THE GREAT DISCREPANCIES
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,
had _unus 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 from _a priori_ considerations, cannot be the work of one man
or one age? Now the work of many men in many ages inevitably _must_
be 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 from _a priori_
reflections 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
actual _unus color_. For the whole _did_ seem harmonious to Wolf,
with merely a few roughnesses, and passages suspected even by the
ancient grammarians. But Wolf's successors, hypnotised by his original
_suggestion_ that, in the circumstances of the case, the poems _must_
be by many hands, have felt that, if so, they _must_ contain 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 the _Iliad_ is 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 in religion,
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 the _Iliad_ is 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
the _Odyssey_. They do not read it in the same spirit, or torment it
in the same style, as they rack and lacerate the _Iliad_. With Wolf,
they recognise its unity, though it arose in the same dark age, and
passed through the same adventures as the _Iliad_. Yet in Germany the
_Odyssey_ is even more and more variously lacerated than the _Iliad_.
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' "original _Menis_" 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 the _Iliad_ from the present mass."
But of her _Iliad_, 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 more
like the _Iliad_ as 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 the _Iliad_,
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 of loose 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 (in _Homer 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 the _Iliad_, 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. In _The 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 the
_Iliad_, 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 to take 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 a _datum_. 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 the _Iliad_. 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 suppose anything of
the sort? '_Many_ fires' 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 of _all_ the 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--have
_no_ weight,--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 the _Aeneid_, or _Don 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 from _Iliad_, 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, _and_ the Greek
ships, "in his mind's eye."
But Mr. Verrall proceeds to give a fine example of what I call "an
imaginary discrepancy." "The wall is 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 guard _before 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 are _new_: the
gates are a necessary part of the wall; and only a critic on the search
for a 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 gates _in 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 the _Iliad_." 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 present _Iliad_, but that is
merely a conjecture of his own. He also says (Introduction to Book
xiii.) that the _Aristeia of Idomeneus_ (xiii. 29-518) "altogether
ignores the wall." The whole passage is occupied with fighting
_within_ the wall, which the Trojans have entered _en 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 the _Iliad_, 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, in _Iliad_, 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 the _Thracian_ myth which Diomedes tells: this they
might know, though they did not worship Dionysus, who, like Demeter,
is scarcely alluded to in the _Iliad_[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, and _herself_ drives 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 knowing god 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
the _Iliad_, 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 the _Iliad_ remains 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 of _Macbeth_ that 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, they _have_ found 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." It was 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?" That _this_ blunder 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. of _Macbeth_, 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 of _Macbeth_ that 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, coupled with 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 on _revenge_, and
on one definitely stated form of revenge, and _not_ on atonement. On
this point Grote had not Book i. present in _his_ mind: 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 Greeks _among 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 day _when these shall fight amid the sterns in
most grievous stress around Patroclus fallen. Such is the doom of
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 the _Iliad_ rests 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 the _genuine 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 impeached Book 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.
He _had_, 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 would have 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, his _aristeia_; 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, _that_ was 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 the _Iliad_, 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 the _fond_ of his
character--an unexampled tenderness--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 the _Oedipous Tyrannos_), and of the _Iliad_.
Remove Book ix., and Achilles is no longer himself, there is no motived
tragedy, and the supposed primal kernel, the fancied _Achilleid_
(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), "_Now_ methinks 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 received _no 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 slaying _around 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 do
_thou_ put 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 Achilles _did_ make 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
that minstrel 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. At _this_ moment (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 glory _from
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 Book
_has actually_ tendered 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, but Phoenix 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
of _consensus_ and organisation such as we see in the _Odyssey_."[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
very _clou_ of the _Iliad_, without which Achilles is not himself, and
the _Achilleid_ would 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
the _Iliad_. 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, the _motif_ of 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, in
_Homer 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. In _Iliad_, 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 Thetis seems
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.
[1] July 1908, pp. 75, 76.
[2] _Homer and his Age_, p. 250.
[3] Mr. Leaf's version, Lang, Leaf, and Myers.
[4] _Iliad_, vol. i. p. 256.
[5] See chapter on "Homeric Religion."
[6] _Iliad_, vi. 123-129.
[7] _Iliad_, vol. ii. p. 153.
[8] _Iliad_, vol. i. p. 370.
[9] Grote, _History of Greece_, vol. ii., 1869, pp. 179-183.
[10] _Iliad_, i. 409, 410.
[11] i. 240 ff.
[12] _Iliad_, viii. 473-475.
[13] xviii. 73-80.
[14] _Iliad_, ix. 380-387.
[15] The words of Zeus in Book viii. will be explained as a late
insertion, to harmonise old and new. If so, why did the harmoniser
leave the flagrant discrepancy uncorrected?
[16] _Iliad_, ix. 315-343.
[17] ix. 434 ff.
[18] ix. 345, 375. 376.
[19] ix. 6502.
[20] _Iliad_, ix. 323.
[21] Cf. Book ix. 650-655.
[22] Book xvi. 60-65.
[23] Grote, vol. ii. p. 179, note I on p. 180.
[24] Grote, vol. ii. pp. 179, 180.
[25] Grote, vol. ii. p. 202.
[26] _Quarterly Review_, July 1908, pp. 64-66.