There are two lines, or rather one line is twice repeated in the Odyssey, which give the démenti to the uniform descriptions in both Epics. Odysseus bids Telemachus hide the weapons in the hall, and, if asked why he does it, reply that the Wooers in their cups may quarrel, and use the arms, and "shame the feast, and this wooing, for iron of himself draws a man to him."[16] This is a proverbial expression of the age when iron is, at least, the dominant if not the only metal for weapons. If, then, this line be as old as the rest of the Odyssey, in which weapons are always of bronze, its maker has let out that all the other makers have been saying what they do not mean; and in an age of iron, or overlap of bronze-and iron, have consistently maintained that all weapons are of bronze, while tools are of iron, as a rule.
Helbig and others[17] think the line a very late intrusion; it may be removed without altering the sense of the passage. Mr. Monro, on Odyssey, xix. 1-50, discusses the question fully. "Ancient and modern critics," he says, "are generally agreed that the first mention of 'iron' as synonymous with 'weapon'" (Od. xvi. 294), and the rest of the passage, "is an interpolation founded on xix. 1-50, and intended to lead up to it." But Kirchoff (Odyssey, p. 560) reverses the process, the second appearance of the passage is the earlier. Mr. Monro argues that both passages "are additions to the original context."
It is essential to the whole story that the Wooers, who, of course, wear swords, as was universally done in time of peace, should, when attacked by arrows, need shields and spears to throw. The interpolator, if interpolator there were, thought that, in ordinary circumstances, shields and spears would be hanging on the walls of the hall, as in the Ionian house of Alcaeus (Fragm. 15, Bergk.).
We do not know from other descriptions of Homeric halls that this was the custom in Homer's age; it is nowhere mentioned.
The war-gear in the palace of Cnossus was certainly stored apart in special chambers. Suppose, then, that a late poet, accustomed to see war-gear arranged on walls, had the opportunity to introduce the practice into the Odyssey, he would inevitably cause confusion; and the passage does cause great confusion, as Mr. Monro proves in his long note.
(1) The moment foreseen and prepared for by Odysseus never arrives, and that is quite contrary to "the Epic manner."
(2) It is a weaker argument, that the speech about arms tempting men to use them disregards the fact that the Wooers wear swords; what they need under the rain of arrows is shields and throwing spears. For these they send the Goatherd to the store-chamber, where, in fact, they were probably kept in a Homeric house, not, as in the case of Alcaeus, on the walls.
(3) The use of "iron" for "weapon" is, as Mr. Monro says, an anachronism.
(4) The vocabulary "has a post-Homeric stamp." Of this I am no judge; but I point out later what Mr. Monro omits to notice, that in the first passage, xvi. 296, the δοιὰ βοάγρια χερσιν ἑλέσθαι is archaeologically utterly un-Homeric (cf. p. 103); while the command to bring two βοάγρια and spears, as Mr. Monro says, is not repeated nor carried out in the second passage; again contrary to the manner of the Epic.
(5) In Odyssey, xxii. 23-25, when Odysseus has shot Antinous, the Wooers look at the wall to find spears vainly; but why? They do not expect a fight, they think (xxii. 31, 32) that Odysseus, aiming at some other mark, has shot Antinous by accident. In xxii. 5-7 he has said, enigmatically, that he will try, with Apollo's aid, to hit a mark that no man has struck before. The words about their looking to the walls for weapons "are an interpolation, and prove nothing about the removal of the arms."