The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1927-12-06

imaginatiOn; 1t is SO well invented
and so vivaciously recounted, that
ii the facts were different, so much
the worse for the facts.
Beauty has it's rights as well as
truth. and the Had is more impor-
tant than The Trojan war.
Noy does it matter that Homer Is
only a name, made vivid for us by
Hellenic scultptors as a blind and
meditative bard, but otherwise as
mystical as the Helen to whom the
Greeks ascribed the first settlement
of their land. No one knows where
the poet was born, and
Where living Homer begged his daily
bread"
The oldest and latest dates as
signed to xSk birth vary by some 460
wears so that his variability in time
rivals his Ilnc 3rtainty in space. Be-
foea the age Of Pericles innumerable
poens were laid at his door; one by
one they were taken from him by the
critics of Athens and Alexandria,
until only the Iliad and the Odyssey
remained; and now these, too, have
been stolen from him by merciless
research, The denudation OF
Homer is complete.
It is followed with his dismember-
ment, The Odyssey, it appears, is
not by the same hand or hands as
the Iliad; it belongs to a consider
ably later age, and complains that
too much poetry has already been
written, and that most great themes
have been worn to death. None the
less its vivid theme wears well; and
the story of Ulysses wanderings is
one Of the delights of classic litera-
ture.
Let us read it in the simple flow
ing blank verse of Bryant, or in the
excellent prose of Myers, Leaf and
Lang: and let us take it as the
Greeks heard it, in small install
ments, one book or episode at a
time. Only so shall we relish it.
THE Had Il. e., the story of Ilium
L or Troy remains the first great
cultural production Of Greek life. 1t
came into being long before men
thought of putting it into written
form.
Writing had been taught to the
Greeks by the Phoenicians about
900 B. c., but many generations
passed before the new art passed
from the uses of commerce to the
luxury of literature.
The poems were carried down in
the memory of bardS, who wandered
from city to city, reciting parts of
the immortal story at games or
feasts, adding to it, apparently, from
age to age.
Not till the sixth century before
Christ were the various parts woven
together into one poem and COM
mitted to writing, and even then
their form was so different from
ours that Aeschines $40 B. c.
quotes extensive passages which
cannot be found in our editions.
Such bards and recitations were
to ancient Greece what writing and
books are to us. They were first of
all the vehicle through which prim-
tive lore was transmitted and
ancient deeds recorded and glorif1ed.
Every nations literature begins
with such epics, sagas or vedas-
Mahabh er atlas, Nibelungenlleds,
Beowulfs or ChansonS de Roland.
They are the natural literary express
sion of a nations childhood, as of
the individuals, and they take
something of the place OF our
patriotic narratives.
Who knows, but that our own
4 heroic history is as full Of legends as
Eomer's Had? Literature begins as
mythology, telling of gods; graduates
into legend, telling Of heroes, and at
last distinguishes fiction from his
tory, telling of men.
It is probable that the Iliad was
Bible as we'll as history to the early
Greeks, and carried down their the
ology and the stories of their gods.
and if we may believe Herodotus,
Homer and Hesiod made the Greek
religion, and assigned to the deities
their titles, honors and crafts, and
told what they were like, in body
and soul.
Tt is true that the poem handles
these celestial worthless with BIAS
phemous freedom.
Even the finest of them are but
deif1ed ancestors, great heroes who,
after their earthly toll, are now
freed from the stacks Of earning a
living or staying with one wife.
The mightiest of them is lZeus
(Jupiter), the god of the sky, and
let he is almost the clown OF
Homer's story-hoodwink at every
stepy quarreling with Hera Juno
like any earthly husband and sur
rounded by minor deities who in
trigue with the assiduity Of an
Oriental court
So there are two letvels or stories
in the Had; the battles of the
Greeks and the Trojans are dupli-
Gated by the war of the gods in the
air.
No wonder that with this double
conflict it is the liveliest epic in all
literature. 1t is not complex art or
thought like the plays of Shakes
peare or Euripides; these men were
far deeper souls than Homer and
their work is of higher and ma
turer kind.
But the Had was addressed not
to the mind, but to the ear; it could
not afford profundity, since it had
to be understood as rapidly as it
was heard. Above all, it had to be
popular, and, therefore, it had to be
a story.
nUR literature today is a litera-
~ ture of analysis, motive and
thought; for we lead intricate and