THE CONTEST BETWEEN HOMER AND HESIOD—HOMER’S DEATH
The cause and circumstances of Homer’s death remain uncertain and
disputed. For them some writers hold fisherfolk responsible.
Midway between (A) the tradition that Homer took so to heart his
impotency to read—be it remembered he had been acclaimed “of mortals
far the wisest”—the riddle of the fisher boys, that he took also to bed
and shortly after died, and (B) the absolute assertion by Herodotus
the Grammarian (_Vita Homeri_) that the poet “died at Ios of disease
contracted on his arrival there, and not of grief at failing to
understand the riddle of the fishers,” lies the account of the death
given in the Ἀγὼν Ἡσιόδου καὶ Ὁμήρου, or _The Contest between Hesiod
and Homer_.[183]
_The Contest_, despite the rather laboured thrusts of the antagonists
full of curious if not connected touches, makes the funeral solemnities
of King Amphidamas the occasion and Chalcis (not Aulis or Delos) the
scene of the encounter.
Victory and prize were adjudged to Hesiod, because he “sang of Tilth
and Peace, not of War and Gore.”[184]
If left to a jury composed of or even leavened by fishers instead of
to the king, the verdict would surely have gone the other way, were it
only on the ground that while Homer affords several spirited pictures
of fishing, we search in vain all Hesiod’s genuine works for any
mention, for even any allusion to fishing.
The word _fish_ occurs only in _Works and Days_, line 277. Even if we
allow _The Shield of Heracles_ to be by Hesiod, we find but one passage
(lines 214-5) relating to fishing, and this with a Net.[185] Hesiod’s
silence on the subject surprises, for (_a_) he boasts himself the poet
of country life, (_b_) states that as a youth he fed and led his flocks
on the sides and amid the streams of Mount Helicon, and (_c_) passed
the rest of his life on the banks of the river Cephissus.[186]
Homer had previously, on consulting the Pythian Priestess as to the
country whence he sprang, received a response, which I render—
“Thy mother’s home is Ios, where in time
Thou’lt lie; but ’ware the young lads’ riddling rhyme.”[187]
But now let the Ἀγὼν speak. “After the contest the poet sailed unto
Ios, and there abode a long time, being already an old man. Sitting one
day on the sea-shore, he asked some lads returning from fishing,
‘Fishermen from Arcadia, have we aught?’
To which they made answer,
‘What caught we, we left; what caught we not, we carry.’[188]
Homer, however, caught not on, until he was told that the key of ‘what’
was not fish, but lice.[189]
“Remembering him of the oracle that the end of life was upon him, he
makes the epitaph for his own tomb. Arising thence, he slipped in the
mud, falling on his rib, and on the third day, so men say, died. And he
was buried in Ios.”
This is the epitaph—
Ἐνθάδε τὴν ἱερὴν κεφαλὴν κατὰ γαῖα καλύπτει,
Ἀνδρῶν ἡρώων κοσμήτορα, θεῖον Ὄμηρον.
or
“Here Earth has hid that holy head of thine,
Marshal of heroes, Homer the divine.”[190]
The story of Hesiod after his victory over Homer as set forth in _The
Contest_ repays telling.
He journeyed at once to Delphi to give the first fruits of his victory
as a votive offering to the Oracle—and here let us note how in early
times, certainly down to the time of Xenophon, the Greeks at important
events in their lives resorted to some such fane for guidance.[191]
Greeted from the inner shrine as one “held in honour high by the
immortal Muses,” as one “whose fame shall reach as far as is spread the
light of morn” (this use of one of Homer’s own and fairest lines[192]
was no doubt intended as the highest possible tribute to his victor),
Hesiod is then warned, “But beware of the fair grove of the Nemean
Zeus, for there lies thy fate of death.”
Alas! for the poet, who to escape the well-known temple of Nemean Zeus
in the Peloponnese hurried off to stay at Oinoë in Locris, never to
discover that there too was a place sacred to the same god and called
by the same name.
At Oinoë he abode with his hosts, until suspecting that he had
debauched their sister (Hesiod seems to have been endowed with
superhuman powers, for according to Proclus and Suidas he was a youth
twice!), they slew him and threw him into the sea. But on the third day
his body was borne back to land by dolphins. On hue and cry for the
murderers being raised the brothers seized a fishing boat and set sail
for Crete.[193] But they found not favour in the “pure eyes and perfect
witness of all-judging” Zeus, who thundered and sank them. “But the
maiden, their sister, after the rape hanged herself.” To conclude in
the words of the Ἀγών,
“So much for Hesiod!”
FOOTNOTES:
[183] The Ἀγὼν is found in only a few of the editions of Hesiod. I
have followed the text of C. Goettling, 1843. The author Herodotus,
who wrote probably about 60 to 100 A.D., lived of course centuries
after Hesiod, who is generally dated some 100 to 200 years subsequent
to Homer. The account given by Suidas varies in several small details,
for instance the riddle is rendered in prose as well as in metre. He
definitely states that illness, not the riddle, was accountable for the
poet’s death.
Since writing this Note, I have come across in the Oxford _Homer_, vol.
v. (1912), edited by T. W. Allen, the Ἀγὼν, the _Life of Homer_ by
Plutarch, and by Suidas, all conveniently placed together. Mr. Allen,
in the _Jour. Hell. Studies_, XXXV. (1915), 85-99, has an elaborate
article on ‘the Date of Hesiod,’ which for astronomical and other
reasons he now fixes as 846-777 B.C.
[184] “It is difficult to understand how the author could derive from
_Works_ _and Days_ a reputation like that enjoyed by Hesiod, especially
if we remember that at Thespiæ, to which the village of Ascra, the
birthplace and early home of Hesiod, was subject, agriculture was held
degrading to a freeman” (Smith, _Dict. Gk.-Rom. Biog. and Myth._, _s.
v._ “Hesiod”).
[185] When Pausanias came to Thespiæ on his Bœotian round, the
representatives of the Corporation who owned the land told him
dogmatically that the _Works and Days_ alone came from the Master’s
hand, and showed him the _ne varietur_ copy on lead, wanting the
proœmium which we read at the head of the poem (Paus., 9. 31. 4).
[186] The passage, attributed by Euthydemus (in his _Treatise on
Pickled Fish_) to Hesiod, which mentions seven fish, does not upset
my statement, because the paternity of the work has long been deemed
spurious. Even Athenæus brands the verses as “the work of some cook,
rather than that of the great accomplished Hesiod,” and concludes from
intrinsic evidence, such as the mention of Byzantium, etc., and the
Campanians, etc., “when Hesiod was many years more ancient than any
of these places or tribes,” that they were written by Euthydemus. See
Athen., III. 84.
[187] Ἁλλὰ νέων παίδων αἴνιγμα φύλαξαι. For other epigrammata, see
_Anth. Pal._ VII. 1 to 7, and Plutarch, _de vita Homeri_, 1. 4.
[188] From _Anth. Pal._, IX. 448.
Ἐρώτησις Ὁμήρου.
Άνδρες ἀπ’ Ἀρκαδίης ἁλιήτορες, ἠ ῥ’ ἔχομέν τι;
Ἀνταπόκρισις Ἀρκάδων.
Ὄσσ’ ἔλομεν, λιπόμεσθ’, ὄσσ’ οὺχ ούχ ἕλομεν, φερόμεσθα,
which may perhaps be rendered in rhyme,
“Fishers from Arcady, have we aught?
Our catch, we left; we bear, what we ne’er caught!”
[189] It suggests itself to me that in the answer to the riddle there
is just possibly a play within a play, or a double latent meaning, for
the word φθεὶρ denotes not only a louse, but also a fish of the Remora
kind. Perhaps this humour is too subtle even for a class so noted for
“calliditas,” or shrewd wit, as Greek fishermen are reputed to have
been.
[190] _Anth. Pal._, VII. 3. Κοσμήτορα I prefer to translate “marshal,”
its first meaning, rather than “adorner” adopted by Coleridge, as being
far stronger, and more fitting for a poet who had “marshalled” on his
stage of the _Iliad_ so many heroes. Herodotus states that the people
of Ios (not Homer) wrote the epitaph at a subsequent date.
[191] It was on the advice of Socrates that Xenophon consulted the
oracle at Delphi, before he set forth for the campaign in Asia, which
forms the story of his _Anabasis_. Tablets discovered in Epirus in
1877 by C. Carapanos (_see_ _Dodone et ses Ruines_, Paris, 1878) give
examples of questions addressed to the oracle at Delphi. Agis asks if
some mattresses and pillows are likely to be recovered. Another pilgrim
enquires whether the god recommends sheep-farming as an investment.
[192] _Il._, vii. 451.
[193] Plutarch’s account (_Sept. Sap. Conviv._, ch. 19) varies in many
details; notably, (1) it acquits Hesiod of seduction, (2) the brothers
of flight, (3) the maiden of hanging herself.