Analogies in its favour.
But when the conservatives retorted that in presupposing a rehandling of the dialect, and an imperfect translation into newer forms, he was assuming a fact unique in literature,—certainly in Greek literature,—he smote them 'hip and thigh' by showing parallel cases, not only in mediæval poetry, but in the collateral Greek lyric poetry. He showed that old epigrams, for example, had been altered to make them intelligible, while an occasional form for which no metrical equivalent could be found was allowed to remain[48:1].
Its application to the present argument.
§ 25. I have delayed over this important and novel theory not unduly, because its adoption affects the question of the artificiality of the poems. If, as was thought formerly, the poets were distinctly composing in an artificial dialect, into which they foisted forms from various dialects for the purpose of appearing learned in archaic language, we might fairly suspect such a pedantic school of playing tricks with manners and customs, and of omitting or accentuating as they fancied, in order to make an archaic picture according to their lights. And this is in fact what they are accused of having done by the most recent English historian of Greece[48:2].
Illustration from English poetry.
But on the new theory, we have before us merely verbal changes, perhaps made with all care to preserve the original work in the parts which are old and genuine. It is as if some Englishman were to make one of Burns's Scotch poems, which are so difficult to ordinary people, accessible by turning the hard words into their English equivalents, leaving here and there those which could not be removed without destroying rythm or metre. The new version would doubtless sacrifice the flavour of the rude original, but could in no deeper sense be called an artificial composition, and would probably preserve in its mongrel jargon all the facts set down by the poet.
The use of stock epithets.
There is another point alleged for the artificiality of the Homeric poems which has not any greater weight. It is the use of epithets and of forms evidently determined by the convenience of the metre. In all poetry of all ages metre is a shackle,—perhaps modern rime is more tyrannous than the quantities of the hexameter. Yet these shackles, if they mar the efforts of the poetaster, only serve to bring out into clearer light the excellence of the true poet. And the longer the
Homeric poems are read, the more firmly are all good critics persuaded of their supreme excellence.
