Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/177

 io s. VIL FEB. 2.3, 1907.] N'OTES AND QUERIES.

141

LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY ,.',!, 1007.

CONTEXTS.-No. 165.

NOTES : Iron in Homer, 141 Magdalen College School and the ' D.N.B.,' 142 Shakespeariana, 143 February 30 Coleridge's Poem on Christmas Day, 146 Broken on the Wheel, 147.

QUERIES : Isabel (Plantagenet), Countess of Essex and Eu, 147 Countess of Ponthieu 'The Kingdom's Intel- ligencer,' 1660-1663 Gladstoniana : " Glynnese" ' Pen- rose's Journal ' : Turtle-riding, 148 Slavery in England- Anne Plantagenet, Duchess of Exeter Authors of Quo- tations Wanted Latin Lines Flavian Monks Hatching Chickens with Artih'cial Heat Windmills in Sussex .John Law of Lauriston, 149 N. F. Zaba Chavasse Family, 150.

REPLIES : Tristan and Isolde, 150 Poonah Painting- Pictures at Teddington, 152 Slavery in the United States: its Cessation " Thune ": "(Eil-de-bceuf," French Slang Words, 153 Ward Surname Calif ornian English: American Coin-names, 154 Rev. R. Grant' The History of Self-Defence ' Statues of the Georges, 155 West Indian Military Records Shakespeare's Residence New Pl ace Queen Victoria of Spain: Name-Day "Church- yard Cough," 156 Holed-Stone Folk-lore : "Night-hags" Marlborough Wheels Hornsey Wood House : Har- ringay House, 157 " Kingsley's Stand " Authors of Quotations Wanted Anagrams on Pius X." Shadow- catcher "=Photographer, 158 Sonnets by Alfred and Frederick Tennyson, 159.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' Cassell's Book of Quotations, Proverbs, and Household Words ' ' Birmingham and Midland Institute : Birmingham Archaeological Society Transactions ' ' The Quarterly Review ' ' Newspaper Gazetteer.'

Notices to Correspondents.

IRON IN HOMER. (See ante, p. 39.)

I AM much obliged to the reviewer of my '* Homer and his Age ' for correcting my indolence in the hunt for mentions of rings and seals in the Greek tragedians. As to a certain passage which occurs twice in the ' Odyssey,' he has not understood my .meaning. He says of me :

" He demolishes easily special points in theories which suppose different dates of composition for various parts of the poem, but he has, on his own view, to make admissions of later insertions. Thus we read on p. 124 that ' it is a critical error to insisl on taking Homer absolutely and always ait, pied d< .la lettre '; but with due deference to Mr. Lang, it seems to us that this is the very method by which he often [-sic] confutes his adversaries. Of a line twice appearing in the 'Odyssey' (xvi. 294, and xix. 13 he says (p. 193) that, because it disregards the dis tinction iron for implements, bronze for weapons be removed without injuring the sense of the passage in which it occurs.' This seems to us a significant Arf/al for the other side, arid the easy condition that the sense of the passage is not in
 * it must therefore be a very late addition ; it may

ured would allow of excisions of a wholesale haracter such excisions, indeed, as are made by hose who suppose a core of narrative and a gradual iddition to it, not necessarily contemporaneous."

Had the reviewer read the whole context of my passage some eight lines (pp. 192-3) he would have found that I am not positive when I say, " The line in the Odyssey ' must be a very late addition." [ offer an alternative explanation : "If, on }he other hand, the line be as old as the oldest part of the poem, the author for once ^orgets his usual antiquarian precision." The line which reads like a proverbial saying can only have been made when iron was the usual metal for warlike weapons, [n the whole of the rest of the ' Odyssey ' oronze is the only metal for warlike gear. Therefore either the line is an addition, inserted late, in the full-blown Iron Age ; or, if it be as old as the rest of the epic, the poet, or the poets, elsewhere consistently sang, with archaeological precision, as if they were living in the age of bronze weapons. I have argued (pp. 1-6, and elsewhere) that no poets of early uncritical ages, nor even the classical poets of critical ages, have tried to be archaeological, or have succeeded in archaizing that the practice is modern. Thus the crux is, Did the early poets of the ' Odyssey ' preserve archaeological precision except in a single line, or is the line a late addition ? The reader may choose between the alternatives.

The reviewer, moreover, has not observed, apparently, my denial (p. 193, note 1) that the possibility of removing a line without in- juring the sense is a proof of interpolation. Critics are usually of that opinion when their theory can be served by excising a line. I never excise a line because it is adverse to my theory. Even in this case, though the line contradicts the whole uniform tenor of both epics as much so as a line in 'Beowulf would do which represented all weapons as of bronze I leave the question open. I do not understand what can be meant by mention of a reference, on my p. 204, to " another unfortunate line in the ' Odyssey.' " It is, of course, the same line, which is twice repeated with the rest of the speech in which it occurs, and my argument is the same in both cases. I do not (p. 204), as alleged, " admit the retention of such terms concern- ing obsolete things," namely, of " bronze " for weapons when bronze has become obsolete for weapons. I ask, // such terms are retained, what value can be ascribed to the evidence of the poets on points of culture ? ANDREW LANG.