Chapter XXI: Grecian Epic.—homeric Poems (4)

How are we to reconcile this with the ninth book, where Achilles
declares that he does not care for being honored by the Greeks,
ix. 604? In the mouth of the affronted Achilles, of the first
book, such words are apt enough: he will grant succor, but only
to the extent necessary for the emergency, and in such a way as
to insure redress for his own wrong,—which redress he has no
reason as yet to conclude that Agamemnôn is willing to grant.
But the ninth book _has actually_ tendered to him everything
which he here demands, and even more (the daughter of Agamemnôn
in marriage, without the price usually paid for a bride, etc.):
Brisêis, whom now he is so anxious to repossess, was then offered
in restitution, and he disdained the offer. Mr. Knight, in
fact, strikes out these lines as spurious; partly, because they
contradict the ninth book, where Achilles has actually rejected
what he here thirsts for (“Dona cum puellâ jam antea oblata
aspernatus erat,”)—partly because he thinks that they express a
sentiment unworthy of Achilles; in which latter criticism I do
not concur.

5. We proceed a little farther to the address of Patroclus to the
Myrmidons, as he is conducting them forth to the battle: “Fight
bravely, Myrmidons, that we may bring honor to Achilles; and
that the wide-ruling Agamemnôn may know the mad folly which he
committed, when he dishonored the bravest of the Greeks.”

To impress this knowledge upon Agamemnôn was no longer necessary.
The ninth book records his humiliating confession of it,
accompanied by atonement and reparation. To teach him the lesson
a second time, is to break the bruised reed,—to slay the slain.
But leave out the ninth book, and the motive is the natural
one,—both for Patroclus to offer, and for the Myrmidons to obey:
Achilles still remains a dishonored man, and to humble the rival
who has dishonored him is the first of all objects, as well with
his friends as with himself.

6. Lastly, the time comes when Achilles, in deep anguish for
the death of Patroclus, looks back with aversion and repentance
to the past. To what point should we expect that his repentance
would naturally turn? Not to his primary quarrel with Agamemnôn,
in which he had been undeniably wronged,—but to the scene in
the ninth book, where the maximum of atonement for the previous
wrong is tendered to him and scornfully rejected. Yet when we
turn to xviii. 108, and xix. 55, 68, 270, we find him reverting
to the primitive quarrel in the first book, just as if it had
been the last incident in his relations with Agamemnôn: moreover,
Agamemnôn (xix. 86), in _his_ speech of reconciliation, treats
the past just in the same way,—deplores his original insanity in
wronging Achilles.

7. When we look to the prayers of Achilles and Thetis, addressed
to Zeus in the first book, we find that the consummation prayed
for is,—honor to Achilles,—redress for the wrong offered to
him,—victory to the Trojans until Agamemnôn and the Greeks shall
be made bitterly sensible of the wrong which they have done to
their bravest warrior (i. 409-509). Now this consummation is
brought about in the ninth book. Achilles can get no more, nor
does he ultimately get more, either in the way of redress to
himself or remorseful humiliation of Agamemnôn, than what is here
tendered. The defeat which the Greeks suffer in the battle of
the eighth book (Κόλος Μάχη) has brought about the consummation.
The subsequent and much more destructive defeats which they
undergo are thus causeless: yet Zeus is represented as inflicting
them reluctantly, and only because they are necessary to honor
Achilles (xiii. 350; xv. 75, 235, 598; compare also viii. 372 and
475).

If we reflect upon the constitution of the poem, we shall see
that the fundamental sequence of ideas in it is, a series of
misfortunes to the Greeks, brought on by Zeus for the special
purpose of procuring atonement to Achilles and bringing
humiliation on Agamemnôn: the introduction of Patroclus superadds
new motives of the utmost interest, but it is most harmoniously
worked into the fundamental sequence. Now the intrusion of the
ninth book breaks up the scheme of the poem by disuniting the
sequence: Agamemnôn is on his knees before Achilles, entreating
pardon and proffering reparation, yet the calamities of the
Greeks become more and more dreadful. The atonement of the ninth
book comes at the wrong time and in the wrong manner.

There are four passages (and only four, so far as I am aware)
in which the embassy of the ninth book is alluded to in the
subsequent books: one in xviii. 444-456, which was expunged as
spurious by Aristarchus (see the Scholia and Knight’s commentary,
_ad loc._); and three others in the following book, wherein the
gifts previously tendered by Odysseus as the envoy of Agamemnôn
are noticed as identical with the gifts actually given in the
nineteenth book. I feel persuaded that these passages (vv.
140-141, 192-195, and 243) are specially inserted for the purpose
of establishing a connection between the ninth book and the
nineteenth. The four lines (192-195) are decidedly better away:
the first two lines (140-141) are noway necessary; while the
word χθιζὸς (which occurs in both passages) is only rendered
admissible by being stretched to mean _nudius tertius_ (Heyne,
_ad loc._).

I will only farther remark with respect to the ninth book,
that the speech of Agamemnôn (17-28), the theme for the rebuke
of Diomêdês and the obscure commonplace of Nestor, is taken
verbatim from his speech in the second book, in which place
the proposition, of leaving the place and flying, is made, not
seriously, but as a stratagem (ii. 110, 118, 140).

The length of this note can only be excused by its direct bearing
upon the structure of the Iliad. To show that the books from the
eleventh downwards are composed by a poet who has no knowledge
of the ninth book, is, in my judgment, a very important point of
evidence in aiding us to understand what the original Achillêis
was. The books from the second to the seventh inclusive are
insertions into the Achillêis, and lie apart from its plot, but
do not violently contradict it, except in regard to the agora
of the gods at the beginning of the fourth book, and the almost
mortal wound of Sarpêdon in his battle with Tlepolemus. But the
ninth book overthrows the fundamental scheme of the poem.

[290] Helbig (Sittl. Zustände des Heldenalters, p. 30) says,
“The consciousness in the bosom of Agamemnôn that he has offered
atonement to Achilles strengthens his confidence and valor,” &c.
This is the idea of the critic, not of the poet. It does not
occur in the Iliad, though the critic not unnaturally imagines
that it _must_ occur. Agamemnôn never says, “I was wrong in
provoking Achilles, but you see I have done everything which man
could do to beg his pardon.” Assuming the ninth book to be a part
of the original conception, this feeling is so natural, that we
could hardly fail to find it, at the beginning of the eleventh
book, numbered among the motives of Agamemnôn.

[291] Iliad, xi. 659; xiv. 128; xvi. 25.

It is with the Grecian agora, in the beginning of the second book, that the Iliad (as distinguished from the Achillêis) commences,—continued through the Catalogue, the muster of the two armies, the single combat between Menelaus and Paris, the renewed promiscuous battle caused by the arrow of Pandarus, the (Epipôlêsis, or) personal circuit of Agamemnôn round the army, the Aristeia, or brilliant exploits of Diomêdês, the visit of Hector to Troy for the purposes of sacrifice, his interview with Andromachê, and his combat with Ajax,—down to the seventh book. All these are beautiful poetry, presenting to us the general Trojan war, and its conspicuous individuals under different points of view, but leaving no room in the reader’s mind for the thought of Achilles. Now, the difficulty for an enlarging poet, was, to pass from the Achillêis in the first book, to the Iliad in the second, and it will accordingly be found that here is an awkwardness in the structure of the poem, which counsel on the poet’s behalf (ancient or modern) do not satisfactorily explain.

In the first book, Zeus has promised Thetis, that he will punish the Greeks for the wrong done to Achilles: in the beginning of the second book, he deliberates how he shall fulfil the promise, and sends down for that purpose “mischievous Oneirus” (the Dream-god) to visit Agamemnôn in his sleep, to assure him that the gods have now with one accord consented to put Troy into his hands, and to exhort him forthwith to the assembling of his army for the attack. The ancient commentators were here perplexed by the circumstance that Zeus puts a falsehood into the mouth of Oneirus. But there seems no more difficulty in explaining this, than in the narrative of the book of 1 Kings (chap. xxii. 20), where Jehovah is mentioned to have put a lying spirit into the mouth of Ahab’s prophets,—the real awkwardness is, that Oneirus and his falsehood produce no effect. For in the first place, Agamemnôn takes a step very different from that which his dream recommends,—and in the next place, when the Grecian army is at length armed and goes forth to battle, it does not experience defeat, (which would be the case if the exhortation of Oneirus really proved mischievous,) but carries on a successful day’s battle, chiefly through the heroism of Diomêdês. Instead of arming the Greeks forthwith, Agamemnôn convokes first a council of chiefs, and next an agora of the host. And though himself in a temper of mind highly elate with the deceitful assurances of Oneirus, he deliberately assumes the language of despair in addressing the troops, having previously prepared Nestor and Odysseus for his doing so,—merely in order to try the courage of the men, and with formal instructions, given to these two other chiefs, that they are to speak in opposition to him. Now this intervention of Zeus and Oneirus, eminently unsatisfactory when coupled with the incidents which now follow it, and making Zeus appear, but only appear, to realize his promise of honoring Achilles as well as of hurting the Greeks,—forms exactly the point of junction between the Achillêis and the Iliad.[292]

[292] The intervention of Oneirus ought rather to come as an
immediate preliminary to book viii. than to book ii. The first
forty-seven lines of book ii would fit on and read consistently
at the beginning of book viii, the events of which book form a
proper sequel to the mission of Oneirus.

The freak which Agamemnôn plays off upon the temper of his army, though in itself childish, serves a sufficient purpose, not only because it provides a special matter of interest to be submitted to the Greeks, but also because it calls forth the splendid description, so teeming with vivacious detail, of the sudden breaking up of the assembly after Agamemnôn’s harangue, and of the decisive interference of Odysseus to bring the men back, as well as to put down Thersitês. This picture of the Greeks in agora, bringing out the two chief speaking and counselling heroes, was so important a part of the general Trojan war, that the poet has permitted himself to introduce it by assuming an inexplicable folly on the part of Agamemnôn; just as he has ushered in another fine scene in the third book,—the Teichoskopy, or conversation, between Priam and Helen on the walls of Troy,—by admitting the supposition that the old king, in the tenth year of the war, did not know the persons of Agamemnôn and the other Grecian chiefs. This may serve as an explanation of the delusion practised by Agamemnôn towards his assembled host; but it does not at all explain the tame and empty intervention of Oneirus.[293]

[293] O. Müller, (History of Greek Literature, ch. v. § 8,)
doubts whether the beginning of the second book was written “by
the ancient Homer, or by one of the later Homerids:” he thinks
the speech of Agamemnôn, wherein he plays off the deceit upon
his army, is “a copious parody (of the same words used in the
ninth book) composed by a later Homerid, and inserted in the room
of an originally shorter account of the arming of the Greeks.”
He treats the scene in the Grecian agora as “an entire mythical
comedy, full of fine irony and with an amusing plot, in which the
deceiving and deceived Agamemnôn is the chief character.”

The comic or ironical character which is here ascribed to the
second book appears to me fanciful and incorrect; but Müller
evidently felt the awkwardness of the opening incident, though
his way of accounting for it is not successful. The second book
seems to my judgment just as serious as any part of the poem.

I think also that the words alluded to by O. Müller in the ninth
book are a transcript of those in the second, instead of the
reverse, as he believes,—because it seems probable that the ninth
book is an addition made to the poem after the books between the
first and the eighth had been already inserted,—it is certainly
introduced after the account of the fortification, contained in
the seventh book, had become a part of the poem: see ix. 349. The
author of the Embassy to Achilles fancied that that hero had been
too long out of sight, and out of mind,—a supposition for which
there was no room in the original Achillêis, when the eighth and
eleventh books followed in immediate succession to the first, but
which offers itself naturally to any one on reading our present
Iliad.

If the initial incident of the second book, whereby we pass out of the Achillêis into the Iliad, is awkward, so also the final incident of the seventh book, immediately before we come back into the Achillêis, is not less unsatisfactory,—I mean, the construction of the wall and ditch round the Greek camp. As the poem now stands, no plausible reason is assigned why this should be done. Nestor proposes it without any constraining necessity: for the Greeks are in a career of victory, and the Trojans are making offers of compromise which imply conscious weakness,—while Diomêdês is so confident of the approaching ruin of Troy, that he dissuades his comrades from receiving even Helen herself, if the surrender should be tendered. “Many Greeks have been slain,” it is true,[294] as Nestor observes; but an equal or greater number of Trojans have been slain, and all the Grecian heroes are yet in full force: the absence of Achilles is not even adverted to.

[294] Iliad, vii. 327.

Now this account of the building of the fortification seems to be an after-thought, arising out of the enlargement of the poem beyond its original scheme. The original Achillêis, passing at once from the first to the eighth,[295] and from thence to the eleventh book, might well assume the fortification,—and talk of it as a thing existing, without adducing any special reason why it was erected. The hearer would naturally comprehend and follow the existence of a ditch and wall round the ships, as a matter of course, provided there was nothing in the previous narrative to make him believe that the Greeks had originally been without these bulwarks. And since the Achillêis, immediately after the promise of Zeus to Thetis, at the close of the first book, went on to describe the fulfilment of that promise and the ensuing disasters of the Greeks, there was nothing to surprise any one in hearing that their camp was fortified. But the case was altered when the first and the eighth books were parted asunder, in order to make room for descriptions of temporary success and glory on the part of the besieging army. The brilliant scenes sketched in the books, from the second to the seventh, mention no fortification, and even imply its nonexistence; yet, since notice of it occurs amidst the first description of Grecian disasters in the eighth book, the hearer, who had the earlier books present to his memory, might be surprised to find a fortification mentioned immediately afterwards, unless the construction of it were specially announced to have intervened. But it will at once appear, that there was some difficulty in finding a good reason why the Greeks should begin to fortify at this juncture, and that the poet who discovered the gap might not be enabled to fill it up with success. As the Greeks have got on, up to this moment, without the wall, and as we have heard nothing but tales of their success, why should they now think farther laborious precautions for security necessary? We will not ask, why the Trojans should stand quietly by and permit a wall to be built, since the truce was concluded expressly for burying the dead.[296]

[295] Heyne treats the eighth book as decidedly a separate song,
or epic; a supposition which the language of Zeus and the agora
of the gods at the beginning are alone sufficient to refute,
in my judgment (Excursus 1, ad lib. xi. vol. vi. p. 269). This
Excursus, in describing the sequence of events in the Iliad,
passes at once and naturally from book eighth to book eleventh.

And Mr. Payne Knight, when he defends book eleventh against
Heyne, says, “Quæ in undecimâ rhapsodiâ Iliadis narrata sunt,
haud minus ex ante narratis pendent: neque rationem pugnæ
commissæ, neque rerum in eâ gestarum nexum atque ordinem,
quisquam intelligere posset, nisi _iram et secessum_ Achillis, et
_victoriam_ quam Trojani inde consecuti erant, antea cognosset.”
(Prolegom. c. xxix.)

Perfectly true: to understand the eleventh book, we must have
before us the first and the eighth (which are those that describe
the anger and withdrawal of Achilles, and the defeat which the
Greeks experience in consequence of it); we may dispense with the
rest.

[296] O. Müller (Hist. Greek Literat. ch. v. § 6) says, about
this wall: “Nor is it until the Greeks are _taught by the
experience of the first day’s fighting_, that the Trojans can
resist them in open battle, that the Greeks build the wall round
their ships.... This appeared to Thucydidês so little conformable
to historical probability, that, without regard to the authority
of Homer, he placed the building of these walls immediately after
the landing.”

It is to be lamented, I think, that Thucydidês took upon him to
determine the point at all as a matter of history; but when he
once undertook this, the account in the Iliad was not of a nature
to give him much satisfaction, nor does the reason assigned by
Müller make it better. It is implied in Müller’s reason that,
before the first day’s battle, the Greeks did not believe that
the Trojans _could_ resist them in open battle: the Trojans
(according to him) never had maintained the field, so long as
Achilles was up and fighting on the Grecian side, and therefore
the Greeks were quite astonished to find now, for the first time,
that they _could_ do so.

Now nothing can be more at variance with the tenor of the second
and following books than this supposition. The Trojans come forth
readily and fight gallantly; neither Agamemnôn, nor Nestor, nor
Odysseus consider them as enemies who cannot hold front; and the
circuit of exhortation by Agamemnôn (Epipôlêsis), so strikingly
described in the fourth book, proves that _he_ does not
anticipate a very easy victory. Nor does Nestor, in proposing the
construction of the wall, give the smallest hint that the power
of the Trojans to resist in the open field was to the Greeks an
unexpected discovery.

The reason assigned by Müller, then, is a fancy of his own,
proceeding from the same source of mistake as others among his
remarks; because he tries to find, in the books between the
first and eighth, a governing reference to Achilles (the point
of view of the Achillêis), which those books distinctly refuse.
The Achillêis was a poem of Grecian disasters up to the time when
Achilles sent forth Patroclus; and during those disasters, it
might suit the poet to refer by contrast to the past time when
Achilles was active, and to say that _then_ the Trojans did not
dare even to present themselves in battle-array in the field,
whereas _now_ they were assailing the ships. But the author of
books ii. to vii. has no wish to glorify Achilles: he gives us a
picture of the Trojan war generally, and describes the Trojans,
not only as brave and equal enemies, but well known by the Greeks
themselves to be so.

The building of the Grecian wall, as it now stands described,
is an unexplained proceeding, which Müller’s ingenuity does not
render consistent.

The tenth book, or Doloneia, was considered by some of the ancient scholiasts,[297] and has been confidently set forth by the modern Wolfian critics, as originally a separate poem, inserted by Peisistratus into the Iliad. How it can ever have been a separate poem, I do not understand. It is framed with great specialty for the antecedent circumstances under which it occurs, and would suit for no other place; though capable of being separately recited, inasmuch as it has a definite beginning and end, like the story of Nisus and Euryalus in the Æneid. But while distinctly presupposing and resting upon the incidents in the eighth book, and in line 88 of the ninth, (probably, the appointment of sentinels on the part of the Greeks, as well of the Trojans, formed the close of the battle described in the eighth book,) it has not the slightest bearing upon the events of the eleventh or the following books: it goes to make up the general picture of the Trojan war, but lies quite apart from the Achillêis. And this is one mark of a portion subsequently inserted,—that, though fitted on to the parts which precede, it has no influence on those which follow.

[297] Schol. ad Iliad. x. 1.

If the proceedings of the combatants on the plain of Troy, between the first and the eighth book, have no reference either to Achilles, or to an Achillêis, we find Zeus in Olympus still more completely putting that hero out of the question, at the beginning of the fourth book. He is in this last-mentioned passage the Zeus of the Iliad, not of the Achillêis. Forgetful of his promise to Thetis, in the first book, he discusses nothing but the question of continuance or termination of the war, and manifests anxiety only for the salvation of Troy, in opposition to the miso-Trojan goddesses, who prevent him from giving effect to the victory of Menelaus over Paris, and the stipulated restitution of Helen,—in which case, of course, the wrong offered to Achilles would remain unexpiated. An attentive comparison will render it evident that the poet who composed the discussion among the gods, at the beginning of the fourth book, has not been careful to put himself in harmony either with the Zeus of the first book, or with the Zeus of the eighth.

So soon as we enter upon the eleventh book, the march of the poem becomes quite different. We are then in a series of events, each paving the way for that which follows, and all conducing to the result promised in the first book,—the reappearance of Achilles, as the only means of saving the Greeks from ruin,—preceded by ample atonement,[298] and followed by the maximum both of glory and revenge. The intermediate career of Patroclus introduces new elements, which, however, are admirably woven into the scheme of the poem, as disclosed in the first book. I shall not deny that there are perplexities in the detail of events, as described in the battles at the Grecian wall, and before the ships, from the eleventh to the sixteenth books, but they appear only cases of partial confusion, such as may be reasonably ascribed to imperfections of text: the main sequence remains coherent and intelligible. We find no considerable events which could be left out without breaking the thread, nor any incongruity between one considerable event and another. There is nothing between the eleventh and twenty-second books, which is at all comparable to the incongruity between the Zeus of the fourth book and the Zeus of the first and eighth. It may, perhaps, be true, that the shield of Achilles is a superadded amplification of that which was originally announced in general terms,—because the poet, from the eleventh to the twenty-second books, has observed such good economy of his materials, that he is hardly likely to have introduced one particular description of such disproportionate length, and having so little connection with the series of events. But I see no reason for believing that it is an addition materially later than the rest of the poem.

[298] Agamemnôn, after deploring the misguiding influence of Atê,
which induced him to do the original wrong to Achilles, says
(xix. 88-137),—

Ἀλλ᾽ ἐπεὶ ἀασάμην καί μευ φρένας ἐξέλετο Ζεὺς,
Ἄψ ἐθέλω ἀρέσαι, δόμεναί τ᾽ ἀπερείσι᾽ ἄποινα, etc.

It must be confessed, that the supposition here advanced, in reference to the structure of the Iliad, is not altogether free from difficulties, because the parts constituting the original Achillêis[299] have been more or less altered or interpolated, to suit the additions made to it, particularly in the eighth book. But it presents fewer difficulties than any other supposition, and it is the only means, so far as I know, of explaining the difference between one part of the Iliad and another; both the continuity of structure, and the conformity to the opening promise, which are manifest when we read the books in the order i. viii. xi. to xxii, as contrasted with the absence of these two qualities in books ii. to vii. ix. and x. An entire organization, preconceived from the beginning, would not be likely to produce any such disparity, nor is any such visible in the Odyssey;[300] still less would the result be explained by supposing integers originally separate, and brought together without any designed organization. And it is between these three suppositions that our choice has to be made. A scheme, and a large scheme too, must unquestionably be admitted as the basis of any sufficient hypothesis. But the Achillêis would have been a long poem, half the length of the present Iliad, and probably not less compact in its structure than the Odyssey. Moreover, being parted off only by an imaginary line from the boundless range of the Trojan war, it would admit of enlargement more easily, and with greater relish to hearers, than the adventures of one single hero; while the expansion would naturally take place by adding new Grecian victory,—since the original poem arrived at the exaltation of Achilles only through a painful series of Grecian disasters. That the poem under these circumstances should have received additions, is no very violent hypothesis: in fact, when we recollect that the integrity both of the Achillêis and of the Odyssey was neither guarded by printing nor writing, we shall perhaps think it less wonderful that the former was enlarged,[301] than that the latter was not. Any relaxation of the laws of epical unity is a small price to pay for that splendid poetry, of which we find so much between the first and the eighth books of our Iliad.

[299] The supposition of a smaller original Iliad, enlarged
by successive additions to the present dimensions, and more
or less interpolated (we must distinguish _enlargement_ from
_interpolation_,—the insertion of a new rhapsody from that of a
new line), seems to be a sort of intermediate compromise, towards
which the opposing views of Wolf, J. H. Voss, Nitzsch, Hermann,
and Boeckh, all converge. Baumgarten-Crusius calls this smaller
poem an Achillêis.

Wolf, Preface to the Göschen edit. of the Iliad, pp. xii-xxiii;
Voss, Anti-Symbolik, part ii. p. 234; Nitzsch, Histor. Homeri,
Fasciculus i. p. 112; and Vorrede to the second volume of his
Comments on the Odyssey, p. xxvi: “In the Iliad (he there says)
many single portions may very easily be imagined as parts of
another whole, or as having been once separately sung.” (See
Baumgarten-Crusius, Preface to his edition of W. Müller’s
Homerische Vorschule, pp. xlv-xlix.)

Nitzsch distinguishes the Odyssey from the Iliad, and I think
justly, in respect to this supposed enlargement. The reasons
which warrant us in applying this theory to the Iliad have no
bearing upon the Odyssey. If there ever was an Ur-Odyssee, we
have no means of determining what it contained.

[300] The remarks of O. Müller on the Iliad (in his History of
Greek Literature) are highly deserving of perusal: with much of
them I agree, but there is also much which seems to me unfounded.
The range of combination, and the far-fetched narrative stratagem
which he ascribes to the primitive author, are in my view
inadmissible (chap. v. § 5-11):—

“The internal connection of the Iliad (he observes, § 6) rests
upon the union of certain parts; and neither the interesting
introduction, describing the defeat of the Greeks up to the
burning of the ship of Protesilaus, nor the turn of affairs
brought about by the death of Patroclus, nor the final
pacification of the anger of Achilles, could be spared from the
Iliad, when the fruitful seed of such a poem had once been sown
in the soul of Homer, and had begun to develop its growth. But
the plan of the Iliad is certainly very much extended beyond
what was actually necessary; and in particular, the preparatory
part, consisting of the _attempts_ on the part of _the other
heroes to compensate for the absence of Achilles_, has, it must
be owned, been drawn out to a disproportionate length, so that
the suspicion that there were later insertions of importance
applies with greater probability to the first than to the last
books.... A design manifested itself at an early period to
make this poem complete in itself, so that all the subjects,
descriptions, and actions, which could alone give interest to a
poem _on the entire war_, might find a place within the limits
of its composition. For this purpose, it is not improbable that
many lays of earlier bards, who had sung single adventures of the
Trojan war, were laid under contribution, and the finest parts of
them incorporated in the new poem.”

These remarks of O. Müller intimate what is (in my judgment)
the right view, inasmuch as they recognize an extension of
the plan of the poem beyond its original limit, manifested by
insertions in the first half; and it is to be observed that, in
his enumeration of those parts, the union of which is necessary
to the internal connection of the Iliad, nothing is mentioned
except what is comprised in books i. viii. xi. to xxii. or
xxiv. But his description of “_the preparatory part_,” as “_the
attempts of the other heroes to compensate for the absence of
Achilles_,” is noway borne out by the poet himself. From the
second to the seventh book, Achilles is scarcely alluded to;
moreover, the Greeks do perfectly well without him. This portion
of the poem displays, not “the _insufficiency_ of all the
other heroes without Achilles,” as Müller had observed in the
preceding section, but the perfect _sufficiency_ of the Greeks
under Diomêdês, Agamemnôn, etc. to make head against Troy; it is
only in the eighth book that their _insufficiency_ begins to be
manifested, and only in the eleventh book that it is consummated
by the wounds of the three great heroes. Diomêdês is, in fact,
exalted to a pitch of glory in regard to contests with the
gods, which even Achilles himself never obtains afterwards, and
Helenus the Trojan puts him above Achilles (vi. 99) in terrific
prowess. Achilles is mentioned two or three times as absent,
and Agamemnôn, in his speech to the Grecian agora, regrets the
quarrel (ii. 377), but we never hear any such exhortation as,
“Let us do our best to make up for the absence of Achilles,”—not
even in the Epipôlêsis of Agamemnôn, where it would most
naturally be found. “Attempts to compensate for the absence of
Achilles” must, therefore, be treated as the idea of the critic,
not of the poet.

Though O. Müller has glanced at the distinction between the two
parts of the poem (an original part, having chief reference
to _Achilles and the Greeks_; and a superinduced part, having
reference to _the entire war_), he has not conceived it clearly,
nor carried it out consistently. If we are to distinguish
these two points of view at all, we ought to draw the lines at
the end of the first book and at the beginning of the eighth,
thus regarding the intermediate six books as belonging to the
picture of _the entire war_ (or the Iliad as distinguished from
the Achillêis): the point of view of the Achillêis, dropped
at the end of the first book, is resumed at the beginning of
the eighth. The natural fitting together of these two parts is
noticed in the comment of Heyne, ad viii. 1: “Cæterum _nunc_
Jupiter aperte solvit Thetidi promissa, dum reddit causam
Trojanorum bello superiorem, ut Achillis desiderium Achivos, et
pœnitentia injuriæ ei illatæ Agamemnonem incessat (cf. i. 5).
Nam quæ _adhuc_ narrata sunt, partim continebantur in fortunâ
belli utrinque tentatâ ... partim valebant ad narrationem
variandam,” etc. The first and the eighth books belong to one
and the same point of view, while _all_ the intermediate books
belong to the other. But O. Müller seeks to prove that a portion
of these intermediate books belongs to one common point of view
with the first and eighth, though he admits that they have been
enlarged by insertions. Here I think he is mistaken. Strike out
anything which can be reasonably allowed for enlargement in the
books between the first and eighth, and the same difficulty
will still remain in respect to the remainder; for _all_ the
incidents between those two points are brought out in a spirit
altogether indifferent to Achilles or his anger. The Zeus of the
fourth book, as contrasted with Zeus in the first or eighth,
marks the difference; and this description of Zeus is absolutely
indispensable as the connecting link between book iii. on the one
side and books iv. and v. on the other. Moreover, the attempt of
O. Müller, to force upon the larger portion of what is between
the first and eighth books the point of view of the Achillêis,
is never successful: the poet does not exhibit in those books
“insufficient efforts of other heroes to compensate for the
absence of Achilles,” but a general and highly interesting
picture of the Trojan war, with prominent reference to the
original ground of quarrel. In this picture, the duel between
Paris and Menelaus forms naturally the foremost item,—but how
far-fetched is the reasoning whereby O. Müller brings that
striking recital within the scheme of the Achillêis! “The Greeks
and Trojans are for the first time struck by an idea, which
might have occurred in the previous nine years, if the Greeks,
_when assisted by Achilles_, had not, from _confidence in their
superior strength_, considered every compromise as unworthy of
them,—namely, to decide the war by a single combat between the
authors of it.” Here the causality of Achilles is dragged in by
main force, and unsupported either by any actual statement in the
poem or by any reasonable presumption; for it is _the Trojans_
who propose the single combat, and we are not told that they had
ever proposed it before, though they would have had stronger
reasons for proposing it during the presence of Achilles than
during his absence.

O. Müller himself remarks (§ 7), “that from the second to the
seventh book Zeus appears as it were to have forgotten his
resolution and his promise to Thetis.” In other words, the poet,
during this part of the poem, drops the point of view of the
Achillêis to take up that of the more comprehensive Iliad: the
Achillêis reappears in book viii,—again disappears in book x,—and
is resumed from book xi. to the end of the poem.

[301] This tendency to insert new homogeneous matter by new
poets into poems already existing, is noticed by M. Fauriel, in
reference to the _Romans_ of the Middle Ages:—

“C’est un phénomène remarquable dans l’histoire de la poésie
épique, que cette disposition, cette tendance constante du goût
populaire à amalgamer, à lier en une seule et même composition
le plus possible des compositions diverses,—cette disposition
persiste chez un peuple, tant que la poésie conserve un reste
de vie; tant qu’elle s’y transmet par la tradition et qu’elle
y circule à l’aide du chant ou des récitations publiques. Elle
cesse partout où la poésie est une fois fixée dans les livres, et
n’agit plus que par la lecture,—cette dernière époque est pour
ainsi dire, celle de la propriété poétique—celle où chaque poëte
prétend à une existence, à une gloire, personnelles; et où la
poésie cesse d’être une espèce de trésor commun dont le peuple
jouit et dispose à sa manière, sans s’inquiéter des individus qui
le lui ont fait.” (Fauriel, Sur les Romans Chevaleresques, leçon
5me, Revue des Deux Mondes, vol. xiii. p. 707.)

M. Fauriel thinks that the Shah Nameh of Ferdusi was an
amalgamation of epic poems originally separate, and that probably
the Mahabharat was so also (_ib._ 708).

The question respecting unity of authorship is different, and more difficult to determine, than that respecting consistency of parts, and sequence in the narrative. A poem conceived on a comparatively narrow scale may be enlarged afterwards by its original author, with greater or less coherence and success: the Faust of Goethe affords an example even in our own generation. On the other hand, a systematic poem may well have been conceived and executed by prearranged concert between several poets; among whom probably one will be the governing mind, though the rest may be effective, and perhaps equally effective, in respect to execution of the parts. And the age of the early Grecian epic was favorable to such fraternization of poets, of which the Gens called Homerids probably exhibited many specimens. In the recital or singing of a long unwritten poem, many bards must have conspired together, and in the earliest times the composer and the singer were one and the same person.[302] Now the individuals comprised in the Homerid Gens, though doubtless very different among themselves in respect of mental capacity, were yet homogeneous in respect of training, means of observation and instruction, social experience, religious feelings and theories, etc., to a degree much greater than individuals in modern times. Fallible as our inferences are on this point, where we have only internal evidence to guide us, without any contemporary points of comparison, or any species of collateral information respecting the age, the society, the poets, the hearers, or the language,—we must nevertheless, in the present case, take coherence of structure, together with consistency in the tone of thought, feeling, language, customs, etc., as presumptions of one author; and the contrary as presumptions of severalty; allowing, as well as we can, for that inequality of excellence which the same author may at different times present.

[302] The remarks of Boeckh, upon the possibility of such
coöperation of poets towards one and the same scheme are
perfectly just:—

“Atqui quomodo componi a variis auctoribus successu temporum
rhapsodiæ potuerint, quæ post prima initia directæ jam ad idem
consilium et quam vocant unitatem carminis sint ... missis
istorum declamationibus qui populi universi opus Homerum esse
jactant ... tum potissimum intelligetur, ubi gentis civilis
Homeridarum propriam et peculiarem Homericam poesin fuisse,
veteribus ipsis si non testibus, at certe ducibus, concedetur....
Quæ quum ita sint, non erit adeo difficile ad intelligendum,
quomodo, post prima initia ab egregio vate facta, in gente
sacrorum et artis communione sociatâ, multæ rhapsodiæ ad unum
potuerint consilium dirigi.” (Index Lection. 1834, p. 12.)

I transcribe this passage from Giese (Ueber den Æolischen
Dialekt, p. 157), not having been able to see the essay of which
it forms a part.

Now, the case made out against single-headed authorship of the Odyssey, appears to me very weak; and those who dispute it, are guided more by their _à priori_ rejection of ancient epical unity, than by any positive evidence which the poem itself affords. It is otherwise with regard to the Iliad. Whatever presumptions a disjointed structure, several apparent inconsistencies of parts, and large excrescence of actual matter beyond the opening promise, can sanction,—may reasonably be indulged against the supposition that this poem all proceeds from a single author. There is a difference of opinion on the subject among the best critics, which is, probably, not destined to be adjusted, since so much depends partly upon critical feeling, partly upon the general reasonings, in respect to ancient epical unity, with which a man sits down to the study. For the champions of unity, such as Mr. Payne Knight, are very ready to strike out numerous and often considerable passages as interpolations, thus meeting the objections raised against unity of authorship, on the ground of special inconsistencies. Hermann and Boeckh, though not going the length of Lachmann in maintaining the original theory of Wolf, agree with the latter in recognizing diversity of authors in the poem, to an extent overpassing the limit of what can fairly be called interpolation. Payne Knight and Nitzsch are equally persuaded of the contrary. Here, then, is a decided contradiction among critics, all of whom have minutely studied the poems since the Wolfian question was raised. And it is such critics alone who can be said to constitute authority; for the cursory reader, who dwells upon the parts simply long enough to relish their poetical beauty, is struck only by that general sameness of coloring which Wolf himself admits to pervade the poem.[303]

[303] Wolf, Prolegom. p. cxxxviii. “Quippe _in universum_ idem
sonus est omnibus libris; idem habitus sententiarum, orationis,
numerorum,” etc.

Having already intimated that, in my judgment, no theory of the structure of the poem is admissible which does not admit an original and preconcerted Achillêis,—a stream which begins at the first book and ends with the death of Hector, in the twenty-second, although the higher parts of it now remain only in the condition of two detached lakes, the first book and the eighth,—I reason upon the same basis with respect to the authorship. Assuming continuity of structure as a presumptive proof, the whole of this Achillêis must be treated as composed by one author. Wolf, indeed, affirmed, that he never read the poem continuously through without being painfully impressed with the inferiority[304] and altered style of the last six books,—and Lachmann carries this feeling farther back, so as to commence with the seventeenth book. If I could enter fully into this sentiment, I should then be compelled, not to deny the existence of a preconceived scheme, but to imagine that the books from the eighteenth to the twenty-second, though forming part of that scheme, or Achillêis, had yet been executed by another and an inferior poet. But it is to be remarked, first, that inferiority of poetical merit, to a certain extent, is quite reconcilable with unity of authorship; and, secondly, that the very circumstances upon which Wolf’s unfavorable judgment is built, seem to arise out of increased difficulty in the poet’s task, when he came to the crowning cantos of his designed Achillêis. For that which chiefly distinguishes these books, is, the direct, incessant, and manual intervention of the gods and goddesses, formerly permitted by Zeus,—and the repetition of vast and fantastic conceptions to which such superhuman agency gives occasion; not omitting the battle of Achilles against Skamander and Simois, and the burning up of these rivers by Hêphæstus. Now, looking at this vein of ideas with the eyes of a modern reader, or even with those of a Grecian critic of the literary ages, it is certain that the effect is unpleasing: the gods, sublime elements of poetry when kept in due proportion, are here somewhat vulgarized. But though the poet here has not succeeded, and probably success was impossible, in the task which he has prescribed to himself,—yet the mere fact of his undertaking it, and the manifest distinction between his employment of divine agency in these latter cantos as compared with the preceding, seems explicable only on the supposition that they _are_ the latter cantos, and come in designed sequence, as the continuance of a previous plan. The poet wishes to surround the coming forth of Achilles with the maximum of glorious and terrific circumstance; no Trojan enemy can for a moment hold out against him:[305] the gods must descend to the plain of Troy and fight in person, while Zeus, who at the beginning of the eighth book, had forbidden them to take part, expressly encourages them to do so at the beginning of the twentieth. If, then, the nineteenth book (which contains the reconciliation between Achilles and Agamemnôn, a subject naturally somewhat tame) and the three following books (where we have before us only the gods, Achilles, and the Trojans, without hope or courage) are inferior in execution and interest to the seven preceding books (which describe the long-disputed and often doubtful death-struggle between the Greeks and Trojans without Achilles), as Wolf and other critics affirm,—we may explain the difference without supposing a new poet as composer; for the conditions of the poem had become essentially more difficult, and the subject more unpromising. The necessity of keeping Achilles above the level, even of heroic prowess, restricted the poet’s means of acting upon the sympathy of his hearers.[306]

[304] Wolf, Prolegomen. p. cxxxvii. “Equidem certe quoties in
continenti lectione ad istas partes (_i. e._ the last six books)
deveni, nunquam non in iis talia quædam sensi, quæ nisi illæ
tam mature cum ceteris coaluissent, quovis pignore contendam,
dudum ab eruditis detecta et animadversa fuisse, immo multa ejus
generis, ut cum nunc Ὁμηρικώτατα habeantur, si tantummodo in
Hymnis legerentur, ipsa sola eos suspicionibus νοθείας adspersura
essent.” Compare the sequel, p. cxxxviii, “ubi nervi deficiant et
spiritus Homericus,—jejunum et frigidum in locis multis,” etc.

[305] Iliad, xx. 25. Zeus addresses the agora of the gods,—

Ἀμφοτέροισι δ᾽ ἀρήγετ᾽, ὅπη νόος ἐστὶν ἑκάστου·
Εἰ γὰρ Ἀχιλλεὺς οἶος ἐπὶ Τρώεσσι μαχεῖται,
Οὐδὲ μίνυνθ᾽ ἕξουσι ποδώκεα Πηλείωνα.
Καὶ δέ τέ μιν καὶ πρόσθεν ὑποτρομέεσκον ὁρῶντες·
Νῦν δ᾽ ὅτε δὴ καὶ θυμὸν ἑταίρου χώεται αἰνῶς,
Δείδω μὴ καὶ τεῖχος ὑπὲρ μόρον ἐξαλαπάξῃ.

The formal restriction put upon the gods by Zeus at the beginning
of the eighth book, and the removal of that restriction at
the beginning of the twentieth, are evidently parts of one
preconceived scheme.

It is difficult to determine whether the battle of the gods and
goddesses in book xxi. (385-520) is to be expunged as spurious,
or only to be blamed as of inferior merit (“improbanda tantum,
non resecanda—hoc enim est illud, quo plerumque summa criseôs
Homericæ redit,” as Heyne observes in another place, Obss. Iliad.
xviii. 444). The objections on the score of non-Homeric locution
are not forcible (see P. Knight, _ad loc._), and the scene
belongs to that vein of conception which animates the poet in the
closing act of his Achillêis.

[306] While admitting that these last books of the Iliad are not
equal in interest with those between the eleventh and eighteenth,
we may add that they exhibit many striking beauties, both of
plan and execution, and one in particular may be noticed as an
example of happy epical adaptation. The Trojans are on the point
of ravishing from the Greeks the dead body of Patroclus, when
Achilles (by the inspiration of Hêrê and Iris) shows himself
unarmed on the Grecian mound, and by his mere figure and voice
strikes such terror into the Trojans that they relinquish the
dead body. As soon as night arrives, Polydamas proposes, in the
Trojan agora, that the Trojans shall retire without farther
delay from the ships to the town, and shelter themselves within
the walls, without awaiting the assault of Achilles armed on
the next morning. Hector repels this counsel of Polydamas with
expressions,—not merely of overweening confidence in his own
force, even against Achilles,—but also of extreme contempt and
harshness towards the giver; whose wisdom, however, is proved
by the utter discomfiture of the Trojans the next day. Now this
angry deportment and mistake on the part of Hector is made to
tell strikingly in the twenty-second book, just before his
death. There yet remains a moment for him to retire within the
walls, and thus obtain shelter against the near approach of his
irresistible enemy, but he is struck with the recollection of
that fatal moment when he repelled the counsel which would have
saved his countrymen: “If I enter the town, Polydamas will be the
first to reproach me, as having brought destruction upon Troy on
that fatal night when Achilles came forth, and when I resisted
his better counsel.” (Compare xviii. 250-315; xxii. 100-110; and
Aristot. Ethic. iii. 8.)

In a discussion respecting the structure of the Iliad, and in
reference to arguments which deny all designed concatenation of
parts, it is not out of place to notice this affecting touch of
poetry, belonging to those books which are reproached as the
feeblest.

The last two books of the Iliad may have formed part of the original Achillêis. But the probability rather is, that they are additions; for the death of Hector satisfies the exigencies of a coherent scheme, and we are not entitled to extend the oldest poem beyond the limit which such necessity prescribes. It has been argued on one side by Nitzsch and O. Müller, that the mind could not leave off with satisfaction at the moment in which Achilles sates his revenge, and while the bodies of Patroclus and Hector are lying unburied,—also, that the more merciful temper which he exhibits in the twenty-fourth book, must always have been an indispensable sequel, in order to create proper sympathy with his triumph. Other critics, on the contrary, have taken special grounds of exception against the last book, and have endeavored to set it aside as different from the other books, both in tone and language. To a certain extent, the peculiarities of the last book appear to me undeniable, though it is plainly a designed continuance, and not a substantive poem. Some weight also is due to the remark about the twenty-third book, that Odysseus and Diomêdês, who have been wounded and disabled during the fight, now reappear in perfect force, and contend in the games: here is no case of miraculous healing, and the inconsistency is more likely to have been admitted by a separate enlarging poet, than by the schemer of the Achillêis.

The splendid books from the second to v. 322 of the seventh,[307] are equal, in most parts, to any portion of the Achillêis, and are pointedly distinguished from the latter by the broad view which they exhibit of the general Trojan war, with all its principal personages, localities, and causes,—yet without advancing the result promised in the first book, or, indeed, any final purpose whatever. Even the desperate wound inflicted by Tlepolemus on Sarpêdon, is forgotten, when the latter hero is called forth in the subsequent Achillêis.[308] The arguments of Lachmann, who dissects these six books into three or four separate songs,[309] carry no conviction to my mind; and I see no reason why we should not consider all of them to be by the same author, bound together by the common purpose of giving a great collective picture which may properly be termed an Iliad. The tenth book, or Doloneia, though adapted specially to the place in which it stands, agrees with the books between the first and eighth in belonging only to the general picture of the war, without helping forward the march of the Achillêis; yet it seems conceived in a lower vein, in so far as we can trust our modern ethical sentiment. One is unwilling to believe that the author of the fifth book, or Aristeia of Diomêdês, would condescend to employ the hero whom he there so brightly glorifies,—the victor even over Arês himself,—in slaughtering newly-arrived Thracian sleepers, without any large purpose or necessity.[310] The ninth book, of which I have already spoken at length, belongs to a different vein of conception, and seems to me more likely to have emanated from a separate composer.

[307] The latter portion of the seventh book is spoiled by
the very unsatisfactory addition introduced to explain the
construction of the wall and ditch: all the other incidents (the
agora and embassy of the Trojans, the truce for burial, the
arrival of wine-ships from Lemnos, etc.) suit perfectly with
the scheme of the poet of these books, to depict the Trojan war
generally.

[308] Unless, indeed, we are to imagine the combat between
Tlepolemus and Sarpêdon, and that between Glaukus and Diomêdês,
to be separate songs; and they are among the very few passages
in the Iliad which are completely separable, implying no special
antecedents.

[309] Compare also Heyne, Excursus ii. sect. ii. ad Iliad. xxiv.
vol. viii. p. 783.