subsistence during his visits, he was usually surrounded by the children of the most noble men of the island. "We directed our steps towards the mansion of a wealthy man, full of precious things. Gates fly open! 64 Plutos presents himself, accompanied by joyous Mirth and gentle Peace. May the goblets overflow, may the flame ascend from the hearth, may the table groan under its plenteous burden! May the wife of the son of the house come to you drawn by mules, and in a chariot! may she, seated in an amber chair,65 joyfully spin her wool! I shall return, yea, I shall return, like unto the swallow every year! 66 I am at your gate! Whether you present me with any thing or no, I remain not; I purpose not to live with you!" These verses are sung every time tribute is levied in the honour of Apollo Pythos.67 XXXIV. The spring having arrived, Homer desired to leave Samos for Athens. He sailed for that place, in company with some Samians, and arrived at the island of Ios.68 They bunches of grapes, grains of wheat, oil, and artistically worked veins of honey and wax made by the bees." See also Edip. Colon. 475, and Mure, ii. 362. 64 66 Lift up your heads, O ye gates." Psalm xxiv. 7. 65 The Eridanus, whence the electron (amber) was brought, was not then sufficiently known, and perhaps these are wrongly ascribed to Homer. See Plin. Hist. Nat. xxvii. 2; Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 493, n. (Bohn's edition); Gesner de Electro veterum in Commentar. Societatis Regiæ Gottingensis (tom. iii. p. 85); Smith, Grecian Antiquities, Herod. iii. 115; Sophocles (Antig. v. 1033); and Buttmann, Mythologus (vol. ii. p. 337). 66 Conf. Aristoph. Equit. v. 416. 67 In the Greek religious calendar, the first days of the months were always sacred to Apollo; and that festival (The Neomenia) was one of the most popular in every age of classical antiquity. Hesiod, Works and Days, 770; Herod. iv. 35, and vi. 57; Philok. ap. Scholl. min. et Scholl. Buttm. ad Odyss. xx. 155; xxi. 258; Mure, vol. i. p. 381, and Larcher's note on Herod. iv. 35. 6s The present Nio. did not stop at the town, but at some distance off, on the seashore. Homer, feeling himself very ill, was carried on shore. Contrary winds retarding the departure of the vessel, the travellers remained several days at anchor. Some of the inhabitants visited Homer, and they no sooner heard him speak than they felt a great degree of veneration for him. XXXV. While the sailors and the townspeople were speaking with Homer, some fishermen's children ran their vessel on shore, and descending to the sands, addressed these words to the assembled persons: "Hear us, strangers, explain our riddle if ye can.” Then some of those that were present ordered them to speak. "We leave," say they, "what we take, and we carry with us that which we cannot take." No one being able to solve the enigma, they thus expounded it. "Having had an unproductive fishery," say they in explanation, 'we sat down on the sand, and being annoyed by the vermin, left the fish we had taken on the shore, taking with us the vermin we could not catch." 69 Homer, on hearing this, made these verses: "Children, your fathers possess neither ample heritages, nor numerous flocks." 66 XXXVI. Homer died in Ios of the disease he had contracted on his arrival, and not, as some authors have related, [caring more for interest than truth,] of grief at not understanding the enigma of the fisher-boys.70 He was buried 69 The enigma is founded on the distinction made by the ancients between having and possessing, which Plato (Theætet. § 126) causes Socrates to define. "To possess, therefore, does not appear to me to be the same as to have; for instance, if any one, having bought a garment, and having it in his power, should not wear it, we should not say that he has it, but that he possesses it." Cary's trans. vol. i. p. 348, Bohn's Classical Library. Similarly our own poet wrote, (Othello, iv. 1,) "They have it very oft that have it not," where the word is used in two different senses. Somewhat akin to it is the riddle alluded to by Plato, Rep. v. c. 22. Lactantius has translated this Homeric enigma into Latin, Symposium, tom. ii. p. 255. 70 The following passage occurs in Pseudo-Plutarch's Life of Homer. near the shore of the island of Ios, by his companions, and those citizens who had visited him during his illness. Many years after, when his poems, become public, were admired by all, the inhabitants of Ios inscribed these elegiacs on his tomb; they are certainly not composed by himself. "THE EARTH HERE COVERS THE HEAD OF DIVINE HOMER, WHOSE POETRY HAS IMMORTALIZED HEROES. 971 XXXVII. It may be seen from what I have said, that Homer was neither a Dorian, nor of the island of Ios, but an Eolian.72 This may also be conjectured from the great poet only speaking of [what he thinks] the most admirable customs, and he would naturally suppose those of his own country to be the best.73 It may be judged from these verses: "They raise the heads of the oxen toward heaven, cut their throats, and sever them in pieces; they separate the thighs, and place over them a double layer of fat, and bleeding morsels from every part of the victim.74 The kidneys are not men "He was warned by an oracle to beware of the young men's riddle. The meaning of this remained long unexplained to him, till he arrived at the island of Ios; there, as he sat conversing with the fishermen, some of them proposed a riddle in verse to him, and, not comprehending it, he died of grief." Pope, in his Introductory Essay, says, "The story refutes itself, by carrying superstition at one end, and folly at the other. It seems conceived with an air of derision, to lay a great man in the dust after a foolish manner." This completely sets the question of the authenticity of this Life at rest, since the writer plainly refers to this idle tale, recorded by an author of so much later date. 71 The translation of Grotius is as follows: "Ista tegit tellum sacrum caput illud Homeri 72 Simonides of Kêos calls Homer a Chian. Fragm. 69, ed. Schneidewin. 73 Exactly the idea of Herodotus, iii. 33. Il. i. 459, and ii. 422. Victims were variously sacrificed. In sacrificing to the celestial deities they raised the heads of the victims, while they immolated them to the infernal gods with their heads down. The Grecian ceremonies differed widely from the Jewish, but much resem tioned here, the Eolians being the only people of Greece who do not burn them. Homer also shows his Æolian descent in the following verses, there again describing the customs of that country: "The elder burns the sacrifice on the wood of the altar, pouring over it libations of wine. The youths stand around holding five-barred gridirons."75 The Æolians are the only people of Greece who roast the entrails on five-barred gridirons, those of the other Greeks having but three. The Æolians also say πέμπε for πέντε [five]. XXXVIII. I have now concluded that which concerns the birth, life, and death of Homer. It remains for me to determine the time at which he lived. This is most easily done in the following manner. The island of Lesbos was not colonized 76 till the hundred and thirtieth year after the Trojan war, and eighteen years subsequently Smyrna was built by the CumaAt this time Homer was born.77 From the birth of the poet to the passage of Xerxes into Greece, six hundred and twenty-two years elapsed. The course of time may easily be calculated by a reference to the Archonships. It is thus proved that Homer was born one hundred and sixty-eight years after the taking of Troy. ans. bled the Roman, of which they formed the basis. The thighs and small pieces "from every part," were burnt, the rest roasted in slices like the Oriental Kabobs. See Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities. 75 Il. i. 463. 76 It was not, however, destitute of inhabitants, for the Pelasgi, driven from Thessaly (B. C. 1540) by Deucalion, settled there. Dionys. Halicarn. Antiq. Roman. i. § 18. The Eolians arrived B. c. 1140, and as the Pelasgi lived in wandering tribes, they were soon reduced. "See Clinton Fasti Hellen. vol. iii. p. 146. Conf. Grote's Animadversions on Clinton, Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. part i. chap. xix. pp. 47-78. THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER. BOOK I. ARGUMENT. In an assembly of the gods it is determined that Ulysses shall be sent to Ithaca, from the island of Calypso. Minerva then goes to Ithaca to Telemachus, assuming the figure of Mentes, king of the Taphians, an old friend of Ulysses. Entering into conversation with Telemachus, she advises him to go to Pylos, to Nestor, and to Menelaus, at Sparta, to make inquiries about his father, whether he is still alive; after which she departs, giving manifest proofs of her divinity. Telemachus rebukes his mother Penelope, and desires her to go up-stairs: and then, during a banquet, threatens the suitors that he will be revenged on them for their insolent conduct. O MUSE,1 sing to me of the man full of resources, who wandered very much after he had destroyed the sacred city of Troy, and saw the cities of many men, and learned their manners.2 Many griefs also in his mind did he suffer on the sea, although 3 seeking to preserve1 his own life, and the return of his companions; but not even thus, although anxious, did he extricate his companions: for they perished by their own infatuation, fools! who devoured the oxen of the Sun who jour 3 1 Thus rendered by Horace, A. P. 141, " Dic mihi, Musa, virum, captæ post mœnia Troja Qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes." See Schrader on Mus. p. 121, sq. = 2 I have translated vóov" manners," on the authority of Horace. 3 Tép quando participiis postponitur, reddi potest per quamvis. Loewe. 4 ἄρνυμαι expeto, anxie requiro. Clarke. There is a sort of zeugma, seeking to ransom or buy off his own life, and [to procure] a return for his companions." Hor. Epist. i. 2. 18, " Dum sibi, dum socii reditum parat." 66 5 Literally," to draw away." See Buttmann Lexil. p. 303-308, Fishlake's Translation. B |