HOMER 111) A recent writer (Dr E. Rammer) has given some strong reasons for doubting the genuineness of the passage in book xx. describing the duel between Achilles and ^Eneas (79-352). The incident is certainly very much out of keeping with the vehement action of that part of the poem, and especially with the moment when Achilles returns to the field, eager to meet Hector and avenge the death of his friend. The interpolation (if it is one) is probably due to local interests. It contains the well-known prophecy that the descendants of ^Eneas are to rule over the Trojans, pointing to the existence of an /Enead dynasty in the Troad. So, too, the legend of Anchises in the Hymn to Aphrodite is evidently local ; and yEneas becomes more prominent in the later epics, especially the Cypria and the liov irtpcns of Arctinus. Structure of the Odyssey. Tn the Odyssey, as in the Iliad, the events related fall within a short space of time. The difficulty of adapting the long wanderings of Ulysses to a plan of this type is got over by the device first met with in the Odyssey of making the hero tell the story of his own adventures. In this way the action is made to begin almost immediately before the actual return of Ulysses. Up to the time when he reaches Ithaca it moves on three distinct scenes : we follow the fortunes of Ulysses, of Telemachus on his voyage in the Peloponnesus, and of Penelope with the suitors. The art with which these threads are woven together was recognized by Wolf himself, who admitted the difficulty of applying his theory to the " admirabilis summa et compages" of the poem. Of the comparatively few attempts which have been made to dis sect the Odyssey, the most moderate and attractive is that of Professor A. Kirchoff of Berlin. 1 According to Kirchoff, the Odyssey as we have it is the result of additions made to an original nucleus. There was first of all a " Return of Odysseus," relating chiefly the adventures with the Cyclops, Calypso, and the Plueacians ; then a continuation, the scene of which lay in Ithaca, embracing the bulk of books xiii.-xxiii. The poem so formed was enlarged at some time between 01. 30 and Ol. 50 by the stories of books x.-xii. (Circe, the Sirens, Scylla, &c.), and the adventures of Telemachus. Lastly, a few passages were in terpolated in the time of Pisistratus. The proof that the scenes in Ithaca are by a later hand than the ancient " Return" is found chiefly in a contradiction discussed "by Khvhoff in his sixth dissertation (pp. 135. ff., ed. 1869). Sometimes Ulysses is represented as aged and worn by toil, so that Penelope, for instance, cannot recognize him ; sometimes he is really in the prime of heroic vigour, and his appearing as a beggarly old man is the work of Athene s wand. The first of these representations is one place. Or it may be that the Artacia of the Odyssey suggested the name to the colonists of Cyxicus, whence it was adopted into the later versions of the Argonautic story. The further argument that the Nostoi recognized a son of Calypso by Ulysses but no son of Circe, consequently that Circe was unknown to the poet of the. Nostoi, rests (in the iirst place) upon a conjectural alteration of a passage in Eustathius, and moreover has all the weakness of an argument from silence, in addition to the uncertainty arising from our very slight knowledge of the author whose silence is in question. Finally, when Kirchoff finds traces in books x.-xii. of their having been originally told by the poet himself instead of being put in the month of his hero, we feel that inaccuracies of this kind are apt lo creep in whenever a fictitious story is thrown into the form of an autobiography. Inquiries conducted with the refinement which characterizes those of Kirchoff are always instructive, and his book contains very many just observations ; but it is impossible to admit his main conclusions. And perhaps we may infer that no similar attempt can be more successful. It does not indeed follow that the Odyssey is free from interpolations. The KTeima cf book xi. may be later (..s Lauer maintained), or it may contain additions, which could easily be inserted in a description of the kind. And the last book is pro bably by a different hand, as the ancient critics believed. Hut the unity of the Odyssey as a whole is apparently beyond the reach of the existing weapons of criticism. Chorizontes. When we are satisfied that each of tTio great Homeric poems is either wholly or mainly the work of a single poet, a question remains which has been matter of controversy in ancient as well as modern times Are they the work of the same poet J Two ancient grammarians, Xeno and Hellanicus, were known as the separators (ol Xwpi oi/res) ; and Aristarchus appears to have written a treatise against their heresy. In modern times some of the greatest names have been on the side of the " Chori zontes." If, as has been maintained in the preceding pages, the external evidence regarding Homer is of no value, the pro blem now before us may be stated in this form : Given two poems of which nothing is known except that they are of the same school of poetry, what is the probability that they are by the same author ? We may find a fair parallel by imagining two plays drawn at hazard from the works of the great tragic writers. It is evident that the burden of proof would rest with those who held them to be by the same hand. The arguments used in this discussion have been of very evidently natural, considering the twenty eventful years that have var ious calibre. The ancient Chorizontes observed that the passed ; but the second, Kirchoff holds, is the Ulysses of Calypso s island and the Phrcaeian court. He concludes that the aged Ulysses belongs to the "continuation" (the change wrought by Athene s wand being a device to reconcile the two views), and hence that the continuation is the work of a different author. Ingenious as this is, there is really very slender ground for Kircholf s thesis. The passages in the second half of the Odyssey which describe the appearance of Ulj sses do not give two well- mrtrked representations of him. Sometimes Athene disguises him as a decrepit beggar, sometimes she bestows on him supernatural beauty and vigour. It must be admitted that we are not told exactly how long in each case the effect of these changes lasted. But neither answers to his natural appearance, or to the appearance which he is imagined to present in the earlier books. In the palace of Alcinous, for " marred by man messenger of Zeus is Iris in the Iliad, but Hermes in the Odyssey ; that the wife of Hephaestus is one of the Charites in the Iliad, but Aphrodite in the Odyssey ; that the heroes in the Iliad do not eat fish ; that Crete has a hundred cities according to the Iliad, and only ninety according to the Odyssey ; that 7rpo7rapot0e is used in the Iliad of place, in the Odyssey of time, etc. Modern scholars have added to the list, especially by making careful comparisons of the two poems in respect of vocabulary and grammatical forms. Nothing is more difficult than to assign the degree of. The difference of sub- weight to be given to such facts.
- instance, it is noticed that he is vigorous but j e ct between the two poems is so great that it leads to the
iyms"( K aKo7fft(rv^ppi,KTaiiro t ffffi , Od viii. 137) ; gt stri king differences of detail, especially in the voca- and this agrees with the scenes of recognition in the latter part MT r> .1 i , > n i ; , TT^mm- bulary. For instance, the word <boBos, which in llomei Llll; UUCilli * * 1*1." The arguments by which Kirchoff seeks to prove that the stories ; means "flight in battle " (not " fear ), occurs thirty-tune of books x.-xii. are much later than those of book ix. arc not mere ; times in the Iliad, and only once in the Odyssey ; but then convincing. He points out some resemblances between these three ^^Q are no battles in the Odyssey. Again, the verb books and the Argonautic fables, among them the circumstance that ,, , , , " i , f i, TV;,,,; O r, f l afountain Artacia occurs in both. In the Argonautic story this PWM * break occurs forty-eight times in the Jliml ami fountain is placed in the neighbourhood of Cyzicus, and answers to j once in the Odyssey, the reason being that it is col intly an actual fountain known in historical times. Kirchoff argues that used of breakin (f the armour of an enemy, the gate of :i the Artacia of the Argonautic story must have been taken from the real Artacia, and the Artacia of the Odyssey again from that of the Argonautic story. And as Cyzicus was settled from Miletus, he inters that both sets of stories must be comparatively late. It is more probable, surely, that the name Artacia occurred independ ently (as most geographical names are found to occur) in more than 1 Die Composition der Odyssee, Berlin, 1869. A full discussion of this book is given by Dr E. Kammer, Die Einheit der Odyssee, Leipsic, 1873. city, the hostile ranks, &c. Once more, the word "d -irkness," occurs fourteen times in the Iliad, once in tho Odyssey. But in every one of the fourteen places it is usei of "darkness" coming over the sight of a fallen warrior. On the other side, if words such as ao-a/xu/0o?, "a bath, r, " a basin for the hands," f(T X r], "a place to meet and , talk," &c., are peculiar to the Odyssey, we have only to
remember that the scene in the Iliad is hardly ever lai.l
