nature of an inexorable force are such as that quoted from Il. xx.
127. In this passage it is said by Juno, ‘We will give Achilles glory;
thereafter let him suffer what αἶσα has appointed for him.’ Now this
refers not to a course of life that he was to pass through, but simply
to the crisis of his death. In Od. vii, the speaker is Alcinous; and
his sentiment is, ‘Let us carry our guest safe home and then leave him
to whatever αἶσα and the κατακλῶθες have ordained for him.’ Probably
this is only an euphemism, and means death, as Juno meant it; but,
in any case, proceeding from another mortal, it is a mere form of
speech perfectly compatible in itself with the idea that the gods are
superior to αἶσα, nay, that man may upon occasion surmount it. In the
other case it is not so; we must understand Juno to recognise the
αἶσα or dispensation as absolute; but then it is the dispensation of
death; and it is, I think, the clear doctrine of the poems that that
dispensation cannot be cancelled or averted from mortals, though there
are various modes in which it may be escaped or baffled: one of them,
that of postponement, which is temporary: another, that of translation
out of the mortal state, as in the case of Ganymede: and a third, that
of revival, as in the cases of Castor and Pollux. To Minerva alone is
ascribed a power over death: and this seems to be a power of subsequent
rescue, and not one of absolute exemption. Euryclea comforts Penelope
with the exhortation to pray to Minerva about Ulysses[545], as she can
afterwards deliver him;
[545] Od. iv. 753.
ἡ γάρ κέν μιν ἔπειτα ἐκ θανάτοιο σαώσαι.
The stress is evidently to be laid upon the word ἔπειτα.
Another passage, which may at first sight present a different
appearance, will, I think, on examination, be found to harmonize
completely with what has been said. When in the Sixteenth Iliad,
Jupiter perceives that his cherished son Sarpedon is about to meet his
death by encountering Patroclus, he laments that it should be the
destiny of one to him the dearest of men, to be slain by that warrior.
Then he proceeds to consider whether he shall remove him from the scene
of danger, though he was fated to die, or whether he shall subdue him
by the hands of Patroclus[546],
[546] Il. xvi. 438.
ἢ ἤδη ὑπὸ χερσὶ Μενοιτιάδαο δαμάσσω.
Thus, in the space of a few lines, 1. he seems to recognise destiny as
a power superior to his own will; then, 2. he debates whether he shall
overrule this superior power; and lastly, 3. he treats the execution
of its decree as the act of that very will of his. And on this course,
advised by Juno, he finally decides.
He desists from executing this plan, not because it is impossible, but
apparently for two reasons: the first, that it may cause discontent and
spleen among the gods; the second, that by similar interferences, on
behalf each of his own child, they too may trouble the order of nature.
His power, therefore, to execute the scheme is clearly implied. But
what scheme? Not one for repealing the law of death, so far as Sarpedon
is concerned[547]; but simply for adjourning the evil by removing him
to his home, and so putting him far beyond the reach of the chances of
the war.
[547] Il. xvi. 436.
When Vulcan is asked by Thetis to provide arms for Achilles, he
replies, Would that I could hide him from his fated hour, even as I can
and will provide him with arms! Here, indeed, the expression is not to
save, but to hide him; yet even this is beyond his power:
αἲ γάρ μιν θανάτοιο δυσηχέος ὧδε δυναίμην
νόσφιν ἀποκρύψαι, ὅτε μιν μόρος αἰνὸς ἱκάνοι[548].
[548] Il. xviii. 464.
Vulcan indeed is a deity of limited powers; but in this case he seems
to express a general law.
~_Death inexorable to Fate or Deity._~
The death, therefore, at some time within a given space, of every
person remaining in the state of a mortal man, was a point settled and
immovable, and so was accordingly the αἶσα of death: but it was that
the αἶσα was fixed, because death was fixed, and not that death was
fixed, because αἶσα ordained it. We must distinguish between a single
incident of a mortal career, an order which nothing can infringe,
unchangeable but uncaused, and the supposition of a power, which causes
that, and likewise all other parts of it, irrespective of personal
will, whether in the gods or in men.
It appears, I think, on the whole, that αἶσα has but a limited and
equivocal connection with the idea of fate; it seems never to mean more
than the fate of a single individual, never to signify the large-handed
destiny that grasps nations and the world. It may be overridden, as by
the Greeks, after the battle of the ships. And the reason of this seems
to be that its meaning has so strong a bias to the side of a moral law,
as opposed to a mere force. This comes out clearly in the sense of the
word αἴσιμος: αἴσιμα εἴδειν is little less or more, than to be a good
man. Its predominating sense is the ordained law of right; and as such,
it is a law very liable to be broken.
~_Destiny under the form of Μοῖρα._~
It is in the Μοῖρα, if anywhere, that we must seek for destiny, in the
sense which approximates to fatalistic ideas. Here, far differently
from αἶσα, the moral idea is subordinate in nearly all cases, and in
some it is wholly suppressed.
Like αἶσα, μοῖρα, properly means a portion or share, a part accruing to
some one under a law. Thus we have οὐδ’ αἰδοῦς μοῖραν ἔχουσιν Od. xx.
171; and παρώχηκεν δὲ πλέων νὺξ τῶν δύο μοιράων, τριτάτη δ’ ἔτι μοῖρα
λέλειπται (Il. x. 252). Thus it appears to pass into the following
senses, which may be usefully compared with those of αἶσα.
The scope of its meaning is far wider: it hardly stoops to signify the
destiny of a single man; Homer could not well have said (see Il. i.
416.) ἐπεί νύ τοι μοῖρα μίνυνθά περ: although he can make μοῖρα as a
power, appoint a destiny _for_ a man, (Il. xxiv. 209.) it is not the
μοῖρα _of_ a man. But it is
1. The appointing power as separate from any thing else. It hovers
between the state of an abstraction and of a person: and it comes
nearer to the latter than αἶσα. Not only have we μοῖρα κραταιὴ
γεινομένῳ ἐπένησε λίνῳ, (Il. xxiv. 209.) but especially,
τλητὸν γὰρ Μοῖραι θυμὸν θέσαν ἀνθρώποισιν[549].
[549] Il. xxiv. 49.
A passage by which, unless its effect were modified from elsewhere,
the μοῖραι seem in principle to take the whole administration of moral
government into their hands, by fixing dispositions as well as outward
actions.
2. Besides being thus personal, μοῖρα reaches to mankind at large, and
expresses a general law, in the passage last quoted.
This may be a law of good fortune, as in Od. xx. 76[550]:
[550] Cf. Il. iii. 182, μοιρηγενές.
μοῖράν τ’ ἀμμοριήν τε καταθνητῶν ἀνθρώπων.
3. Or, with an epithet, it may mean ill fortune; as in μοῖρα δυσώνυμος,
Il. xii. 116.
4. It seems very strongly to signify death, when used simply, and
without addition, as τεῒν δ’ ἐπὶ μοῖραν ἔθηκε, in Od. xi. 560.
5. Or when in apposition, as μοῖρα θανάτοιο, Od. ii. 100, or again as
in Il. iii. 101, θάνατος καὶ μοῖρα.
6. Or any thing ordained for mankind at large, as Od. xix. 592, the
μοῖρα ὕπνου. You must sleep, says Penelope; for the gods have so
ordained it, (ἐπὶ γάρ τοι ἑκάστῳ μοῖραν ἔθηκαν ἀθάνατοι θνητοῖσιν ἐπὶ
ζείδωρον ἄρουραν).
7. Μοῖρα, like αἶσα, may be the embodied will, decree, or dispensation
of the gods. Thus we have μοῖρα θεοῦ, Od. xi. 292, where θεὸς is either
Jupiter or possibly Apollo: and μοῖρα θεῶν, Od. iii. 269, and xxii.
413. Now the names θεὸς and θεοὶ seem to be higher with Homer than any
mythological name. They are his most solemn forms for the expression
of the idea of deity. Thus it is remarkable that he never attaches
μοῖρα directly to any Olympian person. This testifies to its signifying
something larger than is conveyed by αἶσα. But it also seems to
indicate that, even if it were capable of being placed in antagonism to
the will of one of the mythological persons, into whose forms theistic
ideas had passed by degeneracy, yet it was not conceived as opposite to
or separate from the divine principle, but rather as a power associated
with it.
8. Though in general μοῖρα means the thing ordained without reference
to moral ideas, yet it is not always so. Μόρσιμος ordinarily means
destined, while αἴσιμος means right. But the ideas of right and might
were not yet wholly parted. In Od. xxii. 413 it is plain that μοῖρα
θεῶν, pronounced by Ulysses over the Suitors, contains a moral element:
for he goes on to say, οὔτινα γὰρ τίεσκον κ.τ.λ.: and so Eurymachus,
when he means to acknowledge that the death of Antinous was morally
just, says,
νῦν δ’ ὁ μὲν ἐν μοίρῃ πέφαται[551].
[551] Od. xxii. 54.
The presence of the moral element in this word is entirely adverse to
the theory, that it was used in the sense of fatalism. Power apart
from a personal deity has been conceived by the human mind: but moral
power, I think, in such a state of severalty, has never been made the
subject of serious speculation.
9. Μοῖρα has yet another sense, that of κοσμὸς, order. The force of the
term κατὰ μοῖραν is generally ‘with propriety,’ while κατ’ αἶσαν is
‘with right.’
Thus in Il. xix. 256 the Greeks sit still, κατὰ μοῖραν, in order to
hear Agamemnon: and we have an instance of κατὰ μοῖραν meaning ‘with
propriety’ in Il. x. 169. Here Nestor has been chidden by Diomed, not
for a moral offence, but for over-activity: and he replies,
ναὶ δὴ ταῦτά γε πάντα, φίλος, κατὰ μοῖραν ἔειπες.
He could not here have said κατ’ αἶσαν.
~_Under the form of μόρος._~
Lastly, we come to the word μόρος. There are several shades of
distinction between it and μοῖρα.
1. It is never personified in Homer, nor even approaches to
impersonation.
2. It draws peculiarly to the dispensation of death, in conformity with
the law by which in Latin it became _mors_. See Il. xviii. 465. xxi. 133:
and, except in this connection, it does not seem to be used to express
individual destiny.
3. Accordingly it is never associated with deity; in conformity with
the fixed character of the dispensation of death. We have no μόρος
θεῶν, μόρος Διός.
4. Yet this is not because μόρος is stronger than μοῖρα. On the
contrary, we have no case in Homer of a thing done ὑπὲρ μοῖραν, though
it is sometimes apprehended. Thus in Il. xx. 335 Neptune warns Æneas to
retire from before Achilles,
μὴ καὶ ὑπὲρ μοῖραν δόμον Ἄϊδος εἰσαφικήαι.
But μόρος receives the sense of αἶσα as the law of right: a
relationship curiously maintained in _mos_, _moris_, compared with
_mors_, _mortis_. Men bring woe upon themselves ὑπέρμορον, by
obstinate wickedness: and the crimes of Ægisthus (Od. i. 35.) have been
committed ὑπέρμορον.
~_General view of the Homeric Destiny._~
We thus see that, on the whole, the force of destiny, as it appears in
Homer, although it commonly prevails, is not uniformly irresistible.
We never find the deities actually fighting against it, or it against
them. So full and large were Homer’s conceptions of the freedom of the
human will, that fate is sometimes on the point of giving way before
the energy of his heroes, and this even when the strength of some god
is brought in aid of it. Thus Jupiter fears, lest ὑπὲρ μόρον Achilles
should dash the Trojan walls[552] to the ground. Apollo enters the
city[553], lest the Greeks should take it ὑπὲρ μόρον on the day of
the battle with Hector. In the Second Book, after the rush from the
assembly, the Greeks would ὑπέρμορα have returned home, unless Juno had
urged Minerva to bestir herself by influence among them. Many things
are done contrary to αἶσα, or the ordained law of right; whereas,
although μοῖρα is not in the abstract insurmountable, yet in fact it
rarely is surmounted. But then the Fate of Homer, the thing spoken, is
not in conflict with him that speaks it.
[552] Il. xx. 30.
[553] Il. xxi. 517.
We do not find in Homer the curious distinction which the speculative
mind of the Greeks afterwards worked out, between a fate representing
the mere will of the gods, and a fixed fate higher and stronger than
they:
εἰ δὲ μὴ τεταγμένα
Μοῖρα τὰν ἐκ θεῶν
εἶργε μὴ πλέον φέρειν[554].
[554] Æsch. Ag. 993.
And again in Herodotus[555]: τὴν πεπρωμένην μοίρην ἀδύνατά ἐστιν
ἀποφυγέειν καὶ θεῷ.
[555] Herod. i. 91.
While this, on the one side, was the course of speculation, the course
of poetic thought was towards a complete impersonation of Destiny in
the three Fates, representing an image so congenial, as a poetic image
only, to the human mind, that it found its way into the romance poetry
of Christian Italy.
Upon the whole, it appears at any rate most probable, that Homer had
not formed the conception of a law extrinsic to all volition human and
divine, and so powerful as to override it.
It is hardly to be conceived that Homer would have treated a successful
resistance to the laws of Destiny as lying within the possible reach of
mankind, had he deemed it to be a power independent of, and superior
to, the Divine Will; because he always represents the latter as
decisive and supreme over human fortunes.
I think that the primary ideas conveyed in the terms μοῖρα and Fatum
will not be found, when examined, to agree. _Fatum_ is the decree
without reason; the _sic volo sic jubeo_; and the idea of it is the
result of the long, wearisome, despairing experience of bewildered man,
after the world has lost the freshness and the joy of its childhood.
The μοῖρα, or share, is a distribution made according to a law or moral
purpose: it cannot, without parting from its nature, be blind: its
tendency in Homer rather is, as we see in Il. xxiv. 49, to grow into a
sort of rival Providence.
The arguments to an opposite effect are surely inconclusive[556]. The
question raised by the Scales of Jupiter is, not what the springs may
be which determine the movement of the world, but simply what is his
foreknowledge of the direction it will take. These representations
would be perfectly consistent with belief in the supremacy (so to
speak) of Chance: and while we may admit that, inasmuch as they are not
produced for the information of men, they must indicate a limitation in
Jupiter, we should not mistake the nature of that limitation.
[556] Enumerated in Nägelsbach, iii. 7-9.
Again, we must not suppose that because some particular deity deplores
the course of destiny, therefore that course is in opposition to the
general deliberation and decision of Olympus.
And when, as is commonly the case, we find the deities cooperating with
μοῖρα, the assumption that they are its servants, seems to be wholly
unwarranted. It seems much more natural to suppose that the μοῖρα, to
which they are giving effect, is simply the divine will: especially as,
though we find single gods, Neptune or Apollo, for example, cooperating
with μοῖρα, I doubt whether this is ever represented of the gods at
large and their supreme decrees.
In order to solve the general question, what after all can be more
reasonable than to look to the main action of the poems, and inquire
what power or what counsel it is which takes effect through the medium
of their machinery as a whole? If this be the test, there is no room
for doubt upon the issue. In the Iliad it is the Διὸς βουλὴ (Il. i. 5):
the determination of Olympus, into which Jupiter had wisely allowed
his own opposite inclinations to merge. In the Odyssey[557], it is
the decision of the same tribunal, at the instance of Minerva, and
with Neptune alone dissentient. Upon the whole, for the poems and the
day of Homer, I cannot but think that both the supremacy of godhead
as a whole, and the freedom of man remain, if somewhat darkened, yet
certainly unsubverted. The μοῖρα of Homer may, it is probable, be no
more and no less in the main than that θέσφατον, or divinely uttered
decree, which he sometimes uses in such a manner as to admit of the
supposition that they were really synonymous.
[557] Od. i. 20, 45, 77. xxiv. 479.
At the same time we do not find, nor could we expect to find, in Homer
any clear assertion of the majesty of the true Divine Will, as the
mainspring that moves the universe. That is emphatically a Christian
sentiment, which is conveyed in the lofty formula of Dante:
Così si vuol colà, dove si puote
Ciò che si vuole.
So is it willed above, where He, that wills,
Can what he wills.
The Fate of Homer may indeed logically embrace a germ, which will
afterwards expand into the idea of a power extrinsic to Deity, and
able to overrule it. We may argue to show that the representation,
perseveringly developed, means as much as this. But then such
representations in Homer are not perseveringly, much less are they
unilaterally, developed. They have not been thought through even to
their legitimate consequences, and far less to those which appear
to arise from the following out, not of a full truth, but of some
particular and severed aspect of it. Taken at the worst, Destiny in
Homer broods like a cloud in a distant quarter of the sky, silently
gathering the might which, when ripe, is to engage in obstinate and
unending conflict with deity. But for this work the material is not yet
prepared; and practically neither μοῖρα nor αἶσα much crosses the work
of Divine government, such as it is conceived and exhibited in Homer.
I pass on to the second Class.
~_Minor impersonations from Nature._~
Among the Greeks, and even in Homer, every tree, every fountain, all
things inanimate, that either vegetated or moved, had their indwelling
deity. Homer, however, represents the infancy of that system, and
though he impersonates many other local agencies, he gives to none so
active a personality as to Rivers. Ulysses in his distress addresses
the god of the Scherian river[558]; and is answered by the staying
of the current. Simois is addressed personally by Xanthus[559]; and
Xanthus himself, by virtue of his local power, is promoted to the
honour of contending with Vulcan, the god of fire, a member of the
Olympian Court, and a son of Jupiter and Juno. So the Spercheus[560] is
invoked, and, what is more, invoked so far off as in Troas, by Achilles.
[558] Od. v. 445. 451.
[559] Il. xxi. 308.
[560] Il. xxiii. 144.
The perpetual movement which inheres in the essence of a river,
combined with the visibility which separates it from mere atmospherical
currents, seems to connect it more closely than any other natural
object with the idea of life. It is most interesting to observe how
the sentiment here expressed seems to have worked in ages widely
distant, upon great poets of differing nations, temperaments, and
circumstances, after their differing manners. Homer does not impute
feelings to a River; but he impersonates it with a treatment different
to that which he applies to groves, fountain, or meadow. Now these
personifications though not yet disused (especially in the English
poetry of the last century), have become far less real and effective
for the human mind, since the Gospel opened to us the unseen world
with its crowd of ethereal inhabitants. Observe, accordingly, how a
feeling identical with that of Homer, a tendency to invest outward
nature with vitality and action, in these more recent times takes a
different form. The great Dante, more than two thousand years later in
the line of human descent, without personifying, yet ascribes feeling
to a river; he imagines the Po, after its tumultuous headlong descent
with all its feeders from the mountains, longing for peace, and seeking
it by repairing to the sea. Francesca da Rimini thus describes her
birth-place;
Siede la Terra, dove nata fui,
Sulla marina, dove ’l Po discende
Per aver pace co’ seguaci sui.
And one of lesser indeed, (for who is not less than such as these?) but
yet of both high and honoured poetic name, our own Wordsworth, in his
Sonnet[561] on the River Thames, seen from London Bridge at sunrise,
has the well known line,
[561] Miscellaneous Sonnets, Part II. No. xxix.
The river wanders at his own sweet will.
He may also be claimed as a witness to what has been said of the truth
and power of these personifications to the ancients. For in another
noble Sonnet, where he complains of the deadening power and weight of
worldly life, and intends to show that a system of shadows, when men
really appropriate and digest the truth it has, is better for them
than to have a system of substances around them, and yet to remain
unpenetrated by it, he describes that system of shadows by recalling
two of its vivid personifications[562].
[562] Ibid. Part I. No. xxxiii:
‘The world is too much with us.’
But while Homer brings into action no personifications of this class,
except those of Rivers, he peoples each with its appropriate Genius,
the fountains, the grassy meadows, and the groves. In the Great
Parliament of the supernal world at the beginning of the Twentieth
Iliad, all are represented. Even here, however, the distinction is
preserved: the Rivers attend as it were in person; but the rest by
deputy, that is, by their proper indwelling and presiding Spirits;
οὔτε τις οὖν Ποταμῶν ἀπέην νόσφ’ Ὠκεανοῖο,
οὔτ’ ἄρα Νυμφάων, αἵτ’ ἄλσεα καλὰ νέμονται,
καὶ πηγὰς Ποταμῶν, καὶ πίσεα ποιήεντα[563].
[563] Il. xx. 7-9.
Thus the first are impersonations: the second only residences for
persons to dwell in.
~_The Harpies of Homer._~
The Harpies, Ἁρπυῖαι, of Homer have been, I think, truly described as
‘nothing but personified storm-winds[564].’ They have no connection,
when jointly viewed, with the moral order, except that they may,
as mere carriers, take a subordinate part in the fulfilment of a
moral purpose, which is quite as true of the Winds, personified or
unpersonified. The Harpy Ποδάργη is personified individually, as the
mother who bears to Zephyr the two deathless horses of Achilles,
Xanthus and Balius[565]; but apparently for no other purpose than one
purely relative. The classical passage respecting the Harpies is that
in Od. xx. 61-79, which forms a part of the prayer of Penelope to
Diana. The object of the matron’s petition is that, wearied out with
her sorrows, she may die, and this in one of two modes: either by the
arrows of the goddess; or else, that a hurricane may seize her, and,
driving her along the paths of air, deposit her in the channels of
Ocean, that is to say, the place of the dead. Then she proceeds to
illustrate this last mode of death, of which she has named θύελλα as
the instrument, by the tale of the daughters of Pandareus, who, having
lost their parents, were in an extraordinary manner petted by the
goddesses. Aphrodite fed them, Here gave them sense and beauty, Artemis
stature, Pallas endowed them with skill. And, lastly, Aphrodite went
to Olympus to induce Jupiter to provide for their marriage. But while
she was away on this errand, the Harpies carried off these maidens, and
gave them to the Ἐρινύες, ἀμφιπολεύειν, to be their servants, as it
is sometimes rendered, but, as I should venture to construe it, ‘for
them, i. e. the Ἐρινύες, to deal with.’ It is evident that, in this
curious legend, the Harpies are introduced to exemplify nothing more
than the part which Penelope had previously referred to the θύελλα;
and these powers, who represent Hurricane or Squall, and in whose
agency lies the gist of the story, appear to have been in this matter
the ministers of the Ἐρινύες, beings of a very different order. These
beings are evidently introduced, though entirely beyond the parallel
of the θύελλα, in order to complete the moral. The only other case in
which Homer introduces the Harpies is in a line, twice repeated, where
Penelope supposes that they may have carried Ulysses off (ἀκλειῶς)
ingloriously[566], i. e. so as to rob him in death of his due meed
of fame. And this Friedreich well compares with part of a passage in
the Book of Job, which is as follows, chap. xxvii. 20, 21. ‘A tempest
stealeth him away in the night: the east wind carrieth him away, and he
departeth; and as a storm hurleth him out of his place.’
[564] Smith’s Dict. art. Harpyiæ. On the same subject, see Nägelsbach
Hom. Theol. ii. 12. Friedreich, Realien, p. 667. Crusius on Od. xx. 77;
and Voss as there quoted, whose opinion is, I think, quite erroneous.
[565] Il. xvi. 150. xix. 400.
[566] Od. i. 241. xiv. 371.
~_The Erinues of Homer._~
The Ἐρινύες are of much greater importance; and their position
deserves the more careful inquiry, because it has, I think, been often
misunderstood, perhaps from being appreciated only through the delusive
medium of the later tradition, which appears to me to have let drop
all the finer elements of the conception, by a process similar to that
which it effected upon the great Homeric characters of Achilles, Helen,
and Ulysses.