Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3 · Plutarch
THE LIFE AND POETRY OF HOMER
Let us see if the other forms of narrative are to be found in our author and how he took cognizance of them and clearly prepared them. We will give a few examples and so facilitate acquaintance with the rest. There is the theoretic style, which embraces what is called speculative matter, which is a knowledge of the truth conceived in art. By these it is possible to know the nature of reality, both divine and human things, and to discriminate virtues and vices in morals and to learn how to attain truth by logical skill. These things are the province of those who are occupied in philosophy, which is divided into natural, ethical, and dialectical. If we find out Homer supplying the beginnings and the seeds of all these, is he not, beyond all others, worthy of admiration? Because he shows matters of intelligence by dark sayings and mythical expressions, it ought not to be considered strange. The reason is to be found in poetic art and ancient custom. So those who desired to learn, being led by a certain intellectual pleasure, might the easier seek and find the truth, and that the unlearned might not despise what they are not able to understand. For what is indicated indirectly is stimulating, while what is said clearly is valued more moderately.
Let us begin with the beginning and creation of the whole universe, which Thales the Milesian refers to the substance water, and let us see whether Homer first discovered this when he said (I. xiv. 246):-- Even to the stream of old Oceanus Prime origin of all. After him Xenophanes of Colophon, laying down that the first elements were water and land, seems to have taken this conception from the Homeric poems (I. vii. 99):-- To dust and water turn all ye who here inglorious sit. For he indicates their dissolution into the original elements of the universe. But the most likely opinion makes four elements,--fire, air, water, earth. These Homer shows he knows, as in many places he makes mention of them. He knew, too, the order of their arrangement. We shall see that the land is the lowest of them all, for as the world is spherical, the sky, which contains all things, can reasonably be said to have the highest position. The earth being in the midst everywhere is below what surrounds it. This the poet declares chiefly in the lines where he says if Zeus let a chain down from Olympus, he could turn over the land and sea so that everything would be in the air (I. viii. 23):-- But if I choose to make my pow'r be known, The earth itself and ocean I could raise, And binding round Olympus' ridge the cord Leave them suspended so in middle air.
Although the air is around the earth, he says the ether is higher in the following lines (I. xiv. 287):-- And going up on a lofty pine, which then grew on the summit of Ida and through the air reached into the ether. But higher than the ether is heaven (I. xvii. 424):-- And thus they fought: the iron clangor pierc'd The airless ether and brazen vault of Heaven. And, besides, in the following (I. i. 497):-- The vapor ascended to the great heaven and to Olympus. The top part of the air is finer and more distant from the earth and its exhalations. Therefore it is said Olympus is called "wholly shining." Where the poet says Hera is the wife of Zeus, although she is his sister, he seems to speak in an allegory, since Hera stands for the air, which is a humid substance. Therefore he says (I. xxi. 6):-- Hera spread before their path clouds of thick darkness. By Zeus is signified the ether, that is the fiery and heated substance (I. xv. 192):-- Broad Heav'n amid the sky and clouds, to Jove. They seem brother and sister on account of a certain likeness and relationship, because both are light and mobile; they dwell together and are intimate, because from their intercourse all things are generated. Therefore they meet in Ida, and the land produces for them plants and flowers.
The same explanation have those words in which Zeus says he will, hang Hera and fasten two weights to her feet, namely, the land and the sea. He works out especially the principles of the elements in what Poseidon says to him (I. xv. 187):-- We were brethren, all of Rhaea born To Saturn: Jove and I and Pluto third, Who o'er the nether regions holds his sway, and (I. xv. 189):-- Threefold was our partition: each obtain'd His meed of honor due. And in the division of the whole, Zeus obtained the element fire, Poseidon water, and Hades that of air. Him he also calls "aerial darkness," because the air has no proper light, but is lightened by the sun, moon, and other planets. The fourth part was left common to all, for the primal essence of the three elements is always in motion. The earth alone remains unmoved, to which he added also Olympus; it may have been because it is a mountain, being a part of the earth. If it belongs to heaven, as being the most brilliant and purest part of it, this may be the fifth essence in the elements, as certain distinguished philosophers think. So he, with reason, has conjectured it was common, the lowest part belonging to the earth by its weight, and the top parts to Olympus by their lightness. The natures between the two are borne upward to the one and downward to the other.
Since the nature of the elements is a combination of contraries, of dryness and moisture, hot and cold, and since by their relation and combination all things are constructed and undergo partial changes,--the whole not admitting of dissolution,--Empedocles says all things exist in this manner: "Sometimes in love all things meeting together in one. Sometimes, again, each being carried away by animosity of hate." The concord and unity of the elements he calls love, their opposition, hate. Before his time Homer foreshadowed love and hate in what he says in his poetry (I. xiv. 200):-- I go to visit old Oceanus The sire of gods, and Tethys, I go to visit them and reconcile a lengthen'd feud. A similar meaning has the myth about, Aphrodite and Ares, the one having the same force as Empedocles's love, the other his hate. When they sometimes come together, and again separate, the sun reveals them, Hephaestus binds them, and Poseidon releases them. Whence it is evident that the warm and dry essence, and the contrary of these, the cold and wet, sometimes combine all things and again dissolve them.
O Father Jove, from o'er the sons of Greece, Remove this cloudy darkness; clear the sky That we may see our fate. But after the earthquake, the vapor issuing forth, there are violent winds, whence Hera says (I. xxi. 334):-- While from the sea I call the strong blast Of Zephyr and brisk Notus who shall drive The raging flames ahead. On the following day Iris calls the winds to the pyre of Patroclus (I. xxiii. 212):-- They with rushing sound rose and before them drove the hurrying clouds. So the eclipse of the sun takes place in a natural manner, when the moon on its passage by it goes under it perpendicularly and is darkened. This he seems to have known. For he said before that Odysseus was about to come (O. xiv. 162):-- As the old moon wanes, and the new is born;-- that is, when the month ends and begins, the sun being conjoined with the moon at the time of his coming. The seer says to the suitors (O. xiv. 353):-- Ah, wretched men, what woe is this ye suffer, shrouded in night are your heads and your faces and knees, and kindled is the voice of wailing and the path is full of phantoms and full is the court, the shadows of men hasting hellwards beneath the gloom, and the sun is perished out of heaven, and an evil mist has overspread the world.
When Jove Pours down his fiercest storms in wrath to men, Who in their courts unrighteous judgments pass. Then just as he introduces the gods caring for men, so he represents men as mindful of them in every crisis. As the leader, succeeding in an action, says (I. viii. 526):-- Hopeful to Jove I pray, and all the gods To chase from hence these fate-inflicted hounds. And in danger (I. xvii. 646):-- Father Jove, from o'er the sons of Greece, Remove this cloudy darkness. And again when one has slayed another (I. xxii. 379):-- Since heaven has granted us this man to slay. And dying (I. xxii. 358):-- But see I bring not down upon thy head the wrath of heaven. From what other place than here did originate that doctrine of the Stoics? I mean this, that the world is one and in it both gods and men minister, sharing in justice by their nature. For when he says (I. xx. 4):-- Then Jove to Themis gave command to call The gods to council from the lofty height Of many ridg'd Olympus. Why, Lord of lightning, hast thou summoned here The gods of council, dost thou aught desire Touching the Greeks and Trojans? What does this mean except that the world is conducted by civilized laws and the gods consult under the presidency of the father of gods and men?
His opinion on fate he shows clearly in his poems (I. vi. 488):-- Dearest, wring not thus my heart, For till my day of destiny is come No man may take my life, and when it comes Nor brave, nor coward can escape that day. But among the other things in which he confirms the power of fate, he thinks as the most-approved philosophers have thought after him,--Plato, Aristotle, and Theophrastus,--that not all things happen by fate, but some things are in the power of men, the choice of whom is free. The same man in a way acts as he desires and falls into what he does not desire. And this point of view he has clearly expounded in many places, as in the beginning of each of his poems: in the "Iliad" saying the wrath of Achilles was the cause of the destruction of the Greeks and that the will of Zeus was fulfilled; in the "Odyssey" that the comrades of Odysseus went to their destruction by their own folly. For they had offended by touching the sacred oxen of the Sun, although they could have abstained from doing so. Yet it was foreordained (O. xi. 110):-- But if thou hurtest them, I signify ruin for thy ships, and for thy men, and even though thou shalt thyself escape. If thou doest them no hurt and art careful to return, so may ye yet reach Ithaca, albeit in evil case.
Not the body nor the nature. O. iv. 196:-- A body came to the woman. O. xvi. 251:-- By my form, my virtue, my body. But that which has put off the soul he calls nothing else but body as in these lines (I. vii. 79):-- To bring home my body again. And (O. xxiv. 187):-- The bodies lie uncared for in the hall of Odysseus. O. xi. 53:-- And we left the body in the house of Circe. For the same thing, while a man lives, was the bond of the soul; when he dies it is left, as it were, his monument. To this is related also another doctrine of Pythagoras, namely, that the souls of the dead pass into other forms of bodies. This did not escape Homer's notice, for he made Hector talking with horses, and Antilochus and Achilles himself not only talking with them but listening to them, and a dog recognizing Odysseus before men, even before his intimates. What other thing is he establishing but a community of speech and a relation of soul between men and beasts? Besides, there are those who ate up the oxen of the Sun and after this fell into destruction. Does he not show that not only oxen but all other living creatures, as sharers of the same common nature, are beloved by the gods?
The change of the comrades of Odysseus into swine and that type of animal signifies this, that the souls of undeserving men are changed into the likeness of brute beasts; they fall into the circular periphery of the whole, which he calls Circe; whereas she is justly represented as the child of the Sun, dwelling in the island of Aeaea, for this word [Greek omitted] is so called because men lament and wail by reason of death. But the prudent man Odysseus did not suffer the change, because from Hermes, i.e. reason, he had received immortality. He went down into Hades, as it were, dissolving and separating the soul from the body, and became a spectator of souls both good and bad. The Stoics define the soul as a cognate spirit, sensible to exhalations. It has its origin from the humid portions of the body. In this they follow Homer, who says (I. ix. 609).-- While the breath abides in the breast. And again (I. xxiii. 100):-- Vanish'd like smoke, the spirit beneath the earth. Here he makes the vital spirit, being humid, a breath; when it is extinguished he likens it to smoke. And the word "spirit" itself he uses for soul (I. xv. 262):-- His words fresh vigor in the chief infus'd. And (I. iv. 524):-- Breathing away his spirit.
Up to this time he revolved these things in his mind and heart, that is, the intelligent part and what is opposed to it? The emotional anger is represented by him as overcome by prudence. For the appearance of Athene signifies this. And in these places he makes reason admonish the emotions, as a ruler giving orders to a subject (O. xx. 18):-- Endure my heart; yea, a baser thing thou once didst bear. And often the passionate element gives way to reason (I. xx. 22):-- Pallas indeed sat silent and though inly wroth with Jove, yet answered not a word. Likewise injury (I. xviii. 112):-- Though still my heart be sore, Yet will I school my angry spirit down. Sometimes he shows the passionate element getting the better of reason. This he does not praise, but openly blames; as when Nestor speaks upbraiding the insult offered by Agamemnon to Achilles (I. ix. 108):-- Not by my advice I fain would have dissuaded thee; but thou, Swayed by the promptings of a lofty soul, Didst to our bravest wrong dishonoring him Whom ev'n the Immortals honor'd. Achilles speaks like things to Ajax (I. ix. 645):-- All thou hast said hath semblance just and fair, But swells my heart with fury at the thought of him, Of Agamemnon, who, amid the Greeks Assembled, held me forth to scorn.
So, too, reason is paralysed by fear, where Hector deliberates whether he will abide the conflict with Achilles (I. xxii. 129):-- Better to dare the fight and know at once To whom Olympian Jove the triumph wills, Then he withdraws when he gets near Achilles (I. xxii. 136):-- Nor dared he there await th' attack, but left The gates behind, and terror-stricken fled. It is also plain that he places the emotions about the heart. Anger as (O. xx. 13):-- The heart within barked for him. Grief (I. xiv. 128):-- How long, my son, wilt thou thy soul consume with grief an mourning? Then fear (I. x. 95):-- And leaps my troubled heart as tho' it would burst My bosom's bounds; my limbs beneath me shake. In the same way just as fear, so he declares daring to be about the heart (I. xvi. 11):-- And fix'd in every breast The fierce resolve to wage unwearied war. From these passages the Stoics took the opinion that the leading element is about the heart. That the appetitive element is placed in the intestines in many places he declares; in these verses, for example (O. xviii. 54):-- But my belly's call is urgent on me, that evil worker,-- and (O. xvii. 286):-- But now may conceal a ravening belly, a thing accursed.
And the causes which belong to the passionate element of the soul he says happen by nature. For wrath created by grief he shows is a kind of effervescence of the blood and the spirit in it as in the following (I. i. 103):-- His dark soul filled with fury, and his eyes flashing like flames of fire. For he seemed to call spirit [Greek omitted], i.e. wrath, and this in the case of those who are angry he thinks is extended and inflamed. Again the spirit, if there is fear, is perturbed and made cold, generates tremors and terrors and pallors in the body. Pallor, by the heat coursing into the interior ruddiness leaves the surface. Tremor, because being, confined within the spirit it shakes the body. Terror, because when the moisture is congealed the hairs are contracted and stand on end. All of these Homer clearly indicates when he says (I. xv. 4):-- Pallid from fear. And (I. vii. 479):-- Pallid fear lay hold on him. (I. x. 95):-- My valiant members tremble. And (I. xxiv. 358):-- The old man heard, his mind confus'd with dread, So grievously he fear'd that every hair Upon his bended head did stand on end. According to these passages for "feared" he says "frozen" and "fear" he calls "freezing." On the other hand, for "daring" and "courage" he uses [Greek omitted], "heat." Evil effects, he distinguishes in these ways.
His eyes kept steadfast between his eyelids as it were horn or iron. But the suitors who were in love with her when they saw her (O. xviii. 212):-- And straightways the knees of the wooers were loosened, and their hearts were enchanted with love, and each one uttered a prayer that he might be her bedfellow. Such is the poet's treatment of the powers and passions of the soul. Although there are various things said by the philosophers about the chief end of virtue and happiness, it is agreed by all that virtue of the soul is the greatest of goods. But the Stoics consider that virtue by itself is sufficient for happiness, taking the cue from the Homeric poems in which he has made the wisest and most prudent man on account of virtue despising trouble and disregarding pleasure. As to the first point in this way (O. iv. 242):-- Now all of them I could not tell or number, so many as were the adventures of the patient Odysseus. He bruised himself with unseemly stripes and cast a sorry covering over his shoulders, and in the fashion of a servant he went into the wide-wayed city of the foemen. And as to the second, i.e. (O. ix. 29):-- Vainly Calypso, the fair goddess, would fain have kept me with her in her hollow caves longing to have me for her lord. Circe of Aia would have stayed me in her halls, longing to have me for her lord. But never did they prevail upon my heart within my breast.
That in a comparison of goods valor is better than wealth, he shows in the following (I. ii. 872):-- With childish folly to the war he came, Laden with stress of gold; yet naught availed His gold to save him from the doom of death. And (O. iv. 93):-- I have no joy of my lordship among these my possessions. And that intelligence is better than beauty of form (O. viii. 169):-- For one man is feebler than another in presence, yet the gods crown his words with beauty. It is evident that bodily excellence and external things he considers as good, and that without these virtue alone is not sufficient for happiness he declares in the following way. He created two men who attained to the height of virtue, Nestor and Odysseus, different indeed from one another, but like one another in prudence and valor and power of eloquence. He has made them not at all equal in fortune, but on the side of Nestor he has placed the gods (O. iv. 208):-- Right easily is known that man's seed for whom Cronion weaves the skein of luck at bridal and at birth, even as now hath he granted prosperity to Nestor forever, for all his days, that he himself should grow into smooth old age in his halls, and his sons moreover should be wise and the best of spearsmen.
Rather would I live upon the soil as the hireling of another with a lordless man who had no great livelihood, than bear sway among the dead that are no more. And he adds the cause (O. xi. 498):-- For I am no longer his champion under the sun, so mighty a man as once I was, when in wide Troy I slew the best of the host, succoring the Argives. That saying of the Stoics, that good men are friends of the gods, is taken from Homer, who says about Amphiaerus (O. xv. 245):-- Whom Zeus, lord of the ages, and Apollo loved with all manner of love. And of Odysseus (O. iii. 52):-- And Athene rejoiced in the wisdom and judgment of the man. There is, too, an opinion of the same philosophic school that virtue is teachable, and has for its beginning good birth. For Homer says (O. iv. 206):-- And from such a sire thou too art sprung, wherefore thou dost even speak wisely. And by training it is brought to perfection. For virtue is the knowledge of living rightly, i.e. of doing the things which it is necessary for those who live well to do. These principles can also be found in Homer, for he says (I. ix. 440):-- Inexperienced yet in war, that sorrow brings alike on all And sage debate in which attends renown.
It is not good for many to reign, let there be but one ruler. And (O. iii. 127):-- We never spake diversely either in the assembly or in the council, but always were of one mind. He always makes use of the uneven number as the better. For making the whole world to have five parts, three of these being the mean, he divides it (I. xv. 189):-- Threefold was our portion each obtained, His need of honor due. Therefore, too, Aristotle thought there were five elements, since the uneven and perfect number had everywhere the predominance. And to the heavenly gods he gives the uneven shares. For Nestor nine times to Poseidon sacrificed nine bulls; and Tiresias bids Odysseus sacrifice (O. xi. 131):-- A ram and a bull and a boar, the mate of swine. But Achilles immolated for Patroclus, all in even numbers, four horses and (I. xxiii. 175):-- Twelve noble sons he slew, the sons of Troy,-- and of nine dogs he casts two on the pyre, in order to leave for himself seven. And in many places he uses the ternary, quinary, and septenary number, especially the number nine (I. vii. 161):-- The old man spoke reproachfully; at his words Uprose nine warriors. And (O. xi. 311):-- At nine seasons old they were of breadth nine cubits, and nine fathoms in height.
And had joy thereof and gone on his way the wiser. In another place he introduces in banquets the lyre, as among the suitors (O. xvii. 271):-- And the voice of the lyre is heard there which the gods made to be mate of the feast. And at the house of Alcinous the player on the lyre (O. vii. 266):-- Was composing a beautiful song. And at marriages (I. xviii. 495):-- The pipes and lyres were sounding. And in the works of the vintage (I. xvii. 569):-- A boy amid them, from a clear-ton'd pipe Drew lovely music; well his liquid voice The strings accompanied. Besides in war (I. x. 13):-- Of pipes and flutes he heard the sound. Also he uses music to express grief (I. xxiv. 721):-- Poured forth the music of the mournful dirge, by the sweetness of melodies softening the bitterness of the soul. It is clear that melody is twofold,--one of the voice, the other of instruments, partly wind, partly string. Of sound some are bass, some treble. These differences Homer knew, since he represents women and boys with treble voices, by reason of the tenuity of their breath; men, he makes with bass voices. As in the following (I. xviii. 70):-- She with bitter cry Clasped in her hands his head, and Sorrowing spoke.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
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