I have frequently insisted (in Homer and the Epic, 1893) on the points in the italicised passages. In the present book, which merely tries to prove that the poems are the work of a single pre-ionic age, I cannot again examine the numerous allegations of glaring discrepancies in the Iliad, such as no one sane poet could commit. As has been often proved, notably by Colonel Mure, the greatest fictitious narratives, known to be by a single hand in each case, contain discrepancies at least as remarkable as any that can be proved to occur in Homer. I have also argued that many of Homer's supposed faults exist only in the imagination of the learned. I cannot then, again, examine all, or even many of the imaginary inconsistencies: three of the most glaring must suffice. But I take advantage of a critique by a distinguished scholar, Mr. Verrall, to meet certain preliminary objections which he states. In The Quarterly Review,[1] Mr. Verrall writes concerning me:
"But when we turn to other parts, equally essential, of his argument for single authorship, our feeling always is that, in reality, he begs the question. He maintains, if we do not mistake, that there is no difficulty in supposing the Iliad, as we have it, to be the work of one poet; that the alleged dislocations, wanderings, inconsistencies of the story, so far as they exist at all, are nothing more than, from common experience, we might naturally expect in a single author. When he comes to establish this in detail, his procedure is to take the allegations separately, and to ask, in each case, whether it is inconceivable that the discrepancy (if allowed) is due to oversight on the part of the single composer. On these lines we may make short work. Hardly any error whatever of this sort is inconceivable, and hardly any, by itself, can be improbable. It would be nothing at all that, once in a way, Homer should forget that his Greek camp had a wall. We could scarcely call it inconceivable that, having himself described the 'Sending of Patroclus' with one set of circumstances, he should make his Thetis relate it with a totally different set. If such flaws were few and miscellaneous, and if there were external testimony to the single authorship, we would pass them without a murmur. Mr. Lang always does argue on this head as if they were few, as if they had no apparent relation to one another, and, above all, as if single authorship were a datum. Any explanation will serve where none is necessary; and consequently Mr. Lang's explanations often seem to us hardly serious.
"We will give one specimen. In Book ix. the Greek camp has a wall (vv. 69-87). At the beginning of Book x., Agamemnon at night, looking from his tent on the plain, sees the 'many watch-fires' of the Trojans, who, on this particular night, are camping out before the city on the same plain. The wall is gone, as it does go and come throughout the fighting scenes of the Iliad. Nor is this a momentary inadvertence; for through the whole of Book x., though its story is such that the wall, if there, must be visible to the narrator (so to say) constantly, though the camp boundary is passed several times, never is there trace of anything but a ditch. We say that, for a composition meant to be continuous as it now stands, this is a most uncommon and surprising phenomenon; nor is it intelligible to us that any one so far should disagree. Mr. Lang, in a special chapter on Book x., disposes of the matter thus:
"'Agamemnon hears the music of the joyous Trojan pipes and flutes, and sees the reflected glow of their camp fires, we must suppose, for he could not see the fires themselves through the new wall of his own camp, as critics very wisely remark' (Homer and his Age, p. 260).
"'We must suppose.' But how can we suppose anything of the sort? 'Many fires' are not a glow. If the point were merely that the wall is ignored in this passage, let us say simply that the poet forgot it. But the point is, that the wall is ignored consistently throughout the Book, and that, all about the poem, similar traces of ignorance respecting this vitally important object are found from time to time. If that is a phenomenon commonly observed in narratives known to be from one hand, or otherwise designed for continuity, let some of these narratives be produced for comparison."
Mr. Verrall argues, we see, that I ask, in each case, "is this discrepancy too bad for a single author?" but neglect the cumulative weight of all the discrepancies. That is not, consciously, my method; that fallacy I seek to avoid. I try to prove that most of the discrepancies which I examine are not really discrepancies at all—have no weight,—and a mass of such imponderable objections has no cumulative ponderosity. I do argue that the actual inconsistencies are comparatively few, not more or worse than the similar inconsistencies in the Aeneid, or Don Quixote.
But Mr. Verrall thinks that my explanations, or defences, of the alleged discrepancies "often seem hardly serious." He gives one example of my deplorable flippancy from Iliad, Book x. Now I readily grant to Mr. Verrall that I had no right to explain Agamemnon's view, from bed, in his hut, of the Trojan camp-fires beyond the wall of the Greek camp as merely the glow in the sky caused by these fires.[2] As Mr. Leaf puts it, "the poet does not seem to have a very vivid picture of the situation." In bed, in a hut (x. 11-14), Agamemnon could only see the Trojan fires on the rising ground beyond the wall, and the Greek ships, "in his mind's eye."
But Mr. Verrall proceeds to give a fine example of what I call "an imaginary discrepancy." "The wall is gone.... Nor is this a momentary inadvertence; for through the whole of Book x., though its story is such that the wall, if there, must be visible to the narrator (so to say) constantly, though the camp boundary is passed several times, never is there trace of anything but a ditch."
This is merely an inadvertent misstatement of fact. Not only the new fosse round the Greek camp, but the gates of the new wall are mentioned. No wall, no gates!
Let us examine the history of wall, gates, and ditch. "In Book ix. 69-87 the Greek camp has a wall." The nature of the wall is explained by Nestor in Book vii. 337-343. The wall-making is similarly described in 437-441. The wall has (1) towers, (2) gates (or one gate), "that through them (or it) may be a way for chariot-driving," and (3) there is "a deep foss hard by to be about it," with a palisade, to "hinder the horses and footmen" of the Trojans.[3]
Now, even if only the fosse were mentioned in Book x., that fosse is part of the fortification first made and mentioned in Books vii. viii. and ix. 87, 88, where the advanced guard takes position "between the fosse and the wall." Precisely there, Agamemnon, in Book x. 126, 127, expects to find the advanced guard. The poet, in Book x., has certainly not forgotten the fortification of Books vii. viii. ix., for he does not merely, as Mr. Verrall declares, mention the fosse, though why does he do so, if he forgets the wall which was made at the same time? By a negative hallucination Mr. Verrall has failed to see that he also mentions the gate. "We will find the advanced guard before the gate," says Agamemnon (x. 126).
Now no mortal can assert that when a poet mentions the gate, he mentions nothing but the fosse! Both fosse and gates are new: the gates are a necessary part of the wall; and only a critic on the search for a discrepancy could overlook the fact that the poet of Book x. knows all about the fortification of Books vii. viii. ix. The poet has no occasion to say "the gates in the wall"; the gates could be nowhere else. Had there been a wall with no gates, which is absurd, the poet would have had to make the princes scale the wall; and, had he known nothing about the new fortification, he could not have mentioned the new gates and the new fosse.
I repeat, in ix. 65, 88, Nestor bids the advanced post take position; and they do so, "betwixt fosse and wall"; and there, "before the gate" (x. 126, 127), Agamemnon expects to find them. The "discrepancy" is due to Mr. Verrall's imagination.