Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/239

 XIX

TREASURE TOMBS AT MYKENÆ

N the following article I endeavor to give a statement of the significance, from a literary point of view, of the remarkable discoveries thus far made by Dr. Schliemann in his explorations at the site of Mykenæ. In order to do this we must recur to the epics of Homer and the majestic drama of the Attic tragedians—to the poetry of a race which has furnished the most exquisite models of all succeeding verse.

Children, reading translations of Homer with delight, yield by instinct to the charm of his matchless beauty and simplicity. They no more question his narrative than they doubt the histories of Cæsar and Napoleon, the voyages of Dampier, or the tales of the Conquistadores. But the most of us, when once past the age of faith in fairy-land and fable, have classed the songs of the wrath and valor of Achilles, the wit and wanderings of Odysseus, and the woes of the house of Atreus, among the more doubtful legends belonging to the youth of the world. The theories of Heyne, Wolf, and their pupils, which made the Homeric poems a growth or collection, rather than a personal composition, have caused us almost to distrust the [225]