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belong to the same age, or order of poetry. And further, the Iliad bears more indisputable marks of a composite origin than the Odyssey does. It was probably much the earlier poem, though it existed at first only in a fragmentary form. And again, it is certain (however we may explain the fact) that, whereas in Pindar's time there had been a vast body of Epic poetry, the whole of which had been popularly considered as Homeric, in Plato's time the Iliad and Odyssey had been separated off from the rest, and were substantially the same as we now possess them. It is true, indeed1, that the Homer even of late classical times cannot have been entirely the same as ours. This would follow from the nature of the work done subsequently by the Alexandrian grammarians and their successors in the task of criticism. They re-arranged and altered and omitted much of the material they had received; but I call that material substantially the same as ours when I am comparing it with the vast chaotic mass,

1 Among the many proofs which could be offered of this, I have come across two curious instances which I have not seen elsewhere noted. In Aristotle, Hist. Anim. Bk. VI. cap. 28, the lines following are given as Homeric:

Θρέψεν ἔπι χλούνην σῦν ἄγριον, οὐδὲ ἐῴκει

Θηρί γε σιτοφάγῳ, ἀλλὰ ῥίῳ ὑλήεντι.

These occur nowhere in our Homer. They appear to be made up, with slight alterations, from the account of the wild boar sent by Artemis to ravage the plantations of Eneus, Il. IX. 539, and from the description of the Cyclops, Od. IX. 190, 191.

Again, in the Poetics, cap. 8, Aristotle, praising Homer for the essential unity of his writings, states expressly that the story of Ulysses' wound on Mount Parnassus is not given in the Odyssey. It forms part of Bk. xix. in the Odyssey as we possess it. However, since Aristotle's statement admits of being understood in a less precise sense than the above, I subjoin it in extenso. Οδύσσειαν γὰρ ποιῶν οὐκ ἐποίησεν ἅπαντα ὅσα αὐτῷ συνέβη, οἷον πληγῆναι μὲν ἐν τῷ Παρνασσῷ, μανῆναι δὲ προσποιήσασθαι ἐν τῷ ἀγερμῷ -ἀλλὰ περὶ μίαν πρᾶξιν οἵαν λέγομεν τὴν Ὀδύσσειαν συνέστησεν, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τὴν Ἰλιάδα.

of which the contents of our Iliad and Odyssey formed but a small part, and the whole of which in Pindar's day went indiscriminately under the common title of Homer and the Homeric poems.

I have written in my notes nothing about the beauties of Homer as a poet. The omission has been intentional; for I doubt whether a series of demands made on the reader's admiration is at all likely to do any good-whether it does not tend rather to interfere with his enjoyment of the marked passages than to stimulate it. But, as I do not wish to pass the subject altogether, I will say now that the special characteristics of Homer's verse are sustained grandeur, and along with it (and the union is a most rare excellence) a perfect freedom from complexity in thought or language, and a force of genius that seems to flow ever without exhaustion and without consciousness of effort,-rapidity, simplicity, nobleness. And as we read his lines, the sense ought never to be absent that we are in the presence of one of the three or four great poets of all time; that, as Dante for modern art, so, for ancient art, Homer stands out as the first and principal figure—the poeta sovrano beyond all limits of rivalry or comparison. Theirs are the verses which embody a perfection which we can conceive only because they have shewn it to us. It is our reverence which is due here and not our praise. The space about these men is holy ground.

ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA.

Some apology is due for the following lengthy table of addenda and corrigenda. The first five books were printed off before I had made the corrections I wished, and while I supposed that I could still make changes which I felt were required.

Book I.

4. note.] Something more should have been said here about the argument from comparative philology, and the nature and amount of the evidence which it supplies. Let us suppose the student's attention called to the line (Bk. I. 30),

ἡμετέρῳ ἐνὶ οἴκῳ ἐν ̓́Αργεϊ τηλόθι πάτρης,

and again to VI. 258,

ἀλλὰ μέν ὄφρα κέ τοι μελιηδέα οἶνον ἐνείκω,

He will observe in each of them an open unelided short vowel, in the one line before očky, and in the other before olvov, standing as it would stand if each of these two words began not with a vowel but with a consonant; and he will no doubt remember the kindred Latin forms vicus and vinum, each actually beginning with a consonant. Now if this were all it would be a curious coincidence and perhaps nothing more. But the case becomes very different when we extend the list of words and the number of languages where a consonant is found which does not now exist in the kindred Greek form-which has in fact been lost (for no other explanation is possible) sometimes from the beginning, sometimes from the middle of the word. I subjoin a few undoubted instances :

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We can no longer suppose these facts the result of accident. From a review of the whole evidence, the theory is forced upon us that one or more letters have been systematically omitted from the Greek; that this was not the case in the first state of the language, but that the missing letters disappeared after the date of the earliest verse composition. And this lost letter was, in most cases, the v or w sound which we call the digamma.

39. note.] This passage is wrongly said to be the first in which the preposition is separated from the verb. The first is in line 25, èïì μûlov ἔτελλεν.

135. note.] For the line ends read these lines end.

236. note.] The wording of this note is somewhat obscure. Hep is an adverb only inasmuch as it is a preposition belonging to, although separated from, a verb. The translation given may stand. On the Homeric metals conf. Juventus Mundi, where the view is maintained that xaλkos =simply copper, and not a mixed metal.

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244. note.] Add. For this sense of ore, conf. I. XVI. 433.

393. note. line 8.] For substitution of the 3rd person for the second read substitution, in the translation, of the 2nd person for the 3rd.

126,

526. note. line 11.] Dele obsolete. The word occurs in Agamemnon,

χρονῷ μὲν ἀγρεϊ Πριάμου πόλιν, κ.τ.λ.

572. note.] The use of the adjective èπlŋpos in the nominative singular seems to decide the question in favour of Aristarchus, and against Buttmann and the Scholiast. Vide Arist. de Anima, I. 5, ǹ dè xowv éπínpos, K.T.λ.

594. text.] For ev0a read évoa.

Book II.

82. text. ] Erase colon after ös.

103. note. line 19.] For didкw read diáкw.

203. text. ]

217. text.

323. note.]

For βυσιλεύσομεν, read βασιλεύσομεν.
For my read ἔην.

For avew read avew.

397. note. line 7.] Dele "κaúμaтos," and for v. 865 read v. 523. 415. note. line 4.] For causal read material, and dele remainder of note. Conf. Jelf, Vol. II. § 540. "The poets use a material genitive with many other verbs. The epic is very rich in this idiom, which is more and more lost in the later language; as while the Greek mind in its primitive freshness regarded the action as springing into life from the materials of which it was composed, the later Greeks regarded it as a mere lifeless work." Od. III. 408, ȧTOσтíλßovтes åλeíparos. Plat. Phæd. p. 113, A. ζέουσαν ὕδατος καὶ πηλοῦ. Ι. ΙΧ. 242. VI. 331. ΧΙ. 667.

509. text.] Insert comma after klov.

597. note. line 1.] Dele, and place full stop after asserted. line 3.1 Place comma after lornμi.

692. text.] For ἐρχεσιμώρους read ἐγχεσιμώρους.

BOOK III.

III. text.] For 'Axaio read 'Axaiol.

163. text.] For piλous read piλovs.

Book IV.

24. note. line 5.] For must read may. Since orĥoos can be accusative

=κατὰ στῆθος or ἐν στήθει.

202. text.] For é read .

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