HOMER. [About 950 B. C.] Or the life, age, and country of Homer, though much has been written, little or nothing is ascertained. The more probable belief seems to have been, that he was an Asiatic Greek, and lived about the middle of the ninth century before Christ. But, however doubtful his exact time or place of birth, not a question ever arose among the ancients as to the existence of the man, or as to his having been the sole author of the great works which immortalize his name. It was reserved for the vanity and scepticism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to affect a contrary opinion, and to contend, that Homer was not Homer, or that, instead of one, there had been twenty Homers. Assuming that the art of writing was unknown in Greece and her colonies, at the supposed date of the Iliad and Odyssey, and thence arguing that so many thousand verses, as constitute those volumes, could never have been conceived or carried in the head of one man, these philologers arrived at the startling hypothesis or conclusion, that the Iliad and Odyssey were the works, not of a single mind, but of several distinct authors, collected by Pisistratus, and all pieced and quilted together, so as to form two great patchwork wholes! whole argument,) was unknown at the supposed date of the Iliad and Odyssey? We know that it had long existed among other, and not far distant, nations; we know that it existed among the Egyptians, the Hebrews, and the Phoenicians; with the latter of whom, at least, the Greeks had enjoyed long and intimate communication, and with whose arts and artisans Homer himself seems to have been most familiar. But then "Writing, (rejoin these objectors,) if it did exist, existed in its rudest state, and was known only to a few." The same, too, might be said of the art during the times of Chaucer and Gower, yet who would argue from thence that those fathers of English poetry were ignorant of their letters? Nothing is easier than to be on the negative side of a question. "If a man (says Dr. Johnson) were to deny that Canada was taken, you could not reduce him to an absurdity. He might support his denial by very plausible arguments." And an eminent scholar and logician of the present day, has carried out the Doctor's idea by an ingenious piece of humour, in which he argues that there never was such a man as Napoleon Bonaparte! * Alphabetic letters, as we learn from profane history, were brought from Phoenicia into Greece about 1500 years B. C.; and we have the authority of Scripture for knowing that they existed among the Hebrews in the earliest time, and long before the age of Homer. See Exod. xxxii. 15, 16; Deut. xvii. 18; xxxi. 9, 19; 2 Sam. xi. 14; 1 Kings xxi. 9; 2 Kings v. 6. For Homer's acquaintance with the Phænicians, and with the arts of Now, to say nothing of internal evidences to the contrary,-of coherence and symmetry of parts, of consistency of characters,-of unity of style, plot, interest, imagery, and thought,*-to say nothing of these and numberless other circumstances, (each in itself sufficient to stamp both Iliad and Odyssey as the product of one vast, original, and master mind)-leaving all these topics to others, I would only request the judicious and candid reader to inquire what" folded tablet," of which Bellerophon was made bearer evidence the anti-Homerian critics have adduced in support of their premises; what single, solitary proof, or even presumption, that the art of writing (for on that, and on that alone, rests their embroidery and sculpture, as practised by them, see II. vi. 289, and xxiii. 740, &c. I have said nothing of that passage in the VI. Book, where Homer speaks of the from Prætus to the king of Lycia, on account of the dif- Πέμπε δέ μιν Λυκίηνδε, πόρεν δ' όγε σηματα λυγρά, L. vi. v. 158. To Lycia the devoted youth be sent, FROM THE ILIAD OF HOMER. Book I. CONTENTION OF ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON. In the war of Troy, the Greeks having sacked some of the neighbouring towns and taken two beautiful captives, Chryseïs and Briseïs, allotted the first to Agamemnon and the last to Achilles. Chryses, the father of Chryseïs, and a priest of Apollo, seeks to ransom his daughter, but being insolently refused by Agamemnon, entreats for vengeance from his god, who inflicts a pestilence on the Greeks. Achilles calls a council and encourages Chalcas to declare the cause of it, who attributes it to Agamemnon's treatment of Chryses. The king being obliged to send back his captive, enters into a furious contest with Achilles, and in his absolute authority as chief commander of the Greeks, seizes on Briseïs. Achilles, in discontent, withdraws himself and his troops from the Grecian army, and complains to his mother Thetis, who supplicates Jupiter to render Agamemnon sensible of the wrong done to her son by giving victory to the Trojans. ACHILLES' wrath, to Greece the direful spring Till time shall rifle every youthful grace, The trembling priest along the shore return'd, shores If e'er with wreaths I hung thy sacred fane, And from Olympus' lofty top descends. Such was the sov'reign doom, and such the will The fleet in view, he twang'd his deadly bow, of Jove! Declare, O Muse! in what ill-fated hour Sprung the fierce strife; from what offended power? Latona's son a dire contagion spread, And hissing fly the feather'd fates below. And heap'd the camp with mountains of the But ere the tenth revolving day was run dead; The king of men his reverend priest defied For Chryses sought with costly gifts to gain Ye kings and warriors! may your vows be crown'd And Troy's proud walls lie level with the ground. The Greeks in shouts their joint assent declare, Inspir'd by Juno, Thetis' godlike son spare, 'Tis time to save the few remains of war. Jove. If broken vows this heavy curse has laid, He said, and sat: when Chalcas thus replied: Beloved of Jove, Achilles! wouldst thou know Why angry Phoebus bends his fated bow? First give thy faith, and plight a prince's word Of sure protection by thy power and sword. For I must speak what wisdom would conceal, And truths invidious to the great, reveal. |