182 



HOMER. 



question then is, How were these separate parts 

 combined into two wholes ? For centuries, these 

 parts were detached songs, preserved by the rhapso- 

 ili-K tlit- favourites of the Ionian Greeks. Lycurgus, 

 about a generation after Homer, first brought the 

 Homeric poems into the mother country, on his 

 return from Crete and Asia. Three centuries later, 

 Pisistratus and the Pisistratidae began to collect the 

 works of Homer, and ordered that they should be 

 annually sung at the feast of the Panathenaea, by 

 the rhapsodists. After they had been reduced to 

 writing, and put in order, they underwent repeated 

 revisions, their deficiencies were supplied, they were 

 continued, and at last received their present form 

 from the labours of the Alexandrine scholars. These 

 epics also owe their division into twenty-four books 

 to these learned men, according to the number of 

 the letters of the alphabet. (For the periods which 

 are to be distinguished, see Wolf and Schlegel, in the 

 work already quoted.) The scholars engaged in 

 this labour were called liatrxivuffTtn , (i. e. editors). 

 l>efore these ZiatrxtvaffTut, therefore, we cannot 

 speak of an Iliad or an Odyssey. They have not, 

 theiij in all probability, their original form, because, 

 even on the supposition of the most faithful tradition, 

 deviations from the original would be unavoidable in 

 so long a course of time. These changes became 

 still more considerable by the boldness of the gram- 

 marians in correcting the various readings, and the 

 rejection of passages became so frequent, as to give 

 rise to a proverb to cast Homer out of Homer. 

 Not only single passages, but whole rhapsodies were 

 rejected. 



From these circumstances we can judge how much 

 we have or know of the original Homer. The (so 

 called) Homeric works are then, chiefly fragments of 

 different authors, and the one Homer becomes several 

 Homerides, i. e., bards of the same Ionian school 

 (see Greek Literature), from which Homer himself 

 proceeded, and over which he may have presided. 

 The poets, however, are properly called Homerides, 

 or descendants of Homer, because they all bear the 

 stamp of the beautiful Ionian epic school. If we, 

 nevertheless, continue to speak of Homer's poems, it 

 is partly in conformity to custom, partly because the 

 real Homer, whose existence cannot be positively 

 denied, may have furnished the ground of these 

 poems, and perhaps composed a considerable part of 

 them. However this may be, this critical view 

 (which has found adversaries in Harles, Voss, St 

 Croix, Mannert, Hug, Bouterwek, &c.), only denies 

 the character of a regular epic to the Homeric 

 songs, an epic in which an original, artificial unity 

 embraces the whole, and strictly subjects all the 

 single parts to a plan, which binds together the 

 whole poem ; and on the whole nothing is lost but 

 the rules which certain critics, blindly following 

 Aristotle, derived from that pretended whole. A 

 mechanical and dramatical unity, foreign to the epic, 

 has been attributed to those poems, which may be 

 denied the Homeric songs, without injury to their 

 poetical value. Though there is no single, uninter- 

 rupted action in these poems, yet action is in general 

 the life of the Homeric poetry. Nowhere do we find 

 a pause in the action, or, as it is called, a poetical 

 picture or description ; every thing is in a constant 

 progress ; it grows before our eyes. But every 

 mode of expressing action is not compatible with 

 the epic ; a passionate description would pass over 

 into lyric or dramatic poetry. Homer's heroes may 

 be moved by the strongest passions ; the representa- 

 tion of them is always calm. What the poet relates 

 finds its way to every feeling heart, but he himself 

 never shows his feelings, neither inclination nor dis- 

 like. Totally lost in his subject, you never perceive 



his individuality. That the poems are not necessar- 

 ily, on this account, the work of one man, appears 

 from the fact that this was more or less the charac- 

 teristic of classic art. Though the poet is himself a 

 Greek, he speaks impartially of the Trojans. There 

 is nothing in the poems which makes us impatient 

 for the denouement. A uniform development, in 

 constant progress, is the character of the Homeric 

 epic. Herder therefore says of him : u The truth 

 and wisdom with which he unites all the subjects of 

 his world in a living picture, the firmness of every 

 stroke in all the personages of this immortal picture, 

 the divine freedom with which he contemplates the 

 characters, and paints their virtues and vices, their 

 successes and disasters this is what renders Homer 

 unique, and worthy of immortality." We cannot 

 entirely agree with this view of Homer, because 

 in Shakspeare this impartiality and absence of indi- 

 viduality is at least equally great, and much more 

 admirable, as he is a dramatic poet, and the display 

 of character is therefore his paramount object. 



In what we have already said, we have indicated 

 what we consider the chief beauty of Homer. Few 

 of his characters are of an elevated stamp. What, 

 for instance, is the greatness of his chief hero, 

 Achilles ? The excellence of Homer consists in the 

 simple, true, and diversified representation of one 

 powerful action, which was national, and therefore 

 all-engrossing ; a representation which, though 

 always calm, is always true. It is, in one word, the 

 poetical faithfulness, the calmness and devotion of 

 the poet, together with the beauty of his language, 

 which render Homer great. If it were only for the 

 chaste and yet powerful use of the noblest idiom ever 

 spoken, so harmonious, finely organized and expres- 

 sive, the pages of the Ionian epic would amply repay 

 perusal. If the Homeric poems had always been 

 considered in a simple and unprejudiced manner, 

 free from the influence of a thousand pedantic 

 theories and exaggerations, they would have had 

 fewer pretended admirers, but more who truly relished 

 them. For some excellent remarks on this point, 

 see A. W. Schlegel's criticism of Goethe's Hermann 

 und Dorothea. For some further observations, see 

 the article Nibelungenlied. 



Germany possesses the best translation of Homer, 

 by the great scholar J. H. Voss; there are also 

 many other translations in the same language. 

 Wolf's translation of 100 verses of the Odyssey (in 

 his Analecta) exhibits the highest excellence of which 

 a translator is capable ; but the rules which he pre- 

 scribed to himself of a close adherence to the original 

 cannot be expected to be carried through. The 

 English version of Pope is rather a paraphrase than 

 a translation, but the beauty of its diction has made 

 it a standard English classic. Cowper's version 

 is much more faithful, but inferior in beauty of lan- 

 guage. Sotheby, the translator of Oberon and of the 

 Georgics, lias also given a beautiful translation of the 

 Iliad. Among the editions of Homer are those of 

 Clarke (London, 1729 40, 4 vols. 4to, often re-- 

 printed); Ernesti (Leipsic, 1759 64, 5 vols., and 

 1824, et seq.); Wolf (latest edition, Leipsic, 1817, 4 

 vols.); Heyne (Iliad only, Leipsic, 1802, etseq.,8 vols.) 

 So much has been written for the explanation of 

 Homer, that a mere enumeration of the titles of the 

 works would fill a volume. We may mention Wolfs 

 and Knight's Prolegomena, Feith's Homeric Antiqui- 

 ties, De Maree's Essay on the C ivilization of the G reeks 

 in the Time of Homer, Halbkart's Homeric Psy- 

 chology, several works on the Morality and Theology 

 of Homer, by Heyne, Harles, Delbruck, Hermann, 

 Voss, Wagner ; on the Geography of the Homeric 

 Poems, by Schonemann, Schlichthorst, A. W. Schle- 

 gel, Voss and Volcker. Even on the medicine, 



