version of the Iliad was older than that of the Odyssey. "The Iliad as a complete poem is older than the Odyssey, though the material of the Odyssey, being largely undatable folk-lore, is older than any of the historical material in the Iliad."[1] Both epics were probably written over and rewritten by some poet of a later date, in much the same manner that Lord Tennyson, the poet laureate of Queen Victoria, in his Idylls of the King, wrote over the Morte d'Arthur (which was itself a writing over by Sir Thomas Malory, circ. 1450, of pre-existing legends), making the speeches and sentiments and the characters more in accordance with those of his own time. But the events of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the way of living they describe, the spirit of the acts recorded, belong to the closing centuries of the prehistoric age. These sagas, epics, and vedas do supply, in addition to archæology and philology, a third source of information about those vanished times.
Here, for example, is the concluding passage of the Iliad, describing very exactly the making of a prehistoric barrow. (We have taken here Chapman's rhymed translation, correcting certain words with the help of the prose version of Lang, Leaf, and Myers.)
"... Thus oxen, mules, in waggons straight they put,
Went forth, and an unmeasur'd pile of sylvan matter cut;
Nine days employ'd in carriage, but when the tenth morn shin'd
On wretched mortals, then they brought the bravest of his kind
Forth to be burned. Troy swam in tears. Upon the pile's most height
They laid the body, and gave fire. All day it burn'd, all night.
But when th' eleventh morn let on earth her rosy fingers shine,
The people flock'd about the pile, and first with gleaming wine
Quench'd all the flames. His brothers then, and friends, the snowy bones,
Gather'd into an urn of gold, still pouring out their moans.
Then wrapt they in soft purple veils the rich urn, digg'd a pit,
Grav'd it, built up the grave with stones, and quickly piled on it
A barrow....
... The barrow heap'd once, all the town
In Jove-nurs'd Priam's Court partook a sumptuous fun'ral feast,
And so horse-taming Hector's rites gave up his soul to rest."
There remains also an old English saga, Beowulf, made long before the English had crossed from Germany into England, which
- ↑ G. M.
