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* HOMSR. 168 HOM£B. ( 1 ) The stereotyped epithets, 'cloudcompelling Zeus,' the "wine-dark' or "uiiharvested" sea, the "rosyfingerwl dawn.' 'the swift-footed Achilles,' the Tcd-theeked sliips ;' (2) the peculiar Homeric simile which, suggested by one point of resem- IhiMce, is continued for the sake of the picture into details where the likeness ceases. It is cleverly imitatt-d by ilatthcw Arnold in Sohrab (i)nl Iluslutii. There are nearly 200 such similes in the Hind, many of them containing precious detail about Homeric life. Those drawn from lions and the chase are particularly vigorous. To the (Jreek, Homer was Bible, Shakes])eare, Milton, and Domesday Book in one. Later forms of poetry were looked upon as evolutions or bor- rowings from Homer. He was the foundation of education, and many cultivated Greeks knew the tliad by Heart. Even in the prime of the Attic drama professional rhapsodists recited the Iliad and Odijunri) to enthusiastic audiences of thou- sands. Ktliieal reMecliim took its first texts from Homer, and was largely occupied in the rriticism of the conduct and character of his per- sonages. Purer religious ideas presented them selves in the form of a censure by Plato and Xenophanes of Homeric anthropomorphism, and the allegorical interpretation of literature was invented as a reconciliation. The first beginnings of literary and linguistic criticism among the (ireek sophists attached themselves to Homeric problems. Lexicography probably originated in books of Homeric glosses. The conception of text criticism arose in the effort to establish a sound Homeric text. And the critical science of the great Alexandrian scholars. Zenodotus, Aristophanes of Byzantium, and Aristarchus, had its origin and achieved its greatest triumphs in the study of Homer. It is in the modern world that the famous Homeric Question begins, if we ignore slight anticipations by Bcntley and Vico, with Wolfs Latin I'rolr<iomenn, published in 1795. This was partly called forth by the recent publication of the Venetian scholia, which revealed how much the true text had been debated by the critics of antiquity. Volf also collected stray notices in ancient authors to the effect that Solon or Hip- ]iarchus required the rhapsodists to recite Homer in due succession or from prompting, and that Pisistratus first reduced the scattered poems of }lomer into one bodj. He inferred that the Iliad and the Odifsseif were not originally composed as we have them, but were put together out of pre- existing materials. He confirmed this view by the argument (now refuted by facts) that writ- ing was unknown, or at least rare, in early Greece, and that a long epic could not have been composed without writing. Since Wolf's time, Lachmann. Hermann. Xitzsch, Grote. Christ, and a host of others have elaborated theories of the composition of the Iliad. The debate between the ' partisans of lays stitched together and an orig- inal framework expanded and interpolated often degenerated into a logomachy. The tendency now is toward the second hypothesis. Proof is in the nature of things imattainable. The imitation of Homer through Vergil by Tasso. Camoes, and Milton is too large a theme for our space. The critics of the seventt^enth and eighteenth centuries elaborated rules for the cor- rect epic which have been entertainingly parodied by Macaulay in bis prophetic account of the 'Wellingtoniad.' Pope's translation (about 1720) long remained a classic and the model of poetical diction. It of course failed to satisfy the taste of the romantic revival at the end of the cen- tury, or to meet the demands of the new .scholar- ship born about the same time in Germany. Many attempts have been made to su]KTsede it in popu- lar favor; but, despite its artificial rhetoric, it still remains for the majority of English-speaking readers the one ptjetical translation of Homer. The early versions of llobbes and Ogilby are of inter- est only to professional students of literature. Chapman is praised on the faith of Keats's noble sonnet, and because of occasional spirited pas- sages and exquisite lines. But the rugged rhythms, the obscurity of the syntax, the fantastic Eliza- bethan conceits, and the long uninspired tracts of doggerel make him intolerable in continuous perusal. Cowper. in his blank-verse version, aimed at uniting Jliltonic stateliness with fidel- ity to Homeric simplicity, but succeeded only in being pomjjous and dull. Since the publication of Matthew Arnold's classic lectures On Trans- lating Homer, we have had, among others, the estimable blank-verse translations of Lord Derby and of Bryant, and Way's spirited rendering in rhymed anapiestic hexameter. No definit ive trans- lation of Homer is possible, for every generation must reinterpret him in order to blend Homeric sentiment with its own in the measure demanded by its taste. C)f late the majority of readers ]]re- fer the literal prose versions in the slightly ar- chaic and consciously simple English of Lang, Leaf, and Myers {Iliad), and Butcher and Lang (Odyssei/). Bibliography. The needs of the English stu- dent will be best met by Jebb, Introduction to Homer (Glasgow, 1887) ; Lang, Homer and the Epic (London, 189.3) ; ScTOiour. Introduction to the Lani/uaitc and Verse of Homer (Boston, 1889) ; and Monro, Homeric Grammar (Oxford, 1891). Good text editions are those of Dindorf-Hentze and Cauer. A good annotated (English) edition of the Iliad is that of U-af (London, 1888). and of the Odiisurti that of Havman (London, 1882). The fullest Homeric lexicon is the Lexicon Ho- mericum of Elieling (Leipzig. 188")), or in Eng- lish the Homeric Dictionary, by Keep-Autenrieth (New York, 1891). For the general study of Homeric antiquities, consult: Bucliholz. //o- mcrisehe Realien (2d ed., 3 vols., Tx-ipzig. 1SS7) ; Helbig. Das Homrri.iche Epos (Leipzig. 1887) ; and AndersonEngelmann, Pictorial Atlas to Ho- mer (New York. 1892). See Epic Poetry; Greek Literatire. HOMEK, .Xpotheosis of. A celebrated relief containing many figures, now in the Britisli Jlu- seum. It was found in the Appian Way in the seventeenth century, and probably dates from the first century A.n. HOMER, Win-slow (1830—). An American painter, born in Boston. He had been in a lithographer's shop in Cambridge, and contrib- uted sketches to magazines, before he became a pupil in the National Academy of Design, at the same time taking lessons from Frederic Rondel. During the Civil War he was special artist for Harper's ^Yrfi:h|. He went to New York in 18.')9, and in 18C4 exhibited his first large picture, "Prisoners from the Front." The following year he was made an academician. Afterwards he set- tled in Scarboro, Maine. Between the years 1864