Homer's Odyssey Part 10

In Shakespeare's _Troilus and Cressida_, the same subject is worked over very fully and is indeed the main pivot of the drama, in which Achilles is substantially deposed from his heroship and replaced by Ulysses. The contest between mind and might or skill and courage, is what the English poet took from his Greek elder brother in part and in part derived from later legend. The struggle between brain and brawn was indeed a vital one in the Greek camp; there was always the danger lest the spirit would got lost in its physical manifestation. Indeed the danger of the Greek world was just this, and it perished at last of the same disease which we already notice at Troy. It fell to a worship of the sensuous in life and art, and so lost its soul in a grand debauch.

2. King Alcinous has noticed that Ulysses hid his face and wept at the song of the bard. Thus strong emotion seizes him on hearing the strife at Troy, while the Phaeacians listen with delight. Such is the contrast, hinting two very different relations to the song. But the king will divert him from his grief, and so calls for the games to show him "how much we excel others in boxing, wrestling, leaping and running." The quoit was also one of the games.

In like manner Achilles is diverted from his sorrows for his friend Patroclus, by an elaborate exhibition of games, which are set forth in Book Twenty-Third of the Iliad. Contests of strength and skill they are, showing the body under control of mind and manifesting the same up to a certain point. They have an artistic side and train the man physically, requiring also no little mental alertness.

When the Phaeacian contestants had finished, there was an attempt to bring Ulysses into the game and have him show what he was, but he declined the courteous invitation; "cares are in my mind more than games." Then Euryalus taunts him with being a merchant, or robber, and no athlete. Ulysses makes a caustic reply, picks up the quoit, and hurls it far beyond the marks of the others; then with some display of temper he challenges any of the Phaeacians present to any kind of contest. He even becomes boastful, and tells what he is ready to do in the way of games; still further, he can shoot the bow and throw the javelin in heroic fashion--which accomplishments he will employ with telling effect against the suitors hereafter.

Alcinous pacifies him with gentle words, and proceeds to withdraw all his previous claims extolling Phaeacian athletic skill. The soft arts of peace are theirs; "in boxing and in wrestling we have small fame;" but on the other hand "we delight in feasts, we love the harp and dance;"

new clothes are in favor, and "we like the warm bath and bed." Very different is now the call of King Alcinous from that last one: let the stranger see "how much we excel others in the dance and song," to which is strangely added seamanship. Such is the preparation for the lay of the loves of Mars and Venus.

Through these games the heroic strand in the stranger has been brought to light, somewhat in contrast with the Phaeacians. As he had a contest of mind with Achilles at Troy, so he has now a contest which shows his physical might; he is no weakling in spite of his intellect. Pallas too does not fail him, she marks his superiority in the throw of his quoit, and thus inspires him with courage.

II.

We have now reached the second song of the bard, for the way has been smoothed by the preceding description of the luxurious delights of the Phaeacians. It is often called the Loves of Venus and Mars, or the Adulterers caught on Olympus. From time immemorial much doubt of various sorts, poetical, moral, philological, has been cast upon this song. Some ancient commentators have regarded it an interpolation, not a genuine part of Homer; modern expositors have not hesitated to follow the same opinion.

And indeed there are strong grounds for suspicion. Almost every reader feels at the first perusal its jar with the general character of this idyllic Phaeacian world; it is decidedly adverse to the spirit of Arete and Nausicaa, as previously unfolded; the fact would almost seem impossible that, in an atmosphere created chiefly by these two women, there could be such a kind of artistic enjoyment. The most conservative reader is inclined here to agree with those who perform an act of excision upon the text of Homer. The whole pa.s.sage grates too harshly upon nerves which have been attuned to the sweet innocent life depicted in the two preceding Books.

The objections to the song may be summed up in the following heads. (1) It is inconsistent and deeply discordant with the ethical tone of Phaeacia already given. (2) It does not further Ulysses in any way, it shows no trait in his character, unless his faint approval signifies his liking for such songs. Nor does it seem on the surface to connect him with Troy, as do the other two songs of Demodocus. (3) It gives an unworthy view of the G.o.ds, degrading them far below Homer's general level, reducing them to ordinary burlesque figures which violate all decency, not to speak of morality. (4) Philologists have picked out certain words and expressions peculiar to this pa.s.sage, which, not being employed by Homer elsewhere, tend to indicate some other author.

Still, if the pa.s.sage be an interpolation, this must have taken place early in the history of the poems. Pausanias the traveler declares that he saw the dancing scene of the Phaeacians depicted upon the throne of Apollo at Amyclae, the artist of which probably flourished about 600 B.

C. The old philosopher Herac.l.i.tus, who would scourge Homer from the festivals of the G.o.ds, doubtless had this pa.s.sage in mind. Plato censures its indecency specially, and, as is well known, would exclude all Homer from his ideal Republic. The ancients thus accepted the pa.s.sage as Homeric, with the exception of some of the later grammarians.

Next come the many attempts, old and new, to allegorize the Olympian scene, or to explain it away. From the fact that the sun keeps watch and is mentioned twice in this part, the latest school of mythologists, the comparative so-called, have taken much comfort, and have at once found in the whole a sun-myth. Some ancient expositors, according to Athenaeus, interpreted it as a story written for the purpose of deterring the listeners from doing similar bad deeds, pointing to the punishment even of G.o.ds herein designated; thus they sought to save the credit of Homer, treating him quite as some commentators have treated certain morally questionable stories in the Bible. Thus along down the ages to the present the loves of Venus and Mars have created trouble.

Undoubtedly the song has meaning and deserves a rational exposition.

Has it any connection with the other songs of this Book, or with Homer in general? It is certainly a product of early Greek poesy; can it be organically jointed into anything before it and after it? The burlesque tone which it a.s.sumes towards certain Olympians has caused it to be connected with the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, and with the war of the G.o.ds in the Iliad (Book Twenty-First). Let us extend our horizon, and take a new look in various directions.

In the first place this song connects with Troy and the Iliad like the other two songs of Demodocus. The cause of the Trojan War and of its poem was the deed of Paris. The seducer, the wife, the husband--Paris, Helen, Manelaus--are the three central figures of the legend. Here this legend is thrown up among the G.o.ds themselves, who furnish three corresponding characters--Mars, Venus, Vulcan. Then there is the wrong and the punishment of the wrong in both cases. Such is the theme of the Trojan War as it appears in the Iliad. Thus the three songs of Demodocus indicate a Pre-Iliad, an Iliad, and a Post-Iliad in due order.

In the second place one asks very emphatically: Why this present treatment of the G.o.ds on Homer's part? But here we must make an important distinction. The Supreme G.o.d, Zeus, does not appear, nor does Juno nor does Pallas, indeed none of the G.o.ddesses except the guilty one. The disgrace falls upon two mainly: Mars and Venus. In the Iliad they are Trojan deities hostile to the Greeks, and here the Greek poet serves them up together in an intermezzo, which makes them comic.

Indeed the Greek Hero Diomed fights and puts down just these two Trojan deities in the Fifth Book of the Iliad. So must every Greek Hero at Troy conquer Mars and Venus (Violence and l.u.s.t, to give a suggestion of their purport) before Helen can be restored to home and country; he must put down the hostile city and its G.o.ds. Note too, whither the Greek poet sends each of these deities after their release: Mars flies off to Thrace, a distant, barbarous country, beyond the borders of h.e.l.las, where he can find his own; Venus on the contrary slips away southeastward to Cyprus inhabited by peoples Oriental or Orientalizing, and therein like Troy and herself. Both rush out of Greece with all speed; they belong somewhere in the outskirts of the Greek world.

We may now see why the Phaeacians, without being so very wicked, could find an element in the song which they enjoyed. To them, with the Trojan War always in mind, this was the theme: the adulterous Trojan deities caught and laughed out of Olympus--those being the two deities who first misled by desire and then tried to keep by war the beautiful Helen, the Greek woman. Throwing ourselves back into his spirit, we may also see why Ulysses, the old war-horse from Troy, "was rejoiced in his heart, hearing the song" which degraded and burlesqued the G.o.ds whom he had fought ten years, and who were, in part at least, the occasion of his wandering ten more. Venus and Mars did not find much sympathy in the Phaeacian company, we may be sure. Why then regard them as G.o.ds? The Greek deified everything; even the tendencies which he felt himself obliged to suppress had something of the divine in them. Calypso, whom Ulysses subordinated at last to the higher principle, was a G.o.ddess; Troy, the hostile city, had its deities, whom the Greek recognised. Now its two chief deities are involved in a common shame, and flee from Olympus, flee almost outside of the Greek world. Certainly the audience could take some ethical satisfaction in that.

Then there is a third consideration different from the two preceding, both of which seek to look at the song from the ancient Greek standpoint. But from our modern standpoint it is also to be regarded.

There is no doubt that we see here the beginning of the end of polytheism; the many G.o.ds collide with one another, some are now put out and all will be finally put out; they are showing their finitude and transitoriness. Still further, we catch a glimpse of the sensuous side of Greek life, the excess of which at last brought death. Homer is the prophet of his people, when read with insight; he tells not only what they are, but hints what they are to become.

In general, we pa.s.s in this second part of the present Book as we have divided it, to the sensuous element of the Phaeacian world, the inactive, quiet, self-indulgent phase, in decided contrast to the preceding part which shows a love of manly action in games and in war.

Let us still further develop the twofold way in which this fact is brought out.

1. The second song of Demodocus has the general theme of the Trojan War and suggests the grand event of the aforetime. It manifestly carries the Trojan scission into Olympus and drives out in disgrace the Trojan deities. Vulcan, the wronged husband, is the divine artificer; he makes a network of chains which could not be broken, "like a spider's web, so fine that no one could see it, not even a G.o.d;" in this snare the guilty deities are caught, exposed, punished. These invisible, yet unbreakable chains have an ethical suggestion, and hint the law which is also to be executed on Olympus, as it was below in Troy. As Vulcan is the artist among the G.o.ds, we are prompted to find also an artistic bearing in the scene; the artist catches the wrong-doers by his art and holds them fast in a marvelous net where they still lie, and shall lie for all time; even the intercession of Neptune cannot get them free.

The scene is indeed caught out of the reality and holds to-day; the dashing, finely-uniformed son of Mars (so called at present) is most apt to win the heart of the gay, fashionable, beautiful daughter of Venus, have an escapade, and cause a scandal. Oft too they are caught in our modern, most adroitly woven spider's web, which goes under the name of newspaper, and held up, if not before a seeing Olympus, at least before a reading public, which not seldom indulges in conversation very much in the style of the G.o.ds as here set forth. We moderns do not go to the market-place to hear such a strain, but have it brought to us in the Morning Journal. One advantage the Phaeacian had: Arete and Nausicaa did not go to the market-place, where this song was sung, only men were there, but the print will enter the household where are wife and daughter. At any rate, we have to p.r.o.nounce the song of Demodocus typical, universal, nay, ethical in spite of its light-hearted raillery, inasmuch as the deed is regarded as a breach of divine law, is exposed and punished, and the recompense for the release of the guilty pair, the penalty, is duly stated in accordance with law.

Not every modern story-teller is so scrupulous, in meting out justice to ethical violation.

2. So much for the song; we turn again to the Phaeacians, who are not now engaged in athletic, but in a milder sport, the dance. Youths moved their bodies in tune to the strain; still in Greece the dance and the song often go together. Then two danced alone without the song, but employed a ball, tossing it from one to the other, for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the spectators. A rhythmical movement of the body in the dance shows more internality than the athletic game, but it is less hardy, is more indicative of luxury and effeminacy.

On account of these enjoyments, which have been unrolled before us in so many striking pictures, the Phaeacians have been regarded by some writers both in ancient and modern times as the mythical Sybarites devoted simply to a life of pleasure. The love of the warm bath and clean clothes, the dance and the song, above all the second lay of Demodocus have given them a bad name. Heraclides Ponticus derived their whole polity of non-intercourse, of concealment, of sending away the stranger as soon as possible out of their island, from their desire to resign themselves more completely to their luxurious habits, without foreign disturbance. Horace expresses a similar view of this people.

Nitzsch in Commentary (_ad loc._) defends the Phaeacians warmly against the charge, and the view that Arete and Nausicaa cannot be products of a corrupt society holds good. An idyllic people, not by any means enervated, though pleasure-loving--so we must regard them. That lay of the bard, rightly looked into, does not tell against them as strongly as is sometimes supposed. Still Heraclides touched upon a limitation of Phaeacia in his criticism, it refused to join the family of nations, it sought to be a kind of little China and keep all to itself. It had solved, however, the problem of external war and of internal dissension; no dispute with neighboring nations about commercial privileges, no local strife which cannot be settled by Arete. The poet has as nearly as possible succeeded in eliminating the negative element out of this society. An unwarlike folk, but not effeminate, happy in peace, with a childlike delight in play, which is the starting-point of art, and remains its substrate, according to Schiller; truly idyllic it must be regarded, a land on the way between nature and civilization, where life is a perpetual holiday, and even labor takes on a festal appearance.

Ulysses gives the palm of excellence in the dance to the Phaeacians, and with this recognition the king proposes a large number of presents--hospitable gifts, such as the host gives to his honored guest. Moreover an apology and a gift are required of that Euryalus who recently offended Ulysses. Thus reconciliation is the word and the deed. Then all are ready to return to the palace into the presence of Arete, who is the orderer, and she makes arrangements for packing up the gifts. Note the warm bath again, supposed sign of effeminacy; here it is taken by Ulysses with decided approbation. Nausicaa, too, appears in a pa.s.sing glance, and simply asks to be remembered for her deed; the response of Ulysses is emphatic: when he gets home he "will pray to her as to a G.o.d day by day, for thou, O maiden, hast saved my life."

In this round of recognition, the bard must not be forgotten; he is again led in, a banquet is served, and Ulysses takes special pains to honor him "with a part of the fat back of a white-tusked boar," and to speak a strong word of commendation: "Demodocus, I praise thee above all mortals; either the Muse or Apollo has taught thee, so well dost thou sing the fate of the Greeks."

III.

The praise of the bard naturally leads to the third portion of the Book, introduced by another song, which has its intimate connection with the preceding ones. Then its effect is noted upon Ulysses, who weeps as before, being stirred by many memories of companions lost.

Verily Troy is a tearful subject. What motive for weeping? Who is this stranger anyhow? Alcinous now starts his interrogations which Ulysses answers in the following Book. Still, though nameless, he has unfolded himself quite fully through his actions in this Book. Again we hear the deeds of the aforetime sung by the poet, and see their influence in the present.

1. Ulysses himself now asks the poet to sing of the Wooden Horse which "was made by Epeius with the aid of Pallas," the G.o.ddess here standing for skill, as it is now skill which takes Troy, not mere courage. Then mark further: Ulysses was the man who introduced it within the Trojan walls by stratagem--clearly another case of brain-work rather than brawn-work. This famous Wooden Horse was "filled with men who took Troy." Such is the song which Ulysses now calls for, mentioning himself by name--a fact which makes the announcement of his name soon after more impressive and dramatic. The Phaeacians had just heard the culminating act in the taking of Troy, whereof Ulysses was the hero; behold! he stands before them, in all the prestige of song. Some critics have wondered why the name of Ulysses was withheld so long, and have imagined all sorts of interpolations; surely they have not seen the plan of the poet.

The Wooden Horse is not employed in the Iliad, but is one of the striking details of the later epics, which recounted the destruction of Troy. The song of Demodocus carries the incident back to the time of Homer, and before Homer, for it suggests antecedent ballads or rhapsodies which Homer knew, but did not use, and which poets after him developed. The Odyssey takes for granted that its hearers knew the Lay of the Wooden Horse, and also the Lay of the Strife between Ulysses and Achilles, "the fame of which had reached the broad Heavens." Thus we get a peep into the workshop of Homer and catch a glimpse of his materials, which he did not invent, but found at hand. Homer is the builder, the architectonic genius; he organizes the floating, disparate songs of his age into a great totality, into a Greek Temple of which they are the stones. Note what he does with this lay of Demodocus; he puts it into its place in the total structure of the Odyssey, and thus preserves it forever. So he has done with all his materials doubtless.

We may now see that those who cut up the Homeric poems into so many different songs or ballads simply destroy the distinctive work of Homer. They pry asunder the beautiful Greek Temple, lay its stones alongside of one another, and say: behold the poet. But this is just what he is not, and in the present Book we may see him unfolding his own process. Homer is not Demodocus, but the latter's lay he takes up and then weaves what he wants of it into the texture of the total poem.

He is thus a contrast to the bard, whom, however, he fully recognizes and makes a part of his own work. Thus Homer himself really answers the Wolfian theory, which seeks to reduce him to a Demodocus, singing fragmentary lays about the Trojan War.

From the Greek poets the Wooden Horse pa.s.sed to Virgil, who has made it the best-known incident of the Trojan War. It is probably the most famous stratagem of all time, due to the skill of Ulysses. Herein lies the answer to the first lay of Demodocus; in the dispute Ulysses is right, indeed he is a greater hero than Achilles, who could never have captured the hostile city. The incident took place after the action of the Iliad, and after the death of Achilles, who, heroic in courage, stood in the way of intelligence. When he is gone, the city falls, overthrown by the brain of Ulysses.

Homer does not pretend to give the song of Demodocus in full, but a brief summary of what he sang before the Phaeacians. A later poet, Arctinus, took up the legend here alluded to, and developed it in a separate epic, called the Iliou-persis or Sack of Troy. Indeed a vast number of legends and lays about the Trojan War bloomed into epics, which were in later times joined together and called the Epic Cycle.

Thus we distinguish two very different stages of consciousness in early Greek poetry: the ballad-making and the epical, Homer being the supreme example of the latter, and Demodocus an instance of the former.

Looking back at the three lays of the bard in the present Book we find that they all are connected together in a common theme of which they show different phases, beginning, middle and end--the conflict before the Iliad, the conflict of the Iliad, and the conflict after the Iliad, all hovering around the great national enterprise of the Greeks, namely the Trojan War, in which the deepest principle of the h.e.l.lenic world, indeed of the entire Occident, was at stake.

But Homer, in distinction from Demodocus, weaves into his poem not only the past but the present, not only Troy but Phaeacia, not only the movement against the East but also the movement toward the West, of which Phaeacia is simply one stage. The Hero who unites these two great movements of Greek spirit is now brought before us again.

2. Ulysses weeps at the song of the bard which recalls so many memories of friends departed and of dire calamities. These tears connect him deeply with Troy and its conflict; the Phaeacians listen intently, but are outside of the great struggle, they shed no tears. Thus does Ulysses in his strongest emotions unite himself with the Trojan enterprise of aforetime. He is not simply a wanderer over the sea seeking to get home, but a returner from Troy; he has revealed himself through his feelings. He personally shares in the woes sung by the bard, because he has experienced them. Indeed the very image which the poet here employs to express sorrow, taken from the woman whose husband has been slain fighting for his city, and for his wife and his children, recalls Hector, Andromache and Astyanax as they appear in the Sixth Book of the Iliad. Ulysses is like such a woman, without home or family, alone among strangers, shedding tears. Thus he connects himself with the fateful story of Ilium.

Previously Ulysses wept at the first lay of Demodocus, now he emphasizes his sorrow by repet.i.tion. Whenever the theme of Troy is touched, he has to respond with tears; the second time of weeping at the Trojan tale is necessary in order to fix his character and identify him as a returner. Yet this repet.i.tion so vitally organic is questioned by many critics, some of whom resort to excision. It is hardly worth the while to notice them in their various attempts at destruction and construction; when we once catch the underlying motive all becomes plain. The first and last scenes of weeping unifies the Book, the bond of tears holds its parts indissolubly together in the emotions.

Alcinous has observed the stranger both times, sitting near him, while we may suppose that the other Phaeacians, not noticing him, to be further off. The king sees his distress and even hears his sobs; in the first case the royal host refrained from inquiry, that being the duty of hospitality; but now the time for interrogation has arrived. The speech of Alcinous is characteristic; full of humanity, full of sympathy is the tone: "a guest, a suppliant stands for a brother even to the man of little feeling." A touch of prophetic boastfulness he shows here and elsewhere; the ships of the Phaeacians he endows with supernatural powers, which fact, however, is not without meaning: "We have no pilots, no rudders even, our boats obey our thoughts, and know the cities and lands to which they come; very quickly do they shoot across the wave, hid in fog and cloud." Truly an ideal ship, which time has not yet realized, though recent navigation, with its present steam and its future electricity, is on the way thereto. Still angry Neptune threatens danger and may work damage, "smiting the ship on the dark deep." This speech of Alcinous with its miraculous, prophetic tinge, with its far-seeing hints of coming realities, almost foretelling our modern humanity and our modern mastery of the sea through science, and putting the two side by side, has given much trouble to the critics, whom we again shall have to pa.s.s by, as they simply darken the poet.

Finally comes the demand: who art thou and why didst thou weep? What is thy relation to Troy? Such is the culminating question; Ulysses has been unfolding himself more and more throughout the present Book before the king and people. The games showed his heroic strength; the dances brought out his recognizing and harmonious spirit; the lays of Demodocus have developed his connection with Troy. He clearly belongs to the past and to the present, possibly he is a bridge spanning them, which bridge he may be induced to build in wondrous rainbow colors before the eyes of the Phaeacians.

_Appendix._ It seems never to have been noticed what an important relation the present Book sustains toward the Wolfian theory concerning the Homeric poems. The picture of Demodocus here given doubtless suggested to Wolf the first outline of his view, and has influenced other commentators who lean toward similar opinions. It is well known that Wolf in his famous _Prolegomena_ maintains that the Iliad and Odyssey were originally a string of ballads more or less disconnected, and that Homer was only one of the many balladists, probably the best; furthermore he holds that these ballads were brought together, edited and put into their present shape by certain literary men called _diaskeuastoe_--revisers, redactors, professors of poetry and philology at the court of Peisistratus, about 500 B.C.

That is, Wolf regards Homer as a Demodocus, a singer and also a maker of disjointed ballads and war-songs, the latter pertaining mostly to the heroes of the Trojan War. These were sung at the festivals of the people, at the houses of the n.o.bility, and at the courts of kings, quite as we see the bard singing here in Phaeacia. This fact we may accept; but the question comes up: Is Homer such a balladist and nothing more?

Now it is clear that Homer is not a Demodocus, since the latter is not an epical builder, but a simple singer of separate lays for the occasion. Mark well that Homer in this book does not unfold the themes, "Strife between Ulysses and Achilles," and "The Wooden Horse," but simply alludes to them as well-known; he barely gives the t.i.tle and a little of the argument, then drops the matter, leaving us to suppose that the Bard sang a somewhat lengthy lay, of which the effect upon the hearers and specially upon Ulysses is duly noted.

Homer, therefore, in this Book as well as in the First Book where Phemius is introduced, makes the Bard or Balladist merely one of his figures, and the song one of his incidents, while he, the veritable Homer, portrays the total environment, showing the court, the games, the household, the complete Phaeacian world. Here we come upon the main distinction: Homer's eye is upon the totality of which the ballad-singer is but a small fragment; Demodocus appears in but one Phaeacian Book, and is by no means all of that, though for once the leading figure.

A step further we may carry the thought. Homer is not only not a Demodocus, but he very distinctly contrasts himself with Demodocus by his poetic procedure. If he is at such pains to show himself a world-builder, and then puts into his world a ballad-singer as a pa.s.sing character, he certainly emphasizes the difference between himself and the latter. It is also to be noticed that Demodocus does not sing an Iliad, though he chants lays of Troy; the Iliad is an organized work, not a collection of ballads strung together. Everything about Demodocus indicates separate songs; everything about Homer (the Iliad and the Odyssey) indicates unity of song. Hence with the separatists, dissectors, anatomizers, Demodocus is a greater favorite than Homer, indeed he has taken the place of Homer.

Moreover the poet has plainly marked another stage, a stage between himself and Demodocus. In the next Book Ulysses will begin singing and continue through four Books, giving his adventures in Fableland, which by itself possesses a certain completeness. Still it is but an organic part of the total Odyssey, whose poetical architect is Homer. Ulysses as singer is clearly higher than Demodocus; but Homer is above both, for he takes both of them up into his unity, which is the all-embracing poem.

Most emphatically, therefore, Homer shows himself not to be a Demodocus, not to be a ballad-singer, which is an essential point in the Wolfian argument. Homer himself refutes Wolf some 2,500 years beforehand, and his is still the best refutation. A careful study of this Eighth Book settles the relation between balladist and poet by a simple presentation of the facts in their proper co-ordination, and also puts the alert reader on the track of the genesis of the Wolfian _Prolegomena_. For there can hardly be a doubt that Wolf, consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, derived his main conception of Homer from the present Book and from the part that Demodocus, the bard, plays in it. To be sure, the idea that Demodocus, in a general way, is Homer, is old, coming down from antiquity and suggesting itself to the modern reader, who very naturally thinks that Homer is giving some traits of himself in his picture of the blind singer. So much we may grant: some traits of himself, but not all by any means; Homer doubtless upon occasion could sing a short lay of Troy for the amus.e.m.e.nt of his audience, like Demodocus; but in such a part he is only a wee fragment of the author of those magnificent works, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The total Homer builds totalities, by the very necessity of his genius.