THE GREAT DISCREPANCIES

[1]In English the best critical treatises areHomer and the Cyclic Poems, by the late Mr. Binning Monro in hisOdyssey, Books xiii.-xxiv. pp. 340-384, with his "On the Fragment of Proclus's Abstract of the Epic Cycle,"Journal of Hellenic Society, vol. iv. pp. 305-334. The discussion of the whole topic by Mr. T. W. Allen inThe Classical Quarterly(1908) leaves no hint of ancient evidence unexplored, however remote and obscure its lurking place. Mr. Allen specially criticises the ingenious inferences of von Wilamowitz Moellendorff in hisHomerische Untersuchungen, inferences which appear to be accepted by Mr. Murray in hisRise of the Greek Epic, and his lecture, "Anthropology in the Greek Epic Tradition outside of Homer," inAnthropology and the Classics, 1908.

[2]Kinkel,Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 1898.

[3]J. H. S., vol. iv p. 305.

[4]Odyssey, vol. ii pp. 352-354.

[5]Farnell,Cults of the Greek States, vol. ii pp. 488-493. Mr. Monro seems to have been unaware of these facts.Odyssey, vol. ii p. 354.

[6]Odyssey, vol. ii. p. 350.

[7]Companion to the Iliad, p. 46.

[8]Homerische Untersuchungen, pp. 374, 375. On Wilamowitz-Moellendorff's opinion that the Cyclics were lost before the time of Pausanias, see Mr. Allen,Classical Quarterly, January, April, 1908. TheIliad, as it stands, appears to be regarded as later and more artistic than the rest.

[9]Aristotle,Poetics, ch. xxiv.

[10]R. G. E.p. 165.

[11]Ibid.p. 165.

[12]Ibid.p. 163.

[13]The seven Greek verses to this effect are preserved by the Venice Scholiast onIliad, i. 5, 6. The words Διὸς δ'ἐτελείετο βουλή are also inIliad, i. 5, whether the author of theCypriaborrowed them, or whether they were an old epic formula.

[14]Schol. Ven.,Iliad, i, 5, 6.

[15]R. G. E.pp. 80-88.

[16]Pausanias, i. 33.

[17]Bekk. Anecdot. p. 282. 32. Pausanias, i. 33. 2.

[18]Pausanias, vii. 5. 3. See Farnell,Cults of Greek States, vol. ii. pp. 487-495. 594. 595.

[19]Kinkel,Ep. Graec. Frag. p. 25 9.

[20]Iliad, ii. 326-329.

[21]xix. 326, 327.

[22]The common tale that Achilles was sent to Scyros to avoid the war, in girl's dress; that he there begat Neoptolemus, and was then unmasked by Odysseus, was in contradiction withIliad, xi. 766-785, where Nestor tells how he summoned Achilles at the house of Peleus, his father.

[23]Monro,Odyssey, vol. ii. p. 352.

[24]Pausanias, ii. 22.

[25]Kinkel, p. 29.

[26]See "The Story of Palamedes."

[27]Welcker,Das Ep. Kyk., vol. i. pp. 211, 212.

[28]Iliad, xx ii. 358-360.

[29]Iliad, xi. 690.

[30]Pausanias, iii. 19.

[31]Monro,Odyssey, vol. ii. p. 361.

[32]Monro,Odyssey, vol. ii. p. 370.

[33]Pausanias, v. 19.

[34]Pausanias, x. 25.

[35]Odyssey, viii. 492-520.

[36]Pausanias, 1. 23. 10.

[37]Monro,Odyssey, vol. ii. pp. 372, 373.

[38]Monro,Odyssey, vol. ii. p. 476.

[39]Cf. Monro,Odyssey, vol. ii. pp. 398-402. He is sceptical, as is Mr. Leaf,Iliad, vol. i. pp. xviii, xix. But see Mr. Allen inClassical Quarterly, i. 135 ff.

[40]R. G. E. p. 164.

[41]Mr. Leaf writes(Iliad, vol. i. p. 86): "The conclusion is that the Catalogue" (ofIliad, ii.) "originally formed an introduction to the whole Cycle, and was composed for that part of it which, as worked up into a separate poem, was called theKypria, and related the beginning of the Tale of Troy, and the mustering of the ships at Aulis." I do not quite know what Mr. Leaf means; but the evidence is that theCypriacontained "aCatalogue of the allies of the Trojans" (Kinkel, p. 20). Nothing is said of its containing a Catalogue of the Achaeans. Mr. Monro(Odyssey, vol. ii. p. 351) justly remarks that theTrojanCatalogue in theCypriawas intended to supplement the short Catalogue of the allies of Troy given in theIliad: "Such an enlarged roll would be the natural fruit of increased acquaintance" (on the part of Greek settlers in Asia) "with the non-Hellenic races of Asia Minor."

[42]R. G. E. p. 165.

[43]Anthropology and the Classics, 1908, p. 67.

[44]See Appendix, "Homeric Epics, Lost Epics, and 'Traditional Books.'"

The standing argument against the old belief in the unity of authorship of the Epics, has for several generations been based on the discrepancies and inconsistencies which are said to abound in these poems. "The only begetter" of the critical school which lacerates Homer was Wolf; but Wolf's suspicions were not originally roused by inconsistencies which shocked him in the poems. The poems, he said, hadunus color, "one harmonious colouring." But if that be true, and it is true, how was this harmony preserved in a poem which, as Wolf decided froma prioriconsiderations, cannot be the work of one man or one age? Now the work of many men in many ages inevitablymustbe a chaos, not a harmony, and so Wolf's followers have devoted their lives to the hunt for discrepancies and inaccuracies fit to support their preconceived opinion.

Meanwhile Wolf started, not from discrepancies which could only exist in a mosaic of the lays of several distinct ages, but froma priorireflections on the nature of the age and civilisation in which the epics began. Of that age and civilisation we have now some knowledge. Wolf had none. He reckoned that, granting the barbarism of the unknown age as he conceived it, and the abysm of time through which the poems passed before they reached the hands of competent grammarians,—the Alexandrians,—the texts of epics must necessarily have suffered terribly. If so, there necessarily must be many fatal discrepancies,—unless, indeed, the supposed Editorial Committee at Athens (600-530 B.C.) and the Alexandrian editors later harmonised the whole into the actualunus color. For the wholedidseem harmonious to Wolf, with merely a few roughnesses, and passages suspected even by the ancient grammarians. But Wolf's successors, hypnotised by his originalsuggestionthat, in the circumstances of the case, the poemsmustbe by many hands, have felt that, if so, theymustcontain many fatal discrepancies, have hunted for, and have, of course, found them. Thus an unscientific and illogical method has long prevailed.

Indeed, a method less scientific and less logical cannot be imagined. Critics already prepossessed by the suggestion of Wolf in favour of multiplex authorship, sedulously hunt, we repeat, through the poems for discrepancies in support of their case. They do what men have never done to any other long poetic work of imagination, they seek, with microscopic minuteness of inquiry, for inconsistencies in a fictitious narrative, composed not for analytic readers, but for a circle of listeners. When they find—or much more frequently imagine that they have found—such discrepancies, they proclaim them as proofs of multiplex authorship. Never have they as eagerly and carefully sought for such errors in long imaginative tales that are certainly known to be the work of one hand. Scientific method imperatively demands this investigation; but the critics do not listen. They have studied a work of pure literature with the desire to prove their own foregone conclusion, that the authorship of theIliadis multiplex, and that it is the growth of several disparate ages.

When archaeological discoveries during the last forty years had thrown some light on the pre-Homeric age, then the material objects found were raked and sifted for proof of the foregone conclusion—the Epic is a mosaic of four or five centuries. We have examined the results of the archaeological inquisition into discrepancies inreligion, custom, armour, tactics, and so forth. We try to prove that, in all such details, the epics are the work of a single moment of culture; and again, that no other work of the Greek genius, and no material relics of other moments of Greek culture, represent the religion, polity, armour, costume, morality, and taste of Homer. Not in these fields of ascertainable facts can the proof that the Epics are by many men in many ages be discovered.

Except in the general conclusion that theIliadis a mosaic, produced (most of them think) by a long series of Ionian additions to an Achaean "kernel," there is no harmony among critics. For example, English savants usually, like Mr. Leaf, make no objections to the unity of theOdyssey. They do not read it in the same spirit, or torment it in the same style, as they rack and lacerate theIliad. With Wolf, they recognise its unity, though it arose in the same dark age, and passed through the same adventures as theIliad. Yet in Germany theOdysseyis even more and more variously lacerated than theIliad.

Turning to the most recent English book on the subject,Homer and the Iliad, by Miss Stawell (1909), we find that while she rejects 6,000 out of 15,000 lines as non-original, she cannot believe in the critics' "originalMenis" of only some 2500 lines. She, like the rest, believes (what Wolf did not believe) "that it is quite possible to disentangle the original core of theIliadfrom the present mass." But of herIliad, her "core" is by far the greater part, not a poor sixth. I am tempted to quote a long passage from Miss Stawell, because it seems to contain sound sense, and to be guided by fine literary appreciation.

"The reconstructions actually proposed seem open to serious criticisms. It appears to me that certain important considerations have been overlooked, and that in their light we should discover the original to be far morelike theIliadas we have it now than has usually been supposed.In the first place, much of the traditional poem has scarcely had a fair chance at the hands of modern critics. Scenes where the drift and bearing are not obvious at once have been cut away without further thought. But a great dramatic poem does not give up all its secrets at once. There are subtle harmonies that can only be realised clearly after long and sympathetic study: the work on Shakespeare might suffice to prove this. And Homer, like Shakespeare, can put in very important points very quietly. We may miss them, and that is our loss. The poet will not over-emphasise them for our sakes. Therefore it is not enough to ask ourselves whether such and such a passage could be cut out and the story still hang together; we must ask, further, whether the omission really leaves the figures as solid, the story as enthralling, the background as grand, as before. I feel sure that the full consequences of their own excisions have not always been noticed by the critics who have made them. They cannot entirely strip away the memory of the "later accretions"; there are even instances of their praising the recovered "original" for effects which could not have been obtained without the "later interpolations."Secondly, a theory of "accretions" that is formed to account for glaring discrepancies brings, or should bring, with it a clear presumption against a certain type of excision.To cut away not only individual scenes, but all allusions to such, however numerous, however far apart, however skilfully inwoven with their context, on the plea that they were added in order to harmonise old and new, is surely to prove too much. If the need for adjustment was felt to this extent, if the adjustment was done with this delicate care, how did it ever happen that the gross blots were allowed to enter or remain?That many scholars do overlook this difficulty will be shown in detail later—for instance, in the matter of Achilles' armour. The fact is that, on any theory, it must be admitted that theIliad, as we have it, shows, again and again, the marks of carelessness at the joints. Whole scenes and passages which do not cohere with the rest have got into the poem somehow, and have been left there. This is perfectly intelligible on a theory ofloose additions, afterwards piously preserved in one block without any attempt at elaborate harmonising between old and new; but a critical theory that assumes throughout the growth and the editing,a constant union of gross carelessness and minute care, is liable to just the same objection as the old theory of a great but negligent poet. It will not stand the test of thinking out in detail.

In the first place, much of the traditional poem has scarcely had a fair chance at the hands of modern critics. Scenes where the drift and bearing are not obvious at once have been cut away without further thought. But a great dramatic poem does not give up all its secrets at once. There are subtle harmonies that can only be realised clearly after long and sympathetic study: the work on Shakespeare might suffice to prove this. And Homer, like Shakespeare, can put in very important points very quietly. We may miss them, and that is our loss. The poet will not over-emphasise them for our sakes. Therefore it is not enough to ask ourselves whether such and such a passage could be cut out and the story still hang together; we must ask, further, whether the omission really leaves the figures as solid, the story as enthralling, the background as grand, as before. I feel sure that the full consequences of their own excisions have not always been noticed by the critics who have made them. They cannot entirely strip away the memory of the "later accretions"; there are even instances of their praising the recovered "original" for effects which could not have been obtained without the "later interpolations."

Secondly, a theory of "accretions" that is formed to account for glaring discrepancies brings, or should bring, with it a clear presumption against a certain type of excision.To cut away not only individual scenes, but all allusions to such, however numerous, however far apart, however skilfully inwoven with their context, on the plea that they were added in order to harmonise old and new, is surely to prove too much. If the need for adjustment was felt to this extent, if the adjustment was done with this delicate care, how did it ever happen that the gross blots were allowed to enter or remain?That many scholars do overlook this difficulty will be shown in detail later—for instance, in the matter of Achilles' armour. The fact is that, on any theory, it must be admitted that theIliad, as we have it, shows, again and again, the marks of carelessness at the joints. Whole scenes and passages which do not cohere with the rest have got into the poem somehow, and have been left there. This is perfectly intelligible on a theory ofloose additions, afterwards piously preserved in one block without any attempt at elaborate harmonising between old and new; but a critical theory that assumes throughout the growth and the editing,a constant union of gross carelessness and minute care, is liable to just the same objection as the old theory of a great but negligent poet. It will not stand the test of thinking out in detail.

I have frequently insisted (inHomer and the Epic,1893) on the points in the italicised passages. In the present book, which merely tries to prove that the poems are the work of a single pre-ionic age, I cannot again examine the numerous allegations of glaring discrepancies in theIliad, such as no one sane poet could commit. As has been often proved, notably by Colonel Mure, the greatest fictitious narratives, known to be by a single hand in each case, contain discrepancies at least as remarkable as any that can be proved to occur in Homer. I have also argued that many of Homer's supposed faults exist only in the imagination of the learned. I cannot then, again, examine all, or even many of the imaginary inconsistencies: three of the most glaring must suffice. But I take advantage of a critique by a distinguished scholar, Mr. Verrall, to meet certain preliminary objections which he states. InThe Quarterly Review,[1]Mr. Verrall writes concerning me:

"But when we turn to other parts, equally essential, of his argument for single authorship, our feeling always is that, in reality, he begs the question. He maintains, if we do not mistake, that there is no difficulty in supposing theIliad, as we have it, to be the work of one poet; that the alleged dislocations, wanderings, inconsistencies of the story, so far as they exist at all, are nothing more than, from common experience, we might naturally expect in a single author. When he comes to establish this in detail, his procedure is totake the allegations separately, and to ask, in each case, whether it is inconceivable that the discrepancy (if allowed) is due to oversight on the part of the single composer. On these lines we may make short work. Hardly any error whatever of this sort is inconceivable, and hardly any, by itself, can be improbable. It would be nothing at all that, once in a way, Homer should forget that his Greek camp had a wall. We could scarcely call it inconceivable that, having himself described the 'Sending of Patroclus' with one set of circumstances, he should make his Thetis relate it with a totally different set. If such flaws were few and miscellaneous, and if there were external testimony to the single authorship, we would pass them without a murmur. Mr. Lang always does argue on this head as if they were few, as if they had no apparent relation to one another, and, above all, as if single authorship were adatum. Any explanation will serve where none is necessary; and consequently Mr. Lang's explanations often seem to us hardly serious."We will give one specimen. In Book ix. the Greek camp has a wall (vv. 69-87). At the beginning of Book x., Agamemnon at night, looking from his tent on the plain, sees the 'many watch-fires' of the Trojans, who, on this particular night, are camping out before the city on the same plain. The wall is gone, as it does go and come throughout the fighting scenes of theIliad. Nor is this a momentary inadvertence; for through the whole of Book x., though its story is such that the wall, if there, must be visible to the narrator (so to say) constantly, though the camp boundary is passed several times, never is there trace of anything but a ditch. We say that, for a composition meant to be continuous as it now stands, this is a most uncommon and surprising phenomenon; nor is it intelligible to us that any one so far should disagree. Mr. Lang, in a special chapter on Book x., disposes of the matter thus:"'Agamemnon hears the music of the joyous Trojan pipes and flutes, and sees the reflected glow of their camp fires, we must suppose, for he could not see the fires themselves through the new wall of his own camp, as critics very wisely remark' (Homer and his Age,p. 260)."'We must suppose.' But how can we supposeanything of the sort? 'Manyfires' are not a glow. If the point were merely that the wall is ignored in this passage, let us say simply that the poet forgot it. But the point is, that the wall is ignored consistently throughout the Book, and that, all about the poem, similar traces of ignorance respecting this vitally important object are found from time to time. If that is a phenomenon commonly observed in narratives known to be from one hand, or otherwise designed for continuity, let some of these narratives be produced for comparison."

"We will give one specimen. In Book ix. the Greek camp has a wall (vv. 69-87). At the beginning of Book x., Agamemnon at night, looking from his tent on the plain, sees the 'many watch-fires' of the Trojans, who, on this particular night, are camping out before the city on the same plain. The wall is gone, as it does go and come throughout the fighting scenes of theIliad. Nor is this a momentary inadvertence; for through the whole of Book x., though its story is such that the wall, if there, must be visible to the narrator (so to say) constantly, though the camp boundary is passed several times, never is there trace of anything but a ditch. We say that, for a composition meant to be continuous as it now stands, this is a most uncommon and surprising phenomenon; nor is it intelligible to us that any one so far should disagree. Mr. Lang, in a special chapter on Book x., disposes of the matter thus:

"'Agamemnon hears the music of the joyous Trojan pipes and flutes, and sees the reflected glow of their camp fires, we must suppose, for he could not see the fires themselves through the new wall of his own camp, as critics very wisely remark' (Homer and his Age,p. 260).

"'We must suppose.' But how can we supposeanything of the sort? 'Manyfires' are not a glow. If the point were merely that the wall is ignored in this passage, let us say simply that the poet forgot it. But the point is, that the wall is ignored consistently throughout the Book, and that, all about the poem, similar traces of ignorance respecting this vitally important object are found from time to time. If that is a phenomenon commonly observed in narratives known to be from one hand, or otherwise designed for continuity, let some of these narratives be produced for comparison."

Mr. Verrall argues, we see, that I ask, in each case, "is this discrepancy too bad for a single author?" but neglect the cumulative weight ofallthe discrepancies. That is not, consciously, my method; that fallacy I seek to avoid. I try to prove that most of the discrepancies which I examine are not really discrepancies at all—havenoweight,—and a mass of such imponderable objections has no cumulative ponderosity. I do argue that the actual inconsistencies are comparatively few, not more or worse than the similar inconsistencies in theAeneid, orDon Quixote.

But Mr. Verrall thinks that my explanations, or defences, of the alleged discrepancies "often seem hardly serious." He gives one example of my deplorable flippancy fromIliad, Book x. Now I readily grant to Mr. Verrall that I had no right to explain Agamemnon's view, from bed, in his hut, of the Trojan camp-fires beyond the wall of the Greek camp as merely the glow in the sky caused by these fires.[2]As Mr. Leaf puts it, "the poet does not seem to have a very vivid picture of the situation." In bed, in a hut (x. 11-14), Agamemnon could only see the Trojan fires on the rising ground beyond the wall,andthe Greek ships, "in his mind's eye."

But Mr. Verrall proceeds to give a fine example of what I call "an imaginary discrepancy." "The wallis gone.... Nor is this a momentary inadvertence; for through the whole of Book x., though its story is such that the wall, if there, must be visible to the narrator (so to say) constantly, though the camp boundary is passed several times, never is there trace of anything but a ditch."

This is merely an inadvertent misstatement of fact. Not only the new fosse round the Greek camp, but the gates of the new wall are mentioned. No wall, no gates!

Let us examine the history of wall, gates, and ditch. "In Book ix. 69-87 the Greek camp has a wall." The nature of the wall is explained by Nestor in Book vii. 337-343. The wall-making is similarly described in 437-441. The wall has (1) towers, (2) gates (or one gate), "that through them (or it) may be a way for chariot-driving," and (3) there is "a deep foss hard by to be about it," with a palisade, to "hinder the horses and footmen" of the Trojans.[3]

Now, even if only the fosse were mentioned in Book x., that fosse is part of the fortification first made and mentioned in Books vii. viii. and ix. 87, 88, where the advanced guard takes position "between the fosse and the wall." Precisely there, Agamemnon, in Book x. 126, 127, expects to find the advanced guard. The poet, in Book x., has certainly not forgotten the fortification of Books vii. viii. ix., for he does not merely, as Mr. Verrall declares, mention the fosse, though why does he do so, if he forgets the wall which was made at the same time? By a negative hallucination Mr. Verrall has failed to see that he also mentions the gate. "We will find the advanced guardbefore the gate," says Agamemnon (x. 126).

Now no mortal can assert that when a poet mentions the gate, he mentions nothing but the fosse! Both fosse and gates arenew: the gates are a necessary part of the wall; and only a critic on the search fora discrepancy could overlook the fact that the poet of Book x. knows all about the fortification of Books vii. viii. ix. The poet has no occasion to say "the gatesin the wall"; the gates could be nowhere else. Had there been a wall with no gates, which is absurd, the poet would have had to make the princes scale the wall; and, had he known nothing about the new fortification, he could not have mentioned the new gates and the new fosse.

I repeat, in ix. 65, 88, Nestor bids the advanced post take position; and they do so, "betwixt fosse and wall"; and there, "before the gate" (x. 126, 127), Agamemnon expects to find them. The "discrepancy" is due to Mr. Verrall's imagination.

Before accusing Homer of extraordinary discrepancies, we ought to read him with ordinary care.

Knowing the new fosse, and the new gate, both of them unheard of before Book vii., the poet is beyond doubt acquainted with the whole of the new fortification. "The analytic reader," for whom Homer did not sing, catches him at another place. How did Dolon expect to creep among the host, when there was a wall? How was he to enter? We can only reply that if he found the advanced post drowsy, he must enter in the darkness, by climbing up "where the wall was built lowest." The host was suspected to be meditating flight, and, in their confusion,keeping no guard, so Hector fancied (x. 310-312).

Mr. Verrall says that in Book x. "the wall is gone, as it does go and come throughout the fighting scenes of theIliad." I have carefully re-read Books xi.-xv., in which the wall is of importance, and find no moment in which the wall is absent when, if present, it ought to be mentioned. It is true that Mr. Leaf infers that it was absent in a portion of the poem earlier than our presentIliad, but that is merely a conjecture of his own. He also says (Introduction to Book xiii.) that theAristeia of Idomeneus(xiii. 29-518) "altogether ignores thewall." The whole passage is occupied with fightingwithinthe wall, which the Trojans have entereden masse. The reader or listener knows that, and the poet has no sort of reason for mentioning the wall. But he remembers that the Trojan chariots, except that of Asius, stopped and were arrayed at the ditch, so (xiii. 535, 536), the wounded Deiphobus, like the stricken Hector later, is carried out of the fight "to the swift horses that waited for him behind the battle, with the charioteer and chariot," and is conveyed to Troy. The wall is never forgotten, though the description of simultaneous confused fighting at several points is not a model of lucid military history. So much for "the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible" wall. The alleged discrepancy in Book x., insisted on by Mr. Verrall, is an imaginary discrepancy; a thousand such would, collectively, be imponderable.

We now turn to what Mr. Leaf calls "a crying contradiction, a contradiction perhaps the most patent in theIliad, which can in no way be palliated." Mr. Leaf's point is that "the words (and acts) of Diomedes in vi. 123-143" are "in crying contradiction" with "the words of Athene in v. 124-132, and the subsequent victories of Diomedes over the gods."[4]In fact, Diomedes, inIliad, vi. 123-129, doubts whether Glaucus, whom he has not encountered before, be a man or a god, and says that he will not, if the stranger be a god, fight against him. He then adds (130-143) the story of the punishment of Lycurgus by Zeus, when Lycurgus had beaten the Maenads, and driven Dionysus to seek refuge with Thetis. The whole passage is easily detachable, and may, Mr. Leaf says, be the work of "some pious revivalist; the Bacchic worship was unknown to the Achaean heroes." We cannot be certain that they did not know theThracianmyth which Diomedes tells: this they might know, though they did not worshipDionysus, who, like Demeter, is scarcely alluded to in theIliad[5]

But the point is, are the words of Diomedes to Glaucus in crying contradiction with the words of Athene in v. 124-132, and with Diomedes' "subsequent victories over the gods?" First, he had but one such victory; encouraged by Athene, he wounded—the harmless Aphrodite! We quote the words of Athene to Diomedes: "Moreover, I have taken from thine eyes the mist that erst was on them, that thou mayest well discern both god and man. Therefore, if any god come hither to make trial of thee, fight not thou face to face with any of the immortal gods; save only if Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus, enter into the battle, her smite thou with the keen bronze."

The subsequent events are(Iliad, v. 330-340), Diomede scratched the hand of Aphrodite with his spear-point. Much encouraged, he tries to spear Aeneas, over whom Apollo has spread his arms. Apollo threatens and terrifies him (434-442). Diomedes has now had enough of braving the gods. He gives way; and bids his men give way when he sees Ares with Hector (601-606). But Hera and Athene have the command of Zeus to stop the fighting of Ares (765, 766), and Athene bids Diomedes attack the god. He refuses, "You bade me fight no god but Aphrodite" (819-824). Athene thrusts away Diomedes' charioteer, drives his chariot against Ares, grasps and turns the spear of that god, andherselfdrives the spear of Diomedes into the belly of the god, and withdraws the spear (825-859).

This is no victory of Diomedes', and he knows it. It is, says Homer, Athene who has stopped Ares in his manslayings (see 909). Athene and Hera now leave the field; Ares has fled, no god is any longer present. It is after the retiral of all the gods, notably of her who had given him, "for this occasion only," the gift of knowinggod from man, that Diomedes doubts whether Glaucus, whom he has not encountered before, be divine or human. Having been terrified by Apollo, and remembering Athene's command to fight no god but Aphrodite, Diomedes is naturally cautious, in view of a splendid unknown antagonist, and asks, "Who of mortals, sir, art thou, for never have I seen thee before? thou alone darest to meet my deadly spear. If thou art an immortal, then I will not fight with the gods of heaven."[6]

The gift of Athene, the discerning of gods from men, has lapsed when it ceased to serve her turn, now that her task is ended. She has fulfilled the command of Zeus, has stopped Ares, and has retired to Olympus; while no god is left in the field to be discerned. To this is reduced, when we look at the facts, "a contradiction perhaps the most patent in theIliad, and one which can in no way be palliated." The audience of Homer would understand, naturally, but "the analytic reader," in hot search of discrepancies, credits Diomedes with "victories over gods" which he did not gain, and overlooks his caution, and his obedience to the command of Athene. What must the other contradictions be when this is "perhaps the most patent"?

A yet more scandalous discrepancy in theIliadremains to be noticed. "It is a contradiction," says Mr. Leaf with manly indignation, "at the very root of the story, as flagrant as if Shakespeare had forgotten in the Fifth Act ofMacbeththat Duncan had been murdered in the second."[7]If Shakespeare had made that error, and, like Fielding, had told his manager that the public would never notice it; like Fielding, when he heard the hisses and catcalls, he would probably have murmured, "Damn them, theyhavefound it out!" But though Homer's error was as flagrant as the suggested resuscitation of the gracious Duncan, for three thousand years nobody "found it out." Itwas discovered by Mr. Grote, an excellent banker, but no great poetical critic; and by a German who, in search of discrepancies, had been "nosing the body" of Homer "with passionate attention."

Now an error cannot be blazingly flagrant, nor vociferously crying, if it escapes a hundred generations of hearers, readers, Pisistratean "recensors," and Alexandrian and modern Editors. Moreover, if the Greek recensors laboured to harmonise old and new by skilfully interwoven cross-references (and the critics tell us that they did), "how," as Miss Stawell asks, "did it ever happen that the gross blots were allowed to enter or remain?" Thatthisblunder was allowed to remain, unnoted and unrebuked, till about 1840 A.D., proves beyond contradiction that, at least, it is not "flagrant"; does not resemble the appearance of Duncan in Act V. ofMacbeth, when "after life's fitful fever he sleeps well," in Act III. Mr. Leaf only shows us how far a passion for discovering discrepancies, if not early checked, may hurry the learned.

Again, if Homer's blunder were as glaring as the forgetfulness by the author ofMacbeththat Duncan had been murdered, it is unlikely that, by "Bergk, Hentze, Monro, and Lang," to quote Mr. Leaf, Homer would be pronounced innocent.[8]

We have "weakened some of the chief arguments stated by Grote," that is admitted, "yet their general force is unshaken." How this can possibly be, if Grote's chief arguments are sensibly weakened, does not appear; for the general force must be shaken when some of the chief arguments which make up that force are impaired.

Grote's chief argument is that the poet who composed Books xi.-xvi. "could not have had present to his mind the main event of the ninth Book,—the out-pouring of profound humiliation by the Greeks, and from Agamemnon specially, before Achilles, coupledwith formal offers to restore Briseis, and pay the amplest compensation for past wrong. The words of Achilles (not less than those of Patroclus and Nestor), in the eleventh and the following Books, plainly imply that the humiliation of the Greeks before him, for which he thirsts, is as yet future and contingent."[9]

Here Grote and his followers appear to forget that, from the very first, in Book i., the heart of Achilles was set onrevenge, and on one definitely stated form of revenge, andnoton atonement. On this point Grote had not Book i. present inhismind: he says that Achilles asks no more from Thetis, nor Thetis anything more from Zeus, than that "the Greeks may be brought to know the wrong they have done, and be humbled in the dust in expiation of it." This is an egregiously absurd misstatement! It seems that the great historian forgot to verify his reference, with the usual result, a misstatement of fact as the basis of a charge of discrepancy. What Achilles bids Thetis ask from Zeus is, "hem the Achaeans among their ships' sterns about the bay, that they may make trial of their king...."[10]Achilles does desire the humiliation of Agamemnon, but that humiliation must arise from a massacre of the Greeksamong their ships' sterns; and from their prospect of annihilation.

Already, to Agamemnon, during the quarrel in Book i., Achilles had said that his day will come "when multitudes fall dying before manslaying Hector."[11]In the state of affairs in Book ix. no great multitudes have fallen before Hector. Zeus again, in Book viii., promises to fulfil the desire of Achilles to the letter. "Headlong Hector shall not refrain from battle till that Peleus' son shall have arisen beside the ships, on that daywhen these shall fight amid the sterns in most grievous stress around Patroclus fallen. Such is the doomof heaven."[12]Achilles cannot be reconciled and take arms till the doom is fulfilled.

Not only does Homer keep the prayer of Achilles in Book i. constantly in view till it is accomplished in Book xv., but after its accomplishment he returns to and insists on the fulfilment by Zeus of this rash prayer. The whole burden of theIliadrests on this prayer of Book i., and in its disastrous consequences not only to the host, but to Achilles. In Book xvi. 97-100, a part of thegenuine kernel, Homer makes the last words that Achilles ever spoke to Patroclus express a fury of revenge which Nemesis could not pardon.

"Would, O Father Zeus, and Athene, and Apollo, would that not one of all the Trojans might escape death, nor one of the Argives, but that we twain might avoid destruction, that alone we might undo the sacred coronal of Troy."

This is the very extreme of pride and passion, an extreme which Greek thought regarded as entailing its own inevitable punishment. Achilles, when the news of the death of Patroclus reaches him, recognises this. Thetis says, "My child, why weepest thou?... One thing at least hath been accomplished of Zeus according to the prayer thou madest ... that the sons of the Achaeans should all be pent in at the ships, through lack of thee, and should suffer hateful things."

Achilles answers, "My mother, that prayer hath the Olympian accomplished for me. But what delight have I therein, since Patroclus is dead?"[13]Observe that the critics, and even Miss Stawell, think Achilles too sweet to refuse atonement in Book ix. There is not much sweetness of soul in his furious desire for the complete destruction of the Greeks in his very last words to his friend in Book xvi.

Thus, from first to last, Achilles asks nothing less than what Zeus, in Book viii., just prior to the impeachedBook ix., declares that he shall receive,—the massacre of the Achaeans among the sterns of their ships. Grote has misstated the facts of the case. He represents that the Embassy of Book ix. offered Achilles all his heart's desire. This they did not and could not do, they had not been slain among the ships; they had not been put in deadly stress; and Achilles would be inconsistent if he accepted atonement before he got revenge, before instant ruin was upon the Achaeans. "Agamemnon," says Achilles in Book ix., "shall not persuade me" (by gifts richer than he offers), "till he have paid me back all the bitter despite."[14]A payment in gold and lands and women Achilles disdains: he will not take it till he has a payment in revenge. This he has insisted on in Book i., this Zeus has promised in Book viii., and this inexorableness is the sin and stumbling-block of Achilles. Customary law and public opinion acknowledged his right to apology and atonement, but condemned his insistence, after these had been duly offered, on a bloody revenge. All the world recognised the facts before Grote went hunting for discrepancies, and bagged the greatest of all,—which is no discrepancy!

The whole story, including Book ix., is absolutely consistent. Grote argued that Agamemnon, by his offers, had done all that was necessary. Hehad, according to customary law; but Achilles had set his heart, in Book i. as in Book ix., on much more, on "a contented revenge." In Book ix. he had not enjoyed his revenge, and he said as much. Had he yielded in Book ix., the prophecy of Zeus in Book viii. would have been falsified;[15]the doom of Zeus would have been frustrated; the bitter word of Achilles would have been broken; he wouldhave deserved no heart-breaking disaster. Grote sees nothing of all this, nor do his followers.

When Agamemnon sent his embassy with apologies and offers of atonement to Achilles, in Book ix., the Achaeans had not been punished as Achilles, from the first, expressed his desire to see them smitten. Diomedes had shore in the day of his valour, hisaristeia; Hector had the worse in his passage-of-arms with Aias; Hera and Athene had abetted the Trojans; and though they camped in the plain, they had not smitten the foe "by the prows of the ships"; nor were they even likely to do so, for the Achaeans had built the wall and dug the trench around the ships. Therefore the demand of Achilles was not yet granted; and though Agamemnon abjectly implored forgiveness and offered the customary atonement,thatwas not what Achilles wanted. He spurns the gifts, and repeats the whole long story of his wrongs.[16]Agamemnon, he says,has a ceaseless grudge against him: the king's submission is merely hypocritical, and Achilles declines to be deceived. "Let him not tempt me, who know him too well; he will not persuade me"[17]"His gifts are hateful to me"; not for ten times these gifts will Achilles be reconciled, till he has glutted his revenge.

The long speech of Phoenix[18]partly mollifies him, and, in place of persisting in his intention to sail homewards at once, he tells Aias that he will not fight till Hector comes, slaying the Argives, even to the ships of the Myrmidons.[19]This is an advance even on his demand in Book i. In short, Achilles abides by his determination as announced to his mother in the first Book of theIliad, and goes further. He is consistent.

To this resolve, and to his plighted word (for he "hated a liar as the gates of Hades"), Achilles is as constant as thefondof his character—an unexampledtenderness—permitted him to be. This tenderness of the fierce hero who, in grief, cries to his mother like a child; who, in the height of his passion, compares his own labours for the Achaeans to those of "the hen-bird that brings to her unfledged chickens whatsoever morsel she may find, and it goes hard with herself";[20]who likens the suppliant Patroclus to "the little girl that, running beside her mother, and catching at her skirts, cries to be taken up in her arms"; and who gives quarter to fallen foes, distinguishes Achilles. The contrast between this emotion and his pride and later ferocity makes his character; and his chivalry shines out most clearly in his reception of Priam, which is declared to be un-Homeric! The triumph of his fierce pride over his tenderness, when he refuses the gifts in Book ix., is the ἁμάρτημα, the sin or blot on a noble character, which is the keynote, or pivot, of Greek tragedy (as in theOedipous Tyrannos), and of theIliad.

Remove Book ix., and Achilles is no longer himself, there is no motived tragedy, and the supposed primal kernel, the fanciedAchilleid(wherein atonement is not offered or refused), is a poem without a motive. The heart of Achilles is to be broken by the loss of Patroclus, though, according to the ideas of the age, he has committed no wrong; he has renounced his allegiance when he had a right to renounce it till he had received atonement for an intolerable injustice.

Grote did not think himself back into the legal and ethical atmosphere of Homeric life; he and his followers have failed to understand the moral centre of the tragedy, the ἁμάρτημα, the sin of Achilles. In place of doing that they have found the great discrepancy, exactly where they should have found the central situation and turning point of the epic. It has, in Aristotelian phrase, "a beginning, a middle, and an end." Book ix. is the middle. The critics excise it!

Grote works out his discovery thus, and in answering him we answer his contemporary followers. Achilles, in Book xi., sees the rout of the Achaeans, and sees Nestor conveying a wounded comrade to the rear. Achilles says to Patroclus (xi. 608), "Nowmethinks that the Achaeans will stand about my knees, praying to me,for need no longer endurable is coming upon them"That is, he will soon get the terms which he has from the first demanded, revenge, and,following perfect revenge, the humiliation of the Achaeans. Grote says that Heyne "not unnaturally asks, 'had Achilles repented of his previous harshness to the embassy,' in Book ix., 'or was he arrogant enough to expect a second embassy'? I answer, 'Neither one nor the other: the words imply that he had receivedno embassy at all.'" Therefore Book ix. is a later interpolation.

It follows that the great poet of Book ix., who so consistently maintains the attitude taken by Achilles in Book i. 408-410, where the hero demands the slaughter of the Achaeans among their ships,[21]now unscrupulously throws over and destroys the work of his still greater predecessor. Here is indeed a matchless discrepancy in human nature!

As I understand the words of Achilles (xi. 608, 610), he is joyously anticipating the moment when "need no longer endurable" will come on the host. In Book ix. their necessity, as we have demonstrated, had not reached the point which, in Books i. and ix., he had demanded. Hector has not yet reached the ships, not yet do the Achaeans know fully "what manner of king they have" in his enemy, Agamemnon. Doubtless they will again beseech Achilles: they have done that already, but they have not yet suffered as he will have them suffer. There is here extreme consistency, not impossible inconsistency. Achilles retains the position which he took up in Book i.

Grote pursues his theory to Book xvi., where Patroclus comes with news that the Trojans are slayingaround the ships, and that Agamemnon, Diomedes, Odysseus, and Eurypylus are wounded and out of action. As Achilles (Book ix.) has vowed not to fight till Hector attacks his own ships, Patroclus asks to be permitted to lead the Myrmidons into fight. Achilles replies by rehearsing all his wrongs, and then says, "But let bygones be bygones ... verily I said that my wrath would not slacken one whit till the battle and the cry came to my own ships; but dothouput on my armour and lead the Myrmidons."[22]

He thus recalls his vow in Book ix., or rather, while keeping to the letter of it, he makes a concession in the spirit: he is sated: what he asked for in Book i. he has received in Book xvi. So the poet of Book xvi. had Book ix. before him. The Achaeans are dying around the ships, but till Hector approaches his own ships he will not fight in person. So he had vowed in Book ix. There is stern consistency, not discrepancy; but Grote finds inconsistency by agreeing with the Scholiast and Heyne in interpreting "ἔφην γε" (in its primary sense, "I said") "as equivalent to 'I thought' (διενοήθην), not as referring to any express antecedent declaration."[23]Mr. Leaf agrees, and thinks that the declaration of Achilles in Book ix. 650 "may well have been suggested by this very phrase." This very phrase may therefore, confessedly, mean that Achillesdidmake an express declaration; and we have every right so to understand it. If we do, the supposed discrepancy vanishes. If we do not, we must suppose the poet of Book ix. to have been at once most scrupulously attentive to the words of his predecessor,—the author of Book i., of Book viii., and of the opening of Book xvi.—and at the same time absolutely regardless of thatminstrel in the most important point. We only shift the insane error from one great poet to another.

Meanwhile Grote says that the poet of Book xi.et seqq. "could not have had present to his mind the main event of the ninth Book, the embassy, and its offers of atonement."[24]

Next, in xvi. lines 72, 73, Achilles says that the Achaeans would not be in such straits "if Agamemnon had been but kindly disposed to me." But, in Book ix., says Grote, Agamemnon was more than kindly, he offered to pay any price for reconciliation. So Achilles himself admitted in Book ix. Agamemnon would pay any price, but Achilles regarded this as mere hypocrisy: he would not believe that Agamemnon was "favourably disposed" in his heart. "He shall not deceive me, shall not persuade me." The poet has anticipated Grote's objection, but Grote does not understand.

Achilles is not really in heart reconciled to Agamemnon, even after he consents to take the gifts; is not reconciled till after the funeral games for Patroclus. Atthismoment (xvi. 77) Achilles speaks of Agamemnon as "hateful."

In xvi. 83-86, to copy Grote's paraphrase, Achilles says to Patroclus, "Obey my words, so that you may procure for me honour and gloryfrom the body of the Greeks, and that they may send back to me the damsel, giving me ample presents besides...."

Grote has oddly misunderstood the whole story. He says, "The ninth Bookhas actuallytendered to Achilles everything he demands and even more." Now Achilles had demanded only the massacre of the Greeks at the ships, and then recognition of what kind of king they have. In what passage does Achilles demand anything else? In none till, in Book xvi. 84, 85, he bids Patroclus fight, when he himself will receive Briseis and fair gifts: his revenge he has already enjoyed, butPhoenix had warned him that he would be dishonoured if he fought without receiving atonement.

Grote, in the spirit of his school, rejects later allusions to the offered atonement of Book ix. as interpolations thrust in for the sake of restoring harmony. Yet the cunning interpolators allowed the Great Discrepancy to stand! If we may reject whatever lines destroy our theory, criticism is an idle game of contradictory conjectures, each inquirer discerning interpolations in all passages that ruin his favourite hypothesis. After all Grote concludes, "The poem consists of a part original and other parts superadded; yet it is certainly not impossible that the author of the former may himself have composed the latter." If so, "the poet ... has not thought fit to recast the parts and events in such manner as to impart to the whole a pervading thread ofconsensusand organisation such as we see in theOdyssey."[25]Thus the poet did not mind a ghastly discrepancy.

I trust that all who have not invincible prepossessions will see that Book ix. is not only consistent with Books xi. and xvi., but is the veryclouof theIliad, without which Achilles is not himself, and theAchilleidwould have been a purposeless tragedy. This opinion is not based on aesthetic and literary criticism alone, but on the actual ideas about allegiance, the wrongs done by the Over Lord, the rights of the injured vassal, and the rules concerning atonement which pervade theIliad. As in all such early societies, a man was dishonoured if he forgave a wrong without receiving atonement; and was blamed if, like Achilles, he refused atonement when it was offered with due ceremonial. Even if students, under the suggestion of Grote, fail to accept my view that Book ix. is no discrepancy, but contains the central moment, and, as Phoenix's words in that Book prove, themotifof the tragedy of Achilles—"he who refuses the prayers of the penitent may fall and pay the price" (ix. 512), I trust that, at least, I have proved that the discrepancy is not "flagrant" and "crying," and an infallible proof of late interpolation.

It is not necessary for me to repeat my unanswered criticisms, inHomer and the Epic, of many alleged discrepancies. If I have succeeded in showing that the three most flagrant inconsistencies are not inconsistent, it is easy to imagine how innocent are most of the other inculpated passages.

One may be noted. InIliad, xviii. 446-452, Thetis, who has gone to ask Hephaestus to make armour for her son, explains the causes of his mutiny. "And the princes (γέροντες) of the Argives entreated him, and told over many noble gifts. Then albeit he refused to ward destruction from them, he put his armour on Patroclus and sent him to the war." The gifts were offered "while Achilles in grief wasted his heart, while the men of Troy were driving the Achaeans on their ships, nor suffered them to come forth."

The gifts were offered, in fact, when the Greeks had found it necessary to fortify their camp, purposing to act on the defensive; and Achilles did not send out Patroclus in consequence of the offer of gifts. Absorbed in her own grief for her son, whom she will never welcome home ("excited," as Miss Stawell says), Thetis has avoided the point of the question of Hephaestus, "Why hast thou come hither?" and poured forth her own lament (430-441). "Homer," says the Scholiast, "renders the nature of woman, she does not answer the question put to her, but dilates on her own sorrow." Then she hurriedly and confusedly describes the past events, hastening to her request that the god will make arms for her Achilles. As Mr. Leaf writes, "Though the reference (450, 451) does not give the whole course of events, it is near enough—there is only omission, not misstatement." To myself the speech of Thetisseems exactly what a distraught mother in a hurry would be apt to make.

But Mr. Verrall takes it as proof positive that "a new hand" is at work, the new hand who invented "The Making of the Armour."He—the new hand—is in even a greater hurry, and is much more distraught than poor Thetis, it seems to me; but then Mr. Verrall observes he did not mean his story of the armour "for a continuation of the other's, otherwise he would have told the previous incident as he found it." Finally, some one, some time, for some reason—person, time, and reason being all equally unknown—"takes the "Sending of Patroclus" from one version and the "Making of the Armour" from another, and combines without reconciling them."[26]

Here Mr. Verrall differs from Mr. Leaf, while we take it that Homer makes a grief-distraught mother in a hurry speak like a grief-distraught and hurried mother.

But Homer, where there is a doubt, never gets the benefit of the doubt.

Back to Index Next