Il. xi. 218. Before the recital of the persons who were slain by Agamemnon.
Il. xiv. 508. Before the recital of the Greek chiefs, who, on the turn of the battle, slew various Trojans.
Il. xvi. 112. Before proceeding to relate, how the Trojans hurled the firebrands at the Grecian ships.
Od. i. 1. Introduction to the Odyssey: addressed to Μοῦσα.
In the cases of the Eleventh and Fourteenth Books, the invocation of the Muse stands in connection with a particular effort of memory; for the recitals prefaced by it consist of names not connected by any natural tie one with the other. But it is here that the Poet’s appeal to the Muse most deserves attention.
If Homer was composing a written poem, the invocation is ill-timed and unmeaning. He has already, by a series of fine similes, elevated the subject to a proper level. Considered as a mere written Catalogue, it does not deserve or account for the prayer for aid: in this point of view, it was of necessity among the sermoni propiora, and was one of the easiest parts of the poem to compose. But if we consider the poem as a recitation, then the Catalogue was very difficult; because of the great multitude of details which are included in it, and which are not in themselves connected together by any natural or obvious link.
It is true that he begs the Muses to inform him, because they were omnipresent and omniscient, whereas he is dependent on report only (κλέος) for information. Now this was equally true of the whole material of the poem: but the reason why he introduces the statement of this truth in so marked a manner, must be from the arduous nature of the task he was beginning; nor could it be arduous in any other way, than as an effort of memory.
The invocation contains another proof that the poems were composed for recitation in the words (vv. 489, 90)
οὐδ’ εἴ μοι δέκα μὲν γλῶσσαι, δέκα δὲ στόματ’ εἶεν
φωνὴ δ’ ἄρρηκτος, χαλκέον δέ μοι ἦτορ ἐνείη.
Nothing can be more proper than to refer to the insufficient ability of the bodily organs of recitation, if he were about to recite: but nothing less proper, if he were engaged on a written poem. It has been a fashion however with poets to copy Homer in this passage, although the reason and circumstances on which it is founded had become wholly inapplicable: and their abusive imitation has blinded us to the significance of the passage as it stands in the Iliad.