If we are willing to admit that Homer lived at all, we shall probably fall in with the commonly received opinion, that he lived about nine hundred years before the Christian era; that he was an inhabitant of Chios, and a bard by profession. How honorable a member of society a bard was, Homer himself has sufficiently informed us. He was always a welcome guest, and often a constant attendant at the houses of the chieftains. Loved and revered by all, it was his duty to sing the deeds of gods and men, to inspire his hearers with piety and to kindle in their bosoms a spirit of enterprise, a fiery courage, and a restless longing after fame. Without cares to distract him, he had full opportunity to study the characters of men and the beauties of nature. Poetry was the employment and the pleasure of his life. Homer's two poems have each a distinct character. The one is all fire, sublimity and hurry; the other is more calm and even. The Iliad astonishes; the Odyssey delights. The first is like the thunderbolt of Homer's own simile;— Ως δ' ὁθ' υπό πληγῆς πατρὸς Διὸς εξερίπη δρυς Εξ αύτης” τον δ' ο'υπες έχει θράσος, οςκεν ἴδηται, Εγγὺς ἑών· χαλεπὶς δὲ Διος μεγάλοιο κεραυνός —il. xiv. 414. As when the bolt red-hissing from above, Darts on the consecrated plant of Jove, The mountain oak in flaming ruin lies, Black from the blow, and smokes of sulphur rise; The second resembles the milder landscape ; Ως δ' ότ' εν οὐρανῶ ἄστρα φαεινὴν ἀμφὶ Σεληνην Και νάπαι' ουρανόθεν δ ̓ ἂς' υπέραγη ἀσπετος αιθής, Παντα δε τ' ειδεται ἀστρα· γέγηθε δε τε φρένα ποιμήν -11. viii. 555. As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light, The poems differ, too, not only in their character, but in their artificial construction. The time occupied by the action of the Iliad is very short, and the whole narration comes from the mouth of the poet. The action of the Odyssey extends through ten years, and the hero is himself introduced, relating the greater portion of his adventures. These are the only two forms of the Epic, which the ingenuity of man has yet been able to devise. Nor are the subjects of the poems unworthy of the genius of Homer. From the earliest settlement of the country, down to the invasion of the Persians, the Trojan war is, by far, the most conspicuous event in the Grecian annals. At a time when Greece was divided into a thousand petty states, this war brought all the independent chiefs together, and engaged them in the prosecution of the same adventure. Besides securing for the poet a willing audience wherever the Grecian name was known, it enabled him to collect, without violating probability, the noblest assemblage of kings and warriors, which the world ever saw. The events of the war were impressive, and not less so the misfortunes and wanderings of the returning chiefs. Ulysses, while prosecuting his homeward voyage, saw the manner and the cities of various nations, and more strange than these, those specious wonders Antiphatem, Scyllamque, et cum Cyclope Charybdimwith which the imagination of the Greeks had peopled the shores and islands of the Mediterranean. Achilles, the hero of the Iliad, possesses in the highest degree, all those bodily accomplishments, so indispensable to one of Homer's heroes, and which, indeed, in the politest age of the Grecian commonwealths, were esteemed essential qualifications for a general or a statesman. But it is not in bodily powers alone, that Achilles surpasses the common standard of humanity. He excels as much in pride and passion as in strength of hand or swiftness of foot,— Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer,— his courage is ferocious, his anger terrible, and from the same constitution of mind, his love unbounded. Ulysses is a very different character. Artful, eloquent, insinuating, his passions controlled and his pride subdued, he forms his plans with sagacious foresight, and to accomplish them, shrinks from no labor, danger or humiliation. Achilles and Ulysses are the heroes of the poems, but Hector is the masterpiece of the poet. Warm-hearted, noble, patriotic, with all the proud spirit of honor, and gentle mildness of manners, which we might look for in a christian knight, that reader has little of humanity, who does not honor, love and pity him. Nor has Homer delineated men only, with truth and spirit. The ladies have no need to be ashamed of the figure they make in his poems. Love is the passion of most prevailing influence in female minds; and how well are its various operations exhibited in the gay and sportive fondness of Helen, the gentle and anxious tenderness of Andromache, in Penelope's noble and untiring constancy! If to these well known names we add the Dido of the Roman poet, we shall be convinced, that whether the ancients have been justly or not accused of undervaluing the female character, at least, they did not misunderstand it. But to characterize all the personages introduced upon the scene, to mark the obvious differences, and point out the more delicate shades of character, to show what different passions spring from the same source, and how the most trifling actions often betray the secrets of the soul, were to do again the work of the poet. He who does not see and feel all this, will search for it in vain in the commentaries of the critic. Not to see and feel it is almost impossible; for it is in the delineation of character, that Homer, by the confession of all ages, especially excels. Indeed, he deserves to be studied as a perfect master of the science of human nature. The lessons, which he teaches, are of universal application. He has noted almost all the more common traits, and striking features; so that succeeding authors have, for the most part, been obliged to content themselves, with dwelling on unusual peculiarities or accidental distortions. The present age seems satisfied with characters of manners, or if nature is ever attempted, it is nature so extravagant as to be unnatural. Perhaps we despair too soon. Much ground is, no doubt, preoccupied, but perhaps there is yet room for originality. The most brilliant picture is but an artful arrangement of a few common colors; and what is called poetical invention, seems to be only a new combination of old materials. But Homer is not content with human agents only. He brings the gods to his aid. He introduces us to the palaces of Olympus and the shadowy realms of Pluto. Among his own countrymen, this must have added, in no ordinary degree to the dignity of his poems; and even upon a modern reader, the effect is far from inconsiderable. It has been said of the Greek language, that it gives a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy. Grecian genius has performed the harder task, of giving substance and reality, to the airy visions of fancy. The religious fables of other nations, may now and then excite a momentary interest; but, for the most part, they are as unsatisfactory as they are unsubstantial, and make no more impression on the memory, than the faint images of a troubled dream. But the Greek mythology has an air of truth and a stamp of reality. It has ceased to serve the purposes of a religious creed, but its copious and variegated fictions still survive in the pages of literature. It was hence, that the Epic and Lyric poets of Greece supplied themselves with machinery, episodes and allusions; here tragedy found subjects, and philosophy, illustrations. The Roman writers borrowed copiously, from the same source; modern authors have followed their example, and Grecian fable is closely woven into English poetry. Spencer, Milton, even the "unlearned" Shakspeare, show on every page how familiar to their thoughts was the Grecian mythology. But it is not the excitable imagination of poets alone, that has been carried away, by the prevailing charms of classic fiction. About the end of the fourteenth century, when the study of the Greek language, after a long oblivion, was revived in Europe, some enthusiastic scholars, seduced by the visions of beauty and magnificence revealed to them in the pages of Homer, came near renouncing their Christian faith, in favor of the ancient superstition, and were suspected of secretly sacrificing, (not metaphorically, but literally) to Bacchus and Apollo; and even that arch-infidel David Hume, who could see no shadow of truth in the Christian scheme, or even in the received doctrines of natural religion, was so struck with the verisimilitude of the Grecian mythology, as to declare, that very likely, a system so probable and consistent was somewhere, in the boundless extent of the universe, actually realized. Along with the gods, may be classed the fabled monsters, which the poet has introduced into the Odyssey. Some critics, among whom is Longinus, have argued from the strange fables to be found in this poem, that when it was composed, Homer's genius was on the decline. The inference, however, seems as unjust as it is unkind. Passages will rarely be found in any author, which so much interest the mind, and engage the attention, as the adventures of Ulysses in the cave of the Cyclops, and the island of Circe. So naturally do the human agents act, that the improbability of the circumstances, in which they are placed, never once occurs to us. Perhaps, however, the genius of Homer shines out most conspicuously in his descriptions of battles. He enters into them with his whole heart and soul. Indeed, the poet's taste for war, has brought him into bad repute with some peace-loving speculatists, who, like Plato, would banish him from the commonwealth, even without according that justice, which Plato did not deny, of twining his brows with myrtle and crowning his head with flowers. But Homer speaks the language and expresses the feelings of a man. Natural impulses are stronger than artificial reasoning; and while human nature remains what it is, wars will be prosecuted, and Homer will be read. It is curious to observe the artifices, by which he keeps up the interest of his battles, which extend in some instances through several books. We should soon tire of wounds and death, of the shouts of the victors and the groans of the vanquished, but our attention is relieved by an infinite variety of incident and description, by a thousand little digressions, which give, as it were, a back ground to the picture, and above all, by a multitude of beautiful similes, which impart no small portion of their own fire and spirit to the relation, which they adorn. These similes are drawn, principally, from hunting, agriculture and pastoral life, and while they serve to enliven his poem, they at the same time show Homer's close observation of all that was doing around him, and his unequalled felicity in describing all that he saw. If any would learn, what lessons of policy and morals Homer teaches, how he excels Chrysippus and Crautor, and all the wisdom of the Porch and the Academy, let them read Horace's epistle to Lollius. Besides satisfying their curiosity, they may there learn how admirably well one poet can praise another; and they will find there, maxims so wise and philosophy so eloquent, as will convince them, that whatever may be Homer's merits, he is not the only poet to be read by those who are in search of moral improvement. On the whole it is difficult, not to join in the elegant eulogium which Paterculus has pronounced. "The succeeding times, (the historian had just been speaking of the Ionic migration) were illustrated, by the splendid genius of Homer; a man great without example. So magnificent is his subject, so majestic his verse, that he alone seems to merit the name of poet. He was great in every respect, but greatest in this, that as he imitated no one himself, so no one has been able to imitate him. If we except Archilocus, Homer is the only author, who has at once discovered and perfected a new species of composition. This great poet, it is said, was born blind, but if any one believes the fable, he must surely be destitute himself of all his senses."* We find in his poems, a complete description of the times in which he lived. He has woven the religion of his country into the texture of his story. In the siege of Troy, he has displayed all that was known of the art of war. The funeral of Patroclus gave him an opportunity of depicting the curious rites and ceremonies, observed in burying the dead, a matter, in every age of Greece, considered of the utmost importance. While relating the adventures of Ulysses and Telemachus, the poet often touchingly describes the pleasing interchanges of hospitality; and on these and other occasions, he introduces all the geographical and naval knowledge of his age. He has left us finished pictures of the men, the manners and the polity of the times. It is, perhaps, not going too far, to say, with an ancient critic, that the Iliad and Odyssey, apart from their poetical * Clarisimum deride Homeri illuxit ingenium, sine exemplo maximum, qui, magnitudine operis et fulgore carminum, solus appellari poeta meruit; in quo hoc maximum est, quod neque ante illum, quem ille imitaretur, neque post illum, qui eum imitari potest, inventus est. Neque quemquam alium, cujus operis primus auctor fuerit, in eo perfectissimum, praeter Homerum et Archilochum, reperiemus. quem si quis cæcum genitum, putat, om nibus sensibus orbus est.-C. V. Paterculi, lib. i. cap. 5. |