“Yes,” Margaret said, “the good was always opposed to the better.”
E. P. P. then spoke of the Parthenon, upon which, according to the Homeric Hymn, the story of Minerva’s birth was sculptured.
Margaret said it had been difficult to believe that the Greeks would put so ugly a thing upon their temple, but the ruins showed a Vulcan with his hammer in his hand, and the form of the Goddess hovering over the cloven skull.
Why, asked E. P. P., did Ulysses represent Wisdom in the Odyssey?
Margaret thought he represented the history of a thought in life, when he tired us all out with his long story, and so pushed us to decision.
E. P. P. alluded to the different conceptions of Minerva in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and this led to the question of priority of composition.
Margaret thought the Odyssey was written when Homer was young and romantic; but E. P. P. and myself stood out stoutly for the precedence of the Iliad. I said, without the least bit of real knowledge, that I should not wonder if there were two centuries between the poems, they seemed to indicate such entirely different states of society; but certainly the Odyssey was latest.
Charles Wheeler said that the best scholars seemed all of one mind. The Iliad was written first by Homer,—the Odyssey long after by another hand.
E. P. P. said that there was a gem which represented Minerva as married to a mortal, but she could tell nothing more about it.
Jones Very said that when Wisdom falls into decay we call it Genius!