Now, the story of Homer respecting Helen, is perfectly self-consistent: and so is his story respecting Theseus: but the two are separated by an interval of little less than two generations, or say fifty years. For Theseus[118] fought in the wars against the Φῆρες, in which Nestor took part: and he wooed and wedded Ariadne, the aunt of Idomeneus, who was himself nearly or quite one generation older than the Greek kings in general. On the other hand, Homer shows the age of Helen to have been in just proportion to that of Menelaus: for she had a daughter, Hermione, before the abduction, and might, so far as age was concerned, have borne children after their conjugal union was resumed[119]. Why, then, if Homer be the paramount authority, should we, upon testimony inferior to his, introduce conflict and absurdity into two traditions, which he gives us wide apart from one another and each self-consistent, by forging a connexion between them?
I have stated these two cases, not by way of begging the question as to the superiority in kind of Homer’s testimony, but to show how important that question is; and in how many instances the history of the heroic age must be rewritten, if we adopt the principle, that Homer ought to be received as an original witness, contemporary with the manners, nay, perhaps, even with some of the persons he describes, and subject only to such deductions as other original witnesses are liable to suffer: whereas the later traditions rest only upon hearsay; so much so, that they can hardly be called evidence, and should never be opposed, on their own credit, to the testimony of Homer.
In bringing this discussion to a close, I will quote a passage respecting Homer, from the Earl of Aberdeen’s Inquiry into the Principles of Beauty in Grecian Architecture, which, I think, expresses with great truth and simplicity the ground of Homer’s general claim to authority, subject, of course, to any question respecting the genuineness of the received text:
In treating of an age far removed from the approach of regular history, it is fortunate that we are furnished with a guide so unerring as Homer, whose general accuracy of observation, and minuteness of description, are such as to afford a copious source of information respecting almost everything connected with the times in which he composed his work: and who, being nearly contemporary with the events which he relates, and, indeed, with the earliest matter for record in Greece, cannot fall into mistakes and anachronisms in arts, or manners, or government, as he might have done had he lived at a more advanced and refined period[120].
It was said of a certain Dorotheus, that he spent his whole life in endeavours to elucidate the meaning of the Homeric word κλισίη. Such a disproportion between labour and its aim is somewhat startling; yet it is hardly too much to say, that no exertion spent upon any of the great classics of the world, and attended with any amount of real result, is really thrown away. It is better to write one word upon the rock, than a thousand on the water or the sand: better to remove a single stray stone out of the path that mounts the hill of true culture, than to hew out miles of devious tracks, which mislead and bewilder us when we travel them, and make us more than content if we are fortunate enough to find, when we emerge out of their windings, that we have simply returned to the point in our age, from which, in sanguine youth, we set out.
As rules of the kind above propounded can only be fully understood when applied, the application of them has accordingly been attempted, in the work to which these pages form an Introduction. In this view, it may be regarded as their necessary sequel. I commit it to the press with no inconsiderable apprehension, and with due deference to the judgments of the learned: for I do not feel myself to have possessed either the fresh recollection and ready command of the treasures of ancient Greece, or the extended and systematic knowledge of the modern Homeric literature, which are among the essential requisites of qualification to deal in a satisfactory manner with the subject. I should further say, that the poems of Homer, to be rightly and thoroughly sounded, demand undoubtedly a disengaged mind, perhaps would repay even the study of a life. One plea only I can advance with confidence. The work, whatever else it be, is one which has been founded in good faith on the text of Homer. Whether in statement or in speculation, I have desired and endeavoured that it should lead me by the hand: and even my anticipations of what we might in any case expect it to contain have been formed by a reflex process from the suggestions it had itself supplied:
Oh degli altri poeti onore e lume!
Vagliami il lungo studio, e il grande amore
Che m’ ha fatto cercar lo tuo volume;
Tu sei lo mio maestro, e il mio autore[121].
Finally, though sharing the dissatisfaction of others at the established preference given among us to the Latin names of deities originally Greek, and at some part of our orthography for Greek names, I have thought it best to adhere in general to the common custom, and only to deviate from it where a special object was in view. I fear that diversity, and even confusion, are more likely to arise than any benefit, from efforts at reform, made by individuals, and without the advantage either of authority or of a clear principle, as a groundwork for general consent. I am here disposed to say, ‘οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη;’ and again with Wordsworth,
‘Me this unchartered freedom tires.’