A History of Ancient Greek Literature. Gilbert Murray

The gods were not created in Asia; they are 'Olympian,' and have their characters and their formal epithets from the old home of the Achaioi.

      The treatment of individual gods, too, has its significance-though a local, not a chronological one. Zeus and Hera meet with little respect. Iris is rather unpleasant, as in Euripides. Ares is frankly detested for a bloodthirsty Thracian coward. Aphrodite, who fights because of some echo in her of the Phoenician Ashtaroth, a really formidable warrior, is ridiculed and rebuked for her fighting. Only two gods are respectfully handled -Apollo, who, though an ally of Troy, is a figure genuinely divine; and Poseidon, who moves in a kind of rolling splendour. The reason is not far to seek: they are the real gods of the Ionian. The rest are, of course, gods; but they are 'other peoples' gods,' and our view of them depends a good deal on our view of their worshippers. Athena comes a good third to the two Ionians; in the Odyssey and K she outstrips them. Athens could manage so much, but not more: she could not make the Ionian poetry accept her stern goddess in her real grandeur; Athena remained in the epos a fighting woman, treacherous and bitter, though a good partisan. She will never be forgiven for the last betrayal of Hector.

      Great caution must be used in estimating the significance of repetitions and quotations. For instance, the disguised Odysseus begins prophesying his return in τ, 303, with the natural appeal : --

       "Zeus hear me first, of gods most high and great, And brave Odysseus' hearth, where I am come."

      But when he says the same in ξ, 158, not only is the prophecy imprudent when he does not mean to be recognised, but he is also not at his own hearth at all, and a slight surplusage in the first line betrays the imitator: "Zeus, hear me first of gods and thy kind board." The passage is at home in τ, and not at home in ξ.

      Similarly, what we hear in κ, 136, is natural : --

       "In the isle there dwelt Kirkê fair-tress'd, dread goddess full of song."

      Kirkê was essentially 'dread,' and her 'song' was magic incantation; but in μ, 448, it runs : --

       " Calypso in the isle Dwelleth fair-tress'd, dread goddess full of song."

      Calypso was not specially 'dread' nor 'full of song,' except in imitation of Kirkê; and, above all, to 'dwell fair-tress'd,' the verb and adjective thus joined, is not a possible Homeric manner of behaviour, as to 'dwell secure' or to 'lie prostrate' would be.

      In the same way the description of Tartarus in Theogony, 720 -- "As far 'neath earth as is the heaven above" -- is natural and original. Homer's "As far 'neath hell as heaven is o'er the earth" (Θ, 16) is an imitation 'going one better.'

      Yet, as a matter of fact, Calypso (Celatrix, 'She who hides') is probably original in the Odysseus-saga, and Kirkê secondary. There were other legends where Kirkê had an independent existence; and she had turned the Argonauts into bears and tigers before she was impressed to turn Odysseus' companions into pigs. And the Theogony, which is here quoted by the Iliad, itself quotes almost every part of both Iliad and Odyssey. The use of this criterion of quotation is affected by two things -- first, all the passages in question may go back to an original which is now lost, sometimes to a definite passage in a lost epic, sometimes to a mere stock-in-trade formula; secondly, the big epics were so long in process of active growth that they all had plenty of time to quote one another. We have mentioned the Odyssean and Hesiodic phrases in the slaying of Patroclus (II, 380-480). But the most striking instance of all is that the Hades scene in ω, the very latest rag of the Odyssey, gives an account of the Suitor-slaying which agrees not with our version, but with the earlier account which our version has supplanted (p. 40).

      Besides verbal imitations, we have more general references. For instance, the great catalogues in Homer, that of ships in B, of myrmidons in II, of women in λ, are almost without question extracts from a Bœotian or 'Hesiodic' source. Again, much of δ consists of abridged and incomplete stories about the Nostoi or Homecomings of Agamemnon, Aias the Less, and Menelaus. They seem to imply a reference to some fuller and more detailed original -- in all probability to the series of lays called the Nostoi, which formed one of the rejected epics. The story in δ, 242 ff.) about Helen helping Odysseus in Troy, is definitely stated by Proclus -- a suspected witness, it is true -- to occur in the Little Iliad.* The succeeding one (271 ff.), makes Helen hostile to the Greeks, and cannot come from the same source. But it also reads like an abridgment. So does the story of Bellerophon in Z: "Proitosfirst sent him to slay the Chimaira: now she was a thing divine and not mortal, in front a lion, and behind a serpent, and in the middle a wild goat, breathing furious fire. Yet he slew her, obeying the signs of the gods." What signs, and how? And what is the meaning of the strange lines 200 f.? "But when he, too, was hated of all the gods, then verily down the Plain of Wandering alone he wandered, eating his heart, shunning the tread of men." The original poem, whatever it was, would have told us; the resumê takes all the details for granted.

      Space does not allow more than a reference to that criterion of date which has actually been most used in the 'Higher Criticism' -- the analysis of the story. It might be interesting to note that the wall round the ships in the Iliad is a late motive; that it is built under impossible circumstances; that it is sometimes there and sometimes not, and that it does not alter its conduct after Apollo has flattened it into the ditch; or that Achilles in II speaks as if the events of I had 'not occurred; or that Odysseus' adventures in κ and μ, and perhaps in ι, seem to have been originally composed in the third person, not the first, while his supposed false stories in ζ and τ seem actually to represent older versions of the real Odysseus-legend; or that the poets of τ and the following books do not seem to know that Athena had transformed their hero in ν into a decrepit old man, and that he had consistently remained so to the end of σ. But in all such criticism the detail is the life. We select one point for illustration -- the Suitorslaying.

In our present version Odysseus begins with the bow, uses up all his arrows, puts down the bow, and arms himself with spear and shield and helmet, which Têlemachus has meanwhile brought (χ, 98). What were those fifty desperate men with their swords doing while he was making the change? Nearly all critics see here a combination of an old Bow-fight with a later Spearfight. As to the former, let us start with the Feetwashing in τ. Odysseus is speaking with Penelope; she is accompanied by Eurycleia and the handmaids. Odysseus dare not reveal himself directly, because he knows that the handmaids are false. He speaks to his wife in hints, tells her that he has seen Odysseus, who is in Thesprotia, and will for certain return before that dying year is out! He would like to send the handmaids away, but of course cannot. He bethinks him of his old nurse Eurycleia; and, when refreshment is offered him, asks that she and none other (τ, 343 seq.) shall wash his feet. She does so, and instantly (τ, 392) recognises him by the scar! Now, in our version, the man of many devices is taken by surprise at this; he threatens Eurycleia into silence, and nothing happens. The next thing of importance is that Penelope -- she has just learnt on good evidence that Odysseus is alive, and will return immediately -- suddenly determines that she cannot put off the suitors any longer, but brings down her husband's bow, and says she will forthwith marry the man who can shoot through twelve axe-heads with it! Odysseus hears her and is pleased! Is it not clear that in the original story there was a reason for Penelope to bring the bow, and for Odysseus to be pleased? It was a plot. He meant Eurycleia to recognise him, to send the maids away, and break the news to Penelope. Then husband and wife together arranged the trial of the bow. This is so far only a conjecture, but it is curiously confirmed by the account of the slaying given by the ghost of Amphimedon in ω. The story he tells is not that of our Odyssey: it is the old Bow-slaying, based on a plot between husband and wife (esp. 167). As to the Spear-fight, there is a passage in π, 281- 298, which was condemned by the Alexandrians as inconsistent with the rest of the story. There Odysseus arranges with Têlemachus to have all the weapons in the banquet hall taken away, only two spears, two swords, and two shields to be left for the father and son. This led up to a Suitor-slaying with spears by Odysseus and Têlemachus, which is now incorporated as the second part of our Suitor-slaying. Otto Seeck18 has tried