Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/209

 VARIOUS POSSIBLE HYPOTHESES. 193 between these three suppositions that our choice has to be made. A scheme, and a large scheme too, must unquestionably be admitted as the basis of any sufficient hypothesis. But the The natural fitting together of these two parts is noticed in the comment of Hcyne, ad viii. 1 : " Cseterum nunc Jupiter aperte solvit Thetidi promisa*, dum reddit causam Trojanorum bello superiorem, ut Achillis desiderium Achivos, ct prcnitentia injuriae ei illatae Agamemnonem incessat (cf. i. 5) Nam que ad/mc narrata sunt, partim continebantur in fortuni belli utrinquo tcntata partim valebant ad narrationem variandam," etc. The first and the eighth books belong to one and the same point of view, while ail the intermediate books belong to the other. But 0- Miiller seeks to prove that a portion of these intermediate books belongs to one common point of view with the first and eighth, though he admits that they have been en- larged by insertions. Here I think he is mistaken. Strike out anything which can be reasonably allowed for enlargement in the books between the first and eighth, and the same difficulty will still remain in respect to the remainder ; for all the incidents between those two points are brought out in a spirit altogether indifferent to Achilles or his anger. The Zeus of the fourth book, as contrasted with Zeus in the first or eighth, marks the differ- ence ; and this description of Zeus is absolutely indispensable as the con- necting link between book iii. on the one side and books iv. and v. on the other. Moreover, the attempt of 0. Miiller, to force upon the larger portion of what is between the first and eighth books the point of view of the Achilleis, is never successful: the poet does not exhibit in those books " insufficient efforts of other heroes to compensate for the absence of Achilles," but a general and highly interesting picture of the Trojan war, with promi- nent reference to the original ground of quarrel. In this picture, the duel between Paris and Menclaus forms naturally the foremost item, but how far-fetched is the reasoning whereby O. Muller brings that striking recital within the scheme of the Achilleis ! " The Greeks and Trojans are for the first time struck by an idea, which might have occurred in the previous nine years, if the Greeks, ichen assisted by Achilles, had not, from confidence in their superior strength, considered every compromise as unworthy of them, namely, to decide the war by a single combat between the authors of it." Here the causality of Achilles is dragged in by main force, and unsupported either by any actual statement in the poem or by any reasonable presumption ; for it is the Trojans who propose the single combat, and we are not told that they had ever proposed it before, though they would have had stronger reasons for proposing it during the presence of Achilles than during his absence. O. Muller himself remarks (6 7), " that from the second to the seventh book Zeus appears as it were to have forgotten his resolution and his prom- ise to Thetis." In other words, the poet, during this part of the poem, drops the point of view of the Achilleis to take up that of the more comprehensive Iliad : the Achilleis reappears in book viii, again disappears in book x, and is resumed from book xi. to the end of the poem. vot. ii. 9 I3oc.