THE DOG IN HOMER.
TWO sets of strongly contrasted, nay, one might beforehand have thought
mutually exclusive qualities, go to make up the canine character. In all
ages, and amongst all nations, the dog has become a byword for its
uncleanly habits, disgusting voracity, its quarrelsome and aggressive
selfishness. The cynic, or ‘dog-like’ philosopher, is a type of what is
unamiable in human nature. Growling, snarling, whining, barking,
snapping and biting, crouching and fawning, constitute a vocabulary
descriptive of canine deportment conveying none but repulsive and odious
associations. Our language pursues the animal through its different
varieties and stages of existence in order to find varying epithets of
contumely and reproach. The universal and almost prehistoric term of
abuse formed by the simple patronymic—so to speak—has lost little of its
pristine favour, and none of its pristine force; while amongst ourselves
‘hound,’ ‘puppy,’ ‘cur,’ ‘whelp,’ and ‘cub,’ come in as harmonics of the
fundamental note of insult.
On the other hand, some millenniums of experience have constituted the
dog a type of incorruptible fidelity, patient abnegation, devoted
attachment reaching unto and beyond the grave. Many animals have been
made the slaves and victims of man; some have been found capable of
becoming his willing allies; none, save the dog, affords to his master a
true and intelligent companionship. Other members of the brute creation
are subdued by domestication; the dog is, it might be said, transfigured
by it. A new nature awakes in him. A higher ideal presents itself to
him. His dormant affections are kindled; his latent intelligence
develops. The overwhelming fascination of humanity submerges his native
ignoble instincts, evokes virtues which man himself admires rather than
practises, engages a pathetic confidence, inspires an indomitable love.
Literature teems with instances of canine constancy and self-devotion.
The long life-in-death of ‘Grey Friars Bobby’ forms no prodigy in the
history of his race. From the dog of Colophon to the dog of Bairnsdale,
man’s four-footed friend has been found capable of the supreme sacrifice
which one living creature can make for another. Even in the dim dawnings
of civilisation this animal was chosen as the symbol of watchful
attendance and untiring subordination. The bright star Sirius, owing to
its close waiting on the ‘giant’ of the skies, was from the earliest
time known as the ‘dog of Orion.’ A brace of hounds typified to the
ardent imagination of the Vedic poets the inseparable association with
the sun of the morning and evening twilight. Æschylus elevates and
enlarges the idea of divine companionship in the eagle by calling it the
‘winged dog of Zeus.’[51] Clytemnestra, in her hypocritical
protestations before the elders of Argos, could find no more striking
image of fidelity than that of a house-dog left by its master to guard
his hearth and possessions.[52]
Footnote 51:
_Agamemnon_, 133; and _Prometheus_, 1057.
Footnote 52:
_Agamemnon_, 520.
Two opposing currents of sentiment regarding the animal have thus from
the first set strongly in—one of repulsion verging towards abhorrence,
the other of sympathy touched by the yearning pity which a superior
being cannot choose but feel towards an inferior laying at his feet the
priceless gift of love. But since his higher qualities develop, as it
would seem, exclusively under the stimulation of human influence, it
might have been anticipated, and it is actually the case, that in those
countries where the dog is neglected, he is also despised, as by an
inevitable reaction it must follow that where he is despised, he will
also be neglected. It is accordingly among peoples whose pursuits repel
his co-operation that the sinister view prevails, while in hunting and
pastoral regions his credit grows as his faculties are cultivated, and
from the minister and delegate, he creeps by insensible gradations into
the place of canine beatitude as the friend of man. The attitude of
repulsion is, as is well known, general amongst Mahometan populations,
and may be described—although with notable exceptions, such as of the
ancient Egyptians and Assyrians, the modern Parsees and Japanese—as the
Oriental position towards the species; while a benevolent sentiment is,
on the whole, characteristic of Western nations.
Now each of these opposite views is strongly and characteristically
represented in the Homeric poems; represented not as the mere reflection
of a popular instinct, but with a certain ardour of personal feeling
which now and again seems for a moment to draw back the veil of epic
impersonality from before the living face of the poet. To the bigoted
believers in an indivisible Homer the fact is, no doubt, of most
perplexing import, and we leave them to account for it as best they may;
but to impartial inquirers it affords at once a clue and an
illumination. For the Epic of Troy is not more sharply characterised by
canine antipathy than the Song of Ulysses by canine sympathy; while, to
enhance the contrast, dislike to the dog is most remarkably associated
with a vivid and untiring enthusiasm for the horse; and deep feeling for
the dog with comparative indifference to the equine race. More
effectually than the most elaborate arguments of the Separatists, this
innate disparity of sentiment appears to shiver the long contested unity
of Homeric authorship.
To descend, however, to particulars. Homeric dogs may be divided into
four categories. (1) Dogs used in the chace; (2) shepherds’ dogs; (3)
watch-dogs and house-dogs; (4) scavenger dogs. In the Iliad, the first
two classes occur incidentally only, either by way of illustration or in
the course of some episodical narrative, such as that of the Calydonian
boar-hunt in the Ninth Book. The plastic circumference of the Shield of
Achilles includes a cameo of dog-life; but it is noticeable that the
position there assigned to the animal is of a somewhat ignominious
character, and is indicated with a perceptible touch of contempt. The
scene is depicted in the following lines:—
Of straight-horn’d cattle too a herd was grav’n;
Of gold and tin the heifers all were wrought;
They to the pasture from the cattle-yard,
With gentle lowings, by a babbling stream,
Where quiv’ring reed-beds rustled, slowly moved.
Four golden shepherds walk’d beside the herd,
By nine swift dogs attended; then amid
The foremost heifers sprang two lions fierce
Upon the lordly bull; he, bellowing loud,
Was dragg’d along, by dogs and youths pursu’d.
The tough bull’s hide they tore, and gorging lapp’d
Th’ intestines and dark blood; with vain attempt
The herdsmen following closely, to th’ attack
Cheer’d their swift dogs; these shunn’d the lions’ jaws,
And close around them baying, held aloof.[53]
Footnote 53:
_Iliad_, xviii. 573-86 (Lord Derby’s translation). For illustrations
drawn from the dog’s instinctive fear of the lion, see also v. 476;
xvii. 65-67.
It can scarcely be maintained that a lover of the species would have
selected the incident for typical representation in his great
world-picture.
The direct Iliadic references to dogs, on the other hand, show clearly
that they were domesticated in Troy, that they lived in the tents of the
Achæan chiefs, (probably with a guarding office), and that they roamed
the camp, devouring offal, and hideously contending with vultures and
other feathered rivals for the human remains left unburied on the field
of battle. The circumstance that in this revolting capacity they were
predominantly present to the mind of the poet unveils the secret of his
profound aversion. Not as the humble and faithful minister of man,
hearkening to his voice, hanging on his looks, holding his life at a
pin’s fee in comparison with his service, the author of the Iliad
conceived of the dog; but as a filthy and bloodthirsty beast of prey,
the foul outrager of the sanctities of death, the ravenous and
undiscriminating violator of the precious casket of the human soul. In
the tragic appeal of Priam to Hector as he awaits the onslaught of
Achilles beneath the walls of Troy, this aversion touches its darkest
depth, and obtains an almost savage completeness of expression.
Anticipating the imminent catastrophe of his house and kingdom, the
despairing old man thus portrays his own approaching doom—
Me last, when by some foeman’s stroke or thrust
The spirit from these feeble limbs is driv’n,
Insatiate dogs shall tear at my own door;
The dogs my care has rear’d, my table fed.
The guardians of my gates shall lap my blood,
And crave and madden, crouching in the porch.[54]
Footnote 54:
Book xxii. 66-71. (Author.)
Is it credible that the same mind which was capable of conjuring up this
abhorrent vision should have conceived the pathetic picture of the
faithful hound in the Odyssey? Nor can there be found, in the wide range
of the great Ilian epic, a single passage inconsistent in spirit with
the lines cited above. Throughout its cantos, in which the usefulness of
the animal is nevertheless amply recognised, and his peculiarities
sketched with graphic power and truthfulness, runs, like a dark thread,
the remembrance of his hateful office as the inflictor of the last and
most atrocious insult upon ‘miserable humanity.’[55] One of the leading
‘motives’ of the poem is, indeed, the fate of the body after death. The
overmastering importance attached to its honourable interment forms the
hinge upon which a considerable portion of the action turns. The dread
of its desecration continually haunts the imagination of the poet, and
broods alike over the ramparts of Ilium and the tents of Greece. From
the first lines almost to the last the loathsome processes of canine
sepulture stand out as the direst result of defeat—the crowning terror
of death. Among the disastrous effects of the wrath of Achilles
foreshadowed in the opening invocation, the visible and tangible horror
is afforded by ‘devouring dogs and hungry vultures’ exercising their
revolting function on the corpses of the slain; before the dying eyes of
Hector rises, like a nightmare, the horrible anticipation of becoming
the prey of ‘Achæan hounds,’[56] while his fierce adversary refuses to
impair the gloomy perfection of his vengeance by remitting that supreme
penalty;[57] next to the honours of his funeral-pyre, the chiefest
consolation offered to the Shade of Patroclus is the promise to make the
body of his slayer food for curs;[58] in her despair, Hecuba shrieks
that she brought forth her son to ‘glut swift-footed dogs,’[59] and bids
Priam not seek to avert the abhorred doom. These instances, which it
would be easy to multiply, are unmodified by a solitary expression of
tenderness towards canine nature, or a single example of canine
affection towards man.
Footnote 55:
Book xxii. 76.
Footnote 56:
_Iliad_, xxii. 339.
Footnote 57:
_Ib._ 348.
Footnote 58:
_Ib._ xxiii. 183.
Footnote 59:
_Ib._ xxiv. 211.
It is true that a different view has been advocated by Sir William
Geddes, who, in his valuable work, ‘The Problem of the Homeric Poems,’
first dwelt in detail on the contrasted treatment of the horse and dog
in those early epics. He did not, however, stop there. A theory,
designed to solve the secular puzzle of Homeric authorship, had
presented itself to him, and demanded for its support a somewhat complex
marshalling of facts. His contention was briefly this:—that the Odyssey,
with the ten books of the Iliad[60] amputated by Mr. Grote’s critical
knife from the trunk of a supposed primitive Achilleid, are the work of
one and the same author, an Ionian of Asia Minor, to whom the venerable
name of Homer properly belongs; while the fourteen books constituting
the nucleus and main substance of our Iliad are abandoned to an unknown
Thessalian bard. He has not, indeed, succeeded in engaging on his side
the general opinion of the learned, yet it cannot be denied that his
ingenious and patient analysis of the Homeric texts has served to
develop some highly suggestive minor points. The validity of his main
argument obviously depends, in the first place, upon the discovery of
striking correspondences between the Odyssey and the non-Achillean
cantos of the Iliad; in the second, upon the exposure of irreconcilable
discrepancies between the Odyssey and the Grotean Achilleid. But the
attempt is really hopeless to transplant the canine sympathy manifest in
the Odyssey to any part of the Iliad, or to localise in any particular
section of the Iliad the equine sympathies displayed throughout the
many-coloured tissue of its composition.
Footnote 60:
These are Books ii. to vii. inclusive, ix. x. xxiii. and xxiv. The
_Achilleid_ thus consists of Books i. viii. and xi.-xxii.
Everywhere alike enthusiasm for the horse is evoked, vividly and
spontaneously, on all suitable occasions. Ardent admiration is uniformly
bestowed upon his powers and faculties. He is nowhere passed by with
indifference. The verses glow with a kind of rapture of enjoyment that
describe his strength and beauty, his eager spirit and fine nervous
organisation, his intelligent and disinterested participation in human
struggles and triumphs. In the region of the Iliad claimed for the
Odyssean Homer, it suffices to point to the episode of the capture by
Diomed and Sthenelus of the divinely-descended steeds of Æneas;[61] to
the careful provision of ambrosial forage for the horses of Heré along
the shores of Simoeis;[62] to the resplendent simile of Book vi.;[63] to
the gleeful zeal with which Odysseus and Diomed secure, as the fruit and
crown of their nocturnal expedition, the milk-white coursers of
Rhesus;[64] to the living fervour imported into the chariot-race at the
funeral games of Patroclus; to the tender pathos with which Achilles
describes the grief of his immortal horses for their well-loved
charioteer.[65] The enumeration of similar examples from non-Achillean
cantos might be carried much further, but where is the use of ‘breaking
in an open door’? The evidence is overwhelming as to homogeneity of
sentiment, in this important respect, through the entire Iliad. If more
than one author was concerned in its production, the coadjutors were at
least unanimous in their glowing admiration for the heroic animal of
battle.
Footnote 61:
_Iliad_, v. 267.
Footnote 62:
_Ib._ 775-77.
Footnote 63:
This is certainly original in book vi. It comes in as an awkward
interpolation at xv. 263.
Footnote 64:
_Iliad_, x. 474-569.
Footnote 65:
_Ib._ xxiii. 280-84.
Nor can the search, in the same ten cantos, for indications of a
sympathetic feeling towards the dog consonant to that displayed in the
Odyssey, be pronounced successful. Certainly much stress cannot be laid,
for the purpose, upon the striking passage in the Twenty-third Book,
descriptive of the cremation of Patroclus; yet it makes the nearest
discoverable approach to the desired significance. It runs as follows in
Lord Derby’s translation:
A hundred feet each way they built the pyre,
And on the summit, sorrowing, laid the dead.
Then many a sheep and many a slow-pac’d ox
They flay’d and dress’d around the fun’ral pyre;
Of all the beasts Achilles took the fat,
And covered o’er the dead from head to foot,
And heap’d the slaughter’d carcases around;
Then jars of honey plac’d, and fragrant oils,
Resting upon the couch; next, groaning loud,
Four pow’rful horses on the pyre he threw;
Then, of nine[66] dogs that at their master’s board
Had fed, he slaughter’d two upon his pyre;
Last, with the sword, by evil counsel sway’d,
Twelve noble youths he slew, the sons of Troy.
The fire’s devouring might he then applied,
And, groaning, on his lov’d companion call’d.[67]
Footnote 66:
The number _nine_ is curiously associated with the canine species. The
herdsmen’s pack on the Shield of Achilles consists of _nine_; _nine_
were the dogs of Patroclus; and we learn from Mr. Richardson (_Dogs:
their Origin and Varieties_, p. 37), that Fingal kept _nine_ great
dogs, and _nine_ smaller game-starting dogs.
Footnote 67:
_Iliad_, xxiii. 164-78.
These sanguinary rites have been thought to afford proof that canine
companionship was necessary to the happiness of a Greek hero in the
other world. For, amongst rude peoples, from the Scythians of
Herodotus[68] to the Indians of Patagonia, such sacrifices have been a
common mode of testifying respect to the dead. And it may readily be
admitted that their originally inspiring idea was that of continued
association after death with the objects most valued in life. But such
an idea appears to have been very remotely, if at all, present to the
mind of our poet. The Ghost of Patroclus, at any rate, though
sufficiently communicative, expresses no desire for canine, equine,
bovine, or ovine society, although specimens of all four species were
immolated in its honour. The purpose of Achilles in instituting the
ghastly solemnity was, as he himself expressed it,
Footnote 68:
Book iv. 71, 72.
That with provision meet the dead may pass
Down to the realms of night.[69]
Footnote 69:
Geddes, _Problem_, &c., p. 227.
But the motives that crowded upon his fierce soul were probably in truth
as multitudinous as the waves of passion which rolled over it. He
desired to appease the parted spirit of his friend with a sacrifice
matching his own pride and the extent of his bereavement. Still more, he
sought to glut his vengeance, and allay, if possible, the intolerable
pangs of his grief. He perhaps dimly imaged to himself a pompous funeral
throng accompanying the beloved soul even to the gates of Hades,
provision for the way being supplied by the flesh of sheep and oxen, an
escort by horses and dogs, while an air of gloomy triumph was imparted
to the shadowy procession by the hostile presence of outraged and
indignant human shades. A similar ceremony was put in practice, by
comparison recently, in Lithuania. When the still pagan Grand Duke
Gedimin died in 1341, his body was laid on a pyre and burned with two
hounds, two falcons, his horse saddled and still living, and a favourite
servant.[70] But here the disembodied company was altogether friendly,
and may have been thought of as willingly paying a last tribute of
homage to their lord.
Footnote 70:
Hehn and Stallybrass, _Wanderings of Plants and Animals_, p. 417.
The information is in any case worth having that Patroclus, like Priam,
kept a number of ‘table-dogs,’ whose presence doubtless contributed in
some degree to the stateliness of his surroundings. It is, however,
given casually, without a word of comment, as if the bard instinctively
shrank from dwelling on the intimate personal relations of the animal to
man. The son of Menœtius had a gentle soul, and we cannot doubt,
although no hint of such affection is communicated, that he loved his
dogs, and was loved by them. Of the horses accustomed to his
guidance—the immortal pair of Achilles—we indeed hear how they stood,
day after day, with drooping heads and silken manes sweeping the ground,
in sorrow for his and their lost friend; but no dog is permitted to
whine his sense of bereavement beside the body of Patroclus; no dog
misses the vanished caress of his master’s hand; no dog crouches beside
Achilles in his solitude, or offers to his unsurpassed grief the dumb
and wistful consolation of his sympathy. The privilege of sharing the
sorrows, as of winning the applause of humanity, is, in the Iliad,
reserved exclusively for the equine race.
Turning to the Odyssey, we find ourselves in a changed world. Ships have
here become the ‘chariots of the sea’;[71] navigation usurps the honour
and interest of charioteering; a favourable breeze imparts the cheering
sense of companionship felt by a practised rider with his trusty steed.
The scenery on shore leaves this sentiment undisturbed. Rocky Ithaca,
Telemachus informs Menelaus,[72] contains neither wide tracks for
chariot-driving, nor deep meadows for horse-pasture; it is a
goat-feeding land, though more beautiful, to his mind, in its ruggedness
than even the ‘spacious plain’ of Sparta, with its rich fields of
lotus-grass, its sedgy flats, its waving tracts of ‘white barley,’
wheat, and spelt. A suitable habitat is thus, in his native island,
wanting for the horse, who is accordingly relegated to an obscure corner
of the stage, while the foreground of animal life is occupied by his
less imposing rival in the regard of man. The dog is, in fact, the
characteristic and conspicuous animal of the Odyssey, as the horse is of
the Iliad. Xanthus and Balius, the wind-begotten steeds bestowed by
Poseidon upon the sire of Achilles, who own the sorrowful human gift of
tears, and the superhuman gift of prophetic speech, are replaced[73] by
the more homely, but not less pathetic, figure of Argus, the dog of
Odysseus, whose fidelity through a score of years we feel to be no
poetical fiction, but simply a poetical enhancement of a familiar fact.
Canine society is, indeed, placed by the author of the Odyssey on a
higher level than it occupies, perhaps, in any other work of the
imagination. When Telemachus, starting into sudden manhood under the
tutelage of Athene, goes forth to lay his wrongs before the first
Assembly convened in Ithaca since his father’s ‘hollow ships’ sailed for
Troy, we are told that he carried in his hand a brazen spear, and that
the goddess poured out upon him a divine radiance of beauty such that
the people marvelled as they gazed on him. But the most singular and
significant part of the description lies in the statement (thrice
repeated on similar occasions[74]) that he went ‘not alone; two
swift-footed dogs followed him.’ Alone indeed he was, as far as human
companionship was concerned—a helpless youth, isolated and indignant in
the midst of a riotous and overbearing crew, intent not less upon
wasting his substance than upon wooing his unwidowed mother. Comrade or
attendant he had none, but instead of both, a pair of four-footed
sympathisers, evidently regarded as adding dignity to his appearance in
public, as well as imparting the strengthening consciousness of social
support. The conjunction, as Mr. Mahaffy well remarks, shows an intense
appreciation of dog-nature.
Footnote 71:
_Odyssey_, iv. 708; cf. Geddes, _Problem, &c._, p. 215.
Footnote 72:
_Odyssey_, iv. 605.
Footnote 73:
Mahaffy, _Social Life in Greece_, pp. 57, 63.
Footnote 74:
_Odyssey_, ii. 11; xvii. 62; xx. 145.
In the cottage of Eumæus the swineherd, Odysseus, disguised as a beggar,
weary with long wanderings, a stranger in peril of his life in his own
islet-kingdom, finds his first hospitable refuge. Here again we are met
by graphic and frequent sketches of canine manners and character. In the
office of guarding and governing the 960 porkers composing his herd,
Eumæus had the aid of four dogs reared by himself. They were large and
fierce, ‘like wild beasts’;[75] but the savage instincts even of these
half-reclaimed creatures are discovered to be directed towards duty, to
be subdued by affection, nay, to be elevated by a touch of supersensual
awe. If they erred, it was by excess of zeal in the cause of law and
order. For when Odysseus (it must be remembered, in extremely
disreputable guise) approached the thorn-hedged enclosure, they set upon
him together, barking furiously, and threatening to tear him to pieces
on the spot. He had not, however, edged his way between Scylla and
Charybdis to perish thus ingloriously. With unfailing presence of mind
he instantly took up an attitude of non-resistance, stood still and laid
aside his staff. This passivity doubtless produced some hesitation on
the part of his assailants, for when the swineherd hurried out to the
rescue, he was still unhurt. No small amount of compulsion, both moral
and physical—exerted by means of objurgatory remonstrance, coupled with
plentiful stone-pelting—was, however, required to calm the ardour of
such impetuous allies.
Footnote 75:
_Odyssey_, xiv. 21.
Nevertheless, their ferocity is represented as far from
undiscriminating. It is, in fact, strictly limited by their official
responsibilities. They know how to suit their address to their company,
from an Olympian denizen to a homeless tramp, and get unexpected
opportunities of displaying these social accomplishments. For the rustic
dwelling of Eumæus becomes a rendezvous for the principal personages of
the story, and the demeanour of the four dogs is a leading incident,
carefully recorded, connected with the arrival of each. We have just
seen what an obstreperous reception they gave to the disguised king of
Ithaca. Telemachus, on the other hand, they rushed to welcome, fawning
and wagging their tails _without barking_,[76] as that quick-witted
vagrant, whose arrival had preceded his, was the first to observe. But
when Athene visited the farm for the purpose of bringing about the
recognition of the father by the son, which was the first step towards
retribution upon their common enemies, while Telemachus remained
unconscious of her presence—’for not to all do the gods manifest
themselves openly’—it is said, with a very remarkable coupling of man
and beast, that ‘Odysseus and the dogs saw her’;[77] and the mysterious
sense of the supernatural attributed in much folk-lore to the canine
species found vent in whimperings of fear and panic-stricken withdrawal.
Footnote 76:
_Odyssey_, xvi. 4-10.
Footnote 77:
_Odyssey_, xvi. 162.
We are next transported to the scene of the revellings of the Suitors,
and the fortitude of Penelope. The sight of the once familiar turreted
enclosure of his palace, and the sound of the well-remembered voice and
lyre of the minstrel Phemius, proclaiming the progress of the
festivities, all but overturned the equanimity of the counterfeit
mendicant. His practised powers of dissimulation, however, came to his
aid; and grasping the hand of his unsuspecting retainer, he brought,
with a cunningly devised speech, his tell-tale emotion into harmony with
his assumed character. They advanced to the threshold, and there, on a
dung-heap, half devoured with insect parasites, lay a dog—the dog Argus.
But we must allow the poet to tell the story in his own way.
Thus as they spake, a dog that lay apart,
Lifted his head, and pricked his list’ning ears,
Argus, whom erst Odysseus patient bred,
But use of him had none; for ere that day,
He sailed for sacred Troy; and other men
Had trained and led him forth o’er field and fell,
To chase wild goats, hares, and the pricket deer.
But now, his master gone, in foul neglect,
On dung of ox and mule he made his couch;
Fattening manure, heaped at the palace-gate,
Till spread to enrich Odysseus’ wide domain;
Thus stretched, with vermin swarming, Argus lay.
But when he saw Odysseus close approach,
He knew, and wagged his tail, and dropped his ears,
Yet could not rise to fawn upon his lord,
Who paused, and stood, and brushed aside a tear,
Hiding his grief. Then thus with crafty speech:
‘Eumæus, sure ‘tis wonder in such plight
To see this dog, of goodly form and limbs;
But tell me did his fleetness match his shape,
Or was he such as, reared for pride and show,
Inactive at their masters’ tables feed?’
Eumæus heard, and quickly made reply:
‘To one who perished in a distant land
This dog belongs. But couldst thou see him now
Such as Odysseus left him, bound for Troy,
Thou well might’st wonder at his strength and speed.
‘Mid the deep thickets of the forest glades,
No game escaped his swift pursuing feet,
Nor hound could match his prowess in the chace.
But now his days are evil, since his lord
Is dead, and careless women heed him not.
For when the master’s hand no longer rules,
Servants no longer work in order due.
Full half the virtue leaves the man condemned
By wide-eyed Zeus to drag the servile chain.’
Thus as he spake, he crossed the stately hall,
And took his place amidst the suitors’ train.
But Argus died; for dark doom ravished him,
Greeting Odysseus after twenty years.[78]
Footnote 78:
_Odyssey_, xvii. 290-327 (Author’s translation).
Surely—even thus inadequately rendered—the most poignantly pathetic
narrative of dog-life in literature! The hero, returning after a
generation of absence, in a disguise impenetrable to son, servants, nay
to the wife of his bosom, is recognised by one solitary living creature,
a dog. And to this faithful animal, unforgetting in his forlorn
decrepitude, whose affectionate gestures form his only welcome to the
home now occupied by unscrupulous foes, ready to take his life at the
first hint of his identity, he is obliged to refuse a stroke of his
hand, or so much as a glance of his eye, to soothe the fatal spasm of
his joy. A case that might well draw a tear, even from the much-enduring
son of Laertes.
It has not escaped the acumen of Sir William Geddes[79] that the
compliment of an individual name is, in the Iliad, paid exclusively
amongst the brute creation to horses; in the Odyssey (setting aside the
mythical coursers of the Dawn, Book xxiii. 246) to a single dog. Now
this may at first sight seem to be a trifling point; but a very little
consideration will suffice to show its significance. To the author of
the Odyssey, at least, the imposition, or even the disclosure of a name,
was a matter clothed with a certain solemn importance. He lets us know
how and why his hero came to be called ‘Odysseus,’ and furnishes us, to
the best of his ability, with an etymological interpretation of that
ill-omened title.[80] How distinctively human a thing it is to have a
name we are made to feel when Alcinous conjures his mysterious guest to
reveal the designation by which he is known to his parents,
fellow-citizens, and countrymen, ‘since no man, good or bad, is
anonymous’![81] And the reply is couched in an earnest and exalted
strain, conveying at once the extent of the trust reposed, and the
momentousness of the revelation granted—
Footnote 79:
_Problem of the Homeric Poems_, p. 218.
Footnote 80:
_Odyssey_, xix. 409.
Footnote 81:
_Ib._ viii. 552.
Ulysses, from Laertes sprung, am I,
Vers’d in the wiles of men, and fam’d afar.[82]
Footnote 82:
_Ib._ ix. 19, 20.
The same scene, thrown into a grotesque form, is repeated in the cave of
Polyphemus, where the upshot of the adventure depends wholly upon the
prudence of the storm-tossed chieftain in responding to the monster’s
vinous enthusiasm with the mock disclosure of a _no-name_.
These illustrations help to make it plain that, in assigning to brutes
individual appellations, we bestow upon them something essentially
human, which they have not, and cannot have of themselves, but which
marks their share in human interests, and their claim on human sympathy.
So accurately is this true, that a table showing the relative frequency
of individual nomenclature for different animals in various countries
would assuredly, on the strength of that fact alone, set forth their
relative position in the estimation of man.
The dog Argus belonged presumably to the famous Molossian breed, the
first specimen of which was fabled to have been cast in bronze by
Hephæstus,[83] and presented by Jupiter to Cephalus, the eponymous ruler
of the island of Cephallenia. These animals were not more remarkable for
fierceness than for fidelity. To the race were assigned creatures of
such evil mythological reputation as the voracious hound of Hades, and
the barking pack of Scylla; a Molossian sent to Alexander was stated to
have brought down a lion; while, on the other hand, the canine detective
of Montargis had a rival in the army of Pyrrhus, whose funeral pile was
signalised by a desperate act of canine self-immolation; and the dog of
Eupolis (likewise a Molossian), after having torn to pieces a thieving
servant, died of grief and voluntary starvation on the grave of the
Æginetan poet.[84] These qualities are presented and perpetuated in the
four dogs of Eumæus and the neglected hound of Odysseus.
Footnote 83:
From this legend the poet not improbably derived the idea of the gold
and silver watch-dogs, framed by Hephæstus for Alcinous. _Odyssey_,
vii. 91-94.
Footnote 84:
Ælian, _De Natura Animalium_, vii. 10; x. 41.
The Homeric poems ignore the varieties of the species—
Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,
Hound or spaniel, brach or lym,
Or bobtail tike, or trundle-tail.
A dog is simply a dog, as a horse is a horse. But individual horses are
in the Iliad distinguished by differences of colour, while no
colour-epithet is anywhere applied to a dog. It is probable, however,
that in the shepherd-dogs of Albania an almost perfect reproduction of
the animals dear to the poet is still to be found. For in that wild and
mountainous region the Chaonian or Molossian race is said to survive
undegenerate, and, judging by the reports of travellers, its modern
representatives preserve the same vigilance in duty and alacrity in
attack which distinguished the formidable band of the Odyssean
swineherd. An English explorer, who had some serious encounters with
them, has described these fierce pastoral guardians as ‘varying in
colour from dark-brown to bright dun, their long fur being very soft,
thick, and glossy. In size they are equal to an English mastiff. They
have a long nose, delicate ears finely pointed, magnificent tail, legs
of a moderate length, with a body nicely rounded and compact.’[85] It is
added that they still possess the strength, swiftness, sagacity, and
fidelity anciently ascribed to them, showing their pedigree to be
probably unimpaired.
Footnote 85:
Hughes, _Travels in Albania_, vol. i. p. 483.
The Suliot dog, or German boar-hound, comes from the same region, and
has also strong claims to the honours of Molossian descent. Some of the
breed were employed by the Turkish soldiery in the earlier part of this
century, to guard their outposts against Austrian attacks; and one
captured specimen, presented to the King of Naples, was reputed to be
the largest dog in existence.[86] Measuring nearly four feet from the
shoulder to the ground, he in fact rivalled the dimensions of a Shetland
pony. Others were secured as regimental pets, and used to make a grand
show in Brussels, marching with their respective corps to the blare of
martial music. They were fierce-natured animals, rough-coated, and
coarsely formed; mostly tan-coloured, but with blackish markings on the
back, shoulders, and round the ears. Tan-coloured, too, was probably the
immortal Argus; and we can further picture him, on the assumption that
the modern races west of Pindus reproduce many features of his aspect,
as a wolf-like hound, with a bushy tail, small, sensitive ears, and a
glance at once eager, intelligent, and wistful. Drooping ears in dogs
are, it may be remarked, a result of domestication; and varieties
distinguished by them were unknown in Europe until Alexander the Great
introduced from Asia some specimens of the mastiff kind. Consequently,
Shakespeare’s description of the pack of Theseus—
Footnote 86:
C. Hamilton Smith, _Naturalist’s Library_, vol. v. p. 151.
With ears that sweep away the morning dew,
is one among many examples of his genial disregard for archæological
detail. Argus, then, resembled ‘White-breasted Bran,’ the dog of Fingal,
in his possession of ‘an ear like a leaf.’
It is not too much to say that the opposed sentiments concerning the
relations of men with animals displayed in the Iliad and Odyssey suffice
in themselves to establish their diversity of origin. For they render it
psychologically impossible that they could have been the work of one
individual. The varying _prominence_ assigned respectively to the horse
and the dog might, it is true, be plausibly accounted for by the
diversified conditions of the two epics; but no shifting of scene can
explain a _reversal_ of sympathies. Such sentiments form part of the
ingrained structure of the mind. They take root before consciousness is
awake, or memory active; they live through the decades of a man’s life;
are transported with him from shore to shore; survive the enthusiasm of
friendship and the illusions of ambition; they can no more be eradicated
from the tenor of his thoughts than the type of his features can be
changed from Tartar to Caucasian, or the colour of his eyes from black
to blue.
After all, the difficulty of separating the origin of these stupendous
productions is considerably diminished by the reflection that they are
but the surviving members of an extensive group of poems, all originally
attributed without discrimination to a single author. Not the Iliad and
Odyssey alone, but the ‘Cypria,’ the ‘Æthiopis,’ the ‘Lesser Iliad,’ and
other voluminous metrical compositions, were, in the old, uncritical,
individual sense, ‘Homeric.’ So apt is Fame to make
A testament
As worldlings do, giving the sum of more
To that which had too much.
The depreciatory tone of the query, ‘What’s in a name?’ should not lead
us to undervalue that indispensable requisite to sustained and
specialised existence. A name is, indeed, a power in itself. It serves,
at the least, as a peg to hang a personality upon, and not the most
‘powerful rhyme’ can sustain a reputation apart from its humble aid. But
the bard of Odysseus has long ceased to possess one. His only
appellation must remain for all time that of his hero in the Cyclops’
cave. The jealous Muses have blotted him out from memory. We can only be
sure that he was a man who, like the protagonist of his immortal poem,
had known, and seen, and suffered many things, who had tears for the
past, and hopes for the future, had roamed far and near with a ‘hungry
heart,’ and had listened long and intently to the ‘many voices’ of the
moaning sea; who had tried his fellow-men, and found them, not all, nor
everywhere wanting; who had faith in the justice of Heaven and the
constancy of woman; who had experienced and had not disdained to cherish
in his heart the life-long fidelity of a dog.
------------------------------------------------------------------------