The World of Homer

by Andrew Lang

Thus no such stylistic convention—maintained in our Iliad and Odyssey, neglected in the Cypria, Aethiopis, and the rest—can be accepted. In fact, another and a special cause for many of Homer's silences has to be suggested, as we shall see. Once more it is my assumption that our epics were made in the main as we have them, for a peculiar audience, a courtly and knightly audience, known to themselves and their poet as "Achaeans." That they were of unmixed race I do not suppose; these Northern invaders, their chiefs at least, would marry the daughters of the princes of the land. But I assume that our epics were made for them, while they retained their Northern ideas; on many points very like the ideas, usages, and beliefs of the heathen Scandinavian settlers in Iceland. It is maintained by Mr. Murray that the ideas of "the conquered races" were very different, and that, as the two peoples mingled, the ideas of the conquered races re-emerged. This is manifestly true. But my view is that Achaean society, courtly society at least, had not adopted the beliefs and usages of the conquered races at the time when our epics, which ignore them, were composed. But these usages and ideas are usual in the fragments of the Cyclic epics on Trojan affairs. No stylistic convention interfered and kept them out. Mr. Murray has to discover a special cause for the presence in the "Cyclic" of much that is absent from our two epics.

The ideas of Mr. Murray, in some passages of his work, appear to be precisely the opposite of my own. In other passages we seem to be on the very point of agreement.

When we are told, in passages to be quoted, that there was in the formation of the Iliad, and to a less extent in that of the Odyssey, a strong element of reform and expurgation, we ask ourselves—who, in what age, and from what motives, were the reformers and purgers of what pre-existing poetic and legendary materials? Were those materials the property of the "Achaean or Northern" conquerors, or of the pre-existing "conquered races" (to use Mr. Murray's terms); or were the materials a medley derived from both sources? Were the purgers Achaean poets working on materials, at least in part the property of the conquered races? Or was the purgation mainly done by Ionians, that is, by the mixed Greek peoples settled in Asia; peoples certainly retaining many of the ideas of the conquered races which our Homer ignores? Or did "the Achaean or Northern spirit" purge away some things distasteful to that spirit, while the Ionians purged away other things? What the elements more or less purged away are supposed to be, we shall see later. In the passage to which I have referred[1] we find the following statements:—

"The epic tradition of Greece, vast and tangled in its wealth of varied beauty and ugliness, was left by the Homeric poets a much cleaner and colder thing than they found it. In the result, two influences were mainly at work. First, a general humanising of the imagination, the progress of a spirit which, as it loved beauty, hated cruelty and uncleanness. Secondly, a race prejudice. The relation of the Northern and the aboriginal elements in the Homeric poems are involved, when you come to details, in inextricable confusion, but in general the 'Homeric' tone of mind represents more of the Achaean or Northern spirit; the spirit of those scattered strong men who in their various settlements were leading and shaping the Aegean world. The special myths, beliefs, and rites that were characteristic of the conquered races are pruned away or ignored; the hero-worship, the oracles, the magic and witchcraft, the hocus-pocus of purification, all that savours of 'the monstrous regiment of women, the uncanny prowess of dead men, and the baleful confusion between man and God.'

Here I should absolutely agree with Mr. Murray, if I were convinced that "the Northern or Achaean spirit" of Achaean poets was dealing mainly with "the epic tradition" of præ-Achaean Greece. If they were, they would certainly "ignore or prune away" manners and beliefs which were not their own. But I have shown, I think, that between Achaean and Athenian early "Saga" a great gulf was fixed in Homeric times. The Homeric poet dealt with Achaean legend, which could not contain ghost-worship, "hocus-pocus of purification," and so on. Let me here remark that no known later Greek taste objected to the märchenhaft, the preposterous element in "Saga." Pindar and the dramatists do not reject it, I have shown, but Homer does in the Iliad. Had Homer revelled in it, later Greek taste saw nothing out of keeping here; had no temptation to expurgate Pegasus, or the soul-box of Meleager, or the magical invulnerability of Achilles, or his medicinal spear, or that magical property, the Luck of Troy, the palladium, and so forth. The genius of Homer, not later expurgation, accounts for his reticence.

Next, I seem to discern that "the progress of a spirit which hated cruelty and uncleanness" refers to a period when "Achaeans" and "Pelasgians," long intermingled, were becoming what is called "Hellenic," the people of early historic Greece in the sixth century. What this Hellenic spirit might, if it could, purge away is just the ferocity which is not purged away; the ferocity which mutilates, and, when the deed is not executed, has threatened to mutilate foes slain in open fight; and which denies, or wishes to deny, honourable burial to the dead. On the dead "unseemly things" are wrought, with little or no rebuke from the poet, except in the case of the extreme ferocities of Achilles against Hector and the twelve Trojan captives. Thus Agamemnon "smote Hippolochus to earth, and cut off his arms and neck with the sword, then tossed him like a ball of stone to roll through the throng"; or rather "like the trunk of a tree."[2] In the same way the minor Aias cuts off the head of Imbrios, and throws it like a football "into the scrum."[3] Hector is keen to cut off the head of Patroclus, and stick it on a stake, like the head of the great Montrose.[4] Peneleus decapitates Ilioneus, and waves the head at the Trojans.[5]

Manifestly these ferocities were de bonne guerre in the society to which Homer sang. I conceive that they were hateful to the taste of the historic Hellenic spirit. Could it have expurgated these ferocities it would have done so. But it could not. Other examples might be given. Thus Euphorbus,[6] who dealt the first wound to Patroclus, threatens to cut off and carry home the head of Menelaus. Euphorbus was avenging his brother, slain by Menelaus. Peneleus was avenging Antimachus, his friend. The ferocities are sometimes prompted by personal vengeance. Euphorbus would have kept his word, but the spear of Menelaus pierced his throat. We cannot find expurgation in failure to accomplish a purpose. Hector meant to fix the head of Patroclus on a stake, so Iris tells Achilles,[7] and to give his body to the dogs to devour. Such was warfare as known to Homer; and the intellect of later Greece, which probably abhorred such deeds, expurgated nothing.

Mr. Murray writes[8] that "no other corpse" (except Hector's) "is maltreated in the Iliad." Such treatment was quite deliberately planned by men of both armies, and was also executed in hot blood. I have given examples enough of such maltreatment.

To cruelty we return, and to refusal of burial. It seems to have been quite usual. The notable exception in clemency is Achilles; before his passion came on him he ransomed his captives, and "his soul had shame to despoil the dead Eëtion"; but he burned him in his inlaid armour, and raised a barrow over him.[9]

In the Iliad ferocity runs high, in these particulars; the historic hatred of such doings is growing but slowly. "The spirit that hated cruelty" has left the facts where it found them; there is no expurgation of them. As to the Hellenic historic spirit and its hatred of "uncleanness"—autres temps, autres moeurs! Homer has no allusions to the survival of savage vices detested by "the Northern spirit." But, granting that the waxing spirit of Hellenism expurgated atrocities committed on the dead (though they stand staring upon us in the Iliad), "the Northern or Achaean spirit" is credited by Mr. Murray with "pruning away or ignoring" the characteristic rites, beliefs, and usages of the conquered races.