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The World of Homer. Andrew Lang
Читать онлайн.Название The World of Homer
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isbn 4057664575968
Автор произведения Andrew Lang
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
When reconciliation did occur, it was regulated by minute etiquette (as in Iliad, xix. 171–183); there is an oath, a banquet, the gifts of atonement are publicly brought into the midst of the Assembly, ἐς μεσσην ἀγορήν, and exhibited: none of these points may be omitted in the customary mode of giving satisfaction, ἵνα μή τι δίκης ἐπιδευὲς ἔχηισθα.
These transactions Odysseus forces on the reluctant Achilles, as one who "knows better" than he.[11]
There is nothing superstitious in the manly and constitutional attitude of the princes towards the king. He is not a god of vegetation, who is slain or sacrificed yearly or at longer intervals; if ever such a mortal king god of vegetation existed anywhere. In the Odyssey (xix. 107–114) we hear that, under a godfearing king, who reigns over strong men and a large population, and maintains just dealings, the crops, whether of grain or fruit-trees, and the flocks are fertile, while the sea yields fish abundantly, "through the king's good government." Here is a trace of belief in the prosperity of a good king, the gods reward him, and his people prosper. But there is no hint that the king, as the embodiment of a god, controls the weather.
The Achaean attitude towards the Over Lord is stated by Nestor—"Think not, son of Peleus, to strive with a king, might against might, seeing that no common honour pertaineth to a sceptred king to whom Zeus apportioneth glory." "I have beside me," says Agamemnon, "others that shall do me honour, and above all Zeus, lord of counsel." He inherits his sceptre "that over many islands and all Argos he should be lord." He rules by right divine, but there are recognised limits to his authority. This is a well-known form of polity in early civilisations, and, so far, Homer, from first to last, thoroughly understands his world. He never lets his Over Lord fall into the decadence of Charlemagne in the Chansons de Geste. It may be a later, it was certainly a more hostile spirit, as regards the Over Lord, that reached the Cyclic poets (circ. 760–660), who dwell on the tyranny suffered by Palamedes and Philoctetes, Palamedes being the inventor of alphabetic writing. Pindar and the Greek tragedians followed, and exaggerated such traditions.[12]
Homer retains the true sense of the position of the Over Lord, no tincture of the ideas of later ages appears in the Epics. Now, is it not a point worth considering that the Epics, though the critics take them to have been open to interpolation even in their oldest passages, down to 540 B.C. or thereabouts, never contain the word τύραννος or any of its compounds? The τύραννος, the "Tyrant," was originally the person who unconstitutionally seized power in one of the republics, usually oligarchic, that succeeded to the Homeric kingships. We place the early "tyrants" in the eighth century and onwards. To the Athenian tragedians a Homeric king was a "tyrant." Yet despite the assumed facility of interpolation into the Epics, even at a much later date than the eighth century, no late poet foisted into our Epics the word τύραννος, nor the ideas which it denotes. This abstinence is irreconcilable with the supposed freedom of late interpolating poets in uncritical ages. The Epics are perfectly consistent in their view of the divine right, but limited power, of the Over Lord. He may display illegal arrogance (ὕβρις), but he is never a τύραννος. The word, and the ideas connected with the word—usurpation by an individual of despotic power over members of a free commonwealth—were familiar to Greeks on both sides of the sea in the eighth century. Interpolators of that period could hardly have kept the word τύραννος out of their additions of new matter, but it appears to occur for the first time in the Hymn to Ares: "tyranny" (τύραννίς) is familiar to Archilochus.[13]
Thus, in the important matter of polity, we see that the Homeric picture of society is coherent, represents a well-known social and political state of affairs, is drawn with minute knowledge of the rights and duties of all concerned, and bears no trace of interpolations made under the later conditions known to Ionian poets in Asia. But some epics of these poets display a grudge against the Over Lord and his House, which is un-Homeric, and is exaggerated by the Athenian tragedians.
[1] Iliad, xxiii. 832. All this passage, the conclusion of the funeral games, is regarded as a late addition. It may be, but the poet preserves the distinction between the uses of iron for implements, and of bronze for weapons, which pervades both Epics. When a warrior like Achilles offers a mass of iron for a prize, "we rather expect from him," says Helbig, "an allusion to the military uses of the metal" (Das Homerische Epos, pp. 330, 331, 1887). But Homer does not regard iron as a military metal.
[2] Iliad, ix. 574–580.
[3] Iliad, xii. 421–423.
[4] xv. 498.
[5] Odyssey, xi. 490.
[6] Opp. 341.
[7] Codrington, The Melanesians.
[8] Iliad, ix. "When Achilles is justly angered with Agamemnon at first none can blame him (ix. 523); but if he persists after Agamemnon has sued for forgiveness, then there will be nemesis; people will be indignant. He will know he is doing wrong." So Mr. Murray writes (Rise of the Greek Epic, p. 81).
[9] Iliad, ix. 605.
[10] ix. 434 et seqq.
[11] They weary the critics, who are not at the Homeric point of view. "It is quite conceivable that the whole idea of the Reconciliation is an afterthought … it is not only consistent with the character of Achilles, but materially adds to the movement of the story, if we suppose that on hearing of the death of Patroklos he set out to avenge it without more ado" (Leaf, Iliad, vol. ii. p. 317).
[12] See infra, "The Story of Palamedes."
[13] 25 Bergk.
CHAPTER IV
HOMER'S WORLD IN PEACE
Though Homer describes a military aristocracy he is remarkable for his love of peace and hatred of war. His war-god, Ares, is a bully and a coward; his home is Thrace; and he is never mentioned with sympathy. It seems to follow that Homer's people are conceived as long settled in tranquil homes; and, though Achilles says that "cattle are to be had for the raiding of them" (Iliad, ix. 406), actual fighting to recover captured cattle is thrown back into the youth of Nestor. Young adventurers, however, expend their energy, like the Icelanders of the sagas, in "going on viking," "risking their own lives, bringing bane to alien men." The great war against Thebes is a memory of an earlier generation;