XI. HOMER AND ENGLAND

HE knowledge of Homer came to
England directly from Italy, but cer-

T

tain traditions connected with the story of Troy were known through Virgil, Dares, Dictys, and the epitome of the Iliad, Ilias Latina, made by the so-called Pindarus Thebanus.

Both the French and the English believed that they were descended from the Trojans, hence they relied on the version assumed to be given by Dares, a Trojan priest of Vulcan.

Chaucer could hardly have known Homer at first hand, but in his House of Fame he sees Homer standing on a pillar of honor:

Ful wonder hye on a pileer

Of yren, he, the greete Omere.

Trojan descendents could not look with favor on the poet who had sung the glories of the Greeks, hence the verses:

But yit I gan ful wel espie
Betwix hem was a litel envye,

Oon seyde, that Omere made lyes
Feynynge in his poetries

And was to Grekes favorable.

The sixteenth century was the beginning of genuine and direct Greek influence in England. More in his Utopia described such an enthusiasm for the study of that language that all men were forced to become Hellenists by a decree of the senate of Utopia.

During that century Greek became a part of the curriculum in the universities, texts of Greek authors were published in London; even the Court studied Aristotle, Plato, and the Greek orators and tragedians. About the middle of the century Thomas Watson attempted a translation of Homer in English hexameters, and a little later Arthur Hall published a translation of the first ten books of the Iliad.27

Chapman achieved such a measure of success by his translation that he made Homer almost an English classic, and from this time to the present a knowledge of the contents of both the Iliad and the Odyssey has been part of the training of all educated Englishmen.

At the same time that Chapman was busy with his translation, Spenser was at work on

his Faerie Queene, a poem which is permeated with Homeric mythology.

Shakespeare's productivity coincided in time with the translation of Chapman, a translation with which the poet was familiar, as is shown by the introduction into the story of Troïlus and Cressida of the character of the common reviler, Thersites, since that figure is not found either in Chaucer or in the mediaeval romance. Added proof that Shakespeare was familiar with the story of the Iliad is found in the manner by which Achilles is called back into action, since Shakespeare follows the Homeric account that it was the death of Patroclus which made Achilles forego his anger, while in the other version he returned because of the exploits of Troïlus.

An outline of the tenth book of the Iliad is found in the words of Warwick:

Our scouts have found the adventure very easy,
That as Ulysses and stout Diomede
With sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents
And brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds.
Henry VI, Part III, IV, 2.

It is in Milton that the real spirit of Homer found English utterance, and it was with

Homer that Milton felt lifelong companionship. In a poem written when he was but eighteen, At a Vacation Exercise in the College, he wrote:

Then sing of secret things that came to pass
When beldam nature in her cradle was;
And last of kings and queens and heroes old,
Such as the wise Demodocus once told
In solemn songs at king Alcinous' feast,
While sad Ulysses' soul and all the rest
Are held, with his melodious harmony,
In willing chains and sweet captivity.

The words "sad Ulysses' soul" show keen observation and the genius of the poet.

Comus is an Homeric poem in plan and setting. Comus was the son of Circe and like his mother carried the wand of the magician and gave his guests a potion which changed them into beasts. His attendants were the debased forms of human beings thus changed.

Odysseus was able to escape from Circe because of an herb, moly, which Hermes gave to him, and it was with just such an herb that the Good Spirit was able to baffle the efforts of Comus.

Comus offers the lady a glass which was said to contain a drink so joy-inspiring that,

Not that Nepenthes which the wife of Thone In Egypt gave to Jove-born Helena

Is of such power to stir up joy as this.

The Homeric word which designated evening, "time for unyoking the oxen," becomes in the Comus:

what time the laboured ox In his loose traces from the furrow came.

The song sung to invite Sabrina to come and release the Lady from the enchanter's spell calls upon Oceanus, Neptune, Tethys, Nereus, Proteus, Leucothea, Thetis, and the Sirens; all of whom are Homeric divinities.

Finally the Lady is released from the toils of Comus in much the same manner as the companions of Odysseus were restored to human forms after they had been turned into swine by the drug of Circe.

Milton in the Comus borrowed much from Homer, but it is first in Paradise Lost that he really caught the Homeric spirit; there it is not a matter of imitation but of a kindred mind rising to kindred heights.

Dryden thought that no one had ever copied Homer with such success as Milton, but