Iliad

“ Nowhere does there obtrude itself a desire to be clever, rhetorical, dazzling. Yet no one can read the Iliad without seeing those warriors face to face, as they were, in their physical strength and simplicity of character; nor can he read the Odyssey without feeling that he is with Ulysses on his raft, sailing through the deep, blue Mediterranean, that the salt breeze is blowing on his face, that the world is young and fresh, and that a man’s part is to perform that which lies nearest to his hand. ”

“ To cool reflection it must be plain that the story of the Iliad is in itself one of the second order: one that had to be filled up with episodes of extraneous interest, and is raised to its rank, as, on the whole, the greatest poetical achievement of mankind, only by the prodigious genius of its final author. ”

“ The story of the Iliad is a story without a heroine, a feature which makes it well-nigh unique among national legends. This fact has struck various people, and has been accounted for in various ways, the favourite explanation, perhaps, being that the Greek imagination was severer and more self-controlled, more statuesque, one may almost say, than that of other primitive peoples, and was therefore content with a hero whose sole inspiration lay in love of glory and love of battle, apart from any gentler emotion whatever. ”

“ Allowing for the difference in the local scenery, the reader of the Iliad may well fancy at times that he is following the night-march of Abraham, the conquests of Joshua, or the wars of the Kings; while in the Odyssey the same domestic interiors, the same primitive family life, the same simple patriarchal relations between the king or chief of the tribe and his people, remind us in every page of the fresh and living pictures of the book of Genesis. ”

“ The author of the Iliad absorbed the spirit of this primitive poetry in the greater compass of his epic creation, as Shakspeare has absorbed the Elizabethan pastoral within the all-embracing compass of his representation. Much of the imagery of the Iliad, several incidents casually introduced in connexion with the names of obscure persons perishing in battle, some of the supernatural events glanced at, as of the meeting of Aphrodite with Anchises while tending his herds on the spurs of Ida,—a subject of allusion also in the Sicilian idyl,—are of a pastoral character and origin. ”

“ There are few books which are fit to be remembered in our wisest hours, but the Iliad is brightest in the serenest days, and embodies still all the sunlight that fell on Asia Minor. No modern joy or ecstasy of ours can lower its height, or dim its lustre, but there it lies in the east of literature, as it were the earliest and latest production of the mind. ”

“ In the Iliad, in spite of the gloom of Achilles, and his complaint of the double urn, the sense of life, on the whole, is sunny and cheerful. There is no yearning for anything beyond—nothing vague, nothing mystical. The earth, the men, the gods, have all a palpable reality about them. From first to last, we know where we are, and what we are about. In the Odyssey we are breathing another atmosphere. ”

“ The outward tokens of grief are wholly Eastern. Achilles, in the Iliad, when he hears of the death of his friend Patroclus—Laertes, in the Odyssey, when he believes his son’s return hopeless—throw dust upon their heads, like Joshua and the elders of Israel when they hear of the disaster at Ai. King Priam tears his hair and beard in his vain appeal to Hector at the Scæan gates, as Ezra does, when he hears of the trespasses of the Jewish princes. ”

“ As in an organic body life does not dwell in one single point, but requires a union of certain systems and members, so the internal connection of the Iliad rests on the union of certain parts ; and neither the interesting introduction describing the defeat of the Greeks up to the burning of the ship of Pro- tesilaus, 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. ”

“ Thirdly, as a poetical composition, the Lay of the Niebelungen will not bear comparison for a moment with the two great Greek works of the same class; it is even, in our opinion, inferior to its nearest modern counterpart, the Cid. The author of the Iliad possessed a soul as sunny and as fiery as those lovely island-fringed coasts that gave him birth; and in describing battles he rushes on himself to the charge, like some old French-eating Marshal Blucher, the incarnation of the whirlwind of battle which he guides. ”

“ All the letters in the Iliad might have been tossed and jumbled together from morning to night by the hands of the whole human race, from the beginning of the world until now, and the first line of the Iliad would have been still to compose, had not the genius of Homer been inspired to sing the wrath of Achilles and the war around Troy. ”

“ And when Ulysses attempts to comfort him with the thought of the deathless glory which surrounds his name, the hopelessness of his answer sets forth, in the darkest colours, that gloomy view of human destiny which breaks out from time to time in the creed of the poet, and which belongs to the character of his favourite hero. Whether the Odyssey did or did not come from the same hand as the Iliad, at least Achilles is the same in both. ”

“ If the great poets, who flourished at the bright period of Grecian song, of which, alas! we have inherited little more than the fame, and the faint echo, if Stesichorus, Anacreon, and Simonidês were employed in the noble task of compiling the Iliad and Odyssey, so much must have been done to arrange, to connect, to harmonize, that it is almost incredible, that stronger marks of Athenian manufacture should not remain. ”

“ It is possible, indeed, that in its leading outline, the Iliad may be true to historic fact, that in the great maritime expedition of western Greece against the rival and half-kindred empire of the Laomedontiadæ, the chieftain of Thessaly, from his valour and the number of his forces, may have been the most important ally of the Peloponnesian sovereign; the preeminent value of the ancient poetry on the Trojan war may thus have forced the national feeling of the Athenians to yield to their taste. ”

“ But while we are on our guard against a once common error, we may recognize the historical connexion between the Iliad and Odyssey and the “ballad” literature which undoubtedly preceded them in Greece. It may even be admitted that the swift-flowing movement, and the simplicity of thought and style, which we admire in the Iliad are an inheritance from the earlier “lays”—the κλέα ἀνδρῶν such as Achilles and Patroclus sang to the lyre in their tent. Even the metre—the hexameter verse—may be assigned to them. ”

“ Every one has something so singularly his own, that no painter could have distinguished them more by their features, than the poet has by their manners. Nothing can be more exact than the distinctions he has observed in the different degrees of virtues and vices. The single quality of courage is wonderfully diversified in the several characters of the Iliad. That of Achilles is furious and intractable; that of Diomede forward, yet listening to advice, and subject to command; that of Ajax is heavy and self-confiding ”

“ The Iliad is so far from being a wild paradise, that it is the most regular garden, and laid out with more symmetry than any ever was. Every thing herein is not only in the place it ought to have been, but every thing is fitted for the place it hath. He presents you at first with that which ought to be first seen; he places in the middle what ought to be in the middle, and what would be improperly placed at the beginning or end, and he removes what ought to be at a greater distance, to create the more agreeable surprize ”

“ Another character, proper to Epic poetry, judging after its great model, the Iliad—is universality. In the direct narrative, we have gods and men, heaven, earth, sea, for seats of action—and, for a moment, a glimpse of hell. Recollect whilst the conflagration of war is raging, how the poet has found a moment, at the Scæan Gate, for the touching picture of an heroic father, a noble mother, and a babe in arms, scared at his father's dazzling and overshadowing helmet, who smiles, puts it from his head upon the ground, and lifts up the boy, with a prayer to Jove. ”

“ Even as in heaven about the gleaming moon the stars shine clear, when the air is windless, and forth to view appear all mountain peaks and high headlands and glades, and from heaven breaketh open the infinite air, and all stars are seen, and the shepherd joyeth in his heart; even in such multitudes between the ships and the streams of Xanthus shone the fires that the Trojans kindled before the face of Ilios. A thousand fires were burning in the plain and by each sat fifty men in the glow of the blazing fire. ”

“ The writer compiling the opinions of many men, and chiefly of the ancients, set forth, I know not how quaintly, that the Iliad was all in all to the human race—that it was history, poetry, revelation; that the works of men’s hands were folly and vanity, and would pass away like the dreams of a child, but that the kingdom of Homer would endure for ever and ever. ”

“ They who bring with them, to the pages of classical fiction, a taste which has been built up by modern song and romance, must be warned at once that there is no love-story in either Iliad or Odyssey. Indeed, one remarkable point of difference between the imaginative writers of antiquity and those of our own days, lies in the absence of that which is the motive and the key-note of five-sixths of our modern tales in prose and verse. ”

“ We are tempted less to musing and wonder by the Iliad, a work without a history, cut off from its past, the sole relic and vestige of its age, unexplained in its origin and perfection, than by the Divina Commedia, destined for the highest ends and most universal sympathy, yet the reflection of a personal history, and issuing seemingly from its chance incidents. ”

“ So the insurmountable obstacle to believing the Iliad a consolidated work of several poets is this: that the work of great masters is unique; and the Iliad has a great master’s genuine stamp, and that stamp is the grand style. ”

“ Up, go, swift Iris; leave thou the abode of Olympus and bear tidings within Ilios unto great-hearted Priam that he go to the ships of the Achaeans to ransom his dear son, and that he bear gifts unto Achilles which shall make glad his heart; alone let him go, neither let any man beside of the Trojans go with him. A herald may attend him, an elder man, to guide the mules and the light-running waggon, and to carry back to the city the dead, even him that Achilles slew. Let not death be in his thoughts. ”

“ This explanation is well illustrated in the 'Iliad'—a poem elder by a century, it is rightly argued, than the 'Odyssey,' ergo the eldest of Pagan literature. Now, when the 'Iliad' had once come down safe to Pisistratus 555 years b.c., imagine this great man holding out his hands over the gulf of time to Homer, 1,000 years before, who is chucking or shying his poems across the gulf. Once landed in those conservative hands, never trouble yourself more about the safety of the 'Iliad.' After that it was as safe as the eyes in any Athenian's head. ”

“ And all the gods that round old Saturn dwell Had heard the thunders to the deeps of hell. Well was the crime, and well the vengeance spared; Even power immense had found such battle hard. Go thou, my son! the trembling Greeks alarm, Shake my broad ægis on thy active arm, Be godlike Hector thy peculiar care, Swell his bold heart, and urge his strength to war: Let Ilion conquer, till the Achaian train Fly to their ships and Hellespont again: Then Greece shall breathe from toils.” The godhead said; His will divine the son of Jove obey’d. ”

“ The dramatic action of the Iliad may command attention where the diffused narrative of the Odyssey would fail to do so; but how can anyone, who loves poetry under any shape, help yielding up his soul to the virtuous siren-singing of Genius and Truth, which is forever resounding from the pages of either of These marvelous and truly immortal poems? In the Iliad will be found the sterner lessons of public justice or public expedience, and the examples are for statesmen and generals ”

“ The heroes of the Iliad reappear as the knights of modern chivalry; they fight on horseback, observe all the rules of medieval courtesy, and "fewtre their speres" at each other exactly in the style of the Companions of the Round Table. ”

“ In the Iliad we find the Sun personified, though in the faintest manner, and by inference only. His office of vision, which he enjoys habitually in the Odyssey, and once in the Iliad [497] , is inseparably wedded to a living intelligence by its combination with the function of hearing. He is addressed as the
Ἠέλιός θ’, ὃς πάντ’ ἐφορᾷς καὶ πάντ’ ἐπακούεις. ”

“ When we are told, in passages to be quoted, that there was in the formation of the Iliad, and to a less extent in that of the Odyssey, a strong element of reform and expurgation, we ask ourselves—who, in what age, and from what motives, were the reformers and purgers of what pre-existing poetic and legendary materials? ”

“ It stands with the Iliad and Shakspere's Plays, with the writings of Aristotle and Plato, with the Novum Organon and the Principia, with Justinian's Code, with the Parthenon and S. Peter's. It is the first Christian poem; and it opens European literature, as the Iliad did that of Greece and Rome. And, like the Iliad, it has never become out of date; it accompanies in undiminished freshness the literature which it began.
We approach the history of such works, in which genius seems to have pushed its achievements to a new limit, with a kind of awe. ”