Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/255

 EC] CLASSIC METRE AND CHRISTIAN EMOTION 237 tional habit. Because of the intellectual character of the Greek race the emotion in their poetry is clear and distinct, definite in its cause, its nature, and its object, and measured and proportioned. All emotions are limited ; none is excluded. Thus in the Iliad and Odyssey no feeling natural to an early age is barred or even disapproved. A hero may feel anger, hate, revenge, grief, or fear ; he may feel affection, love, or sexual passion; he may entertain desires or repulsions of any kind. It is the same with the women within their lesser range. Only let no hero do what is shameful or infatuate. Such action is forbidden by wisdom and by honor (aiSci?), which together insure success, respect, and fame. Honor or reverence, called by Pindar " the child of forethought," is an ethical sentiment spring- ing from broad intellectual approvals; honor and wisdom impose measure upon emotions and the acts they prompt. Measure is never absent from the characters and conduct of Homer's heroes. They are passionate, but not unrestrained ; and their emotions are not limitless. One may feel the power of wrath of wise Odysseus, when at last, bow in hand, he springs upon the platform, his heart filled with a rage that was not out of proportion to its cause, a rage which, once sated, shall fall to calm, the suitors slain. It is a mighty passion, which the man's strong intel- lect has held restrained ; it is a beautiful passion, and has its cadences like the bowstring which sang so sweetly to his ear. Neither are the passions unre- strained of him who was the most deeply passionate of the heroes. Athene caught him by his yellow