While intimating these views respecting the authorship of the Iliad, as being in my judgment the most probable, I must repeat that, though the study of the poem carries to my mind a sufficient conviction respecting its structure, the question between unity and plurality of authors is essentially less determinable. The poem consists of a part original, and other parts superadded; yet it is certainly not impossible that the author of the former may himself have composed the latter; and such would be my belief if I regarded plurality of composers as an inadmissible idea. On this supposition, we must conclude that the poet, while anxious for the addition of new, and for the most part, highly interesting matter, has not thought fit to recast the parts and events in such manner as to impart to the whole a pervading thread of consensus and organization, such as we see in the Odyssey.
That the Odyssey is of later date than the Iliad, and by a different author, seems to be now the opinion of most critics, especially of Payne Knight[311] and Nitzsch; though O. Müller leans to a contrary conclusion, at the same time adding that he thinks the arguments either way not very decisive. There are considerable differences of statement in the two poems in regard to some of the gods: Iris is messenger of the gods in the Iliad, and Hermês in the Odyssey: Æolus, the dispenser of the winds in the Odyssey, is not noticed in the twenty-third book of the Iliad, but, on the contrary, Iris invites the winds, as independent gods, to come and kindle the funeral pile of Patroclus; and, unless we are to expunge the song of Demodokus in the eighth book of the Odyssey as spurious, Aphroditê there appears as the wife of Hêphæstus,—a relationship not known to the Iliad. There are also some other points of difference enumerated by Mr. Knight and others, which tend to justify the presumption that the author of the Odyssey is not identical either with the author of the Achillêis or his enlargers, which G. Hermann considers to be a point unquestionable.[312] Indeed, the difficulty of supposing a long coherent poem to have been conceived, composed, and retained, without any aid of writing, appears to many critics even now, insurmountable, though the evidences on the other side, are, in my view, sufficient to outweigh any negative presumption thus suggested. But it is improbable that the same person should have powers of memorial combination sufficient for composing two such poems, nor is there any proof to force upon us such a supposition.
Presuming a difference of authorship between the two poems, I feel less convinced about the supposed juniority of the Odyssey. The discrepancies in manners and language in the one and the other, are so little important, that two different persons, in the same age and society, might well be imagined to exhibit as great or even greater. It is to be recollected that the subjects of the two are heterogeneous, so as to conduct the poet, even were he the same man, into totally different veins of imagination and illustration. The pictures of the Odyssey seem to delineate the same heroic life as the Iliad, though looked at from a distinct point of view: and the circumstances surrounding the residence of Odysseus, in Ithaka, are just such as we may suppose him to have left in order to attack Troy. If the scenes presented to us are for the most part pacific, as contrasted with the incessant fighting of the Iliad, this is not to be ascribed to any greater sociality or civilization in the real hearers of the Odyssey, but to the circumstances of the hero whom the poet undertakes to adorn: nor can we doubt that the poems of Arktinus and Leschês, of a later date than the Odyssey, would have given us as much combat and bloodshed as the Iliad. I am not struck by those proofs of improved civilization which some critics affirm the Odyssey to present: Mr. Knight, who is of this opinion, nevertheless admits that the mutilation of Melanthius, and the hanging up of the female slaves by Odysseus, in that poem, indicate greater barbarity than any incidents in the fights before Troy.[313] The more skilful and compact structure of the Odyssey, has been often considered as a proof of its juniority in age: and in the case of two poems by the same author, we might plausibly contend that practice would bring with it improvement in the combining faculty. But in reference to the poems before us, we must recollect, first, that in all probability the Iliad (with which the comparison is taken) is not a primitive but an enlarged poem, and that the primitive Achillêis might well have been quite as coherent as the Odyssey; secondly, that between different authors, superiority in structure is not a proof of subsequent composition, inasmuch as, on that hypothesis, we should be compelled to admit that the later poem of Arktinus would be an improvement upon the Odyssey; thirdly, that, even if it were so, we could only infer that the author of the Odyssey had heard the Achillêis or the Iliad; we could not infer that he lived one or two generations afterwards.[314]
On the whole, the balance of probabilities seems in favor of distinct authorship for the two poems, but the same age,—and that age a very early one, anterior to the first Olympiad. And they may thus be used as evidences, and contemporary evidences, for the phenomena of primitive Greek civilization; while they also show that the power of constructing long premeditated epics, without the aid of writing, is to be taken as a characteristic of the earliest known Greek mind. This was the point controverted by Wolf, which a full review of the case (in my judgment) decides against him: it is, moreover, a valuable result for the historian of the Greeks, inasmuch as it marks out to him the ground from which he is to start in appreciating their ulterior progress.[315]
Whatever there may be of truth in the different conjectures of critics respecting the authorship and structure of these unrivalled poems, we are not to imagine that it is the perfection of their epical symmetry which has given them their indissoluble hold upon the human mind, as well modern as ancient. There is some tendency in critics, from Aristotle downwards,[316] to invert the order of attributes in respect to the Homeric poems, so as to dwell most on recondite excellences which escape the unaided reader, and which are even to a great degree disputable. But it is given to few minds (as Goethe has remarked[317]) to appreciate fully the mechanism of a long poem; and many feel the beauty of the separate parts, who have no sentiment for the aggregate perfection of the whole.
Nor were the Homeric poems originally addressed to minds of the rarer stamp. They are intended for those feelings which the critic has in common with the unlettered mass, not for that enlarged range of vision and peculiar standard which he has acquired to himself. They are of all poems the most absolutely and unreservedly popular: had they been otherwise, they could not have lived so long in the mouth of the rhapsodes, and the ear and memory of the people: and it was then that their influence was first acquired, never afterwards to be shaken. Their beauties belong to the parts taken separately, which revealed themselves spontaneously to the listening crowd at the festival,—far more than to the whole poem taken together, which could hardly be appreciated unless the parts were dwelt upon and suffered to expand in the mind. The most unlettered hearer of those times could readily seize, while the most instructed reader can still recognize, the characteristic excellence of Homeric narrative,—its straightforward, unconscious, unstudied simplicity,—its concrete forms of speech[318] and happy alternation of action with dialogue,—its vivid pictures of living agents, always clearly and sharply individualized, whether in the commanding proportions of Achilles and Odysseus, in the graceful presence of Helen and Penelope, or in the more humble contrast of Eumæus and Melanthius; and always, moreover, animated by the frankness with which his heroes give utterance to all their transient emotions and even all their infirmities,—its constant reference to those coarser veins of feeling and palpable motives which belong to all men in common,—its fulness of graphic details, freshly drawn from the visible and audible world, and though often homely, never tame, nor trenching upon that limit of satiety to which the Greek mind was so keenly alive,—lastly, its perpetual junction of gods and men in the same picture, and familiar appeal to ever-present divine agency, in harmony with the interpretation of nature at that time universal.
It is undoubtedly easier to feel than to describe the impressive influence of Homeric narrative: but the time and circumstances under which that influence was first, and most powerfully felt, preclude the possibility of explaining it by comprehensive and elaborate comparisons, such as are implied in Aristotle’s remarks upon the structure of the poems. The critic who seeks the explanation in the right place will not depart widely from the point of view of those rude auditors to whom the poems were originally addressed, or from the susceptibilities and capacities common to the human bosom in every stage of progressive culture. And though the refinements and delicacies of the poems, as well as their general structure, are a subject of highly interesting criticism,—yet it is not to these that Homer owes his wide-spread and imperishable popularity. Still less is it true, as the well-known observations of Horace would lead us to believe, that Homer is a teacher of ethical wisdom akin and superior to Chrysippus or Crantor.[319] No didactic purpose is to be found in the Iliad and Odyssey; a philosopher may doubtless extract, from the incidents and strongly marked characters which it contains, much illustrative matter for his exhortations,—but the ethical doctrine which he applies must emanate from his own reflection. The Homeric hero manifests virtues or infirmities, fierceness or compassion, with the same straightforward and simple-minded vivacity, unconscious of any ideal standard by which his conduct is to be tried;[320] nor can we trace in the poet any ulterior function beyond that of the inspired organ of the Muse, and the nameless, but eloquent, herald of lost adventures out of the darkness of the past.
HISTORY OF GREECE.