Homer and His Age

by Andrew Lang

Mr. Jevons has justly and acutely remarked that "we do not know, and there is no external evidence of any description which leads us to suppose, that the Iliad was ever expanded" (J. H. S, vii. 291-308).

That it was expanded is a mere hypothesis based on the idea that "if there was an Iliad at all in the ninth century, its length must have been such as was compatible with the conditions of an oral delivery,"—"a poem or poems short enough to be recited at a single sitting."

But we have proved, with Mr. Jevons and Blass, and by the analogy of the Chansons that, given a court audience (and a court audience is granted), there were no such narrow limits imposed on the length of a poem orally recited from night to night.

The length of the Iliad yields, therefore, no argument for expansions throughout several centuries. That theory, suggested by the notion that the original poem MUST have been short, is next supposed to be warranted by the inconsistencies and discrepancies. But we argue that these are only visible, as a rule, to "the analytical reader," for whom the poet certainly was not composing; that they occur in all long works of fictitious narrative; that the discrepancies often are not discrepancies; and, finally, that they are not nearly so glaring as the inconsistencies in the theories of each separatist critic. A theory, in such matter as this, is itself an explanatory myth, or the plot of a story which the critic invents to account for the facts in the case. These critical plots, we have shown, do not account for the facts of the case, for the critics do not excel in constructing plots. They wander into unperceived self-contradictions which they would not pardon in the poet. These contradictions are visible to "the analytical reader," who concludes that a very early poet may have been, though Homer seldom is, as inconsistent as a modern critic.

Meanwhile, though we have no external evidence that the Iliad was ever expanded—that it was expanded is an explanatory myth of the critics—"we do know, on good evidence," says Mr. Jevons, "that the Iliad was rhapsodised." The rhapsodists were men, as a rule, of one day recitations, though at a prolonged festival at Athens there was time for the whole Iliad to be recited. "They chose for recitation such incidents as could be readily detached, were interesting in themselves, and did not take too long to recite." Mr. Jevons suggests that the many brief poems collected in the Homeric hymns are invocations which the rhapsodists preluded to their recitals. The practice seems to have been for the rhapsodist first to pay his reverence to the god, "to begin from the god," at whose festival the recitation was being given (the short proems collected in the Hymns pay this reverence), "and then proceed with his rhapsody"—with his selected passage from the Iliad, "Beginning with thee" (the god of the festival), "I will go on to another lay," that is, to his selection from the Epic. Another conclusion of the proem often is, "I will be mindful both of thee and of another lay," meaning, says Mr. Jevons, that "the local deity will figure in the recitation from Homer which the rhapsodist is about to deliver."

These explanations, at all events, yield good sense. The invocation of Athene (Hymns, XI., XXVIII.) would serve as the proem of invocation to the recital of Iliad, V., VI. 1-311, the day of valour of Diomede, spurred on by the wanton rebuke of Agamemnon, and aided by Athene. The invocation of Hephaestus (Hymn XX.), would prelude to a recital of the Making of the Awns of Achilles, and so on.

But the rhapsodist may be reciting at a festival of Dionysus, about whom there is practically nothing said in the Iliad; for it is a proof of the antiquity of the Iliad that, when it was composed, Dionysus had not been raised to the Olympian peerage, being still a folk-god only. The rhapsodist, at a feast of Dionysus in later times, has to introduce the god into his recitation. The god is not in his text, but he adds him. {Footnote:Ibid., VI. 130-141}

Why should any mortal have made this interpolation? Mr. Jevons's theory supplies the answer. The rhapsodist added the passages to suit the Dionysus feast, at which he was reciting.

The same explanation is offered for the long story of the Birth of {blank space} which Agamemnon tells in his speech of apology and reconciliation. {Footnote:Ibid., XIX. 136.} There is an invocation to Heracles (Hymns, XV.), and the author may have added this speech to his rhapsody of the Reconciliation, recited at a feast of Heracles. Perhaps the remark of Mr. Leaf offers the real explanation of the presence of this long story in the speech of Agamemnon: "Many speakers with a bad case take refuge in telling stories." Agamemnon shows, says Mr. Leaf, "the peevish nervousness of a man who feels that he has been in the wrong," and who follows a frank speaker like Achilles, only eager for Agamemnon to give the word to form and charge. So Agamemnon takes refuge in a long story, throwing the blame of his conduct on Destiny.

We do not need, then, the theory of a rhapsodist's interpolation, but it is quite plausible in itself.