Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/240

 Troy. 2 1 7 less prone to dreamy contemplation than the Hindus, created a style of poetry quite different from theirs. Hellenic bards sang of the combats fought by their ancient princes, and of their adventurous life during the time of their dominion over the cities of Ionia and JEoVm. The disjecta membra of all these tales are incorporated in the Iliads whose form, thanks to the immeasurable superiority of its author, set the fashion for compositions of the like nature. They all contain a modicum of historical truth, but how disproportionate is the real and original event, when measured with the strength and importance it acquired in process of time, has been abundantly shown above. In working back to the first germ of the poem, the supernatural element has naturally to be eliminated. For the Hellenes these wonders were. like other facts, and therefore equally worthy of belief; for us they are but inventions of minds as yet unable to discriminate between what is physically possible and what is not. Untrammelled by facts, the imagination of the bard, mounted on Pegasus, proceeded to set forth the sequence and incidents of the battles fought around Troy ; for the setting of his picture, however, he turned to the scenes that were being enacted around him. As long as this theme was in vogue, each minstrel tried to outdo his neighbour by putting some new feature into his tale. Thus one bard, in depicting the duel about to take place between Hector and Achylles, invented the scene in which the warriors draw lots for it. Another brought in Aphrodite urging iEneas to measure his strength with Diomedes, and a third made the combat between Patroclus and Sarpedon the subject of his lay. Again, one celebrated the contest which took place beneath the city walls, another magnified the struggle for the body of Patroclus into a general battle, fought by the hollow ships and near to divine Scamander, whilst a third reserved himself for the fateful action which deprived Troy of her mainstay. Each of these minstrels had his favourite hero, and each strove to excite the attention of his audience by some trick of language, some detail that should differ from what had been acclaimed but the evening before. Out of all these freshly-minted episodes — and their number must have been large — Homer selected, remodelled, and incorporated into his main tale such as appeared most interest- ing to him. We know that one of these episodes, the Dolonia,