The age of the stag = 4 of daws = 36 of men.
The age of the crow = 3 of stags = twelve of daws = 108 of men.
The age of the palm = 9 of crows = 27 of stags = 108 of daws = 972 of men.
The age of the Nymph = 10 of palms = 90 of crows = 270 of stags = 1080 of daws = 9720 of men.
And if the γενεὴ be 30 years, the age of the Nymphs = 30 × 9720 = 291,600 years. But the point most remarkable for us is, that while Hesiod, if Hesiod it be, supplies us with the whole of the first factors after the γενεὴ, for this long sum, he does not actually perform one single multiplication; nor does he even define the γενεὴ, which is the first and most vital element of all.
He has thus given us at once a very pretty poetical invention for expressing approximately the age of Nymphs, who are Jove-born indeed, yet are not immortal, and a remarkable proof of the indefiniteness of numerical conceptions, and of total unacquaintance with the rules of arithmetic[817].
One consequence of the proposition I have advanced with respect to Homer is, to destroy altogether a supposed discrepancy between the Iliad and the Odyssey, which has often been paraded as a reason, among others, for assigning them to different authors. It is truly alleged that, in the Catalogue[818], Crete is called ἑκατόμπολις; and that in the Nineteenth Odyssey[819] we are told of it,
ἐν δ’ ἄνθρωποι
πολλοὶ, ἀπειρέσιοι, καὶ ἐννήκοντα πόληες.
Each of these words appears to be interpreted as strictly, as it would be if caught by an auditor in the accounts of some delinquent Joint-Stock Company; and thus, forsooth, a diversity of authors for the two poems is to be made good. Now it is not a little odd, if both these poets looked at the subject with the eye of statisticians, that while each found a different number of cities in Crete, yet each found an even, and more or less a round number. But why is ἑκατόμπολις to be more strictly interpreted than ἑκατομβή? And again, if we are to construe ἐννήκοντα statistically, what are we to do with the very word that precedes it, namely, ἀπειρέσιοι? The simple fact of the juxtaposition of that word with the ἐννήκοντα πόληες should surely have sufficed to show, that the whole manner of speech was (what we now call) poetical. So regarding it, I venture even to say that the effect of a comparison with the epithet in the Catalogue is to establish, not a discrepancy in point of fact, but rather a similarity in the measure of figurative conception and expression: so that in consequence, as far as it is worth any thing, it rather tends to prove the identity, than the diversity, of authorship between the two poems.