The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1898-04-11
WOMEN OF HOMER
They Have Been Admired
for a Thousand
Years.
THE STORY OF FAIR HELEN
Nansieaa, Whom Mankind Have
Always Loyed-Here Are No
Modern HerOines.
THE STORY OF FAIR HELEN

Homer and the women Of Homer are the
best antidotes to the very curious and dis
agreeable ladies who futter for their hour
through the circulating libraries. Unluch-
lily it is common for modern students of
literature never to look beyond the novel
which today is and tomorrow is sold for
twopence in the east end. Mr.. Perry tries
to recall attention to older and imperish-
ably beautiful brides Of ancient SONG in
his tWoman of Homer (Heinemann).
He need not nave dallied in the hortus
siccas of German commentators or delayed
q reader by theories of a "Primary Iliad"
by a writer who perhaps lived in Thessaly
and took his poem to Ionia, where a num-
Der of literary persons added no it and al
tered it and, SO speak profanely, faxed
it. All the professors, except the provost
of Oriel, agree that something of this kind
occurred. AS the charwoman said about
Dickens, Zone couldn't believe one maj
put together 'Copper1eld, ESQ the profess
ors agree that one man could not have
composed the "Iliad." But as to who did it
and how many of them and when and,
above all, why the professors do not agree.
Meanwhile all the poets. except Coleridge
have believed in a single author, and in
this matter poets are rather better author
tiles than professors. Neither is it neoes-
sary for Mr.. Perry to assure us that Ho-
mer is not a writer in M. Zola's vein. If
he were, he would be much more popular.
Why should we be shocked when Hecuba,
after Achilles has killed her son Hector,
says that she could eat his heart? A lady
~ 6oI-ac,,oo ~ o1ca ovnroccoc hor roadinoea
to eat her enemy's "heart in the market
place."
As to women, there never was so chiv-
alrous an author as Homer. He is gentle
even to Clytemnestra, and Helen is only
rebuked by herself. She is, indeed, SO
winning in her beauty, her penitence and
her charm that every reader, like the old
men in the gate of Troy, say, mo Won
der that for such a woman Greeks and
Trojans slay each other" Homer had a
"problen" in Helen. Why, with all her
excellences did she leave her lord and her
child, both of whom she loved, to follow
the beautiful, false hearted Paris? The
gods are to blame, no doubt, but Homer
does not go INTO the question. After all
the blood shed for her sake we leave Helen
happy at Sparta, pouring into the bowl
the nepenthe which puts sorrow out of
mind and bestowing a bridal gift on the
wandering son of Odysseus. The gift was
a robe of curious nesdlework, sshining
like a star, a memorial OF the hands OF
Helen. So Homer leaves
The face that launched a thousand ships
Aud burned the topless towers of liam.
Perhaps Penelope is meant for a con-
trast to Helen. She herself frequently re-
marks that she is not like that inner To
us Penelope's attraction is a mystery. She
is faithful, indeed, but her idea is to ex-
tract presents from her wooers. Her posi-
ton, to be sure, required diplomacy. With
no protector, she had to see her "things''
spoiled by the untidy wooers and her
property devoared. She was not devoid
of sentiment and is fond of telling us how
she is wretched seven in her Dreams"
There must have been something in a
woman for whom Odysseus resigned i'm
mortality and a goddess for his bride. But
when Odysseus set sail for Troy Penelope
was a girl, newly welded, and so her i'm
age remained in the faithful heart of her
wandering lord. To that heart the two
goddesses Gree and Calypso appealed in
vain, in vain appealed the maiden grace
and goodness of Nausieaa. We applaud
Odysseus as moralists, but in Ithaca he
may have dreamed of the Aeean isle and
the fair haired goddess of mortal speech.
With Nausicaa mankind has been in
love for several thousands of years. Homer
never tells US whether she married or not,
after making it plain that no one was
good enough for this matchless maiden.
Homer was wise, for even he could not
have drawn a hero in whose worthiness
mankind could haye acquiesoed unless
Odysseus came again. Goethe meant to
write a play about the fair Phoeacian. 1t
ended, "Nausicaa in despair commits sui
eide, +" after hearing that Odysseus has o
wife at home. Nausicaa is a female Wer-
ther and Odysseus a male Charlotte.
tits highly characteristic Of Homer
that, though oven moro courteous to wo-
men thar Shakespeare, he was perfectly
well aware of what could be said about
their less amiable aspects. But he set all
that down to the account of the goddesses.
Hera is a shrew-there are no shrews
among the mortal women, though Incl
dentally we hear that their lords stood in
salutary W of them. There is, indeed,
one 'snaturalistic'' story of domestic life
which would suit an emancipated novelist
(f he knew Creek very well, but it ap-
pears incidentally in the story of Phoenix
If Hera is a shrew, Aphrodite is only too
kind and proyokes what Mr.. Perry cells
'sthe shameless avowal of Hermes, a very
natural mot of that god in the ciroum-
stances. Aphrodite is not proper, but in
the hymn to her she is extremely bewitch-
ing, while Persephone in the hymn to
Demeter is almost as winning as Nausicaa.
In the same hymn the daughters of the
king of Eleusia are delightful girls, and
their meeting with the goddess is a par
allel to the meeting of Ethne and Fair
n Fedelm the Rosy with ST. Patrick,
in the boob of Armagh. The old Irish and
the old Greek heroic ages meet here in the
spirit of charm. The women who appear
incidentally in Homer, the tired spinning
woman, the woman weary with grinding
at the mill, the woman whose little daugh-
ter clings to her skirts and cries to be car
ried, are all worthy of the one hand that
drew, as only that hand could draw, the
stainless Andromache, the fairy Gree, the
kind and brave Nausicea and the win
some Helen. Here are no neurotics nor
crotics nor anything at all worthy of mod
ern attention. So nobody attends to Ho-
mer.-Andrew Lang in London News