TIIK L 1 K I<] AM) WORK OK UOMKK. 



Lucky word. In the second place it is not even appropriate ; 

 for the subject of the [Had is not, so much the anger of Achilles 

 as his glorification. V. A. Wolf suggested re-writing the passage 

 so as to commence with the lucky and appropriate word /eOSo?, 

 "Glory." In ancient times other expedients were tried to evade 

 the difficulty. 



A translator rarely introduces such an artifice as that 

 employed by Italicus unless his text contains something 

 analogous ; but he is often compelled to substitute something 

 simple for something complicated, when reproduction of the 

 latter exceeds his power. The prologue of the Greek Iliad 

 certainly displays no acrostich ; but with the kindred artifice, 

 the Anagram, the name of Homer is associated by his Byzantine 

 commentator Eustathius, and such association can be traced far 

 earlier. The author of the first monograph on Homer, 

 Theagenes of Rhegium, in the sixth pre-Christian century 

 appears to have applied the principle of the anagram in deter- 

 mining the import of certain Divine names. Even earlier the 

 poet Hesiod appears to have applied it in determining the 

 parentage of a Homeric hero. 



The gulf between the acrostich of Italicus and the Homeric 

 anagram is bridged over by a Sinhalese poet, Dunuvila, who has 

 substituted the double for the single vertical column, dis- 

 tributing the letters of his name over four lines, thus: DU 

 NU VI LA ; each of these pairs of letters successively 

 commences a line. The plan of Homer in the prologue of the 

 Iliad is the same, except that he has substituted the anagram 

 for the acrostich. The fourteen letters which constitute the 

 first two vertical columns MH OT no HP OI EH AT give 

 the anagram OMHPOT ItOIHTA EH of Homer, Pod, from. 

 We now see why he began with the unlucky and inappropriate 

 word MHNIN ; its first two letters were the second and third 

 of his name. The fifth line was ejected by some critics, and 

 gave offence at an early period ; its first word, however, contained 

 the second and third letters of his title. 



Now accident can ordinarily be distinguished from design by 

 the fact that the former gives either too little or too much ; the 

 latter gives precisely what is required. The occurrence in this 

 anagram of the author's name and title, and both in the same 

 grammatical case, appears to exclude the possibility of accident ; 

 still there remains the preposition " from," which cannot well 

 be taken with these words, yet must have some purpose if we 

 have before us the work of design. If, however, the next pair 

 of vertical columns constitutes a second anagram, we shall be 



