respect to the age of Homer. Achilles observes, that love and care[957]
towards a wife are a matter of course with every right-minded man.
Love and care, indeed, may be shown to a pet animal. It is not on the
mere words, therefore, that we must rest our conclusions; but upon
the spirit in which they are spoken, and the whole circle of signs
with which they are associated. It is on the reciprocity of all those
sentiments between man and wife, father and daughter, son and mother,
which are connected with the moral dignity of the human being. It is
on the confidence exchanged between them, and the loving liberty of
advice and exhortation from the one to the other. The social equality
of man and woman is of course to be understood with reserves, as is
that other equality, which nevertheless indicates a political truth of
the utmost importance, the equality of all classes in the eye of the
law. There are differences in the nature and constitution of the two
great divisions of the race, to be met by adaptations of treatment
and of occupation; without such adaptations, the seeming equality
would be partiality alike dangerous and irrational. But, subject to
those reserves, we find in Homer the fulness of moral and intelligent
being alike consummate, alike acknowledged, on the one side and on the
other. The conversation of Hector and Andromache in the Sixth Iliad,
of Ulysses and Penelope in the Twenty-third Odyssey, the position of
Arete at the court of Alcinous, and that of Helen in the palace of
Menelaus, all tell one and the same tale. Ulysses, for example, where
he wishes to convey his supplication in Scheria to the King, does it by
falling at the Queen’s feet: but she does not supplicate her husband:
the address to her seems to have sufficed. And Helen appears, in the
palace of Menelaus, on such a footing relatively to her husband, as
would perfectly befit the present relations of man and woman. Nay, we
may take the speech of Helen in the Sixth Iliad, addressed to Hector,
where she touches on the character of Paris, as equal to any of them
by way of social indication. What we there read is not the sagacity or
intelligence of the speaker, but it is the right of the wife (so to
call her) to speak about the character of her husband and its failings,
her acknowledged possession of the standing ground from which she can
so speak, and speak with firmness, nay, even with an authority of her
own.
[957] Il. ix. 341.
When we see Briseis, the widow of a prince, sharing the bed of
Achilles, and delivered over as a slave into the hands of Agamemnon,
when we find Hector anticipating that Andromache might be required to
perform menial offices for a Greek mistress, and Nestor encouraging
the army not to quit Troy until they had forced the Trojan matrons
into their embraces, we are struck with pity and horror. But we must
separate between the danger and suffering which uniformly dogs the weak
in times of violence, most of all, too, after the sack of a city, and
what belongs to the age of Homer in particular. After this separation
has been effected, there remains nothing which ought to depress our
views of the position of woman in the heroic age. The sons of Priam,
princes of Troy, were sold into captivity by Achilles as he took
them[958]: of course the purchasers put them to menial employments.
Not only so, but Eumæus, the faithful swineherd and slave of Ulysses,
was by birth royal: his father Ctesios was king of two wealthy and
happy cities[959]. From the name Εὐρυμέδουσα, it would appear probable
that she also, the chamber-woman of the palace of Alcinous, though a
captive, was of noble birth[960].
[958] Il. xxi. 40.
[959] Od. xv. 413.
[960] Od. vii. 8.
There is not in the whole of the poems an instance of rude or abusive
manners towards woman as such, or of liberties taken with them in
the course of daily life. If Melantho gets hard words, it is not as
a woman, but for her vice and insolence. The conduct of the Ithacan
Suitors to Penelope, as it is represented in the Odyssey, affords the
strongest evidence of the respect in which women were held. Her son had
been a child: there was no strong party of adherents to the family; yet
the highflown insolence of the Suitors, demanding that she should marry
again, is kept at bay for years, and never proceeds to violence.
~_Force of conjugal attachments._~
We find throughout the poems those signs of the overpowering force
of conjugal attachments which, from all that has preceded, we might
expect. While admitting the superior beauty of Calypso as an Immortal,
Ulysses frankly owns to her that his heart is pining every day for
Penelope[961]. It is the highest honour of a hero to die fighting
on behalf of his wife and children. The continuance of domestic
happiness, and the concord of man and wife, is a blessing so great,
that it excites the envy of the gods, and they interrupt it by some
adverse dispensation[962]. And no wonder; for nothing has earth to
offer better, than when man and wife dwell together in unity of spirit:
their friends rejoice, their foes repine: the human heart has nothing
more to desire[963]. There is here apparently involved that great and
characteristic idea of the conjugal relation, that it includes and
concentrates in itself all other loves. And this very idea is expressed
by Andromache, where, after relating the slaughter of her family by
Achilles, she tells Hector, ‘Hector, nay but thou art for me a father,
and a mother, and a brother, as well as the husband of my youth[964].’
To which he in the same spirit of enlarged attachment replies, by
saying that neither the fate of Troy, which he sees approaching, nor of
Hecuba, nor of Priam, nor of his brothers, can move his soul like the
thought, that Andromache will as a captive weave the web, and bear the
pitcher, for some dame of Messe or of Hypereia[965].
[961] Od. v. 215.
[962] Od. xxiii. 210.
[963] Od. vi. 180-5.
[964] Il. vi. 429, 30. Compare the following: _Domino suo, imò Patri;
conjugi suo, imò Fratri; ancilla sua, imò filia: ipsius uxor, imò
soror; Abælardo, Heloissa_. Abæl. Opp.
[965] Il. vi. 450-7.
~_Woman-characters of Homer._~
With the pictures which we thus find largely scattered over the poems,
of the relations of woman to others, the characters which Homer has
given us of woman herself are in thorough harmony. Among his living
characters we do not find the viragos, the termagants, the incarnate
fiends, of the later legends. Nay, the woman of Homer never dreams
of using violence, even as a protection against wrong. It must be
admitted, that he does not even present to us the heroine in any more
pronounced form, than that of the moral endurance of Penelope. The
heroine proper, the Joan of Arc, is certainly a noble creation: but
yet one perhaps implying a state of things more abnormal, than that
which had been reached by the Greeks of the Homeric age. The pictures
of women, which Homer presents to us, are perfect pictures; but they
are pictures simply of mothers, matrons, sisters, daughters, maidens,
wives. The description which the Poet has given us of the violence
and depravity of Clytemnestra, is the genuine counterpart of his high
conception of the nature of woman[966]:
[966] Od. xi. 427.
ὣς οὐκ αἰνότερον καὶ κύντερον ἄλλο γυναικὸς,
ἥτις δὴ τοιαῦτα μετὰ φρεσὶν ἔργα βάληται.
For, in proportion as that nature is elevated and pure, does it become
more shameful and degraded when, by a total suppression of its better
instincts, it has been given over to wickedness.
Of the minor infirmities of our nature, as well as of its grosser
faults, the women of Homer betray much less than the men. Nowhere has
he introduced into a prominent position the character of a vicious
woman. The only instance of the kind is among a portion of the female
attendants in the palace of Ulysses, where, out of fifty, no more
than twelve were at last the willing tools, having at first[967]
been the reluctant victims, of the lust of the proud and rapacious
band of Suitors. Clytemnestra, indeed, appears as a lofty criminal
in the perspective of the poem, but her wickedness, too, is wholly
derivative. Ægisthus corrupts her by a long course of effort, for,
as Homer informs us, she had been a right-minded person; φρεσὶ γὰρ
κέχρητ’ ἀγαθῇσι[968]. On the one side we have only to place her and
the saucy slut Melantho; on the other, we have Andromache, Hecuba, and
Briseis in the Iliad; in the Odyssey, Penelope and Euryclea, Arete
and Nausicaa; the slightly drawn figures, such as that of the mother
of Ulysses in the Eleventh Odyssey, are in the same spirit as the
more full delineations. There is not a single case in the poems to
qualify the observation, first, that the woman of Homer is profoundly
feminine: secondly, that she is commonly the prop of virtue, rarely the
instrument, and (in this reversing the order of the first temptation)
never the source, of corruption.
[967] Od. xxii. 37.
[968] Od. iii. 266.
In company with all that we have seen, we likewise find that the
limits of the position of woman are carefully marked, and that she
fully comprehends them. There is nowhere throughout the poems a single
effort at self-assertion: the ground that she holds, she holds without
dispute. If at any point a stumblingblock could be likely to be found,
it would be between a mother just parting with her authority, and
a son newly come of age. Yet Penelope and Telemachus never clash,
and thoroughly understand one another. Again, the Homeric man, even
the Homeric good man, is sometimes the subject of hasty, vehement,
and tumultuous passions; the woman never. She finds her power in
gentleness; she rules with a silken thread; she is eminent for the
uniformity of her self-command, and for the observance of measure in
all the relations of life. The misogynism which marked Euripides and
other later writers has, and could have, no place in Homer: the moral
standard of his women is higher than that of his men; their office,
which they perform without fault, is to love and to minister, and their
reward to lean on those whom they serve.
The lower aspect of the relation between the two sexes is in the poems
wholly secondary. All that tends to sensualize it is commonly repelled
or hidden, and, when brought into mention at all, is yet carefully and
anxiously depressed. Even the cases of exception, which lie beyond the
pale of marriage, are kept in a certain analogy with it, and are as
far as possible removed from the promiscuous and brutal indulgence,
which marked the later Pagan ages, including those of the greatest
pride and splendour, and which still so deeply taints the societies of
Christendom.
We may find, if it be needed, some further evidence of the high
position of woman upon earth in the relation subsisting between the
Homeric gods and goddesses respectively. For that relation approaches
as nearly as may be to equality in force and intelligence, while in
purity the latter are on the whole superior. After Jupiter, the deities
most elevated in Homer are, Juno and Minerva, Neptune and Apollo; and
of all these, I think, we must consider Minerva to have stood first in
his estimation. This arrangement could not but harmonize with, while it
also serves to measure, his ideas of the earthly place and character of
woman.
A similar inference is suggested by the tendency of the Greeks to
enshrine many ideas, sometimes great, and occasionally both great and
good, in feminine impersonations.
We will, lastly, inquire into the employments of women in the heroic
age; both to ascertain how nearly they could approach to the summits
of society, and also what was their general share in the division of
occupations.
~_Women were admitted to sovereignty._~
Among nations where war, homicide, and piracy so extensively prevailed,
it is certainly deserving of peculiar consideration, that we should
find any traces of the exercise of sovereignty by a woman. There are
however three cases in the poems, which in a greater or less degree
serve to imply that it was neither unknown nor wholly unfamiliar.
1. Andromache states, that her mother was queen in Hypoplacian Thebes.
The word is βασίλευεν[969]. It implies more than being the mere wife of
a king; though, as it was during the life time of her husband Eetion,
we cannot justly infer from it that there was here any exercise of
independent sovereign power. It is the only instance in the Iliad,
where we have any word, that has βασιλεὺς for its basis, applied to a
woman.
[969] Il. vi. 425.
2. The common tradition is, that Jason acquired possession of Lemnos
by marriage with Hypsipyle its queen. This is so far supported by
Homer that, while Jason clearly appears in the poems as a Greek,
we notwithstanding find his son sovereign of Lemnos, without any
indication of a conquest or regular migration, and Hypsipyle is
mentioned as his mother. The simple fact that the mother, contrary
to Homer’s usual practice, is in this case named as well as the
father, raises a presumption that it is because she had reigned in the
island[970].
[970] Il. vii. 468, 9.
In the Eleventh Odyssey we are told that Neleus, the younger of the two
illegitimate sons of Tyro, came to dwell in Pylos, and that he married
Chloris, the youngest daughter of Amphion an Iasid, giving large
presents to obtain her hand[971]. The text proceeds,
[971] Od. xi. 254-7, 281-5.
ἡ δὲ Πύλου βασίλευε, τέκεν δέ οἱ ἀγλαὰ τέκνα.
This may mean that she became his queen when he was king of Pylos: or
it may mean that he became her husband when she was already queen there.
The Odyssey discloses to us the manner in which, under circumstances
like those of the Trojan war, sovereign power would naturally pass into
female hands otherwise than by inheritance.
It would appear that, when Agamemnon set sail for Troy, he left
Clytemnestra in charge of his affairs as well as of his young son
Orestes, only taking the precaution to provide her with a trustworthy
counsellor in the person of his Bard[972]. As it was by inveigling
Clytemnestra that Ægisthus obtained the sovereign power, she must
evidently have been its depository.
[972] Od. iii. 263-8.
In like manner it would appear, that Penelope was left in charge
of Telemachus by Ulysses when he went to Troy, and that Mentor was
appointed to perform for her some such friendly office, as that which
the Bard undertook for Clytemnestra. The statement here is, that
Ulysses committed to him authority over his whole household[973].
But it is plain that Penelope had the indoor management; since
Telemachus speaks of the mode in which she regulated the reception of
strangers[974], and we hear of her rule in other matters[975]. Here we
see openings for the natural formation of the word βασίλισσα, which
seems originally to have meant, not a king’s wife merely, but a woman
in the actual exercise of royal authority; and which first appears in
the Odyssey.
[973] Od. ii. 225-7.
[974] Od. xx. 129-33. comp. xix, 317. sqq.
[975] Od. xxii. 426, 7.
The ordinary occupation of women of the highest rank in the poems is
undoubtedly to sit engaged, along with their maidens of the household,
in spinning, weaving, or embroidery. Thus we find it with Helen,
Penelope, and Andromache. But when Hector bids Andromache retire to
these duties, he speaks of them in contradistinction not to all other
duties, but to war, which, as he says, is the affair of men. Even this
rule, however, was subject to exception. The Bellerophon of Homer
fights with the Amazons[976]; and the part taken by the goddesses in
the Theomachy shows, that the idea of women-soldiers was not wholly
strange to his mind; as it is in fact to this day, I believe, less
attractively exemplified in the African kingdom of Dahomey. But manual
employments, taken alone, would not afford a just criterion. The
dialogues of the speeches clearly show that then, as now, the woman was
concerned in all that concerned her husband.
[976] Il. vi. 186.
~_And to the service of the gods._~
Next to political supremacy, we may naturally inquire how far women
were qualified for the service of the gods.
We have various signs, more or less clear, of their sharing in it. The
reference to the Nurses of Dionysus cannot be wholly without force in
this direction. The abstraction of Alcyone by Apollo has probably a
more positive connection with female ministry. But we are provided,
as far as Troy at least is concerned, with one clear and conclusive
instance. The Sixth Iliad affords us a glimpse of a female priesthood,
and a worship confined to women, that subsisted among the Trojans.
Helenus, alarmed at the feats of Diomed, urges Hector to desire Hecuba
to collect the aged women for a procession to the temple of Athene,
with a robe for a gift, and with the promise of a hecatomb (Il. vi.
75-101). Hector then acquaints the troops, that he was going to
desire the old counsellors and the matrons of the city to supplicate
the deities, and to promise hecatombs (iii. 15). There seems to be
something of policy in the way in which he thus generalizes, for the
army, his account of the design: perhaps afraid of the effect that
might be produced by its peculiar character. When he finds Hecuba, he
lays upon her precisely the injunction that Helenus had recommended.
She sends her female servants to collect the aged women through the
city (286, 7). She leads them to the temple of Athene in the citadel.
They are there received by Theano, who had been appointed, apparently
by the Trojan public[977], priestess to that deity. Theano takes the
robe from Hecuba, and herself offers it and prays. Her prayer is for
the city, and not for the men by name, but for the wives and infants:
and her promise is, _we_ will sacrifice, ἱερεύσομεν, twelve, not oxen,
but heifers, yearlings, untouched by the goad (Il. vi. 296-310). Thus
the feminine element runs apart through the whole.
[977] Eustath. in loc.
We have no reason to conclude that this order of things was
exceptional; for though the time was one of peculiar danger and
emergency, the temple, the worship, and the priesthood stand before us
as belonging to the regular institutions of Troy.
We have no case like that of Theano among the Greeks. It could, indeed,
hardly be expected; as priesthood had not yet grown to be an Hellenic
institution. Yet, while the direct force of the narrative speaks for
Troy alone, we are justified in giving it a more general significance,
because the Greek woman is apparently rather before than behind the
Trojan one in influence, and in the substantiveness of her position.
In the Trojan genealogy[978] no notice is taken of women; nor have
we any means of judging whether they were regarded as capable of
succession to the throne, or what was their political and historical
importance. But among the Greek races this was clearly great. The large
number of women whom Homer has introduced in the realm of Aides, and
the parts assigned to them, are plain indications of their important
share in the movement of Greek history.
[978] Il. xx. 215-40.
~_Their household employments._~
The apportionment of the ordinary employments of women appears to have
been managed in general accordance with the suppositions, towards which
all the foregoing facts would lead us.
We have them indicated in a great variety of passages of the poems,
from among which we may select two in particular.
The first relates to Circe and her attendant Nymphs; but we may take it
as an exact copy of the arrangements of a prince’s household.
Circe has four female servants, who are called δρήστειραι. The first
provides the seats with the proper coverings; the second prepares and
lays the tables; the third mixes the wine and brings the goblets; the
fourth carries water, and lights the fire to boil it[979].
[979] Od. x. 348-59.
The second passage exhibits to us the household of Ulysses at the break
of day, when the in-door and out-door servants are setting about their
morning duties.
There were fifty women servants. Of these twelve were employed as
flour-grinders (ἀλετρίες); and this appears to have been the most
laborious employment among all those assigned to women. Eleven of
the twelve have finished their task and retired to rest; the twelfth
remains till the morning at her work, and curses the Suitors who cause
her such fatigue[980].
[980] Od. xx. 105. Cf. xxii. 421.
It is now dawn[981]. Part of the maid-servants are lighting the fire.
The old but active Euryclea is up betimes, and has[982] the place of
housekeeper. She desires a part of them to set smartly about sweeping
the house, and putting the proper covers on the furniture; another part
are to wipe the tables and the cups; a third bevy, no fewer than twenty
in number, are dispatched for water[983].
[981] Od. xx. 122.
[982] Od. xxii. 425.
[983] Ibid. 149-56, 158.
Meantime the men-servants (δρηστῆρες or θεράποντες)[984] of the Suitors
have made their appearance, and they set about preparing logs for the
fire. Then come in from the country the swineherd with his swine, the
goatherd with his goats; and, from over the water, the cowherd with his
cow, and with more goats.
[984] Od. xvi. 248, 53. xx. 160.
Taking the general evidence of the poems, it stands thus. Of
agricultural operations, we find women sharing only in the lighter
labours of the vintage[985]; or perhaps acting as shepherdesses[986].
The men plough, sow, reap, tend cattle and live stock generally; they
hunt and they fish; and they carry to the farm the manure that is
accumulated about the house[987].
[985] Il. xviii. 567.
[986] Such seems to be the most probable meaning of Il. xxii. 126-8.
[987] Od. xvii. 299.
Within doors, the women seem to have the whole duty in their hands,
except the preparation of firewood and of animal food. The men kill,
cut up, dress, and carve the animals that are to be eaten. The women,
on the other hand, spin, weave, wash the clothes, clean the house,
grind the corn, bake the bread and serve it[988], with all the
vegetable or mixed food, or what may be called made dishes[989] (εἴδατα
πολλά). They also prepare the table, and hand the ewer with the basin
for washing. And a portion of them act as immediate attendants to the
mistress of the palace, Andromache, Penelope, or Helen.
[988] Od. iv. 623.
[989] Od. vii. 172-6, et alibi.
~_Their service about the bath._~
Thus far all is easy and becoming; but an apparent difficulty confronts
us when we find, that it was the usage for women to undertake certain
duties connected with the bathing of men. Sometimes this was done by
servants; thus it was managed for Telemachus and Pisistratus in the
palace of Menelaus, and for Ulysses in that of the Phæacian king. On
the other hand, it was sometimes an office of hospitality rendered by
women, and even by young damsels, of the highest rank, to distinguished
strangers of their own age or otherwise. Polycaste, the young and fair
daughter of Nestor, (as the text is commonly interpreted,) bathed
and anointed Telemachus, and put on him a cloak and vest[990]. Helen
herself, when she was living in Troy, performed the like offices for
Ulysses, on the occasion of his mission thither in the disguise of a
beggar[991]:
[990] Od. iii. 464-8.
[991] Od. iv. 252.
ἀλλ’ ὅτε δή μιν ἐγὼ λόεον καὶ χρῖον ἐλαίῳ,
ἀμφὶ δὲ εἵματα ἕσσα....
And lastly, the goddess Circe discharged the very same function, with
some addition to the description, on behalf of Ulysses her visitor. For
here it is explicitly stated, that she poured water over his head and
shoulders[992]:
[992] Od. x. 361.
ἔς ῥ’ ἀσάμινθον ἕσασα λό’ ἐκ τρίποδος μεγάλοιο,
θυμῆρες κεράσασα, κατὰ κρατός τε καὶ ὤμων.
This usage has given occasion, as was perhaps to be expected, to much
criticism[993] upon the immodest habits of Homer and his age. Pains
have also been taken in their defence[994]. And certainly, if there be
need of a defence, Eustathius does not supply one by pleading, that
it was the custom of the time, and that the Pylian princess doubtless
acted by the command of her father[995]. What is wanted appears to me
not to be defence, but simply the clearing away of misapprehensions as
to the facts.
[993] See Pope on Od. iii. 464-8.
[994] Nägelsbach, Hom. Theol. v. 34.
[995] Eustath. in loc. 1477.
It would assuredly be strange, were we to detect real immodesty
among such women of the heroic age as Homer has described to us; or
even among such men. At a period when the exposure, among men only,
of the person of a man constituted the last extremity of shameful
punishment[996], and when even in circumstances of the utmost necessity
Ulysses exhibited so much care to avoid anything of the kind[997], it
is almost of itself incredible that habitually, among persons of the
highest rank and character, and without any necessity at all, such
things should take place. And, as it is not credible, so neither, I
think, is it true.
[996] Il. ii. 260-4.
[997] Od. vi. 126-8.