Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/79

57 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 57 against the first part of the Iliad, principally against the second, and also against the fifth, sixth, and tenth books, rests on the later ones, and on those which follow the death of Hector. A tragedy, which treated its subject dramatically, might indeed have closed with the death of Hector, but no epic poem could have been so concluded ; as in that it is necessary that the feeling which has been excited should be allowed to subside into calm. This effect is, in the first place, brought about by means of the games ; by which the greatest honour is conferred on Patroclus, and also a complete satisfaction is made to Achilles. But neither would the Iliad at any time have been complete without the cession of the body of Hector to his father, and the honourable burial of the Trojan hero. The poet, who everywhere else shows so gentle and humane a disposition, and such an endeavour to distribute even- handed justice throughout his poem, could not allow the threats of Achilles* to be fulfilled on the body of Hector; but even if this had been the poet's intention, the subject must have been mentioned ; for, according to the notions of the Greeks of that age, the fate of the dead body was almost of more importance than that of the living; and in- stead of our twenty-fourth book, a description must have followed of the manner in which Achilles ill-treated the corpse of Hector, and then cast it for food to the dogs. Who could conceive such an end to the Iliad possible? It is plain that Homer, from the first, arranged the plan of the Iliad with a full consciousness that the anger of Achilles against Hector stood in need of some mitigation — of some kind of atonement — and that a gentle, humane disposition, awaiting futurity with calm feel- ings, was requisite both to the hero and the poet at the end of the poem. § II. The Odyssey is indisputably, as well as the Iliad, a poem pos- sessing an unity of subject ; nor can any one of its chief parts be re- moved without leaving a chasm in the development of the leading idea; but it diflers from the Iliad in being composed on a more artificial and more complicated plan. This is the case partly, because in the first and greater half, up to the sixteenth book, two main actions are carried on side by side ; partly because the action, which passes within the compass of the poem, and as it were beneath our eyes, is greatly extended by means of an episodical narration, by which the chief action itself is made distinct and complete, and the most marvellous and strangest part of the story is transferred from the mouth of the poet to that of the inventive hero himself 'j*. The subject of the Odyssey is the return of Ulysses from a land lying beyond the range of human intercourse or knowledge, to a home invaded by bands of insolent intruders, who seek to rob him of his wife, and kill his son. Hence, the Odyssey begins exactly at that point f It .appears, however, from his soliloquy, Od. xx. 18 — 21, that the poet did not intend his adventures to be considered as imaginary.
 * II. xxii. 35 ; xxiii. 183.