From this scene let us turn to consider the evidence for asserting the comparative purity of Homer’s age, and the peculiar purity of his mind.
2. We find in Homer no trace whatever of the existence of those unnatural vices, which appear to have deeply tainted the lives of many of the most eminent Greeks of later days[893]; which drew down the blasting sentence of St. Paul[894]; which in early times had been visited on the Cities of the plain; and which, it is no less strange than horrible to think, have left their mark upon more than one period or portion even of the literature of Christendom, in a manner and degree such as must excite scarcely less of surprise than shame.
The seizure of Ganymedes became in later times the basis of a tradition of this kind: but there is not a trace of it in Homer. The intense love and admiration of beauty to which his pages bear constant witness is wholly disconnected from animal passions, and in its simplicity and earnestness is, for its combined purity and strength, really nearer the feeling of some of the early Italian painters, and of Dante, than any thing else I can recall.
This is the more remarkable when we bear in mind what had already, and long before his time, happened in the East, and is recorded for us in the Book of Genesis.
Homer most rarely alludes to what is unbecoming in the human form: in the case of woman not once, and in the case of men only where he has a legitimate and sufficient purpose. Thus when Ulysses[895] threatens to strip Thersites to the skin in the event of his repeating his turbulence and insolence, it is plainly with an honest view to inflict upon him the last extremity of shame, and to make him an object of general and wholly unmixed disgust. Again, when Priam refers to the likelihood that his own body may be stripped naked, and then mangled by animals after his death, every one feels that the insult to natural decency, which he anticipates, contributes only to enhance the agony of his feelings. And the scene in the Odyssey, where Ulysses emerges from the sea upon the coast of Scheria, will always be regarded as one of the most careful, and yet most simple and unaffected, examples of true modesty contained in the whole circle of literature. Now these appear to be, not peculiarities, but samples of the general manners. We should look in vain for the proofs of an equal truth and fineness of perception among the Hebrews or among their forefathers, unless it be among a very few individuals, who, under a direct teaching from above, became select examples of virtue.
Many other indications in the poems converge upon the same point. The horror with which incest was regarded is one. The deep grief and humility stamped on the character of Helen is a second. The manner in which the chastity of Bellerophon is held up to admiration, and followed by reward, is a third[896]. The high-toned living widowhood of Penelope is of itself conclusive on the point before us.
Homer’s subject in the Iliad was one, which tempted and almost forced him into indecency, where he had to refer to the original crime of Paris or to describe his private life. The manner in which he has handled it is deserving of all praise. He treats as an evil gift the original promise and temptation to Paris. The scene in the end of the Third Book was necessary in order to complete the view of the character of that bad prince: and it could not have been drawn in a manner less calculated to seduce the mind, whether by the management of its details, or by the sentiments of loathing which it raises against the principal actor.
Undoubtedly we must, as regards the whole morality of the poems, ascribe much to the praise of Homer personally: yet it is plain that he represented his age in no small degree. First, because, as a popular and famous minstrel, he could not have been in sharp or general contrast with the feeling of his contemporaries. Secondly, because we perceive remains of this seriousness and purity in the older Greek writers junior to Homer. Thirdly, because we find from Thucydides that, at the time when the original Olympian games were instituted, it was still the custom carefully to avoid the exposure of the human form, and that a different practice was introduced afterwards by the Lacedæmonians, probably without evil intention, and for gymnastic ends alone (Thuc. i. 6).
And now, if we contemplate the belief, ideas, and institutions of the heroic period, as they would work upon an individual, we shall, perhaps, find that they fully justify the outline with which this section began. We may, indeed, see in the Homeric pictures of that age much to condemn or to deplore; but we may also be led to believe that if, through God’s mercy, there have been happier, there also have been less happy forms, for human destiny to be cast in.
Life of the high-born Greek.