Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 3 of 3

a. Against the first it may be urged, that we have no other account from Homer, or from any early tradition, of this Phœnix, here described as famous.

b. Against the second and third, that Homer nowhere directly declares the foreign origin of any great Greek personage.

c. Also, that in each of the previous cases, Homer has used the proper name of a person nearly connected in order to indicate and identity the woman, whom therefore it is not likely that he would in this single case denote only by her nation, or the nation of her father.

d. Against the third, that, in the only other passage where he has to speak of a Phœnician woman, he uses a feminine form, Φοίνισσα: ἔσκε δὲ πατρὸς ἐμοῖο γυνὴ Φοίνισσ’ ἐνὶ οἴκῳ (Od. xv. 417). But Φοίνιξ is grammatically capable of the feminine, as is shown by Herod. i. 193[658 - See Jelf’s Gr. Gramm. 103.].

e. Also that Homer, in the few instances where he uses the word τηλεκλειτὸς, confines it to men. He, however, gives the epithet ἐρικυδὴς to Latona.

The arguments from the structure of the passage, and from the uniform reticence of Homer respecting the foreign origin of Greek personages, convince me that it is not on the whole warrantable to interpret Φοίνιξ in this place in any other manner, than as the name of the father of Minos.

The name Φοίνιξ, however, taken in connection with the period to which it applies – nearly three generations before the Troica– still continues to supply of itself no trifling presumption of the Phœnician origin of Minos.

It cannot, I suppose, be doubted that the original meaning of Φοίνιξ, when first used as a proper name in Greece, probably was ‘of Phœnician birth, or origin.’ But, if we are to judge by the testimony of Homer, the time, when Minos lived, was but very shortly after the first Phœnician arrivals in Greece; and his grandfather Phœnix, living four and a half generations before the Troica, was in all likelihood contemporary with, or anterior to, Cadmus. At a period when the intercourse of the two countries was in its infancy, we may, I think, with some degree of confidence construe this proper name as indicating the country of origin.

Collateral evidence.

The other marks connected with Minos and his history give such support to this presumption as to bring the supposition up to reasonable certainty. Such are,

1. The connection with Dædalus.

2. The tradition of the nautical power of Minos.

3. The characteristic epithet ὀλοόφρων; as also its relation to the other Homeric personages with whose name it is joined.

4. The fact that Minos brought a more advanced form of laws and polity among a people of lower social organization; the proof thus given that he belonged to a superior race: the probability that, if this race had been Hellenic, Homer would have distinctly marked the connection of so distinguished a person with the Hellenic stem: and the apparent certainty that, if not Hellenic, it could only be Phœnician.

The positive Homeric grounds for believing Minos to be Phœnician are much stronger, than any that sustain the same belief in the case of Cadmus: and the negative objection, that Homer does not call him by the name of the country from which he sprang, is in fact an indication of the Poet’s uniform practice of drawing the curtain over history or legend, at the point where a longer perspective would have the effect of exhibiting any Greek hero as derived from a foreign source, and thus of confuting that claim to autochthonism which, though it is not much his way to proclaim such matters in the abstract, yet appears to have operated with Homer as a practical principle of considerable weight.

EXCURSUS II.

ON THE LINE ODYSS. V. 277

I have the less scruple in making the verse Od. v. 277 the subject of a particular inquiry, because the chief elements of the discussion are important with reference to the laws of Homeric Greek, as well as with regard to that adjustment of the Outer Geography, which I have supported by a detailed application to every part of the narrative of the Odyssey, and which I at once admit is in irreconcilable conflict with the popular construction of the account of the voyage from Ogygia to Scheria, as far as it depends upon this particular verse.

The passage is[659 - Od. v. 276, 7.] (the τὴν referring to Ἄρκτον in v. 273)

τὴν γὰρ δή μιν ἄνωγε Καλυψὼ, δῖα θεάων,
ποντοπορευέμεναι ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ χειρὸς ἔχοντα.

The points upon which the signification of the last line must depend, seem to be as follows:

1. The meaning of the important Homeric word ἀριστερός.

2. The form of the phrase ἀριστερὰ χειρὸς, which is an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον in Homer.

3. The force of the preposition ἐπὶ, particularly with the accusative.

The second of these points may be speedily dismissed. For (1) the only question that can arise upon it would be, whether (assuming for the moment the sense of ἀριστερὸς) ‘the left of his hand’ means the left of the line described by the onward movement of his body, or the left of the direction in which his hand, that is, his right or steering hand, points while upon the helm; which would be the exact reverse of the former. But, though the latter interpretation would be grammatically accurate, it is too minute and subtle, as respects the sense, to agree with Homer’s methods of expression. And (2) some of the Scholiasts report another reading, νηὸς, instead of χειρὸς, which would present no point of doubt or suspicion under this head.

We have then two questions to consider; of which the first is the general use and treatment by Homer of the word ἀριστερός.

Senses of δεξιὸς and ἀριστερός.

It appears to me well worth consideration whether the δεξιὸς and ἀριστερὸς of Homer ought not, besides the senses of right and left, to be acknowledged capable of the senses of east and west respectively.

The word ἀριστερὸς takes the sense of left by way of derivation and second intention only.

The word σκαιὸς is that, which etymologically and primarily expresses the function of the left hand. The use of this as the principal hand is abnormal, and places the body as it were askew (compare σκάζω, scævus, schief)[660 - Liddell and Scott.]. In Homer the only word used singly, i. e. without a substantive, to express the left hand is σκαιός. At the same time, we cannot draw positive conclusions from this fact, because ἀριστερὸς could not stand in the hexameter to represent a feminine noun singular, on account of the laws of metre, which in this point are inflexible.

Σκαιῇ means the left hand in Il. i. 501. xvi. 734. xxi. 490. This adjective is but once used in Homer except for the hand: viz., in Od. iii. 295 we have σκαιὸν ῥίον for ‘the foreland on the left.’ But Σκαιαὶ πύλαι may have meant originally the left hand gates of Troy.

The application of δεξιὸς to the right hand (from which we may consider δεξιτερὸς as an adaptation for metrical purposes), is to be sufficiently accounted for, because it was the hand by which greetings were exchanged, and engagements contracted[661 - Il. ii. 341. x. 542.]. But it is not so with ἀριστερός: and while we contemplate the subject in regard only to the uses of the member, the word σκαιὸς remains perfectly unexceptionable, and even highly expressive and convenient, in its function of expressing the left hand.

It appears that the Greek augurs, in estimating the signification of omens, were accustomed to stand with their faces northwards; or rather, I presume, with their faces set towards a point midway between sunset and sunrise. The most common descriptions of omen in the time of Homer appear to have been (1) the flight of birds, and (2) the apparition of thunder and lightning. The test of a good moving omen was, that it should proceed from the west, and move to the east; and of a bad moving omen, that it should proceed from the east, and move to the west. Possibly we may trace in this conception the cosmogonical arrangement, which planted in the West the Elysian plain, and in the East the dismal and semi-penal domain of Aidoneus and Persephone. Possibly the brightness of the sun, which caused the East to be regarded as the fountain of light, may be the foundation of it: together, on the other hand, with that close visible association between the West and darkness, which the sunset of each day brought before the eyes of men; so that to lie πρὸς ζόφον meant to lie towards the West, and was the regular opposite of lying towards the sun[662 - Od. ix. 25, 6.].

Whatever may have been the basis of the doctrine of the augurs, there grew up an established association (1) between the west and what was ill-omened or evil, and through this (2) between what was ill-omened or evil and the left side of a man. The west was unlucky, because the science of augury made it so. The left hand was unlucky, because in the inspection of omens it was western. One half of the objects in the world, and of the actions of the human body, thus lay, from their position relatively to omens, under an incubus of ill-fortune. It was retrieved from this threatening condition, by an euphemism; by the application of a word not merely innocent[663 - Compare the use of the word εὐώνυμος.], but preeminently good. Everything covered by the blight of evil omen was to be, not only not harmful, but ἀριστερὸς, better than the best. Consequently it would appear that the word ἀριστερὸς probably meant westerly, before it could mean on the left hand: because not the left hand only, but everything westerly, was within the range of the evil to which it was intended to apply a remedy.

In a passage like Il. vii. 238, the meaning of δεξιὸς and ἀριστερὸς is, plainly, right and left. But what is it in the speech of Hector, where he tells Polydamas that he cares not for omens[664 - Il. xii. 238-40.],

εἴτ’ ἐπὶ δεξί’ ἴωσι πρὸς Ἠῶ τ’ Ἠέλιόν τε,
εἴτ’ ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ τοίγε ποτὶ ζόφον ἠερόεντα.

In the first place, it is a more appropriate, because more direct, method of description with respect to birds of omen to say, they fly eastward or westward, than that they fly to the right or the left hand: since the sense of right and left has no determinate standard of reference, but requires the aid of an assumption that the person is actually looking to the north, so that the words may thus become equivalent to east and west. But in this case, which is one of warriors on the battle-field, would there not be something rather incongruous in interpolating the suggestion of their turning northwards as they spoke, in order to give the proper meaning to these two words? We must surely conceive of Hector standing on the battle-field with his face towards the enemy, if we are to take his posture into view at all. If he stood thus, he would look, as far as we can judge, to the west of north. Now the ζόφος was the north-west with Homer, and not the west: and, conversely, the Ἠὼς inclined to the south of east. In this way he would nearly have his face to the former, and his back to the latter; and if so the meaning of right and left would be not only farfetched, but wholly improper, while the meaning of east and west would be no less correct than natural.

I must add, that there are other places in Homer where difficulty arises, if we are only permitted to construe δεξιὸς and ἀριστερὸς by right and left. I will even venture to say, that there are passages in the Thirteenth Book which render the topography of the battle that it describes, not only obscure, but even contradictory, if ἀριστερὸς in them means left; and which become perfectly harmonious if we allowed to understand it as signifying west.

Illustrated from Il. xiii.

These are respectively Il. xiii. 675 and 765.

In order to apprehend the case, it will be necessary to follow closely the movement of the battle through most of the Book.

1. Il. xiii. 126-9: The Ajaxes are opposed to Hector, νηυσὶν ἐν μέσσῃσιν, 312, 16.

2. The centre being thus provided for, Idomeneus proceeds to the left, στρατοῦ ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ (326), which is the station of Deiphobus; and makes havock in this quarter.

3. Deiphobus, instead of fighting Idomeneus, thinks it prudent to fetch Æneas, who is standing aloof, 458 and seqq.

4. Summoned by Deiphobus, Æneas comes with him, attended also by Paris and Agenor, 490.

5. They conjointly carry on the fight at that point, with indifferent success (495-673), but no decisive issue.

6. Hector, in the centre, remains ignorant that the Trojans were being worsted νηῶν ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ by the Greeks, 675.

7. By the advice of Polydamas he goes in search of other chiefs to consider what is to be done; of Paris among the rest, whom he finds, μάχης ἐπ’ ἀριστερά (765). With them he returns to the centre, 753, 802, 809.

Now the following propositions are, I think, sound: