Part 1 (1/2)

The Iliad of Homer

by Homer

INTRODUCTION

Scepticise is of scepticism To be content e at present know, is, for the ainst conviction; since, froradual character of our education, we et, and ee previously acquired; we must set aside old notions and embrace fresh ones; and, as we learn, wewhich it has cost us no small labour and anxiety to acquire

And this difficulty attaches itselfascendency over prejudice, and in which persons and things are, day by day, finding their real level, in lieu of their conventional value The same principles which have swept away traditional abuses, and which arethe revenues of sinecurists, and stripping the thin, tawdry veil fro as actively in literature as in society The credulity of one writer, or the partiality of another, finds as powerful a touchstone and as wholesome a chastisement in the healthy scepticisonists, as the dreams of conservatism, or the impostures of pluralist sinecures in the Church History and tradition, whether of ancient or comparatively recent ti froes could allow Mere statements are jealously watched, and the redient in the analysis of his history, as the facts he records Probability is a powerful and troublesoe portion of historical evidence is sifted Consistency is no less pertinacious and exacting in its demands In brief, to write a history, we must know more than mere facts Human nature, viewed under an induction of extended experience, is the best help to the criticism of human history

Historical characters can only be estimated by the standard which human experience, whether actual or traditionary, has furnished To for parts of a great whole--we s by who the incidents in their lives or condition which tradition has handed down to us, weof the whole narrative, than the respective probability of its details

It is unfortunate for us, that, of soreatest men, we know least, and talk most Homer, Socrates, and Shakespere(1) have, perhaps, contributed htenment of mankind than any other three writers who could be naiven rise to a boundless ocean of discussion, which has left us little save the option of choosing which theory or theories ill follow The personality of Shakespere is, perhaps, the only thing in which critics will allow us to believe without controversy; but upon everything else, even down to the authorshi+p of plays, there is more or less of doubt and uncertainty Of Socrates we know as little as the contradictions of Plato and Xenophon will allow us to know He was one of the _dramatis personae_ in two dramas as unlike in principles as in style He appears as the enunciator of opinions as different in their tone as those of the writers who have handed them down When we have read Plato _or_ Xenophon, we think we know so of Socrates; e have fairly read and exa worse than ignorant

It has been an easy, and a popular expedient, of late years, to deny the personal or real existence of s whose life and condition were too much for our belief This systeious sceptic, and substituted the consolations of Strauss for those of the New Testament--has been of incalculable value to the historical theorists of the last and present centuries To question the existence of Alexander the Great, would be a more excusable act, than to believe in that of Romulus To deny a fact related in Herodotus, because it is inconsistent with a theory developed from an assyrian inscription which no two scholars read in the saood-natured old king whoant pen of Florian has idealized--_Nu point with respect to Hoe may be described as a free permission to believe any theory, provided we throw overboard all written tradition, concerning the author or authors of the Iliad and Odyssey What few authorities exist on the subject, are suuments appear to run in a circle ”This cannot be true, because it is not true; and, that is not true, because it cannot be true” Such seems to be the style, in which testined to denial and oblivion

It is, however, unfortunate that the professed biographies of Hoination, in which truth is the requisitea brief review of the Homeric theory in its present conditions, some notice must be taken of the treatise on the Life of Ho to this document, the city of cumae in aeolia, was, at an early period, the seat of frequent i the ih poor, he irl nae, under the guardianshi+p of Cleanax, of Argos It is to the indiscretion of this maiden that we ”are indebted for so much happiness” Homer was the first fruit of her juvenile frailty, and received the na been born near the river Meles, in Boeotia, whither Critheis had been transported in order to save her reputation

”At this time,” continues our narrative, ”there lived at Smyrna a man na e his household, and spin the flax he received as the price of his scholastic labours So satisfactory was her performance of this task, and so e, declaring hi to adopt her son, who, he asserted, would becoht up”

They were married; careful cultivation ripened the talents which nature had bestowed, and Melesigenes soon surpassed his schoolfellows in every attainment, and, when older, rivalled his preceptor in wisdo him sole heir to his property, and his enes carried on his adopted father's school with great success, exciting the admiration not only of the inhabitants of Sers whom the trade carried on there, especially in the exportation of corn, attracted to that city A these visitors, one Mentes, froe and intelligence rarely found in those tienes to close his school, and accompany him on his travels He promised not only to pay his expenses, but to furnish hi, that, ”While he was yet young, it was fitting that he should see with his own eyes the countries and cities which enes consented, and set out with his patron, ”exa all the curiosities of the countries they visited, and infor those whom he met” We may also suppose, that he wroteset sail froenes, who had already suffered in his eyes, became much worse, and Mentes, as about to leave for Leucadia, left him to the medical superintendence of a friend of his, named Mentor, the son of Alcinor Under his hospitable and intelligent host, Melesigenes rapidly beca Ulysses, which afterwards formed the subject of the Odyssey The inhabitants of Ithaca assert, that it was here that Melesigenes became blind, but the Colophomans make their city the seat of that misfortune He then returned to Smyrna, where he applied himself to the study of poetry(3)

But poverty soon drove hi passed over the Hermaean plain, he arrived at Neon Teichos, the New Wall, a colony of cuained him the friendshi+p of one Tychias, an armourer ”And up to my time,” continued the author, ”the inhabitants showed the place where he used to sit when giving a recitation of his verses, and they greatly honoured the spot Here also a poplar grehich they said had sprung up ever since Melesigenes arrived”(4)

But poverty still drove hi the most convenient road Here, the cuia, which has however, and with greater probability, been attributed to Cleobulus of Lindus(5)

Arrived at cumae, he frequented the _converzationes_(6) of the old ed by this favourable reception, he declared that, if they would allow hiloriously renowned They avowed their willingness to support him in the measure he proposed, and procured hi otten to acquaint us, he retired, and left theiven to his proposal

The greater part of the assembly seemed favourable to the poet's demand, but one man observed that ”if they were to feed _Homers,_ they would be encumbered with a multitude of useless people” ”Froenes acquired the name of Homer, for the cumans call blind men _Homers_”(7) With a love of economy, which sho similar the world has always been in its treatment of literary men, the pension was denied, and the poet vented his disappointht never produce a poet capable of giving it renown and glory

At Phocoea, Homer was destined to experience another literary distress

One Thestorides, who aienius, kept Homer in his own house, and allowed hi in his na collected sufficient poetry to be profitable, Thestorides, like solected the man whose brains he had sucked, and left him At his departure, Homer is said to have observed: ”O Thestorides, of theis ible than the human heart”(8)

Homer continued his career of difficulty and distress, until some Chian merchants, struck by the similarity of the verses they heard him recite, acquainted hi a profitable livelihood by the recital of the very same poems This at once determined hi sail thither, but he found one ready to Start for Erythrae, a town of Ionia, which faces that island, and he prevailed upon the sea eht be able to expose the imposture of Thestorides, who, by his breach of hospitality, had dran the wrath of Jove the Hospitable

At Erythrae, Homer fortunately met with a person who had known hith, after some difficulty, reached the little hamlet of Pithys Here he met with an adventure, which ill continue in the words of our author ”Having set out frooats that were pasturing The dogs barked on his approach, and he cried out Glaucus (for that was the naoat-herd) heard his voice, ran up quickly, called off his dogs, and drove the how a blind man should have reached such a place alone, and what could be his design in co He then went up to him, and inquired who he was, and how he had come to desolate places and untrodden spots, and of what he stood in need Ho to him the whole history of his misfortunes, moved him with compassion; and he took hi lit a fire, bade hi at the stranger, according to their usual habit Whereupon Homer addressed Glaucus thus: O Glaucus, s their supper at the doors of the hut: for so it is better, since, whilst they watch, nor thief nor wild beast will approach the fold

Glaucus was pleased with the advice, andfinished supper, they banqueted(10) afresh on conversation, Ho of the cities he had visited

At length they retired to rest; but on the following o to hisleft the goats in charge of a fellow-servant, he left Ho arrived at Bolissus, a place near the far hisHomer and his journey He paid little attention to what he said, and blathe stranger to him

Glaucus told Ho hiood fortune would be the result Conversation soon showed that the stranger was a e, and the Chian persuaded hie of his children(11)