CHAPTER III.THE DOG IN HOMER.

Twosets of strongly contrasted, nay, one might beforehand have thought mutually exclusive qualities, go to make up the canine character. In all ages, and amongst all nations, the dog has become a byword for its uncleanly habits, disgusting voracity, its quarrelsome and aggressive selfishness. The cynic, or ‘dog-like’ philosopher, is a type of what is unamiable in human nature. Growling, snarling, whining, barking, snapping and biting, crouching and fawning, constitute a vocabulary descriptive of canine deportment conveying none but repulsive and odious associations. Our language pursues the animal through its different varieties and stages of existence in order to find varying epithets of contumely and reproach. The universal and almost prehistoric term of abuse formed by the simple patronymic—so to speak—has lost little of its pristine favour, and none of its pristine force; while amongst ourselves ‘hound,’ ‘puppy,’ ‘cur,’ ‘whelp,’ and ‘cub,’ come in as harmonics of the fundamental note of insult.

On the other hand, some millenniums of experience have constituted the dog a type of incorruptible fidelity, patient abnegation, devoted attachment reaching unto and beyond the grave. Many animals have been made the slaves and victims of man; some have been found capable of becoming his willing allies; none, save the dog, affords to his master a true and intelligent companionship. Other members of the brute creation are subdued by domestication; the dog is, it might be said, transfigured by it. A new nature awakes in him. A higher ideal presents itself to him. His dormant affections are kindled; his latent intelligence develops. The overwhelming fascination of humanity submerges his native ignoble instincts, evokes virtues which man himself admires rather than practises, engages a pathetic confidence, inspires an indomitable love. Literature teems with instances of canine constancy and self-devotion. The long life-in-death of ‘Grey Friars Bobby’ forms no prodigy in the history of his race. From the dog of Colophon to the dog of Bairnsdale, man’s four-footed friend has been found capable of the supreme sacrifice which one living creature can make for another. Even in the dim dawnings of civilisation this animal was chosen as the symbol of watchful attendance and untiring subordination. The bright star Sirius, owing to its close waiting on the ‘giant’ of the skies, was from the earliest time known as the ‘dog of Orion.’ A brace of hounds typified to the ardent imaginationof the Vedic poets the inseparable association with the sun of the morning and evening twilight. Æschylus elevates and enlarges the idea of divine companionship in the eagle by calling it the ‘winged dog of Zeus.’[51]Clytemnestra, in her hypocritical protestations before the elders of Argos, could find no more striking image of fidelity than that of a house-dog left by its master to guard his hearth and possessions.[52]

51.Agamemnon, 133; andPrometheus, 1057.

52.Agamemnon, 520.

Two opposing currents of sentiment regarding the animal have thus from the first set strongly in—one of repulsion verging towards abhorrence, the other of sympathy touched by the yearning pity which a superior being cannot choose but feel towards an inferior laying at his feet the priceless gift of love. But since his higher qualities develop, as it would seem, exclusively under the stimulation of human influence, it might have been anticipated, and it is actually the case, that in those countries where the dog is neglected, he is also despised, as by an inevitable reaction it must follow that where he is despised, he will also be neglected. It is accordingly among peoples whose pursuits repel his co-operation that the sinister view prevails, while in hunting and pastoral regions his credit grows as his faculties are cultivated, and from the minister and delegate, he creeps by insensible gradations into the place of canine beatitude as the friend of man. The attitudeof repulsion is, as is well known, general amongst Mahometan populations, and may be described—although with notable exceptions, such as of the ancient Egyptians and Assyrians, the modern Parsees and Japanese—as the Oriental position towards the species; while a benevolent sentiment is, on the whole, characteristic of Western nations.

Now each of these opposite views is strongly and characteristically represented in the Homeric poems; represented not as the mere reflection of a popular instinct, but with a certain ardour of personal feeling which now and again seems for a moment to draw back the veil of epic impersonality from before the living face of the poet. To the bigoted believers in an indivisible Homer the fact is, no doubt, of most perplexing import, and we leave them to account for it as best they may; but to impartial inquirers it affords at once a clue and an illumination. For the Epic of Troy is not more sharply characterised by canine antipathy than the Song of Ulysses by canine sympathy; while, to enhance the contrast, dislike to the dog is most remarkably associated with a vivid and untiring enthusiasm for the horse; and deep feeling for the dog with comparative indifference to the equine race. More effectually than the most elaborate arguments of the Separatists, this innate disparity of sentiment appears to shiver the long contested unity of Homeric authorship.

To descend, however, to particulars. Homericdogs may be divided into four categories. (1) Dogs used in the chace; (2) shepherds’ dogs; (3) watch-dogs and house-dogs; (4) scavenger dogs. In the Iliad, the first two classes occur incidentally only, either by way of illustration or in the course of some episodical narrative, such as that of the Calydonian boar-hunt in the Ninth Book. The plastic circumference of the Shield of Achilles includes a cameo of dog-life; but it is noticeable that the position there assigned to the animal is of a somewhat ignominious character, and is indicated with a perceptible touch of contempt. The scene is depicted in the following lines:—

Of straight-horn’d cattle too a herd was grav’n;Of gold and tin the heifers all were wrought;They to the pasture from the cattle-yard,With gentle lowings, by a babbling stream,Where quiv’ring reed-beds rustled, slowly moved.Four golden shepherds walk’d beside the herd,By nine swift dogs attended; then amidThe foremost heifers sprang two lions fierceUpon the lordly bull; he, bellowing loud,Was dragg’d along, by dogs and youths pursu’d.The tough bull’s hide they tore, and gorging lapp’dTh’ intestines and dark blood; with vain attemptThe herdsmen following closely, to th’ attackCheer’d their swift dogs; these shunn’d the lions’ jaws,And close around them baying, held aloof.[53]

Of straight-horn’d cattle too a herd was grav’n;

Of gold and tin the heifers all were wrought;

They to the pasture from the cattle-yard,

With gentle lowings, by a babbling stream,

Where quiv’ring reed-beds rustled, slowly moved.

Four golden shepherds walk’d beside the herd,

By nine swift dogs attended; then amid

The foremost heifers sprang two lions fierce

Upon the lordly bull; he, bellowing loud,

Was dragg’d along, by dogs and youths pursu’d.

The tough bull’s hide they tore, and gorging lapp’d

Th’ intestines and dark blood; with vain attempt

The herdsmen following closely, to th’ attack

Cheer’d their swift dogs; these shunn’d the lions’ jaws,

And close around them baying, held aloof.[53]

53.Iliad, xviii. 573-86 (Lord Derby’s translation). For illustrations drawn from the dog’s instinctive fear of the lion, see also v. 476; xvii. 65-67.

It can scarcely be maintained that a lover of thespecies would have selected the incident for typical representation in his great world-picture.

The direct Iliadic references to dogs, on the other hand, show clearly that they were domesticated in Troy, that they lived in the tents of the Achæan chiefs, (probably with a guarding office), and that they roamed the camp, devouring offal, and hideously contending with vultures and other feathered rivals for the human remains left unburied on the field of battle. The circumstance that in this revolting capacity they were predominantly present to the mind of the poet unveils the secret of his profound aversion. Not as the humble and faithful minister of man, hearkening to his voice, hanging on his looks, holding his life at a pin’s fee in comparison with his service, the author of the Iliad conceived of the dog; but as a filthy and bloodthirsty beast of prey, the foul outrager of the sanctities of death, the ravenous and undiscriminating violator of the precious casket of the human soul. In the tragic appeal of Priam to Hector as he awaits the onslaught of Achilles beneath the walls of Troy, this aversion touches its darkest depth, and obtains an almost savage completeness of expression. Anticipating the imminent catastrophe of his house and kingdom, the despairing old man thus portrays his own approaching doom—

Me last, when by some foeman’s stroke or thrustThe spirit from these feeble limbs is driv’n,Insatiate dogs shall tear at my own door;The dogs my care has rear’d, my table fed.The guardians of my gates shall lap my blood,And crave and madden, crouching in the porch.[54]

Me last, when by some foeman’s stroke or thrust

The spirit from these feeble limbs is driv’n,

Insatiate dogs shall tear at my own door;

The dogs my care has rear’d, my table fed.

The guardians of my gates shall lap my blood,

And crave and madden, crouching in the porch.[54]

54.Book xxii. 66-71. (Author.)

Is it credible that the same mind which was capable of conjuring up this abhorrent vision should have conceived the pathetic picture of the faithful hound in the Odyssey? Nor can there be found, in the wide range of the great Ilian epic, a single passage inconsistent in spirit with the lines cited above. Throughout its cantos, in which the usefulness of the animal is nevertheless amply recognised, and his peculiarities sketched with graphic power and truthfulness, runs, like a dark thread, the remembrance of his hateful office as the inflictor of the last and most atrocious insult upon ‘miserable humanity.’[55]One of the leading ‘motives’ of the poem is, indeed, the fate of the body after death. The overmastering importance attached to its honourable interment forms the hinge upon which a considerable portion of the action turns. The dread of its desecration continually haunts the imagination of the poet, and broods alike over the ramparts of Ilium and the tents of Greece. From the first lines almost to the last the loathsome processes of canine sepulture stand out as the direst result of defeat—the crowning terror of death. Among the disastrous effects of the wrath of Achilles foreshadowed in the opening invocation, thevisible and tangible horror is afforded by ‘devouring dogs and hungry vultures’ exercising their revolting function on the corpses of the slain; before the dying eyes of Hector rises, like a nightmare, the horrible anticipation of becoming the prey of ‘Achæan hounds,’[56]while his fierce adversary refuses to impair the gloomy perfection of his vengeance by remitting that supreme penalty;[57]next to the honours of his funeral-pyre, the chiefest consolation offered to the Shade of Patroclus is the promise to make the body of his slayer food for curs;[58]in her despair, Hecuba shrieks that she brought forth her son to ‘glut swift-footed dogs,’[59]and bids Priam not seek to avert the abhorred doom. These instances, which it would be easy to multiply, are unmodified by a solitary expression of tenderness towards canine nature, or a single example of canine affection towards man.

55.Book xxii. 76.

56.Iliad, xxii. 339.

57.Ib.348.

58.Ib.xxiii. 183.

59.Ib.xxiv. 211.

It is true that a different view has been advocated by Sir William Geddes, who, in his valuable work, ‘The Problem of the Homeric Poems,’ first dwelt in detail on the contrasted treatment of the horse and dog in those early epics. He did not, however, stop there. A theory, designed to solve the secular puzzle of Homeric authorship, had presented itself to him, and demanded for its support a somewhat complex marshalling of facts. His contention was briefly this:—that the Odyssey, with the ten books of theIliad[60]amputated by Mr. Grote’s critical knife from the trunk of a supposed primitive Achilleid, are the work of one and the same author, an Ionian of Asia Minor, to whom the venerable name of Homer properly belongs; while the fourteen books constituting the nucleus and main substance of our Iliad are abandoned to an unknown Thessalian bard. He has not, indeed, succeeded in engaging on his side the general opinion of the learned, yet it cannot be denied that his ingenious and patient analysis of the Homeric texts has served to develop some highly suggestive minor points. The validity of his main argument obviously depends, in the first place, upon the discovery of striking correspondences between the Odyssey and the non-Achillean cantos of the Iliad; in the second, upon the exposure of irreconcilable discrepancies between the Odyssey and the Grotean Achilleid. But the attempt is really hopeless to transplant the canine sympathy manifest in the Odyssey to any part of the Iliad, or to localise in any particular section of the Iliad the equine sympathies displayed throughout the many-coloured tissue of its composition.

60.These are Books ii. to vii. inclusive, ix. x. xxiii. and xxiv. TheAchilleidthus consists of Books i. viii. and xi.-xxii.

Everywhere alike enthusiasm for the horse is evoked, vividly and spontaneously, on all suitable occasions. Ardent admiration is uniformly bestowed upon his powers and faculties. He is nowhere passedby with indifference. The verses glow with a kind of rapture of enjoyment that describe his strength and beauty, his eager spirit and fine nervous organisation, his intelligent and disinterested participation in human struggles and triumphs. In the region of the Iliad claimed for the Odyssean Homer, it suffices to point to the episode of the capture by Diomed and Sthenelus of the divinely-descended steeds of Æneas;[61]to the careful provision of ambrosial forage for the horses of Heré along the shores of Simoeis;[62]to the resplendent simile of Book vi.;[63]to the gleeful zeal with which Odysseus and Diomed secure, as the fruit and crown of their nocturnal expedition, the milk-white coursers of Rhesus;[64]to the living fervour imported into the chariot-race at the funeral games of Patroclus; to the tender pathos with which Achilles describes the grief of his immortal horses for their well-loved charioteer.[65]The enumeration of similar examples from non-Achillean cantos might be carried much further, but where is the use of ‘breaking in an open door’? The evidence is overwhelming as to homogeneity of sentiment, in this important respect, through the entire Iliad. If more than one author was concerned in its production, the coadjutors were at least unanimous in their glowing admiration for the heroic animal of battle.

61.Iliad, v. 267.

62.Ib.775-77.

63.This is certainly original in book vi. It comes in as an awkward interpolation at xv. 263.

64.Iliad, x. 474-569.

65.Ib.xxiii. 280-84.

Nor can the search, in the same ten cantos, for indications of a sympathetic feeling towards the dog consonant to that displayed in the Odyssey, be pronounced successful. Certainly much stress cannot be laid, for the purpose, upon the striking passage in the Twenty-third Book, descriptive of the cremation of Patroclus; yet it makes the nearest discoverable approach to the desired significance. It runs as follows in Lord Derby’s translation:

A hundred feet each way they built the pyre,And on the summit, sorrowing, laid the dead.Then many a sheep and many a slow-pac’d oxThey flay’d and dress’d around the fun’ral pyre;Of all the beasts Achilles took the fat,And covered o’er the dead from head to foot,And heap’d the slaughter’d carcases around;Then jars of honey plac’d, and fragrant oils,Resting upon the couch; next, groaning loud,Four pow’rful horses on the pyre he threw;Then, of nine[66]dogs that at their master’s boardHad fed, he slaughter’d two upon his pyre;Last, with the sword, by evil counsel sway’d,Twelve noble youths he slew, the sons of Troy.The fire’s devouring might he then applied,And, groaning, on his lov’d companion call’d.[67]

A hundred feet each way they built the pyre,

And on the summit, sorrowing, laid the dead.

Then many a sheep and many a slow-pac’d ox

They flay’d and dress’d around the fun’ral pyre;

Of all the beasts Achilles took the fat,

And covered o’er the dead from head to foot,

And heap’d the slaughter’d carcases around;

Then jars of honey plac’d, and fragrant oils,

Resting upon the couch; next, groaning loud,

Four pow’rful horses on the pyre he threw;

Then, of nine[66]dogs that at their master’s board

Had fed, he slaughter’d two upon his pyre;

Last, with the sword, by evil counsel sway’d,

Twelve noble youths he slew, the sons of Troy.

The fire’s devouring might he then applied,

And, groaning, on his lov’d companion call’d.[67]

66.The numbernineis curiously associated with the canine species. The herdsmen’s pack on the Shield of Achilles consists ofnine;ninewere the dogs of Patroclus; and we learn from Mr. Richardson (Dogs: their Origin and Varieties, p. 37), that Fingal keptninegreat dogs, andninesmaller game-starting dogs.

67.Iliad, xxiii. 164-78.

These sanguinary rites have been thought to afford proof that canine companionship was necessaryto the happiness of a Greek hero in the other world. For, amongst rude peoples, from the Scythians of Herodotus[68]to the Indians of Patagonia, such sacrifices have been a common mode of testifying respect to the dead. And it may readily be admitted that their originally inspiring idea was that of continued association after death with the objects most valued in life. But such an idea appears to have been very remotely, if at all, present to the mind of our poet. The Ghost of Patroclus, at any rate, though sufficiently communicative, expresses no desire for canine, equine, bovine, or ovine society, although specimens of all four species were immolated in its honour. The purpose of Achilles in instituting the ghastly solemnity was, as he himself expressed it,

68.Book iv. 71, 72.

That with provision meet the dead may passDown to the realms of night.[69]

That with provision meet the dead may pass

Down to the realms of night.[69]

69.Geddes,Problem, &c., p. 227.

But the motives that crowded upon his fierce soul were probably in truth as multitudinous as the waves of passion which rolled over it. He desired to appease the parted spirit of his friend with a sacrifice matching his own pride and the extent of his bereavement. Still more, he sought to glut his vengeance, and allay, if possible, the intolerable pangs of his grief. He perhaps dimly imaged to himself a pompous funeral throng accompanying the beloved soul even to the gates of Hades, provision for the way being suppliedby the flesh of sheep and oxen, an escort by horses and dogs, while an air of gloomy triumph was imparted to the shadowy procession by the hostile presence of outraged and indignant human shades. A similar ceremony was put in practice, by comparison recently, in Lithuania. When the still pagan Grand Duke Gedimin died in 1341, his body was laid on a pyre and burned with two hounds, two falcons, his horse saddled and still living, and a favourite servant.[70]But here the disembodied company was altogether friendly, and may have been thought of as willingly paying a last tribute of homage to their lord.

70.Hehn and Stallybrass,Wanderings of Plants and Animals, p. 417.

The information is in any case worth having that Patroclus, like Priam, kept a number of ‘table-dogs,’ whose presence doubtless contributed in some degree to the stateliness of his surroundings. It is, however, given casually, without a word of comment, as if the bard instinctively shrank from dwelling on the intimate personal relations of the animal to man. The son of Menœtius had a gentle soul, and we cannot doubt, although no hint of such affection is communicated, that he loved his dogs, and was loved by them. Of the horses accustomed to his guidance—the immortal pair of Achilles—we indeed hear how they stood, day after day, with drooping heads and silken manes sweeping the ground, in sorrow for his and their lost friend; but no dog is permitted to whinehis sense of bereavement beside the body of Patroclus; no dog misses the vanished caress of his master’s hand; no dog crouches beside Achilles in his solitude, or offers to his unsurpassed grief the dumb and wistful consolation of his sympathy. The privilege of sharing the sorrows, as of winning the applause of humanity, is, in the Iliad, reserved exclusively for the equine race.

Turning to the Odyssey, we find ourselves in a changed world. Ships have here become the ‘chariots of the sea’;[71]navigation usurps the honour and interest of charioteering; a favourable breeze imparts the cheering sense of companionship felt by a practised rider with his trusty steed. The scenery on shore leaves this sentiment undisturbed. Rocky Ithaca, Telemachus informs Menelaus,[72]contains neither wide tracks for chariot-driving, nor deep meadows for horse-pasture; it is a goat-feeding land, though more beautiful, to his mind, in its ruggedness than even the ‘spacious plain’ of Sparta, with its rich fields of lotus-grass, its sedgy flats, its waving tracts of ‘white barley,’ wheat, and spelt. A suitable habitat is thus, in his native island, wanting for the horse, who is accordingly relegated to an obscure corner of the stage, while the foreground of animal life is occupied by his less imposing rival in the regard of man. The dog is, in fact, the characteristic and conspicuousanimal of the Odyssey, as the horse is of the Iliad. Xanthus and Balius, the wind-begotten steeds bestowed by Poseidon upon the sire of Achilles, who own the sorrowful human gift of tears, and the superhuman gift of prophetic speech, are replaced[73]by the more homely, but not less pathetic, figure of Argus, the dog of Odysseus, whose fidelity through a score of years we feel to be no poetical fiction, but simply a poetical enhancement of a familiar fact. Canine society is, indeed, placed by the author of the Odyssey on a higher level than it occupies, perhaps, in any other work of the imagination. When Telemachus, starting into sudden manhood under the tutelage of Athene, goes forth to lay his wrongs before the first Assembly convened in Ithaca since his father’s ‘hollow ships’ sailed for Troy, we are told that he carried in his hand a brazen spear, and that the goddess poured out upon him a divine radiance of beauty such that the people marvelled as they gazed on him. But the most singular and significant part of the description lies in the statement (thrice repeated on similar occasions[74]) that he went ‘not alone; two swift-footed dogs followed him.’ Alone indeed he was, as far as human companionship was concerned—a helpless youth, isolated and indignant in the midst of a riotous and overbearing crew, intent not less upon wasting his substance than upon wooing his unwidowedmother. Comrade or attendant he had none, but instead of both, a pair of four-footed sympathisers, evidently regarded as adding dignity to his appearance in public, as well as imparting the strengthening consciousness of social support. The conjunction, as Mr. Mahaffy well remarks, shows an intense appreciation of dog-nature.

71.Odyssey, iv. 708; cf. Geddes,Problem, &c., p. 215.

72.Odyssey, iv. 605.

73.Mahaffy,Social Life in Greece, pp. 57, 63.

74.Odyssey, ii. 11; xvii. 62; xx. 145.

In the cottage of Eumæus the swineherd, Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, weary with long wanderings, a stranger in peril of his life in his own islet-kingdom, finds his first hospitable refuge. Here again we are met by graphic and frequent sketches of canine manners and character. In the office of guarding and governing the 960 porkers composing his herd, Eumæus had the aid of four dogs reared by himself. They were large and fierce, ‘like wild beasts’;[75]but the savage instincts even of these half-reclaimed creatures are discovered to be directed towards duty, to be subdued by affection, nay, to be elevated by a touch of supersensual awe. If they erred, it was by excess of zeal in the cause of law and order. For when Odysseus (it must be remembered, in extremely disreputable guise) approached the thorn-hedged enclosure, they set upon him together, barking furiously, and threatening to tear him to pieces on the spot. He had not, however, edged his way between Scylla and Charybdis to perish thus ingloriously. Withunfailing presence of mind he instantly took up an attitude of non-resistance, stood still and laid aside his staff. This passivity doubtless produced some hesitation on the part of his assailants, for when the swineherd hurried out to the rescue, he was still unhurt. No small amount of compulsion, both moral and physical—exerted by means of objurgatory remonstrance, coupled with plentiful stone-pelting—was, however, required to calm the ardour of such impetuous allies.

75.Odyssey, xiv. 21.

Nevertheless, their ferocity is represented as far from undiscriminating. It is, in fact, strictly limited by their official responsibilities. They know how to suit their address to their company, from an Olympian denizen to a homeless tramp, and get unexpected opportunities of displaying these social accomplishments. For the rustic dwelling of Eumæus becomes a rendezvous for the principal personages of the story, and the demeanour of the four dogs is a leading incident, carefully recorded, connected with the arrival of each. We have just seen what an obstreperous reception they gave to the disguised king of Ithaca. Telemachus, on the other hand, they rushed to welcome, fawning and wagging their tailswithout barking,[76]as that quick-witted vagrant, whose arrival had preceded his, was the first to observe. But when Athene visited the farm for the purpose of bringing about the recognition of the father by theson, which was the first step towards retribution upon their common enemies, while Telemachus remained unconscious of her presence—’for not to all do the gods manifest themselves openly’—it is said, with a very remarkable coupling of man and beast, that ‘Odysseus and the dogs saw her’;[77]and the mysterious sense of the supernatural attributed in much folk-lore to the canine species found vent in whimperings of fear and panic-stricken withdrawal.

76.Odyssey, xvi. 4-10.

77.Odyssey, xvi. 162.

We are next transported to the scene of the revellings of the Suitors, and the fortitude of Penelope. The sight of the once familiar turreted enclosure of his palace, and the sound of the well-remembered voice and lyre of the minstrel Phemius, proclaiming the progress of the festivities, all but overturned the equanimity of the counterfeit mendicant. His practised powers of dissimulation, however, came to his aid; and grasping the hand of his unsuspecting retainer, he brought, with a cunningly devised speech, his tell-tale emotion into harmony with his assumed character. They advanced to the threshold, and there, on a dung-heap, half devoured with insect parasites, lay a dog—the dog Argus. But we must allow the poet to tell the story in his own way.

Thus as they spake, a dog that lay apart,Lifted his head, and pricked his list’ning ears,Argus, whom erst Odysseus patient bred,But use of him had none; for ere that day,He sailed for sacred Troy; and other menHad trained and led him forth o’er field and fell,To chase wild goats, hares, and the pricket deer.But now, his master gone, in foul neglect,On dung of ox and mule he made his couch;Fattening manure, heaped at the palace-gate,Till spread to enrich Odysseus’ wide domain;Thus stretched, with vermin swarming, Argus lay.But when he saw Odysseus close approach,He knew, and wagged his tail, and dropped his ears,Yet could not rise to fawn upon his lord,Who paused, and stood, and brushed aside a tear,Hiding his grief. Then thus with crafty speech:‘Eumæus, sure ‘tis wonder in such plightTo see this dog, of goodly form and limbs;But tell me did his fleetness match his shape,Or was he such as, reared for pride and show,Inactive at their masters’ tables feed?’Eumæus heard, and quickly made reply:‘To one who perished in a distant landThis dog belongs. But couldst thou see him nowSuch as Odysseus left him, bound for Troy,Thou well might’st wonder at his strength and speed.‘Mid the deep thickets of the forest glades,No game escaped his swift pursuing feet,Nor hound could match his prowess in the chace.But now his days are evil, since his lordIs dead, and careless women heed him not.For when the master’s hand no longer rules,Servants no longer work in order due.Full half the virtue leaves the man condemnedBy wide-eyed Zeus to drag the servile chain.’Thus as he spake, he crossed the stately hall,And took his place amidst the suitors’ train.But Argus died; for dark doom ravished him,Greeting Odysseus after twenty years.[78]

Thus as they spake, a dog that lay apart,

Lifted his head, and pricked his list’ning ears,

Argus, whom erst Odysseus patient bred,

But use of him had none; for ere that day,

He sailed for sacred Troy; and other men

Had trained and led him forth o’er field and fell,

To chase wild goats, hares, and the pricket deer.

But now, his master gone, in foul neglect,

On dung of ox and mule he made his couch;

Fattening manure, heaped at the palace-gate,

Till spread to enrich Odysseus’ wide domain;

Thus stretched, with vermin swarming, Argus lay.

But when he saw Odysseus close approach,

He knew, and wagged his tail, and dropped his ears,

Yet could not rise to fawn upon his lord,

Who paused, and stood, and brushed aside a tear,

Hiding his grief. Then thus with crafty speech:

‘Eumæus, sure ‘tis wonder in such plight

To see this dog, of goodly form and limbs;

But tell me did his fleetness match his shape,

Or was he such as, reared for pride and show,

Inactive at their masters’ tables feed?’

Eumæus heard, and quickly made reply:

‘To one who perished in a distant land

This dog belongs. But couldst thou see him now

Such as Odysseus left him, bound for Troy,

Thou well might’st wonder at his strength and speed.

‘Mid the deep thickets of the forest glades,

No game escaped his swift pursuing feet,

Nor hound could match his prowess in the chace.

But now his days are evil, since his lord

Is dead, and careless women heed him not.

For when the master’s hand no longer rules,

Servants no longer work in order due.

Full half the virtue leaves the man condemned

By wide-eyed Zeus to drag the servile chain.’

Thus as he spake, he crossed the stately hall,

And took his place amidst the suitors’ train.

But Argus died; for dark doom ravished him,

Greeting Odysseus after twenty years.[78]

78.Odyssey, xvii. 290-327 (Author’s translation).

Surely—even thus inadequately rendered—the most poignantly pathetic narrative of dog-life in literature! The hero, returning after a generation of absence, in a disguise impenetrable to son, servants, nay to the wife of his bosom, is recognised by one solitary living creature, a dog. And to this faithful animal, unforgetting in his forlorn decrepitude, whose affectionate gestures form his only welcome to the home now occupied by unscrupulous foes, ready to take his life at the first hint of his identity, he is obliged to refuse a stroke of his hand, or so much as a glance of his eye, to soothe the fatal spasm of his joy. A case that might well draw a tear, even from the much-enduring son of Laertes.

It has not escaped the acumen of Sir William Geddes[79]that the compliment of an individual name is, in the Iliad, paid exclusively amongst the brute creation to horses; in the Odyssey (setting aside the mythical coursers of the Dawn, Book xxiii. 246) to a single dog. Now this may at first sight seem to be a trifling point; but a very little consideration will suffice to show its significance. To the author of the Odyssey, at least, the imposition, or even the disclosure of a name, was a matter clothed with a certain solemn importance. He lets us know how and why his hero came to be called ‘Odysseus,’ and furnishes us, to the best of his ability, with anetymological interpretation of that ill-omened title.[80]How distinctively human a thing it is to have a name we are made to feel when Alcinous conjures his mysterious guest to reveal the designation by which he is known to his parents, fellow-citizens, and countrymen, ‘since no man, good or bad, is anonymous’![81]And the reply is couched in an earnest and exalted strain, conveying at once the extent of the trust reposed, and the momentousness of the revelation granted—

79.Problem of the Homeric Poems, p. 218.

80.Odyssey, xix. 409.

81.Ib.viii. 552.

Ulysses, from Laertes sprung, am I,Vers’d in the wiles of men, and fam’d afar.[82]

Ulysses, from Laertes sprung, am I,

Vers’d in the wiles of men, and fam’d afar.[82]

82.Ib.ix. 19, 20.

The same scene, thrown into a grotesque form, is repeated in the cave of Polyphemus, where the upshot of the adventure depends wholly upon the prudence of the storm-tossed chieftain in responding to the monster’s vinous enthusiasm with the mock disclosure of ano-name.

These illustrations help to make it plain that, in assigning to brutes individual appellations, we bestow upon them something essentially human, which they have not, and cannot have of themselves, but which marks their share in human interests, and their claim on human sympathy. So accurately is this true, that a table showing the relative frequency of individual nomenclature for different animals in various countries would assuredly, on the strengthof that fact alone, set forth their relative position in the estimation of man.

The dog Argus belonged presumably to the famous Molossian breed, the first specimen of which was fabled to have been cast in bronze by Hephæstus,[83]and presented by Jupiter to Cephalus, the eponymous ruler of the island of Cephallenia. These animals were not more remarkable for fierceness than for fidelity. To the race were assigned creatures of such evil mythological reputation as the voracious hound of Hades, and the barking pack of Scylla; a Molossian sent to Alexander was stated to have brought down a lion; while, on the other hand, the canine detective of Montargis had a rival in the army of Pyrrhus, whose funeral pile was signalised by a desperate act of canine self-immolation; and the dog of Eupolis (likewise a Molossian), after having torn to pieces a thieving servant, died of grief and voluntary starvation on the grave of the Æginetan poet.[84]These qualities are presented and perpetuated in the four dogs of Eumæus and the neglected hound of Odysseus.

83.From this legend the poet not improbably derived the idea of the gold and silver watch-dogs, framed by Hephæstus for Alcinous.Odyssey, vii. 91-94.

84.Ælian,De Natura Animalium, vii. 10; x. 41.

The Homeric poems ignore the varieties of the species—

Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,Hound or spaniel, brach or lym,Or bobtail tike, or trundle-tail.

Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,

Hound or spaniel, brach or lym,

Or bobtail tike, or trundle-tail.

A dog is simply a dog, as a horse is a horse. But individual horses are in the Iliad distinguished by differences of colour, while no colour-epithet is anywhere applied to a dog. It is probable, however, that in the shepherd-dogs of Albania an almost perfect reproduction of the animals dear to the poet is still to be found. For in that wild and mountainous region the Chaonian or Molossian race is said to survive undegenerate, and, judging by the reports of travellers, its modern representatives preserve the same vigilance in duty and alacrity in attack which distinguished the formidable band of the Odyssean swineherd. An English explorer, who had some serious encounters with them, has described these fierce pastoral guardians as ‘varying in colour from dark-brown to bright dun, their long fur being very soft, thick, and glossy. In size they are equal to an English mastiff. They have a long nose, delicate ears finely pointed, magnificent tail, legs of a moderate length, with a body nicely rounded and compact.’[85]It is added that they still possess the strength, swiftness, sagacity, and fidelity anciently ascribed to them, showing their pedigree to be probably unimpaired.

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