Gladstone On The Women Of Homer

________________________________________________
_ The divers specifications of my ignorance and stupidity contained in the foregoing criticisms will be attended to in their proper place in the chronological order of the present chapter, which naturally begins with Homer's epics, as nothing definite is known of Greek literature before them. Homer is now recognized as the first poet of antiquity, not only in the order of time; but it took Europe many centuries to discover that fact. During the Middle Ages the second-rate Virgil was held to be a much greater genius than Homer, and it was in England, as Professor Christ notes, that the truer estimate originated. Pope's translation of the Homeric poems, with all its faults, helped to dispel the mists of ignorance, and in 1775 appeared Robert Wood's book, _On the Original Genius and Writings of Homer_, which combated the foolish prejudice against the poet, due to the coarseness of the manners he depicts. Wood admits that "most of Homer's heroes would, in the present age, be capitally convicted, in any country in Europe, on the poet's evidence;" but this, he explains, does not detract from the greatness of Homer, who, upon an impartial view, "will appear to excel his own state of society, in point of decency and delicacy, as much as he has surpassed more polished ages in point of genius."

In this judicious discrimination between the genius of Homer and the realistic coarseness of his heroes, Wood forms an agreeable contrast to many modern Homeric scholars, notably the Rt. Hon. W.E. Gladstone, who, having made this poet his hobby, tried to persuade himself and his readers that nearly everything relating not only to Homer, but to the characters he depicts, was next door to perfection. Confining ourselves to the topic that concerns us here, we read, in his _Studies on Homer_ (II., 502), that "we find throughout the poems those signs of the overpowering force of conjugal attachments which ... we might expect." And in his shorter treatise on Homer he thus sums up his views as to the position and estimate of woman in the heroic age, as revealed in Homer's female characters:

"The most notable of them compare advantageously with those commended to us in the Old Testament; while Achaiian Jezebels are nowhere found. There is a certain authority of the man over the woman; but it does not destroy freedom, or imply the absence either of respect, or of a close mental and moral fellowship. Not only the relation of Odysseus to Penelope and of Hector to Andromache, but those of Achilles to Briseis, and of Menelaus to the returned Helen, are full of dignity and attachment. Briseis was but a captive, yet Achilles viewed her as in expectation a wife, called her so, avowed his love for her, and laid it down that not he only, but every man must love his wife if he had sense and virtue. Among the Achaiian Greeks monogamy is invariable; divorce unknown; incest abhorred.... The sad institution which, in Saint Augustine's time, was viewed by him as saving the world from yet worse evil is unknown or unrecorded. Concubinage prevails in the camp before Troy, but only simple concubinage. Some of the women, attendants in the Ithacan palace, were corrupted by the evil-minded Suitors; but some were not. It should, perhaps, be noted as a token of the respect paid to the position of the woman, that these very bad men are not represented as ever having included in their plans the idea of offering violence to Penelope. The noblest note, however, of the Homeric woman remains this, that she shared the thought and heart of her husband: as in the fine utterance of Penelope she prays that rather she may be borne away by the Harpies than remain to 'glad the heart of a meaner man' (_Od_. XX., 82) than her husband, still away from her."

Only a careful student of Homer can quite realize the diplomatic astuteness which inspired this sketch of Homeric morals. Its amazing sophistry can, however, be made apparent even to one who has never read the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_. _

Read next: Achilles As A Lover

Read previous: Champions Of Greek Love

Table of content of Greek Love-Stories and Poems


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book