Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/206

 190 HISTORY OF GREECE. So soon as we enter upon the eleventh book, the march of lL* poem becomes quite different. We are then in a series of events, each paving the way for that which follows, and all conducing to the result promised in the first book, the reappearance of Achilles, as the only means of saving the Greeks from ruin, preceded by ample atonement, 1 and followed by the maximum both of glory and revenge. The intermediate career of Patro- clus introduces new elements, which, however, are admirably woven into the scheme of the poem, as disclosed in the first book. I shall not deny that there are perplexities in the detail of events, as described in the battles at the Grecian wall, and before the ships, from the eleventh to the sixteenth books, but they appear only cases of partial confusion, such as may be reasonably ascribed to imperfections of text : the main sequence remains coherent and intelligible. We find no considerable events which could be left out without breaking the thread, nor any incon- gruity between one considerable event and another. There is nothing between the eleventh and twenty-second books, which is at all comparable to the incongruity between the Zeus of the fourth book and the Zeus of the first and eighth. It may, perhaps, be true, that the shield of Achilles is a super- added amplification of that which was originally announced in general terms, because the poet, from the eleventh to tho twenty-second books, has observed such good economy of his materials, that he is hardly likely to have introduced one par- ticular description of such disproportionate length, and having so little connection with the series of events. But I see no reason for believing that it is an addition materially later than the rest of the poem. It must be confessed, that the supposition here advanced, in reference to tho structure of the Iliad, is not altogether free from difficulties, because the parts constituting the original Achillas 2 1 Agamemnon, after deploring the misguiding influence of Ate, which induced him to do the original wrong to Achilles, says (six. 88-137), 'AXX' Ixei uaadfirjv /cat ftcv pevaf ejsXero Zri>f, "At^; i&e'Xu upcaai, 66/j.Evai T' titrepEiai' uiroiva, etc. tions to the present dimensions, and more or less interpolated (we musf
 * The supposition of a smaller original Iliad, enlarged by successive addi