85.Hughes,Travels in Albania, vol. i. p. 483.
85.Hughes,Travels in Albania, vol. i. p. 483.
The Suliot dog, or German boar-hound, comes from the same region, and has also strong claims to the honours of Molossian descent. Some of the breed were employed by the Turkish soldiery in the earlierpart of this century, to guard their outposts against Austrian attacks; and one captured specimen, presented to the King of Naples, was reputed to be the largest dog in existence.[86]Measuring nearly four feet from the shoulder to the ground, he in fact rivalled the dimensions of a Shetland pony. Others were secured as regimental pets, and used to make a grand show in Brussels, marching with their respective corps to the blare of martial music. They were fierce-natured animals, rough-coated, and coarsely formed; mostly tan-coloured, but with blackish markings on the back, shoulders, and round the ears. Tan-coloured, too, was probably the immortal Argus; and we can further picture him, on the assumption that the modern races west of Pindus reproduce many features of his aspect, as a wolf-like hound, with a bushy tail, small, sensitive ears, and a glance at once eager, intelligent, and wistful. Drooping ears in dogs are, it may be remarked, a result of domestication; and varieties distinguished by them were unknown in Europe until Alexander the Great introduced from Asia some specimens of the mastiff kind. Consequently, Shakespeare’s description of the pack of Theseus—
86.C. Hamilton Smith,Naturalist’s Library, vol. v. p. 151.
86.C. Hamilton Smith,Naturalist’s Library, vol. v. p. 151.
With ears that sweep away the morning dew,
With ears that sweep away the morning dew,
With ears that sweep away the morning dew,
With ears that sweep away the morning dew,
is one among many examples of his genial disregard for archæological detail. Argus, then, resembled‘White-breasted Bran,’ the dog of Fingal, in his possession of ‘an ear like a leaf.’
It is not too much to say that the opposed sentiments concerning the relations of men with animals displayed in the Iliad and Odyssey suffice in themselves to establish their diversity of origin. For they render it psychologically impossible that they could have been the work of one individual. The varyingprominenceassigned respectively to the horse and the dog might, it is true, be plausibly accounted for by the diversified conditions of the two epics; but no shifting of scene can explain areversalof sympathies. Such sentiments form part of the ingrained structure of the mind. They take root before consciousness is awake, or memory active; they live through the decades of a man’s life; are transported with him from shore to shore; survive the enthusiasm of friendship and the illusions of ambition; they can no more be eradicated from the tenor of his thoughts than the type of his features can be changed from Tartar to Caucasian, or the colour of his eyes from black to blue.
After all, the difficulty of separating the origin of these stupendous productions is considerably diminished by the reflection that they are but the surviving members of an extensive group of poems, all originally attributed without discrimination to a single author. Not the Iliad and Odyssey alone, but the ‘Cypria,’ the ‘Æthiopis,’ the ‘Lesser Iliad,’ andother voluminous metrical compositions, were, in the old, uncritical, individual sense, ‘Homeric.’ So apt is Fame to make
A testamentAs worldlings do, giving the sum of moreTo that which had too much.
A testamentAs worldlings do, giving the sum of moreTo that which had too much.
A testamentAs worldlings do, giving the sum of moreTo that which had too much.
A testament
As worldlings do, giving the sum of more
To that which had too much.
The depreciatory tone of the query, ‘What’s in a name?’ should not lead us to undervalue that indispensable requisite to sustained and specialised existence. A name is, indeed, a power in itself. It serves, at the least, as a peg to hang a personality upon, and not the most ‘powerful rhyme’ can sustain a reputation apart from its humble aid. But the bard of Odysseus has long ceased to possess one. His only appellation must remain for all time that of his hero in the Cyclops’ cave. The jealous Muses have blotted him out from memory. We can only be sure that he was a man who, like the protagonist of his immortal poem, had known, and seen, and suffered many things, who had tears for the past, and hopes for the future, had roamed far and near with a ‘hungry heart,’ and had listened long and intently to the ‘many voices’ of the moaning sea; who had tried his fellow-men, and found them, not all, nor everywhere wanting; who had faith in the justice of Heaven and the constancy of woman; who had experienced and had not disdained to cherish in his heart the life-long fidelity of a dog.