Familiar Studies in Homer

by Agnes M. Clerke

[54]. Book xxii. 66-71. (Author.)

Is it credible that the same mind which was capable of conjuring up this abhorrent vision should have conceived the pathetic picture of the faithful hound in the Odyssey? Nor can there be found, in the wide range of the great Ilian epic, a single passage inconsistent in spirit with the lines cited above. Throughout its cantos, in which the usefulness of the animal is nevertheless amply recognised, and his peculiarities sketched with graphic power and truthfulness, runs, like a dark thread, the remembrance of his hateful office as the inflictor of the last and most atrocious insult upon ‘miserable humanity.’[[55]] One of the leading ‘motives’ of the poem is, indeed, the fate of the body after death. The overmastering importance attached to its honourable interment forms the hinge upon which a considerable portion of the action turns. The dread of its desecration continually haunts the imagination of the poet, and broods alike over the ramparts of Ilium and the tents of Greece. From the first lines almost to the last the loathsome processes of canine sepulture stand out as the direst result of defeat—the crowning terror of death. Among the disastrous effects of the wrath of Achilles foreshadowed in the opening invocation, the visible and tangible horror is afforded by ‘devouring dogs and hungry vultures’ exercising their revolting function on the corpses of the slain; before the dying eyes of Hector rises, like a nightmare, the horrible anticipation of becoming the prey of ‘Achæan hounds,’[[56]] while his fierce adversary refuses to impair the gloomy perfection of his vengeance by remitting that supreme penalty;[[57]] next to the honours of his funeral-pyre, the chiefest consolation offered to the Shade of Patroclus is the promise to make the body of his slayer food for curs;[[58]] in her despair, Hecuba shrieks that she brought forth her son to ‘glut swift-footed dogs,’[[59]] and bids Priam not seek to avert the abhorred doom. These instances, which it would be easy to multiply, are unmodified by a solitary expression of tenderness towards canine nature, or a single example of canine affection towards man.

[55]. Book xxii. 76.

[56]. Iliad, xxii. 339.

[57]. Ib. 348.

[58]. Ib. xxiii. 183.

[59]. Ib. xxiv. 211.

It is true that a different view has been advocated by Sir William Geddes, who, in his valuable work, ‘The Problem of the Homeric Poems,’ first dwelt in detail on the contrasted treatment of the horse and dog in those early epics. He did not, however, stop there. A theory, designed to solve the secular puzzle of Homeric authorship, had presented itself to him, and demanded for its support a somewhat complex marshalling of facts. His contention was briefly this:—that the Odyssey, with the ten books of the Iliad[[60]] amputated by Mr. Grote’s critical knife from the trunk of a supposed primitive Achilleid, are the work of one and the same author, an Ionian of Asia Minor, to whom the venerable name of Homer properly belongs; while the fourteen books constituting the nucleus and main substance of our Iliad are abandoned to an unknown Thessalian bard. He has not, indeed, succeeded in engaging on his side the general opinion of the learned, yet it cannot be denied that his ingenious and patient analysis of the Homeric texts has served to develop some highly suggestive minor points. The validity of his main argument obviously depends, in the first place, upon the discovery of striking correspondences between the Odyssey and the non-Achillean cantos of the Iliad; in the second, upon the exposure of irreconcilable discrepancies between the Odyssey and the Grotean Achilleid. But the attempt is really hopeless to transplant the canine sympathy manifest in the Odyssey to any part of the Iliad, or to localise in any particular section of the Iliad the equine sympathies displayed throughout the many-coloured tissue of its composition.

[60]. These are Books ii. to vii. inclusive, ix. x. xxiii. and xxiv. The Achilleid thus consists of Books i. viii. and xi.-xxii.

Everywhere alike enthusiasm for the horse is evoked, vividly and spontaneously, on all suitable occasions. Ardent admiration is uniformly bestowed upon his powers and faculties. He is nowhere passed by with indifference. The verses glow with a kind of rapture of enjoyment that describe his strength and beauty, his eager spirit and fine nervous organisation, his intelligent and disinterested participation in human struggles and triumphs. In the region of the Iliad claimed for the Odyssean Homer, it suffices to point to the episode of the capture by Diomed and Sthenelus of the divinely-descended steeds of Æneas;[[61]] to the careful provision of ambrosial forage for the horses of Heré along the shores of Simoeis;[[62]] to the resplendent simile of Book vi.;[[63]] to the gleeful zeal with which Odysseus and Diomed secure, as the fruit and crown of their nocturnal expedition, the milk-white coursers of Rhesus;[[64]] to the living fervour imported into the chariot-race at the funeral games of Patroclus; to the tender pathos with which Achilles describes the grief of his immortal horses for their well-loved charioteer.[[65]] The enumeration of similar examples from non-Achillean cantos might be carried much further, but where is the use of ‘breaking in an open door’? The evidence is overwhelming as to homogeneity of sentiment, in this important respect, through the entire Iliad. If more than one author was concerned in its production, the coadjutors were at least unanimous in their glowing admiration for the heroic animal of battle.