It remains for me to show that the writer of the Odyssey had the Iliad before her to all intents and purposes as we now have it, and to deal with the manner in which the poem grew under her hands.
In my own copies of the Iliad and Odyssey I have underlined all the passages that are common to both poems, giving the references. It is greatly to be wished that one or other of our University presses would furnish us with an Odyssey in which all the Iliadic passages are printed in a slightly different type and with a reference, somewhat in the style of the extracts from Il. I. and XXIV. here given. The passages are to be found at the end of Dunbar's Concordance to the Odyssey, but the marking of them as they occur in the course of the poem will be more instructive. In my translations of the poems (now finished) I have translated identical passages as nearly as possible in identical words. In the Odyssey I propose to print them in another type and give the references to the Iliad. In the translation of the Iliad there is no use in doing this, for no one supposes that Homer took anything from the Odyssey. The publication, however, of these translations must, I fear, be postponed, but I will give in this Chapter as many instances as I think will be sufficient to satisfy the reader that the Iliad of the writer of the Odyssey was our own Iliad.
I will begin by giving two passages from the Iliad, one from Book I., and the other from Book XXIV., the references in all cases being to the Odyssey. These are perhaps fuller of lines adopted by the writer of the Odyssey than any others in the Iliad, though there are some that run them closely. Lines or parts of lines in the smaller type do not occur in the Odyssey.
The first passage that I will call attention to is Iliad i. 455-485, which is as follows:—
I should perhaps tell the reader that the first Book of the Iliad is one of the few which modern criticism allows to remain in the possession of the poet who wrote what Professor Jebb calls the "primary" Iliad.
The second of the two passages above referred to is Iliad XXIV. 621-651, which runs:—