The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-03-08

U hUIlef1C WouiSI- LC- pr rum
Hector in the sixth "Iliad'' is the best
.Snown part OF the poem. and Hector's
love for his young wife is as touching
as anything in modern romance We
next see AndrOmache in the twenty
second ''Iliad.' when, hearing Hercu-
ba's cry of anguish, she rusheS TO the
wall only 10 see her husband dragged
at Achilles chariot wheels, and then
we hear her bitter lament at his fun
eraL She has appeared but for few
brief moments. and Yet no WOmans or
the '@Inad,' and few in literature. have
had such a hold on hearts, both an
eient and modern.
Homer was the universal textbook
in Greek schools. A young man IN
Xenophon's Symposium remarked
that he could say the whole 'Iliad'
and odyssey" by heart, and his ex-
ample was probably not unique The
young Alcibiades Indignantly struck
schOOlmaSter Who confessed that he
had nothing Of Homer's and Alexander
the Great admitted that he had formed
himself on the character OF Achilles
The elegiac poets develop verse and
language out Of the epic, and all the
greatest lyric poets show HOmer'S in
fluence-nOne more than Pindar. In an
important sense Homer was the mas
ter Of HerodOtUs and Fhucydides; and
man critics, have discussed the HO-
merle style and thought in both his
tOrianS. Aeschylus called his tragedies
I fragments from HOmerS great BAN
DUETS" and SODhOcleS received no
higher praise than the tragic Homer,
The HOmeric style and language are
noticeable in Plato. as well as the lat
ter's frequent citation OF the epic poet
Even Demosthenes is said to have i'm
itated Homer. In the AleXandrine pO-
etry HOmeric influence was predOm-
inant, especially in TheOcritus. Indeed
Homer was the key to all subsequent
Greek literature. as no other poet has
ever been 10 any other literature, Zen
the influence of the English bible be-
ing less determinative in our Own 1T
erature.
Who was Homer? When and where
was he born2 What works did he COM
pose? There is perfect agreement only
as to the name. We do not know who
Homer was According to a Greek cpl
gram, seven cities claimed HOmer's
birthplace; but. in fact, far more
places, on both sides of the Aegean
and among the islands. arrOgated this
distinction. and the statements as 10
the date Of his birth range over more
/ than 400 years. This is in reality per-
haps a tradition of the rise and spread
Of epic poetry And what did Homer
| compose? Earlier Greek antiquity at
/ tributed to him pretty much the whole
body of epic poetry, but Alexandrine
| scholarship denied his title to all ex-
[ cept the "Iiad' and the Odyssey
Even the unity of the authorship of
| these two was attacked, but the au-
/ thority of Aristarchus, the greatest Of
| ancient scholars, silenced the so-called
''separatOrs." Early in the eighteenth
/ century a Neapolitan claimed that Ho-
mer's poems were made by a series Of
poets and not committed to writing at
[ first, but proofs in support OF this
/ view were first given in T. A. Wolf 5
famous "PrOlegOmena" (1lS5). Wolf ar
/ gued that our Homer was originally
/ many small unWritten poems, the unity
/ being due to a commission in the dime
of Peisistratus (sixth century,. Wolf 5
/ followers, especially Lachmann, at
/ tempted to dissect the 'Iliad' into the
I original laws. All great Greek scholars
/ Of all lands have in the last century
/ been arrayed on one side or the other
! of the HOmeric question, and II has
been almost as far-reaching in phil
olOgy as the Darwinian theory has
! been in science. By q natural reaction,
the trend Of opinion is again rather to-
| ward an original nucleus or central
/ poem, greater or smaller; but critical
opinion does not JeuO toward unity u
authorship Of both "Iliad" and "Odys-
sey.'
OF TRANSACTIONS of the 'Iliad. Lord
Derby's in verse, and Lang, Leaf and
Myers in prose, may be especially
mentioned; but other versions. such as
/ Chapman's, Pope's, Cowper's, Bryant :,
have many claims 10 consideration.
For the Odyssey WOrsley's transla-
| ton in verse and Butcher and Lang 5
in prose are doubtless unequaled,
though Palmer's rhythmical prose YER
sion merits especial cOmmendatiOn-
Valuable helps to the general reader
in approaching Homer are. besides the
{ histories Of Greek literature, Jebb' s
Introduction Leafs Companion TO
the IHad': Agnes n. ClerSe's Fam
liar Studies in Homer; Jebb's Gas
3 steal Greek Poetry chapters ii. and
ill: SymOnd's'' Greek Poets" vol 1,
chapters iii and w; Mahady's Social
Life Of the Greeks" chapters ii. and
ill.,: Gladstone's ''HOmeTic Studies" and
the HOmeric Poems, and Matthew Ar
4 HOmeric Poems" and Matthew Ar
nold's ION Translating Homer"