The divers specifications of my ignorance and stupidity contained in
the foregoing criticisms will be attended to in their proper place in
the chronological order of the present chapter, which naturally begins
with Homer's epics, as nothing definite is known of Greek literature
before them. Homer is now recognized as the first poet of antiquity,
not only in the order of time; but it took Europe many centuries to
discover that fact. During the Middle Ages the second-rate Virgil was
held to be a much greater genius than Homer, and it was in England, as
Professor Christ notes (69), that the truer estimate originated.
Pope's translation of the Homeric poems, with all its faults, helped
to dispel the mists of ignorance, and in 1775 appeared Robert Wood's
book, _On the Original Genius and Writings of Homer_, which combated
the foolish prejudice against the poet, due to the coarseness of the
manners he depicts. Wood admits (161) that "most of Homer's heroes
would, in the present age, be capitally convicted, in any country in
Europe, on the poet's evidence;" but this, he explains, does not
detract from the greatness of Homer, who, upon an impartial view,
"will appear to excel his own state of society, in point of decency
and delicacy, as much as he has surpassed more polished ages in point
of genius."
In this judicious discrimination between the genius of Homer and the
realistic coarseness of his heroes, Wood forms an agreeable contrast
to many modern Homeric scholars, notably the Rt. Hon. W.E. Gladstone,
who, having made this poet his hobby, tried to persuade himself and
his readers that nearly everything relating not only to Homer, but to
the characters he depicts, was next door to perfection. Confining
ourselves to the topic that concerns us here, we read, in his _Studies
on Homer_ (II., 502), that "we find throughout the poems those signs
of the overpowering force of conjugal attachments which ... we might
expect." And in his shorter treatise on Homer he thus sums up his
views as to the position and estimate of woman in the heroic age, as
revealed in Homer's female characters:
"The most notable of them compare advantageously with
those commended to us in the Old Testament; while
Achaiian Jezebels are nowhere found. There is a certain
authority of the man over the woman; but it does not
destroy freedom, or imply the absence either of
respect, or of a close mental and moral fellowship. Not
only the relation of Odysseus to Penelope and of Hector
to Andromache, but those of Achilles to Briseis, and of
Menelaus to the returned Helen, are full of dignity and
attachment. Briseis was but a captive, yet Achilles
viewed her as in expectation a wife, called her so,
avowed his love for her, and laid it down that not he
only, but every man must love his wife if he had sense
and virtue. Among the Achaiian Greeks monogamy is
invariable; divorce unknown; incest abhorred.... The
sad institution which, in Saint Augustine's time, was
viewed by him as saving the world from yet worse evil
is unknown or unrecorded. Concubinage prevails in the
camp before Troy, but only simple concubinage. Some of
the women, attendants in the Ithacan palace, were
corrupted by the evil-minded Suitors; but some were
not. It should, perhaps, be noted as a token of the
respect paid to the position of the woman, that these
very bad men are not represented as ever having
included in their plans the idea of offering violence
to Penelope. The noblest note, however, of the Homeric
woman remains this, that she shared the thought and
heart of her husband: as in the fine utterance of
Penelope she prays that rather she may be borne away by
the Harpies than remain to 'glad the heart of a meaner
man' (_Od_. XX., 82) than her husband, still away from
her."
Only a careful student of Homer can quite realize the diplomatic
astuteness which inspired this sketch of Homeric morals. Its amazing
sophistry can, however, be made apparent even to one who has never
read the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_.