Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/60

36 and bitter, though a good partisan. She will never be forgiven for the last betrayal of Hector.

Great caution must be used in estimating the significance of repetitions and quotations. For instance, the disguised Odysseus begins prophesying his return in, 303, with the natural appeal:—

But when he says the same in, 158, not only is the prophecy imprudent when he does not mean to be recognised, but he is also not at his own hearth at all, and a slight surplusage in the first line betrays the imitator: "Zeus, hear me first of gods and thy kind board." The passage is at home in, and not at home in.

Similarly, what we hear in, 136, is natural:—

Kirkê was essentially 'dread,' and her 'song' was magic incantation; but in, 448, it runs:—

Calypso was not specially 'dread' nor 'full of song,' except in imitation of Kirkê; and, above all, to 'dwell fair-tress'd,' the verb and adjective thus joined, is not a possible Homeric manner of behaviour, as to 'dwell secure' or to 'lie prostrate' would be.

In the same way the description of Tartarus in Theogony, 720—"As far 'neath earth as is the heaven above"—is natural and original. Homer's "As far 'neath hell as