I am not able to admit that broad distinction, which is frequently drawn between the provision made for satisfying this great poetical and moral purpose in the Iliad and in the Odyssey respectively. In each I find it not only remarkable, but even elaborate. In each poem, Homer exhibits, above all things else, one chosen human character with the amplest development. But diversity is the key-note of the development in the Odyssey, grandeur or magnitude in the Iliad. The hurricane-like forces, that abound in the character of Achilles, entail a greater amount of aberration from the path of wisdom. But there is not wanting a proportionate retributive provision. Ulysses, after a long course of severe discipline patiently endured, has awarded to him a peaceful old age, and a calm death, in his Ithaca barren but beloved, with his people prospering around him. Achilles, on the other hand, is so loaded with gorgeous gifts that, wonderful as is their harmony in all points but one, that one is the centre. He has not the same unfailing and central solidity of moral equipoise. In himself gallant, just, generous, refined, still indignity can drive him into an extremity of pride and fierceness, which call for stern correction. Hence it comes about that, while the adversity of Ulysses is the way to peace, the transcendent glory of Achilles is attended by a series of devouring agonies; the rival excitements of fierce pain and fiercer pleasure accompany him along a path, which soon and suddenly descends into the night of dismal death. Alike in the one case and in the other, the balance of the moral order is preserved; and that Erinūs, who, in so many particular passages of the poems, makes miniature appearances in order to vindicate the eternal laws, such as the heroic age apprehended them, likewise presides in full development over the general action of each of these extraordinary poems.
Retributive justice in the two poems.
Retributive justice, inseparably interwoven with human destiny (for thus much the Erinūs signified) tracks and dogs Achilles at every stage. Take him, for instance, as the Ninth Book shows him, at the very summit of his pride. It is in no light or joyous mood, that he repels the Envoys. Who among readers does not seem to see his spirit writhe, when he describes the hot and bursting resentment in his breast, the stinging recollection of the outrages he has undergone[735]. Even by the irrepressible curiosity, which compels him to mount upon his ship for view, and to send out Patroclus to learn the course of the battle, Homer has shown us how false was any semblance of peace, that he could even now enjoy in his giddy elevation.
The rampart is pierced, the ships are reached, the firebrand is hurled, and the first Greek ship burns. Achilles must not depart from his word: but his restlessness now conceives an expedient, the sending forth of Patroclus to the fight. At the same time, he takes every precaution that sagacity can suggest: he clothes his friend in his own armour, exhorts the Myrmidons to support him, above all enjoins him to confine himself to defensive warfare, and not to follow the Trojans, when repulsed, to the city. What then happens to him? That which often befalls ourselves: that when we have turned our back upon wisdom, wisdom turns her back upon us. Achilles insisted upon the disaster of his countrymen. When it came, it constrained him to send out his friend: and the calamity he had himself invoked was death to the man that he loved better than his own soul.
And why did Patroclus die? It was not that Achilles imprudently exposed him to risks beyond his strength. He was abundantly able to encounter Hector. Hector had no care, so long as the battle was by the ships, to encounter this chief. And Achilles had enjoined him to fight by the ships only, lest, if he attempted the city, a deity should take part against him[736]. Patroclus disobeyed, and perished accordingly. As Achilles had refused to follow the laws of wisdom for himself, so, when he carefully obeyed them, they were not to avail him for the saving of his friend. Heaven fought against Patroclus; Jupiter, after deliberation, tempted him from the ships, by causing Hector to fly towards the city; and the counsel of Achilles was now baffled as he had baffled the counsels of others, the dart was launched that was to pierce his soul to the quick.
Double conquest over Achilles.
Thus his proud will was doomed to suffer. The suffering is followed by the reconciliation, and by the climax of his glory and revenge in the death of Hector. How in these Books we see him moving in might almost preternatural, with the whole world as it were, and all its forces, in subjection to his arm! But he has only passed from one excess of feeling into another: from a vindictive excess of feeling against the Greeks, to another vindictive excess of feeling against Hector. The mutilation and dishonour of the body of his slain antagonist now become a second idol, stirring the great deep of his passions, and bewildering his mind. Thus, in paying off his old debt to the eternal laws, he has already contracted a new one. Again, then, his proud will must be taught to bow. Hence, as Mr. Penn has well shown, the necessity of the Twenty-fourth Book with its beautiful machinery[737]. Achilles must surrender the darling object of his desire, the wreaking of his vengeance on an inanimate corpse. On this occasion, as before, he is subdued: and both times it is through the medium of his tender affections. But in both cases his evil gratification is cut short: and the authority of the providential order is reestablished. The Greeks pursue their righteous war: the respect which nature enjoins is duly paid to the remains of Hector, and the poem closes with the verse which assures us that this obligation was duly and peacefully discharged.
With these views, I find in the plot of the Iliad enough of beauty, order, and structure, not merely to sustain the supposition of its own unity, but to bear an independent testimony, should it be still needed, to the existence of a personal and individual Homer as its author.