Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/58

36 36 HISTORY OF THE from the dovetailing of the feet into one another, the alternation of dac- tyls with the heavy spondees, all contribute to give repose and majesty and a lofty solemn tone to the metre, and render it equally adapted to the pythoness who announces the decrees of the deity*, and to the rhap- sodist who recites the battles and adventures of heroes. Not only the metre, but the poetical tone and style of the ancient epic, was fixed and settled in a manner which occurs in no other kind of poetry in Greece. This uniformity in style is the first thing that strikes us in comparing the Homeric poems with other remains of the more ancient epic poetry — the differences between them being apparent only to the careful and critical observer. It is scarcely possible to account satisfac- torily for this uniformity — this invariableness of character — except upon the supposition of a certain tradition handed down from generation to generation in families of minstrels, of an hereditary poetical school. We recognise in the Homeric poems many traces of a style of poetry which, sprung originally from the muse-inspired enthusiasm of the Pierians of Olympus or Helicon, was received and improved by the bards of the heroic ages, and some centuries later arrived at the matured excellence which is still the object of our admiration, though without losing all connexion with its first source. We shall not indeed undertake to defend the genealogies constructed by Pherecydes, Damastes, and other collectors of legends from all the various names of primitive poets and minstrels extant in their time — genealogies, in which Homer and Hesiod are derived from Orpheus, Musams, and other Pierian bards f ; but the fundamental notion of these derivations, viz., the connexion of the epic poets with the early minstrels, receives much confirmation from the form of the epic poetry itself. In no other species of poetry besides the epic do we find generally prevalent certain traditional forms, and an invariable type, to which every poet, however original and inventive his genius, submits ; and it is evident that the getting by heart of these poems, as well as their extem- poraneous effusion on particular occasions and at the inspiration of the moment, must have been by these means greatly facilitated. To the same cause, or to the style which had been consecrated by its origin and tradition, we attribute the numerous and fixed epithets of the gods and heroes which are added to their names without any reference to their actions or the circumstances of the persons who may be described. The great attention paid to external dignity in the appellations which the heroes bestow on each other, and which, from the elevation of their tone, are in strange contrast with the reproaches with which they at the same time load each other — the frequently-recurring expressions, par- ticularly in the description of the ordinary events of heroic life, their "■ ; Hence called Pyihium metmm, and stated to be an invention of the priestess Phemonoe, Dorians, ii. ch. 8, § 13. t These genealogies have been most accurately compared and examined with cri- tical acuteness by Lobeck, in his learned work, Aglaophamus, vol. i. p. 322, seg.