Chapter XIV

THAT THE ILIAD WHICH THE WRITER OF THE ODYSSEY KNEW WAS
THE SAME AS WHAT WE NOW HAVE.

It remains for me to show that the writer of the _Odyssey_ had the _Iliad_ before her to all intents and purposes as we now have it, and to deal with the manner in which the poem grew under her hands.

In my own copies of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ I have underlined all the passages that are common to both poems, giving the references. It is greatly to be wished that one or other of our University presses would furnish us with an _Odyssey_ in which all the Iliadic passages are printed in a slightly different type and with a reference, somewhat in the style of the extracts from _Il_. I. and XXIV. here given. The passages are to be found at the end of Dunbar's _Concordance to the Odyssey_, but the marking of them as they occur in the course of the poem will be more instructive. In my translations of the poems (now finished) I have translated identical passages as nearly as possible in identical words. In the _Odyssey_ I propose to print them in another type and give the references to the _Iliad_. In the translation of the _Iliad_ there is no use in doing this, for no one supposes that Homer took anything from the _Odyssey_. The publication, however, of these translations must, I fear, be postponed, but I will give in this Chapter as many instances as I think will be sufficient to satisfy the reader that the _Iliad_ of the writer of the _Odyssey_ was our own _Iliad_.

I will begin by giving two passages from the _Iliad_, one from Book I., and the other from Book XXIV., the references in all cases being to the _Odyssey_. These are perhaps fuller of lines adopted by the writer of the _Odyssey_ than any others in the _Iliad_, though there are some that run them closely. Lines or parts of lines in the smaller type do not occur in the _Odyssey_.

The first passage that I will call attention to is _Iliad_ i. 455-485, which is as follows:--

ἠδ' ἒτι καὶ νῦν μοι τόδ' ἐπικρήηνον ἐέλδωρ· [1]
ἤδη νῦv Δαναοῖσιν ἀεικέα λοιγὸν ἄμυνον."

[2] ὦς ἔφατ' εὐχόυενος τοû δ' ἔκλυε φοῖβος Άπόλλων.
[3] αὐτὰρ ἐπει ρ ενξαν καὶ οὐλοχύτας προβάλοντο,} [4]
αὐέρσυν μὲν πρῶτα καὶ ἔσφαξαν καὶ ἔδειραν, }
{μηρούς τ' ἐξέταμον κατά τε κνίση ἐκάλυψαν }
{δίπτυχα ποιήσαντες, ἐπ' αὐτῶν δ' ὠμοθέτησαν.}
{καῖε δ' ἐπὶ σχίζῃς ὁ γέρων, ἐπὶ δ' αἴθοπα οἶνον
[5] {λεῖβε· νέοι δὲ παρ᾿ αὐτὸν ἔχον πεμπώβολα χερσίν.
{αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κατὰ μῆρα κάη καὶ σπλάγχνα πάσαντο, }[6]
[7]{{μίστυλλόν τ' ἄρα τἇλλα καὶ ἀμφ' ὀβελοῖσιν ἔπειραν,}
{ ὤπτησάν τε περιφραδέως, ἐρύσαντό τε πάντα.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ παύσαντο πόνου τετύκοντό τε δαῖτα, } [8]
[9] δαίνυντ', οὐδέ τι θυμὸς ἐδεύετο δαιτὸς ἐίσης. }
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ πόσιος καὶ ἐδητύος ἐξ ἔρον ἔντο, }
[10]{κοῦροι μὲν κρητῆρας ἐπεστέψαντο ποτοῖο, } [11]
{νώμησαν δ' ἄρα πᾶσιν ἐπαρξάμενοι δεπάεσσιν }
οἱ δὲ πανημέριοι μολπῇ θεὸν ἱλάσκοντο,
καλὸν ἀείδοντες παιήονα, κοῦροι Άχαιῶν,
μέλποντες ἑκάεργον· ὁ δὲ φρένα τέρπετ' ἀκούων.
[12]{ἧμος δ' ἠέλιος κατέδυ καὶ ἐπὶ κνέφας ἦλθεν, } [13]
{δὴ τότε κοιμήσαντο παρὰ πρυμνήσια νηός. } [14]
{ἦμος δ' ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ήώς,...... } [15]
καὶ τότ' ἔπειτ' ἀνάγοντο μετὰ στρατὸν εὐρὺν Ἀχαιῶν·
[16] τοῖσιν δ' ἴκμενον οὖρον ἴει ἑκάεργος Ἀπόλλων.
οἱ δ' ἱοτὸν στήσαντ' ἀνά θ' ἱστία λευκὰ πέτασσαν· [17]
{ἐν δ' ἄνεμος πρῆσεν μέσον ἱστίον, ἀμφὶ δὲ κῦμα
[18]{στείρῃ πορφύρεον μεγάλ' ἴαχε νηὸς ἰούσης·
{ἡ δ' ἔθεεν κατὰ κῦμα διαπρήσσουσα κέλευθον.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεί ῥ' ἴκοντο κατὰ στρατὸν εὐρὺν Ἀχαιῶν,
[19] νῆα μὲν οἴ γε μέλαιναν ἐπ' ἠπείροιο ἔρυσσαν

[sidenote 1: _cf_. iii. 418] [sidenote 2: _cf_. iii. 385] [sidenote 3: iii. 447] [sidenote 4: _cf_. xii. 359-361] [sidenote 5: _cf_. iii 456-462] [sidenote 6: _cf_. xii. 364, 365] [sidenote 7: xiv. 430, 431 _cf_. also xix. 423] [sidenote 8: _cf_. xvi. 478-480] [sidenote 9: xix. 425 i. 150 & elsewhere] [sidenote 10: i. 148 iii. 339, 340] [sidenote 11: xxi. 271, 272 vii. 183] [sidenote 12: _cf_. xix. 426-428] [sidenote 13: _cf_. iii. 329] [sidenote 14: _cf_. xii. 31, 32] [sidenote 15: 20 times in _Od_. only twice in _Il_.] [sidenote 16: _cf_. ii. 420 xv. 292] [sidenote 17: iv. 783] [sidenote 18: 427-429] [sidenote 19: xvi. 325]

I should perhaps tell the reader that the first Book of the _Iliad_ is one of the few which modern criticism allows to remain in the possession of the poet who wrote what Professor Jebb calls the "primary" _Iliad_.

The second of the two passages above referred to is _Iliad_ XXIV. 621-651, which runs:--

ἦ καὶ ἀναΐξυς όιν ἄργυφον ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεὺς
σφάξ'· ἕταροι δ' ἔδερόν τε καὶ ἄμφεπον εὖ κατὰ κόσμον,
[1] {μίστυλλόν τ' ἄρ' ἐπισταμένως πεῖράν τ' ὀβελοῖσιν,
{ὤπτησάν τε περιφραδέως ἐρύσαντό τε πάντα.
Αὐτομέδων δ' ἄρα σῖτον ἑλὼν ἐπένειμε τραπέζῃ
καλοῖς ἐν κανέοισιν· ἀτὰρ κρέα νεῖμεν ᾿Αχιλλεύς.
[2] {οἱ δ' ἐπ' ὀνείαθ' ἑτοῖμα προκείμενα χεῖρας ἴαλλον.
{αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ πόσιος καὶ ἐδητύος ἐξ ἔρον ἔντο,
ἦ τοι Δαρδανίδης Πρίαμος Θαύμαζ' Ἀχιλῆα,
ὃσσος ηνἔ οἶός τε· Θεοῖσι γὰρ ἄντα ἐῴκειν·
αὐτὰρ ὁ Δαρδανίδην Πρίαμον Θαύμαζεν Ἀχιλλεύς,
εἰσορόων ὄψιν τ' ἀγαθὴν καὶ μῦθον ἀκούων.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ τάπησαν ἐς ἀλλήλους ὁρόωντες, [3]
τὸν πρότερος προσέειπε γέρων Πρίαμος θεοειδής,
"λέξον νῦν με τάχιστα, διοτρεφές, ὄφρα καὶ ἤδη
ὔπνῳ ὕπο γλυκερῷ ταρπώμεθα κοιμηθέντε· [4]
οὐ γάρ πω μύσαν ὄσσε ὑπὸ βλεφάροισιν ἐμοῖσιν,
ἐξ οὗ σῇς ὑπὸ χερσὶν ἐμὸς πάις ὤλεσε θυμόν,
ἀλλ' αἰεὶ στενάχω καὶ κήδεα μυρία πέσσω,
αὐλῆς ἐν χόρτοισι κυλινδόμενος κατὰ κόπρον.
νῦν δὴ καὶ σίτου πασάμην καὶ αἴθοπα οἶνον
λαυανίης καθέηκα· πάρος γε μὲν οὔ τι πεπάσμην."

ἦ ῥ', Ἀχιλεὺς δ᾿ ἑτάροισιν ἰδὲ δμωῇσι κέλευσεν } [5]
[6] {δέμνι' ὑπ' αἰθούσῃ θέμεναι καὶ ῥήγεα καλὰ }
{πορφύρε' ἐμβαλέειν, στορέσαι τ' ἐφύπερθε τύπητας,}
{χλαίνας τ' ἐνθέμεναι οὔλας καθύπερθεν ἕσασθαι. }
{αἱ δ' ἴσαν ἐκ μεγάροιο δάος μετὰ χερσὶν ἔχυσαι, }
{αἶψα δ' ἄρα στόρεσαν δοιὼ λέχε' ἐγκονέουσαι.
[7] τὸν δ' ἐπικερτομέων προσέφη πόδας ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεύς·
"ἐκτὸς μὲν δὴ λέξο, γέρον φίλε, μή τις Ἀχαιῶν
ἐνθάδ᾿ ἐπέλθῃσιν βουληφόος, οἵ τέ αἰεὶ
..............................................

[sidenote 1: _cf_. xiv. 430-431 & xix. 422, 423] [sidenote 2: i. 149, 150 & many other places] [sidenote 3: _cf_. iv. 47 & x 181] [sidenote 4: _cf_. iv. 294, 295 & xxiii. 254, 255] [sidenote 5: iv. 296-300] [sidenote 6: _cf_. vii. 336-340] [sidenote 7: _cf_. xxii. 194]

Professor Jebb is disposed to attribute _Il_. XXIV. to the writer of _Il_. IX., which he does not ascribe to Homer, and would date _circ_. B.C. 750-600. I regret that I can go no further with him than that _Il_. XXIV. and _Il_. IX. are by the same hand.

It is beyond my scope to point out the slight and perfectly unimportant variations from the _Iliad_ which are found in some of the Odyssean lines to which I have given a reference; they are with hardly an exception such as are occasioned by difference of context. Though unimportant they are not uninteresting, but I must leave them for the reader to examine if he feels inclined to do so.

He will observe that some lines are nearly and some quite common to the two extracts above given, and I should add that not a few other lines are repeated elsewhere in the _Iliad_, but enough remains that is peculiar to either of the two extracts to convince me that the writer of the _Odyssey_ knew them both. And not only this, but they seem to have risen in her mind as spontaneously, and often no doubt as unconsciously, as passages from the Bible, Prayer-book, and Shakspeare do to ourselves.

If, then, we find the writer so familiar with two such considerable extracts from the first and last Books of the _Iliad_--for I believe the reader will feel no more doubt than I do, that she knew them, and was borrowing from them--can we avoid thinking it probable that she was acquainted, to say the least of it, with the intermediate Books? Such surely should be the most natural and least strained conclusion to arrive at, but I will proceed to shew that she knew the intermediate Books exceedingly well.

I pass over the way in which Mentor's name is coined from Nestor's (_cf_. _Il_. II. 76-77 and _Od_. ii. 224, 225, and 228), and will go on to the striking case of Ulysses' servant Eurybates. In _Od_. xix. 218, 219 Penelope has asked Ulysses (who is disguised so that she does not recognise him) for details as to the followers Ulysses had with him on his way to Troy, and Ulysses answers that he had a servant named Eurybates who was hunched in the shoulders (xix. 247). Turning to _Il_. II. 184 we find that Ulysses had a servant from Ithaca named Eurybates, but he does not seem to have been hunched in the shoulders; on reading further, however, we immediately come to Thersites, "whose shoulders were hunched over his chest" (_Il_. II. 217, 218). Am I too hasty in concluding that the writer of the _Odyssey_, wanting an additional detail for Penelope's greater assurance, and not finding one in the _Iliad_, took the hunchiness off the back of the next man to him and set it on to the back of Eurybates? I do not say that no other hypothesis can be framed in order to support a different conclusion, but I think the one given above will best commend itself to common sense; and the most natural inference from it is that the writer of the _Odyssey_ knew at any rate part of _Il_. II. much as we have it now.

I often wondered why Menelaus should have been made to return on the self-same day as that on which Orestes was holding the funeral feast of Ægisthus and Clytemnestra; the Greek which tells us that he did so runs:--

αὐτῆμαρ δέ οἱ ἦλθε βοὴν ἀγαθὸς Μενέλαος (_Od_. iii. 311).

I did not find the explanation till I remembered that in _Iliad_ II. 408, when Agamemnon has been inviting the Achæan chieftains to a banquet, he did not ask Menelaus, for Menelaus came of his own accord:--

αὐτόματος δέ οἱ ἦλθε βοὴν ἀγαθὸς Μενέλαος,

on remembering this I observed that it would be less trouble to make Menelaus come home on the very day of Ægisthus' funeral feast than to alter αὐτόματος in any other way which would leave the rest of the line available. I should be ashamed of the writer of the _Odyssey_ for having done this, unless I believed it to be merely due to unconscious cerebration. That the Odyssean and Iliadic lines are taken the one from the other will approve itself to the instincts of any one who is accustomed to deal with literary questions at all, and it is not conceivable that Menelaus should, in the _Iliad_, have been made to come uninvited because in the _Odyssey_ he happened to come back on the very day when Orestes was holding Ægisthus' funeral feast; the Iliadic context explains why Menelaus came uninvited--it was because he knew that Agamemnon was too busy to invite him. I infer, therefore, that the writer of the _Odyssey_ again shows herself familiar with a part of _Il_. II.

I can see no sufficient reason for even questioning that the catalogues of the Achæan and Trojan forces in the second Book of the _Iliad_ were part of the _Iliad_ as it left Homer's hands. They are wanted so as to explain who the people are of whom we are to hear in the body of the poem; their position, is perfectly natural; the Achæan catalogue is prepared in Nestor's speech (II. 360-368); Homer almost tells us that he has had assistance in compiling it, for he invokes the Muse, as he does more than once in later Books, and declares that he knows nothing of his own knowledge, but depends entirely upon what has been told him[1]; the lines quoted or alluded to in the _Odyssey_ are far too marked to allow of our doubting that the writer knew both catalogues familiarly; I cannot within my limits give them, but would call the reader's attention to _Il_. II. 488, _cf_. _Od_. iv. 240; to the considering Sparta and Lacedæmon as two places (_Il_. II. 580, 581) which the writer of the _Odyssey_ does (iv. 10), though she has abundantly shown that she knew them to be but one; to _Il_. II. 600, _cf_. _Od_. iii. 386; to the end of line 614, θαλάσσια ἔργα μεμήλειν, _cf_. _Od_. v. 67, θαλάσσια ἔργα μέμηλειν; to 670, _cf_. _Od_. ii. 12; to 673, 674, _cf_. _Od_. xi. 469, 470; to _Il_. II. 706, αὐτοκασγνητος μεγαθύμον Πρωτεσιλάου, which must surely be parent of the line αὐτοκασιγνήτου ὀλοόφρονος Αἰήταο, _Od_. X. 137; to _Il_. II. 707, ὁπλότερος γένεῇ ὁ δ᾿ ἅμα πρότερος καὶ ἀρείων, _cf_. _Od_. xix. 184, where the same line occurs; to _Il_. II. 721, ἀλλ᾿ ὁ μὲν ἐν νήσῳ κεῖτο κρατέρ᾿ ἄλγεα πάσχων, _cf_. _Od_. v. 13, where the same line occurs, but with κεῖται instead of κεῖτο to suit the context; _cf_. also _Od_. v. 395, where we find πατρός, ὃς ἐν νούσῳ κῆται, κρατέρ᾿ ἄλγεα πάσχων, a line which shows how completely the writer of the _Odyssey_ was saturated with the _Iliad_; to _Il_. II. 755, Στυγὸς ὕδατός ἐστιν ἀπορρώξ, _cf_. _Od_. x. 514, where the same words end the line; to _Il_. II. 774, δίσκοισιν τέρποντο καὶ αἰγανέῃσιν ἱέντες, _cf_. _Od_. iv. 626, and xvii. 168, where the same line occurs; to _Il_. II. 776, where the horses of the Myrmidons are spoken of as λωτὸν ἐρεπτόμενοι, _cf_. _Od_. ix. 97, where the same words are used for Ulysses' men when with the Lotus-eaters; to _Il_. II. 873, νήπιος, οὐδέ τί οἱ τό γ' ἐπήρκεσε λυγρὸν ὄλεθρον, _cf_. _Od_. iv. 292, ἄλγιον, οὐ γάρ οἵ τι τά γ' ἤρκεσε λυγρὸν ὄλεθρον.

None of the passages above quoted or referred to are to be found anywhere else in the _Iliad_, so that if from the _Iliad_ at all, they are from the catalogues. But having already shown, as I believe, that the writer of the _Odyssey_ knew lines 76, 77, 78, 184, 216, 217, and 408 of Book II., and accepting the rest of the Book as written by Homer, with or without assistance, I shall not argue further in support of my contention that the whole of Book II. was known to, and occasionally borrowed from, by the writer of the _Odyssey_.

Perhaps the prettiest example of unconscious cerebration in the _Odyssey_ is to be found in the opening line of _Od_. iii, which runs ἠέλιος δ' ἀνόρουσε λιπὼν περικαλλέα λίμνην, which is taken from _Il_. v. 20, Ιδαῖος δ' ἀνόρουσε λιπὼν περικαλλέα δίφρον· One is at a loss to conceive how a writer so apparently facile should drift thus on to an Iliadic line of such different signification except as the result of saturation. It is inconceivable that she should have cast about for a line to say that the sun was rising, and thought that Idæus jumping off his chariot would do. She again has this line in her mind when in Book xxii. 95 she writes Τηλέμαχος δ' ἀπόρουσε λιπὼν δολιχόσκιον ἔγχος.

The same kind of unconscious celebration evidenced by the lines last referred to leads her sometimes to repeat lines of her own in a strange way, without probably being at all aware of it. As for example:--

βασιλῆες.....εἰσὶ καὶ ἄλλοι
πολλοὶ ἐν ἀμφιάλῳ Ἰθάκῃ νέοι ἠδὲ παλαιοί,
(i. 394, 395).

This passage in the following Book becomes:--

εἰσὶ δὲ νῆες
πολλαὶ ἐν ἀμφιάλῳ Ἰθάκῃ νέαι ἠδὲ παλαιαί·
(ii. 292, 293).

Another similar case is that of the famous line about Sisyphus' stone bounding down hill in a string of dactyls, _Od_. xi. 598, it runs:--

αὖτις ἔπειτα πέδονδε κυλίνδετο λᾶας ἀναιδής.

"The cruel stone came bounding down again on to the plain." I believe this to be nothing but an unconscious adaptation from the one dactylic line that I can remember in the _Iliad_, I mean:--

ἀμφοτέρω δὲ τένοντε καὶ ἴστέα λᾶας ἀναιδὴς
ἄχρις ἀπηλοίησεν.
_Il_. IV 521, 522.

"The cruel stone shattered the bones of the neck, tendons and all." Granted (which is very doubtful) that there may be an accommodation of sound to sense in the Odyssean line, I contend that the suggestion came from the Iliadic line.

I would gladly go through the whole _Iliad_ calling attention to the use the writer of the _Odyssey_ has made of it, but to do this would require hardly less than a book to itself. I will therefore ask the reader to accept my statement that no one Book in the _Iliad_ shows any marked difference from the others as regards the use that has been made of it, and will limit myself to those Books that have been most generally declared to be later additions--I mean Book X. and