Light Science for Leisure Hours / A series of familiar essays on scientific subjects, natural phenomena, &c.

by Richard A. Proctor

Were all the dire ostents of Jove.—Chapman’s Translation.

Five lines here, as in the original, suffice for the description of Jove’s Ægis, while one hundred and thirty lines are employed in the description of the celestial and terrestrial objects depicted on the shield of Achilles.

Another circumstance attracts notice in the description of Achilles’ armour—the disproportionate importance attached to the shield. Undoubtedly, the shield was that portion of a hero’s armour which admitted of the freest application of artistic skill. Yet this consideration is not sufficient to account for the fact, that while so many lines are given to the shield, the helmet, corselet, and greaves are disposed of in four.

But the argument on which I am inclined to lay most stress is the occurrence elsewhere of a description which is undoubtedly only another version of the ‘Shield of Achilles.’ The ‘Shield of Hercules’ occurs in a poem ascribed to Hesiod. But whatever opinion may be formed respecting the authorship of the description, there can be no doubt that it is not Hesiod’s work. It exhibits no trace of his dry, didactic, somewhat heavy style. Elton ascribes the ‘Shield of Hercules’ to an imitator of Homer, and in support of this view points out those respects in which the poem resembles, and those in which it is inferior to, the ‘Shield of Achilles.’ The two descriptions are, however, absolutely identical in many places; and this would certainly not have happened if one had been an honest imitation of the other. And those parts of the ‘Shield of Hercules,’ which have no counterparts in the ‘Shield of Achilles,’ are too well conceived and expressed to be ascribed to a very inferior poet—a poet so inferior as to be reduced to the necessity of simply reproducing Homer’s words in other parts of the poem. Those parts which admit of comparison—where, for instance, the same objects are described, but in different terms—are certainly inferior in the ‘Shield of Hercules.’ The description is injured by the addition of unnecessary or inharmonious details. Elton speaks, accordingly, of these portions as if they were expansions of the corresponding parts of the ‘Shield of Achilles.’ This appears to me a mistake. It seems far more likely that both descriptions are by the same poet. It is not necessary for the support of my theory that this poet should be Homer, but I think both descriptions show undoubted traces of his handiwork. Indeed, all known imitations of Homer are so easily recognisable as the work of inferior poets, that I should have thought no doubt could exist on this point, but for the attention which the German theory respecting the ‘Iliad’ has received. Assigning both poems to Homer, the ‘Shield of Hercules’ may be regarded, not as an expansion (in parts) of the ‘Shield of Achilles,’ but as an earlier work of Homer’s, improved and pruned by his maturer judgment, when he desired to fit it into the plan of the ‘Iliad.’ Or rather, each poem may be looked on as an abridgment (the ‘Shield of Hercules’ the earlier) of an independent work on a subject presently to be mentioned.

It is next to be shown that in the events preceding the ‘Oplopœia,’ there is a preparation for the introduction of a separate poem.

In the first place, every reader of Homer is familiar with the fact that the poet constantly makes use, when occasion serves, of expressions, sentences, often even of complete passages, which have been already applied in a corresponding, or occasionally even in a wholly different relation. The same epithets are repeatedly applied to the same deity or hero. A long message is delivered in the very words which have been already used by the sender of the message. In one well-known instance (in Book II.), not only is a message delivered thus, but the person who has received it repeats it to others in precisely the same terms. In the combat between Hector and Ajax (Book VI.), the flight of Ajax’s spear and the movement by which Hector avoids the missile, are described in six lines, differing only as to proper names from those which had been already used in describing the encounter between Paris and Menelaus (Book III.).

This peculiarity would be a decided blemish in a written poem. Tennyson, indeed, occasionally copies Homer’s manner—for instance, in ‘Enid,’ he twice repeats the line—

As careful robins eye the delver’s toil;—

but with a good taste which prevents the repetition from becoming offensive. The fact is, that the peculiarity marks Homer as the singer, not the writer, of poetry. I would not be understood as accepting the theory, according to which the ‘Iliad’ is a mere string of ballads. I imagine that no one who justly appreciates that noble poem would be willing to countenance such a theory. But that the whole poem was sung by Homer at those prolonged festivals which formed a characteristic peculiarity of Achaian manners seems shown, not only by what we learn respecting the later ‘rhapsodists,’ but by the internal evidence of the poem itself.[20]

Homer, reciting a long and elaborate poem of his own composition, occasionally varying the order of events, or adding new episodes, extemporized as the song proceeded, would exhibit the peculiarity invariably observed in the ‘improvisatore,’ of using, more than once, expressions, sentences, or passages which happened to be conveniently applicable. The art of extemporizing depends on the capacity for composing fresh matter while the tongue is engaged in the recital of matter already composed. Anyone who has watched a clever improvisatore cannot fail to have noticed that, though gesture is aptly wedded to words, the thoughts are elsewhere. In the case, therefore, of an improvisatore, or even of a rhapsodist reciting from memory, the occasional recurrence of a well-worn form of words serves as a relief to the strained invention or memory.