
 straight line or how. But, for myself, I find it easiest 
 to think of it as a rectangular or at least a curvilinear 
 structure. This seems to agree with what is said at 
 XIV 35, that the ships were drawn up in rows on 
 the beach, and at XII 5, that the Wall was built for 
 their defence, and the trench driven round about ; 
 for it is only natural that the Greeks should cover 
 up their flanks as well as their front. Let us sup- 
 pose it, then, to present three sides of a rectangle, 
 parallel with the trench, as shown in the following 
 plan; and let us place over against it, from our 
 right to left, the 5 Trojan companies under 3 leaders 
 each, in the exact order described by the poet at XII 
 88-104, where he narrates the method of attack. 
 
BKS. SECOND ^sf FIRST : CONCLUSION 209 
 
 I have put the groups in the order described, 
 but not the names in each group; for it seems 
 reasonable to suppose that the chief leaders, such 
 as Hector or Sarpedon, are supported on either 
 hand by the other two. So Aeneas would have 
 Archelochus on one side and Acamas on the other ; 
 and so again with Paris. I have put in a gate on 
 our right front, as well as one on the left flank, 
 but only for the sake of its symmetry; for the 
 poet makes mention of no more than two. The 
 
 Attberopaeus 
 
 SARPEDON 
 
 Gliauejus 
 
 S Ships Ship Ships 
 — m of of of 1 
 
 
 Polydamas 
 
 HECTOR 
 
 Cebpione* 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 AENEAS 
 
 ApoheJochus 
 
 Acamas 
 
 HELENUS 
 
 Oelphobus 
 
 Asius 
 
 PARIS 
 
 Alcathoirs 
 
 Agenop 
 
 
 
 first is the one at which Asius charges in his chariot, 
 but is foiled by the presence of the two Lapithae. 
 Now he is said at XII 118 to go toward the left, 
 which according to our rule signifies his own left, 
 and there we place a gate. But Aristarchus seems 
 to have thought that it meant the Greek left, and 
 so made the gate identical with the other one 
 mentioned at XIII 679, which is the one where 
 Hector breaks in ; coming to the strange conclusion 
 that there was only this one gate to the whole 
 camp, and that it was on the Greek left. Whether 
 
 o 
 
2IO COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 there were really more than these two we cannot 
 well determine; and perhaps there were not. For 
 the gate on the right front is never mentioned ; 
 and as for the one on the left flank, the river 
 might prevent an easy passage for the Greek chariots 
 there, and it is not convenient to imagine too 
 ready an access to the ships of Achilles. But one 
 thing is now explained. At XVI 558 Patroclus 
 says that Sarpedon was the first man to leap upon 
 or within the Wall; whereas at XII 438 the 
 same thing is said of Hector. Now Sarpedon 
 was in fact the first man to tear down a large 
 piece of the battlements, as is stated at XII 397, 
 though Hector first gets through the gate. And 
 those about the ships of Achilles would catch a 
 sight of Sarpedon first, and tell Patroclus of it, 
 who was meanwhile in the tent of Eurypylus; 
 but of Hector at the opposite side of the camp 
 they could know nothing. So that the two verses 
 are easy to reconcile, if there were any need to 
 do it. 
 
 Well, Hector is on the extreme right, the 
 strongest man attacking where the Wall is lowest 
 and weakest, and there he keeps on after getting 
 through, near about the ships of Ajax. But Ajax 
 himself is not there, but is defending the ships 
 in the middle, as stated by Idomeneus at XIII 312; 
 though during the attack on the Wall he was 
 called away for a while by Menestheus to help 
 
BKS. SECOND & FIRST : CONCLUSION 2 1 1 
 
 against Sarpedon and his Lycians. And so we 
 find that only after Hector has quitted his post 
 at XIII 754, in quest of Helenus and Deiphobus 
 and Asius, does he encounter Ajax at 809. Now 
 suppose Idomeneus to enter the battle midway 
 in advance of the ships of Ajax and Odysseus, 
 which is a fair allowance for his entering the fight 
 toward the Greek left. Then the Greek left and 
 Hector's left would equally describe the scene of 
 his prowess ; and yet Hector might not know any- 
 thing of it through his being round the corner. 
 And we may observe that this position would give 
 both Hector and Polydamas a prolonged view of 
 the eagle which at XII 200 skirts the Trojan 
 host from right to left, or, as it is said, keeps 
 them off to its left, passing from east to west, 
 and dropping a glittering snake from its talons 
 in the middle of the throng, about opposite the 
 soothsayer Helenus; which causes a conversation 
 on omens between Polydamas and Hector. And 
 again, the Trojan warriors whom Idomeneus would 
 encounter on either hand are Paris, Alcathous, 
 Agenor, and Helenus, Deiphobus, Asius ; all of 
 whom he does. He slays Asius and Alcathous, 
 is attacked by Deiphobus, who summons Aeneas 
 to his aid, and they are assisted by Paris and 
 Agenor; which brings the Cretan to a stand. 
 For after this he merely slays Oenomaus, a minor 
 hero, and soon withdraws himself, being some- 
 
212 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 what old and tired. So that all is clear and 
 free from inconsistency, when the thing is accu- 
 rately conceived. 
 
 That there are some improbabilities in the story, 
 as presented in our scheme, I do not deny. It 
 is no doubt improbable that the Greeks, after the 
 treacherous Rupture of the Truce, should trust 
 the Trojans again ; whereas the next day they 
 conclude an armistice for the Burning of the Dead. 
 But the two duels which occur on the first day 
 of battle, in Book III and in Book VII, do not 
 appear to me to constitute an improbability — cer- 
 tainly not one sufficient to make us say, with Sir 
 Richard Jebb, that both episodes cannot be due 
 to the same hand. For, as Dr. Leaf fairly puts 
 it, one duel is proposed as a decisive ordeal, 
 designed to finish the war, and the other is a 
 mere trial of prowess entered upon out of a spirit 
 of emulation in the course of the fight ; to which 
 his chief objection is that it approaches near to 
 the limits of an anticlimax. But about this opinions 
 may differ. Again, there is a certain degree of 
 improbability in the fact that Priam does not know 
 by sight the chief heroes on the Grecian side, until 
 he is told their names in the Teichoscopia by 
 Helen ; and in the amount of matter which the 
 poet puts into some of his days in comparison 
 with others. But this sort of improbability is found 
 in most stories, and does not touch the question 
 
BKS. SECOND & FIRST : CONCLUSION 2 1 3 
 
 of authorship. It is really a question between 
 the author and his audience, how far he should 
 ask them to submit to his straining of fidelity to 
 nature in one direction, for the sake of such 
 advantages as can only result from allowing it. 
 The best of poets is apt to misjudge in this 
 respect; but, for my own part, I must say that 
 there is nothing in the Iliad that I could wish 
 away. 
 
 Again, there is undeniably a certain difference of 
 emphasis in the Catalogue, but there appears to 
 be no discrepancy from other parts of the Iliad ; 
 which is surely most remarkable, when we consider 
 the great number of details which that document 
 contains, affording many chances of a slip. It seems 
 to me a tenable proposition that the poet has de- 
 voted this canto to a record of his knowledge 
 about several tribes, such as the Boeotians and 
 Arcadians, of whom he had not much to say in 
 the sequel. But the phrases about Boeotian origin 
 and Hesiodic school, which are so freely applied 
 to the Catalogue, must to the eye of sober reason 
 appear misapplied ; for if not as regards Boeotia 
 itself, yet as regards the not very distant region 
 of Thessaly, the geography seems to be specially 
 confused. And let me add, though it may not 
 be strictly relevant, that the Catalogue, however 
 ill-fitted for public recitation, well repays a quiet 
 hour's perusal, and has many good things, of which 
 
214 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 I may instance one. The poet has already told 
 us, or is about to tell us, that Achilles was the 
 strongest man and the swiftest man, and also the 
 best fighter, and had the best horses of all the 
 Grecian host. But were he to insist that Achilles 
 was the handsomest of all, it might seem to make 
 him impossibly perfect, and more like one of the 
 late Mr. Henry Seton Merriman's heroes than one 
 of Homer's own. Yet this perfection also the poet 
 is resolved that his hero shall have. And behold 
 how he does it : '^ Nireus, again, brought three 
 shapely ships from Syme ; Nireus, the son of 
 Aglaia and King Charops; Nireus, who was the 
 fairest man of all the Greeks who came up to 
 Troy, after the perfect son of Peleus : yet he was 
 but a feeble wight, and few people followed him." 
 Whilst those three clanging strokes upon the name 
 of Nireus are ringing in our ears, he covertly instils 
 into our minds the honied detail about the beauty 
 of Achilles; after which Nireus, having done his 
 work, is dismissed as a weakling and never is heard 
 of again. So completely indeed is he forgotten, 
 that much the same thing is said about the comeli- 
 ness of Ajax in Book XVII 279 ; but perhaps it 
 there relates to bodily figure, in which Achilles no 
 less excels, and here to the features of the face. 
 This instance seems to bring us close to the secret 
 of Homeric charm. It is a faultless but a guileless 
 art, which we discern with a little attention, smile, 
 
BKS. SECOND & FIRST : CONCLUSION 215 
 
 and love the poet all the more because of it; and 
 even in the Catalogue its virtue does not fail. 
 Lastly, I may admit that I see traces here and 
 there that certain parts of the poem were after- 
 thoughts of their author; but these I do not feel 
 bound to disclose to the reader. 
 
 And now I will end with a short description of 
 a text of the Iliad as I should like to see it 
 printed. The interpolations, when once settled 
 among scholars, should be removed from the text 
 entirely. They disturb the harmony of the poem 
 and obstruct its onward flow. The verses which 
 are mere mistakes or repetitions, and which possess 
 little significance beyond themselves, might be printed 
 at the bottom of the page, where they could be 
 despatched by the reader at a single glance. But 
 the larger interpolations, including the Doloneia, 
 would be much better consigned to an appendix, 
 where they could be studied and compared, in 
 respect of language, law, manners, and religion, 
 both with one another and with the original poem. 
 It is possible that a new perspective may be found 
 to arise among them, if one can be shown to 
 imply the previous existence of another, which it 
 would be a matter of some interest to trace ; but 
 it is premature to enter on this work at present. 
 In the text itself it is too late now to change the 
 old numeration, which ought to be retained, with 
 a number not alone against every fifth line, but 
 
2i6 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 against the lines before and after an interpolation 
 which has thence been removed. But the separation 
 into books I would close up altogether, only mark- 
 ing in the margin with a Greek capital letter the 
 line where each of them begins, and repeating the 
 letter and the number of the book at the top of 
 every right-hand page, for purposes of easy refer- 
 ence. Then between each canto should be left a 
 space of one or two lines, but not much more ; 
 for the poem is a woven song, which will not bear 
 with any wide division of its parts. But should it 
 be necessary to print the Iliad in more volumes 
 than one, I would rather have it printed in three 
 volumes than in two, each of them embracing 
 fifteen triacosiads. To number all the verses of 
 the cantos is unnecessary, for reference will be made 
 as in the past to the verses of the books, and the 
 space is sufficient to denote the conclusion of a 
 separate triacosiad. But the number which each 
 canto bears should be annexed, by preference in 
 the left-hand margin, as the number of the book 
 is on the right; and it might perhaps be repeated 
 at the top of every left-hand page, against the 
 number of the book upon the right. The Greek 
 titles of the episodes should also be retained, and 
 distributed along the head of the page, as in the 
 Cambridge text of Mr. Piatt. But it would be 
 useful if scholars in association could agree to 
 supplement and revise them, if required, so that 
 
BKS. SECOND &? FIRST : CONCLUSION 217 
 
 each canto might possess a title of its own, de- 
 rived from its leading incident, by which it would 
 familiarly be known. This task they are as com- 
 petent to undertake for Homer as the critics of 
 antiquity, by whom the present titles were assigned. 
 The reader would then recognise his way about 
 the poem, which may be slightly blurred by abolish- 
 ing the books; and his eye would detect at once 
 its whole concatenation, which is more than all the 
 rest to be desired. If such a text be printed, I 
 venture to predict that the Iliad will be studied 
 with an increase of zeal from an increase of faith 
 in one author's design, and will not only be beloved, 
 as heretofore, for its wealth of incident and variety 
 of characters, steeped in a depth of unadulterated 
 feeling, but honoured as a work of almost super- 
 human art. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 ON THE ODYSSEY 
 
 The first question of the reader who may have felt the force 
 of the cumulative argument stated above will be this : " If 
 such is the case with the Iliad, what is the case with the 
 Odyssey ? " To which our answer is : There is just such 
 another rule applicable to the Odyssey, and it is a much 
 simpler rule to follow out, as soon as its secret is discovered. 
 It shows that the Odyssey originally contained 1 1,700 verses, 
 and consequently that there are 410 verses too many in the 
 vulgate text. The foregoing inquiry into the Iliad has been 
 conducted without much reference to the other poem, mainly 
 because I did not light upon the Odyssean number until late, 
 but worked out the scheme of the Iliad independently, before 
 making a thorough search into the conditions of its compeer. 
 There were several reasons which induced me to take this 
 course. The first was that, even if such a law existed in 
 the Odyssey, it could have but little bearing on the question 
 whether both the poems were composed by the same man or 
 not. For the Odyssey no more displays signs of familiarity 
 with writing than the Iliad ; and therefore if such a law was 
 intended to meet a defect in the means of transmission, as 
 seems the most probable account of it, it was just as likely 
 that the author of one poem would have had recourse to it 
 as the author of the other. Indeed the supposition is initially 
 more probable in the case of the Odyssey than in that of the 
 
220 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 Iliad. For there are a great number of formal lines in it, 
 like 8i,ojeve^ AaepTLciBrj, 7roXvfiri)^av* 'OSuo-crei), which, with- 
 out a written text, it must have been almost impossible to 
 know when to put in and when to leave out, unless we 
 suppose some such rule of guidance as a definite number of 
 verses. But for a rhapsodist with a rosary this would not 
 prove so hard. My opinion however was, and is still, that 
 the two poems were due to different authors ; and since the 
 presence of a similar law in both would not tend to over- 
 throw it, there was little other reason to think that the 
 intentions of one poet would throw much light on the 
 intentions of the other. The second reason was that the 
 matter is of much less importance in the Odyssey than in 
 the Iliad. We can all of us see our way clearly through 
 the Odyssey, whereas most of us stick at some point of the 
 Iliad, lose the thread, resume at a favourite place, or only 
 persevere with the whole from a sense of duty. It is over 
 the Iliad that the battle has been waged ; for grand as that 
 poem is, in its present state it can scarcely be read from 
 cover to cover with a perfect sense of enjoyment. But in 
 the Odyssey these troubles are not felt. Lastly, I must 
 admit that after a few abortive trials at the Odyssey had 
 revealed no similar law, I was in no great hurry to find it ; 
 for it seemed to me that the number in the Iliad must be 
 confessed to be pretty plain and obvious, when all attempts 
 at reducing the Odyssey to a like conformity to rule had 
 ended in failure. 
 
 Nevertheless a desire to ascertain the truth upon this 
 subject, and to derive a confirmation of our view about 
 the Iliad from a poem much akin to it, and separated, as 
 Mr. Andrew Lang has shown, from the Cyclic poems as 
 Achaean from Ionian, not to speak of the great philological 
 interest of such a rule, if found, prompted me to renew 
 
APPENDIX 221 
 
 the inquiry with more dih'gence. And the result of it is 
 this. The poet of the Odyssey employs a canto half as 
 long again as Homer, consisting of 450 verses, or if two 
 of them be taken together, making a section of 900 lines. 
 This is much about what we might expect, considering the 
 lighter character of his verse. There are 26 cantos in all, 
 and the exact middle of the poem is after XII 142. The 
 first 6 cantos take us down to the moment when the hero 
 falls asleep on the coast of Phasacia, at the close of the Fifth 
 Book. The next 6 conclude with the interruption of his 
 Narrative to Alcinous at Book XI 332. The next 2, the 
 central pair of the poem, which have to effect the difficult 
 transition from his foreign to his domestic adventures, are 
 peculiar in several respects, but chiefly in this, that the last 
 of them ends at XIII 145, not indeed in the middle of a 
 speech, but in the middle of a duologue between Poseidon 
 and Zeus, in which the hostile and the friendly god are 
 reconciled about the hero's fate. In the first part Poseidon 
 bitterly complains of the safe return of Odysseus, and Zeus, 
 sagely disclaiming all idea of diminishing Poseidon's prestige, 
 gives him full leave to avenge himself at leisure. This seems 
 to foreshadow the hero's mild death from the sea, already 
 foretold in XI 127-137 and remembered at XXIII 274- 
 284. A pause ensues, during which this politic answer 
 takes effect, and in the second part Poseidon waives his right 
 to instant vengeance on Odysseus, but expresses a desire of 
 blotting out at once the Phasacians, who have transported 
 the hero in safety to his native shores. Zeus abets the pro- 
 ject, and the brothers are at one. The next 6 cantos carry 
 us on through the Recognition by Telemachus in the swine- 
 herd's hut, and the Boxing with Irus in the palace, to the 
 Removal of the Arms overnight at XIX 52. And the last 
 6, beginning with the Conversation with Penelope on the 
 
222 COMPOSITION OF THE ILIAD 
 
 same night, take us down to the end of the poem at 
 XXIV 548. 
 
 I append a scheme of the Odyssey constructed on similar 
 lines to that of the Iliad. The reader will be able to find 
 out most of the arguments for excluding irregular verses by 
 consulting editions of the poem. He will learn from Mr. 
 Merry, for instance, why I 99-101 are excluded ; and from 
 Mr. Monro (Appendix, p. 312) why I 238 is excluded here, 
 but retained at XIV 368, while I 239-240 are here retained, 
 but excluded at XIV 369-370. He will find the Cambridge 
 Homer of Mr. Piatt in some places a useful corrective to 
 Mr. Monro, who was not so conservative in dealing with 
 the Odyssey as he was in dealing with the Iliad. In a few 
 cases, such as XII 420-425, he may have to look for ob- 
 jections in a German book, such as Otto Seeck's Die Quellen 
 der Odyssee^ for I do not know that any English editor has 
 spoken of them. In other cases he will soon discover the 
 objections for himself, when once his attention has been 
 drawn to the passages. He will notice small points, such as 
 Travvvxtof: in I 443 and iravvv')(C'q in II 434, which warn us 
 against starting a new canto with a new day, and will re- 
 member what we said about Iliad VII 476-478. In fact 
 this poet never begins a canto with a dawn, unless XII 143 
 be counted as such a case, though he has mentioned that pheno- 
 menon as often perhaps as any poet that ever sang. Like his 
 predecessor, he never opens or closes a canto twice alike. 
 Unlike his predecessor, he sometimes divides his cantos in 
 the course of a speech, but only when this speech is a long 
 narrative, like that of Odysseus, which is divided at IX 104 
 and IX 555 and X 448 and XII 142, or that of Menelaus, 
 which is divided at IV 440 ; an exception which explains 
 itself. The reader will observe that we retain the Song of 
 Demodocus in VIII 266-369, and the latter part of the 
 
APPENDIX 223 
 
 Scene in Hades in XI 568-629, and the Conclusion in 
 XXIII 297~XXIV 548, with certain excisions. As to the 
 first, there does not appear to be any sort of reason, except 
 a prudish one, for rejecting it. The second is a striking 
 passage, which I readily concede could hardly have occurred 
 in the Iliad, but which seems to me by no means so unlikely 
 in the Odyssey. The last, though it exhibits some traces of 
 hasty workmanship, perhaps not unnatural at the end of a 
 lengthy poem, is so plainly anticipated, at least as regards 
 Laertes, in I 187-193 and other places, that the story would 
 be incomplete without it. Finally, let me say that I do not 
 wish to thrust this scheme or any other down the reader's 
 throat, least of all in the Odyssey, where it can perfectly 
 well be done without. But experience has taught me that 
 one's pleasure in reading the poem, and one's sense of security 
 in pressing home the poet's meaning, are enhanced by a con- 
 fidence in its substantial correctness ; and it may be that 
 others will experience the same or a similar result. 
 
224 
 
 TABLE OF CANTOS 
 
 Canto. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Book. 
 
 1-444 
 gg-ioj 
 238 
 36(>-359 
 
 I- 14 
 
 11. 15-434 
 iii. 1-30 
 
 iii. 31-48] 
 7S 
 
 iii. 482-497 
 
 493 
 iv. I - 440 
 285-289 
 
 iv. 441-847 
 V. 1-43 
 
 V. 44-493 
 
 VI. I -331 
 
 vii. I -132 
 
 j6- 68 
 
 Number 
 of Verses. 
 
 444 
 
 - 3 
 
 - I 
 
 - 4 
 + 14 
 
 450 
 
 420 
 
 + 30 
 
 450 
 
 45 1 
 
 - I 
 
 450 
 
 16 
 
 — I 
 + 440 
 
 - 5 
 
 450 
 
 407 
 + 43 
 
 45° 
 
 450 
 
 331 
 + 132 
 
 - 13 
 450 
 
 Canto. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XL 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Book. 
 
 vu. 133-347 
 viii. I - 235 
 
 viii. 236-586 
 
 303. 346 
 
 ix. I - 104 
 
 jo,8g-go 
 
 IX. los-sss 
 4S3 
 
 ix. 556-566 
 
 X. I - 448 
 
 i8g, 2S3, 26s 
 
 368-372, 430 
 
 X. 449-574 
 4S6, 470, 482 
 
 504^ 5(>5 
 xi. I - 332 
 60, g2, 245 
 
 xi. 333-640 
 xii. 1-142 
 
 xu. 143-453 
 
 420-425 
 
 xiii. I - 145 
 
 Number 
 of Verses. 
 
 215 
 + 235 
 
 450 
 
 351 
 
 - 2 
 
 + 104 
 
 - 3 
 
 450 
 
 451 
 
 • I 
 
 450 
 
 II 
 
 +448 
 
 - 3 
 
 - 6 
 
 450 
 
 126 
 
 - 3 
 
 - 2 
 
 + 332 
 
 - ■-( 
 
 450 
 
 308 
 + 142 
 
 450 
 
 + 145 
 450 
 
IN THE ODYSSEY 
 
 225 
 
 Canto. 
 
 XV. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Book. 
 
 xiii. 146-440 
 320-323 
 347-348 
 
 xiv. 1 - 164 
 
 16 1 - 162 
 
 xiv. 165-533 
 
 309-370 
 
 457-522 
 
 XV. I - 159 
 
 (>3> 74 
 r 13 -Tig, i3g 
 
 XV. 160-557 
 
 ^95 
 XVI. I- 53 
 
 xvi. 54-481 
 
 TOT. 295-298 
 
 xvii, X - 27 
 
 xvii. 28 - 606 
 
 49, 107-150 
 
 505-5S8 
 
 xviii. 1-428 
 138-186 
 
 . 393 
 xix. 1-52 
 
 Number 
 of Verses. 
 
 29s 
 
 - 4 
 
 - 2 
 + 164 
 
 - I 
 
 - 2 
 
 450 
 
 369 
 
 - 2 
 
 - 66 
 
 + 159 
 
 - 2 
 
 - 8 
 
 450 
 
 398 
 - I 
 
 + 53 
 
 450 
 
 428 
 
 - S 
 + 27 
 
 450 
 
 579 
 
 - 45 
 
 - 84 
 
 450 
 
 428 
 
 - 29 
 
 - I 
 + 52 
 
 450 
 
 Canto. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Book. 
 
 XIX. 53-507 
 60, 153 
 
 n5-n7 
 
 xix. 508-604 
 
 XX. 1-370 
 
 66- 82 
 
 XX. 371-394 
 XXI. 1-434 
 
 66, 276 
 
 295-302 
 
 xxn. 1-25 
 
 xxii. 26-477 
 43* '9' 
 
 xxii. 478 - 501 
 
 xxiii. I - 372 
 
 121 - ^28 
 
 218-224 
 
 310-343 
 
 xxiv. 1-97 
 
 xxiv. 98-548 
 
 121 
 
 Number 
 of Verses. 
 
 455 
 ■ 2 
 
 3 
 450 
 
 97 
 + 370 
 - 17 
 
 450 
 
 24 
 + 434 
 
 - 23 
 
 - 2 
 
 - 8 
 + 25 
 
 450 
 
 452 
 - 2 
 
 450 
 
 24 
 +372 
 
 - 2 
 
 - 7 
 
 - 34 
 + 97 
 
 450 
 
 451 
 
 - I 
 
 450 
 
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