MAP
of the
Outer Geography of the Odyssey
AND OF THE
Form of the Earth
ACCORDING TO HOMER.
EXCURSUS I.
ON THE PARENTAGE AND EXTRACTION OF MINOS.
In former portions of this work, I have argued from the name and the Phœnician extraction of Minos, both to illustrate the dependent position of the Pelasgian race in the Greek countries[652], and also to demonstrate the Phœnician origin of the Outer Geography of the Odyssey[653]. But I have too summarily disposed of the important question, whether Minos was of Phœnician origin, and of the construction of the verse Il. xiv. 321. This verse is capable grammatically of being so construed as to contain an assertion of it; but upon further consideration I am not prepared to maintain that it ought to be so interpreted.
Genuineness of Il. xiv. 317-27.
The Alexandrian critics summarily condemned the whole passage (Il. xiv. 317-27), in which Jupiter details to Juno his various affairs with goddesses and women. ‘This enumeration,’ says the Scholiast (A) on verse 327, ‘is inopportune, for it rather repels Juno than attracts her: and Jupiter, when greedy, through the influence of the Cestus, for the satisfaction of his passion, makes a long harangue.’ Heyne follows up the censure with a yet more sweeping condemnation. Sanè absurdiora, quam hos decem versus, vix unquam ullus commentus est rhapsodus[654]. And yet he adds a consideration, which might have served to arrest judgment until after further hearing. For he says, that the commentators upon them ought to have taken notice that the description belongs to a period, when the relations of man and wife were not such, as to prevent the open introduction and parading of concubines; and that Juno might be flattered and allured by a declaration, proceeding from Jupiter, of the superiority of her charms to those of so many beautiful persons.
Heyne’s reason appears to me so good, as even to outweigh his authority: but there are other grounds also, on which I decline to bow to the proposed excision. The objections taken seem to me invalid on the following grounds;
1. For the reason stated by Heyne.
2. Because, in the whole character of the Homeric Juno, and in the whole of this proceeding, it is the political spirit, and not the animal tendency, that predominates. Of this Homer has given us distinct warning, where he tells us that Juno just before had looked on Jupiter from afar, and that he was disgusting to her; (v. 158) στυγερὸς δέ οἱ ἔπλετο θυμῷ. It is therefore futile to argue about her, as if she had been under the paramount sway either of animal desire, or even of the feminine love of admiration, when she was really and exclusively governed by another master-passion.
3. As she has artfully persuaded Jupiter, that he has an obstacle to overcome in diverting her from her intention of travelling to a distance, it is not at all unnatural that Jupiter should use what he thinks, and what, as Heyne has shown, he may justly think, to be proper and special means of persuasion.