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

2. Motion from that point towards the left;

3. Rest at another point on the left.

Of these the second named indicates the first and principal intention of the word; but when it passes to a second intention or derivative sense, it may include either the first point, or the third, or both. In the later Greek it appears rather to indicate the point of rest; but in the Homeric phrases of the corresponding word δεξιὸς, οἰνοχοεῖν ἐνδέξια, δεικνύναι ἐνδέξια, αἰτεῖν ἐνδέξια, ἀστραπτεῖν ἐπὶ δεξιὰ, ἐέργειν ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ, the starting-point, and not the resting-point, is the one brought into view. It is the commencement of the motion, in every one of these cases, which is indicated by the phrase, and not its close.

Being engaged upon this subject, I shall not scruple to examine one or two remaining passages, which may assist in its more thorough elucidation.

From Il. xxiii. 335-7.

I therefore ask particular attention to the passage in the Twenty-third Book of the Iliad, where Nestor instructs his son concerning his management in the chariot-race. On either side of a dry trunk upon the plain, there lay two white stones (xxiii. 329). They formed the goal, round which the chariots were to be driven, the charioteer keeping them on his left hand. The pith of the advice of Nestor is, that his son is to make a short and close turn round them, so as to have a chance of winning, in spite of the slowness of his team. The directions are (335-7):

αὐτὸς δὲ κλινθῆναι ἐϋπλέκτῳ ἐνὶ δίφρῳ
ἦκ’ ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ τοῖϊν· ἀτὰρ τὸν δεξιὸν ἵππον
κένσαι ὁμοκλήσας, εἶξαί τέ οἱ ἡνία χερσίν.

It is clear from the last line and a half that the goal was to be on his left hand. But what is the meaning of κλινθῆναι ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ τοῖϊν? Nothing can be more scientific than the precept. The horses are to make a sharp turn: the impetus in the driver’s body might throw him forward if he were not prepared: he is to do what every rider in a circus now does, to lean inwards; and that is expressed by leaning ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ, of the goal – for τοῖϊν must, I apprehend, be understood to agree with the dual λᾶε (329), and not the plural ἵππους (334); particularly because the word ἵππος is repeated immediately after it. The meaning then is, that he is desired to lean to the left of the goal, while all the time he keeps on its right. We should under the same circumstances say, ‘Lean gently towards the right side of the goal, as you are about to turn round it.’ He, meaning the same thing, says, ‘Lean towards the left; that is, lean from the right, or while keeping on the right, of the object named. Now this I take to be exactly the sense of Od. v. 277. Ulysses was bid to sail, having the Great Bear placed on his right, but looking from his right, and towards his left, as every star looks towards the quarter opposite to that in which it is itself seen. He is to have the star e dextrâ, because from that point it looks ad sinistram. It looks across him towards his left, just as Antilochus was to lean in the direction across the goal towards its left.

The whole of this interpretation without doubt depends upon the word τοῖϊν; and I do not presume to say that it is necessarily, under grammatical rules, to be understood of the goal, and not of the horses. But it is the more natural construction: and Homer often reverts merely by this demonstrative pronoun, without further indication, to a subject which he has only named some time back[679 - So τήν δε, Il. i. 127, and particularly τὴν in Il. i. 389, meaning Chryseis, who has not been named since v. 372.].

But if grammar leave that question in any degree open, I apprehend that physical considerations must decide it. It is impossible for the driver to lean to the left of his horses as they are rounding the goal. To the left of his chariot he may lean, as he stands upon it: but to their left he cannot, for they are considerably in advance of him; and in order to make the turn at all, they must, at each point of the curve, which is a curve to the left, be much further along the curve, and consequently much further to the left, than he can possibly be. It would be a parallel case, if there were two riders round a circus, one following the other, and the rider of the after horse were told to lean to the right of the fore horse. Therefore the word τοῖϊν can, I submit, only refer to the two stones, which form the goal.

From Il. ii. 526.

A line in the Greek Catalogue will enable us to carry the question still further. In Il. ii. 517, after the two Bœotian contingents, come the Phocians: and the Poet says, ver. 526,

Βοιωτῶν δ’ ἔμπλην ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ θωρήσσοντο.

I see that this is translated even by Voss ‘on the left.’ Now is not this contrary to all likelihood? Was not all propitious movement with Homer from left to right? Has not this been proved by the cases of the Immortals, the Omens, the Cupbearer, the Beggar, and the Herald? Is it likely, or is it even conceivable, that Homer should depart from this principle in his order of the army? Surely the meaning is this: Having fixed for himself geographically the order of his contingents, he has likewise to state their order of array upon the field; and accordingly by this line he informs us, that the Phocians, who were the second of the races he mentions, stood ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ of the Bœotians: he of course means us to understand that the Abantes, the third race, were ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ of the Locrians, and so on through the whole: or in other words, that he informs us he does not forget to follow, amidst the multitudinous detail of the Catalogue, the established, the religious, and the propitious order of enumeration, namely, the order which begins from the left, and moves towards the right.

Thus we must in this place translate ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ ‘towards, that is, looking towards the left of the Bœotians;’ or ‘looking to the Bœotians on their left,’ i. e. of the Phocians; the Phocians being, whichever construction we adopt, on the right, actually on the right, not the left of the Bœotians. The real force of the expression probably is this: that the Bœotians, having taken their ground, the Phocians came up and took theirs next to them on their right.

Application to Od. v. 277.

Now this case is precisely in point for Od. v. 277: because θωρήσσεσθαι is not properly a verb of motion: and in all likelihood it may be relied on independently of further details from Homer, because it brings the matter to an easy test, through the certainty which we may well entertain, that Homer would have the order of his army begin from left to right, like every other duly and auspiciously constituted order.

There is, however, another interpretation proposed as follows: they, the Phocians, took ground next (ἔμπλην) to the Bœotians on the left, i. e. of the army; the two together, as it were, forming its left wing. To this construction there seem to be conclusive objections:

1. Why should Homer tell us that the Bœotians and Phocians together constituted a division of the army, when he tells us nothing similar respecting any of the twenty-six contingents that remain? Neither of these races were particularly distinguished either politically or in arms.

2. It appears clear that the Bœotians and Phocians did not together form a division of the army: for, in the Thirteenth Book, the Bœotians fight in company with the Athenians or Ionians, the Locrians, Phthians, and Epeans, but not with the Phocians. Il. xiii. 685, 6.

3. Neither did the Bœotians belong to the left wing of the army at all: for they are found defending the centre of the ships against Hector and the Trojans, with the two Ajaxes in their front. Il. xiii. 314-16, 674-84, 685, 700; 701, 2; 719, 20.

4. There is nowhere the smallest sign, that the Greek army was divided into wings and centre at all.

5. The order of the Catalogue is a geographical order, and not that of a military arrangement. Therefore it was requisite for Homer to tell us how the troops were arranged in the Review. This he has effected by telling us that the Phocians, the second of his tribes, drew up on the right of the Bœotians: which we have only to consider tacitly repeated all through, and the order is thus both complete and propitious. But, according to the other construction, the Poet begins with an arrangement by wings, of which we hear nowhere else: and then he forthwith forgets and abandons it.

6. I do not think ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ can be construed to the left of the army. The army has nowhere been named. The phrases ἐπὶ δεξιὰ and ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ require us to have a subject clearly in view. It is frequently named, as in ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ μάχης. When it is connected with omens, it means to the west, and ἐπιδέξια the reverse. Again, οἰνοχοεῖν ἐπιδέξια is to begin pouring wine from the left, and towards the right end of the rank whom the cupbearer may be serving. The ‘army’ has not been mentioned since the reassembling in v. 207.

These objections appear to me fatal to the construction now under our view. They do not indeed touch the question whether ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ should be interpreted on the left, or (on the right and) towards the left. That must, I think, be decided by the general principles of augury duly applied to order and enumeration.

On the whole, then, I contend that it is wrong to construe Od. v. 277, ‘to sail with Arctus on his left hand.’ It would be much more nearly right, and would, in fact, convey the meaning, though not in a grammatical manner, if we construed it ‘to sail with Arctus on his right hand.’ But the manner of construing it, grammatically and accurately, as I submit, is this: ‘to sail with Arctus looking towards the left (of his hand, or his left hand);’ that is to say, looking from his right. And generally, that the proper mode of construing ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ and ἐπὶ δεξιὰ in Homer is, towards the left, towards the right; or, conversely, from the right, from the left.

This meaning is in exact accordance with the North-eastern, and is entirely opposed to the North-western, hypothesis. And I venture to believe that, itself established by sufficient evidence from other passages in the poems, it enables us to give a meaning substantially, though perhaps not minutely self-consistent, though of course one not based upon the true configuration of the earth’s surface as it is now ascertained, to every passage in Homer which relates to the Outer Geography of the Odyssey.

Both ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ and ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ χειρὸς are used repeatedly in the Hymn to Mercury[680 - Hymn. Merc. 153. Cf. 418, 424, 499.]. One of the passages resembles in its form that of the eagle, Il. xii. 219. It is this:

κεῖτο, χέλυν ἐρατὴν ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ χειρὸς ἐέργων.

And probably the basis of the idea is the same. The really correct Greek expression for ‘on the left hand’ I take to be χειρὸς ἐξ ἀριστερᾶς, which is used by Euripides[681 - Hecuba 1127.].

Sense altered in later Greek.

But in the later Greek the idea of the point of arrival prevailed over that of the point of departure: and, conventionally at least, the ἐπιδέξια, with its equivalent ἐνδέξια, came to mean simply ‘on the right,’ and ἐπ’ ἀριστερὰ, ‘on the left.’ It is worth notice, that we have a like ambiguous use in English of the word towards. Sometimes towards the left means being on the left: sometimes it means moving from the right in the direction of the left: and a room ‘towards the south’ means one with its windows on the north, looking out over the south, like as the star Arctus looks out towards the left of Ulysses[682 - I have observed that δεξιὸς ὄρνις means a bird flying from the left towards the right, and ἀριστερὸς ὄρνις, the reverse. Here however the force of the epithet is derived from immediate connection with the motion implied, and with the doctrine of omens: δεξιὸς ὦμος would of course be the right shoulder, and δεξιή, as we have seen, may stand alone to signify the right hand. And so in general with these words, when used as epithets, apart from a preposition implying motion, and from any relation to omens.].

IV. AOIDOS

Sect. I.

On the Plot of the Iliad

Theory of Grote on the Iliad.

Although the hope has already been expressed at the commencement of this work, that for England at least, the main questions as to the Homeric poems have well nigh been settled in the affirmative sense; yet I must not pass by without notice the recently propounded theory of Grote. I refer to it, partly on account of the general authority of his work; for this authority may give a currency greater than is really due to a portion of it, which, as lying outside the domain of history proper, has perhaps been less maturely considered than his conclusions in general. But it is partly also because I do not know that it has yet been treated of elsewhere; and most of all because the discussion takes a positive form; for the answer to his argument, which perhaps may be found to render itself into a gratuitous hypothesis, depends entirely upon a comprehensive view of the general structure of the poem, and the reciprocal relation and adaptation of its parts.

Grote believes, that the poem called the Iliad is divisible into two great portions: one of them he conceives to be an Achilleis, or a poem having for its subject the wrath of Achilles, which comprises the First Book, the Eighth, and all from the Eleventh to the Twenty-second Books inclusive; that the Books from the Second to the Seventh inclusive, with the Ninth and Tenth, and the two last Books, are portions of what may be called an Ilias, or general description of the War of Troy, which have been introduced into the original Achilleis, most probably by another hand; or, if by the original Poet, yet to the destruction, or great detriment, of the poetic unity of his work.

In support of this doctrine he urges,

1. That the Books from the Second to the Seventh inclusive in no way contribute to the main action, and are ‘brought out in a spirit altogether indifferent to Achilles and his anger[683 - Grote’s Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 258 n.].’

2. That the Ninth Book, containing a full accomplishment of the wishes of Achilles in the First, by ‘atonement and restitution[684 - Ibid. p. 241 n.],’ is really the termination of the whole poem, and renders the continuance of his Wrath absurd: therefore, and also from the language of particular passages, it is plain that ‘the Books from the Eleventh downwards are composed by a Poet, who has no knowledge of that Ninth Book, (or, as I presume he would add, who takes no cognizance of it[685 - Ibid. p. 244 n.].’)

3. The Jupiter of the Fourth Book is inconsistent with the Jupiter of the First and Eighth.

4. The abject prostration of Agamemnon in the Ninth Book is inconsistent with his spirit and gallantry in the Eleventh.

5. The junction of these Books to the First Book is bad; as the Dream of Agamemnon ‘produces no effect,’ and the Greeks are victorious, not defeated[686 - Ibid. p. 247.].

6. For the latter of these reasons, the construction of the wall and fosse round the camp landwards is out of place.

7. The tenth Book, though it refers sufficiently to what precedes, has no bearing on what follows in the poem.

Grote has argued conclusively against the supposition that we owe the continuous Iliad[687 - Grote’s History of Greece, vol. ii. p. 210.] to the labours of Pisistratus, and shows that it must have been known in its continuity long before. He places the poems between 850 and 776 B. C.[688 - Ibid. p. 178.]; admits the splendour of much of the poetry which he thus tears from its context[689 - Ibid. p. 260, 236, 267.]; yet he apparently is not startled by the supposition, that the man, or the men, capable of composing poetry of the superlative kind that makes up his Achilleis, should be so blind to the primary exigencies of such a work for its effect as a whole, that he or they could also be capable of thus spoiling its unity by adding eight books, which do not belong to the subject, to fifteen others in which it was already completely handled and disposed of. And though our historian leans to the belief of a plurality of authors for the Iliad, he does not absolutely reject the supposition that it may be the work of one[690 - Ibid. p. 269.].

Offer of Il. ix. and its rejection.

As to the Ninth Book[691 - Ibid.], he refers it more decisively to a separate hand; and he makes no difficulty about presuming that the Homerids could furnish men capable of composing (for example) the wonderful speech of Achilles from the 307th to the 429th line. Happy Homerids! and felix prole virûm, happy land that could produce them!