MR. CHURCH'S STORIES OF THE ILIAD AND ODYSSEY.*

Mn. CHURCH'S Stories from Homer, published in 1878, had only one serious fault, that the compression was far too great to give, we will not say an adequate conception, but a con- • (1) The Story of the Iliad. By the Rev. Alfred J. Church, M.A. With Illustrations after Flaxman. London : Seeley and Co. 1882.—(2.) The Story of the Odyssey. By the Rev. Alfred 3. Church, M.A. With Illustrations after Flaxman. London : Seeley and 00. 1892. ception not even painfully inadequate, of the great poet with whom he was dealing. It was not, indeed, quite so bad as producing a single brick as a specimen of a house ; but it was like producing a model of one or two lofty rooms to give a conception of a vast and noble building. Still, all that he

did give was so full of charm, his prose was so limpid and graceful, and he contrived so happily to inlay, with some- thing of Homer's own art, the legends of great deeds and sufferings with sayings containing the maturest wisdom of the early world, that the book obtained a great popularity, and its sale now exceeds twenty thousand. But the two volumes with which he replaces that single volume of only three hundred short pages, give him double the space ; and though, of course, the scale is still, as indeed for Mr. Church's pmpose it ought to be, greatly reduced from that of the original, it is now ample enough to give us a fair impression of the whole structure, and not merely of certain almost

arbitrarily chosen parts. For example, one of the most characteristic of Homeric passages in the Iliad, the making

of the new armour for Achilles with the reconciliation of Achilles to Agamemnon, was hurried over in two or three pages in the earlier book, the compression in certain passages being so great as even to give to the narrative a sugges- tion of missing links. This is all remedied in the newer form, and remedied with great effect. Again, "The Battle of the Gods," which was wholly omitted in the earlier story, though it is one of the most characteristic of all the books, both for the singular vivacity as well as simplicity of its polytheism, and for the exquisitely delineated scorn with which the divine patrons of the Greeks are delineated as treating those who take part with the cause of the Trojans, is

told here with great skill and liveliness. In the Odyssey, again, Ulysses' visit to the region of the dead has been greatly expanded, and made, indeed, a very effective part

of the narrative, while the proper order of Homer's story has been restored. The two volumes seem to us worth more than twice as much as the single volume of 1878.

The Iliad would hardly be the Iliad without the book on "The Battle of the Gods," in which Homer delineates

the prudence of Apollo, who, in spite of his sympathy with Troy, will not risk anything on the side against which destiny has declared; the impulsive ardour of Artemis, who reproaches him with his enlightened selfishness ; and the contemptuous wrath of Hera, as she punishes the god- dess of the silver bow with a malice as feminine as it is scornful.

We will give the passage beginning with Apollo's prudent reply to the eager challenge of Poseidon :—

"To him Apollo made answer : Earthshaker, thou wouldst not call me wise were I to fight with thee for the sake of miserable men. For they are but as the leaves. For to-day they be in the midst of their life, eating the fruit of the ground, and to-morrow they perish utterly. Let others strive ; but we will not fight together.' And he turned to depart ; for he feared to join battle with the brother of his sire. But his sister Artemis, the great huntress of beasts, was very wroth when she saw him depart, and rebuked him, crying : Dost thou fly, Far-Sh000ter, and yield the victory to Poseidon? For what then bast thou thy bow ? Never let me hear thee boast again, as thou hast been wont to boast in the hall of thy father, that thou wouldst do battle with Poseidon!' No answer made Apollo ; but the wife of Zeus spake to her in wrath : 'How thinkest thou, shameless one, to stand against me ? No easy one am I for thee to match, for all that thou hast a bow, and that Zeus hath made thee a devouring lioness for women to slay whom thou wilt. 'Tis better for thee to hunt deer upon the hills than to fight with them that are stronger than thou.' Then did Hera lay her left hand upon the hands of Artemis by the wrist, and with her right hand she took from her her arrows and her bows, and smote her with them about the ears, as she turned away, smiling the while ; and the arrows fell from the quiver. And the goddess fled, leaving her bow behind, even as a dove flieth from before a hawk to her hole among the rocks. Then spake Hermes to Latona I will not fight with thee, 0 Latona, ! 'Tie a hard thing to strive with them that Zeus hath loved. Boast as thou wilt among the immortal gods that thou hast conquered me in battle.' So he spake ; but Latona, gathered together the bow and the arrows that had fallen this way and that way in the dust. And Artemis came to Olympus, to the hall of Zeus that is paved with bronze ; and, weeping sore, she sat on her father's knee ; and her veil was shaken about her with her sobbing. Then her father took her to him, and laughed, and said : 'Who, of the dwellers in heaven. hath so dealt with thee, my child ? ' And Artemis said : 'It was Hera, my father, that smote me—Hera, that always maketh strife and quarrel among the immortal gods."

The canny refusal of Apollo and Hermes to commit themselves on (ith, r side of the struggle, the passionate reproaches of Artemis, and the bitter scorn of Hera, present a picture even more striking than the short, sharp conflict of Athen.e with, Ares, and the victory of the tutelary deity of Athens over the coarse strength of the god of battles.

One of the greatest charms of Homer, whether in delineating gods or men, is the extraordinary simplicity and frankness, as we may call it, of their speech, no matter whether the speech be truth or falsehood (for there is such a thing as frank false- hood, as well as frank truth). Take, for instance, the celebrated

passage in the twelfth book of the Iliad, in which Sarpedon avows to his friend Glaucus that if by avoiding the battle he

could avoid old age and death, he should not hesitate to do so, and should counsel his friend to follow his example ; but, since that is impossible whether they skulk from the battle or not, the next best alternative is the courage which does not attempt to evade destiny, but goes boldly to meet it :—

"'Tell me, Glaucus, why is it that men honour us at home with the chief rooms at feasts, and with fat portions of flesh and with sweet wine, and that we have a great domain of orchard and plough land by the banks of Xanthus ? Surely it is that we may fight in the front rank. Then shall some one who may behold us say, "Of a truth these are honourable men, these princes of Lycia, and not without good right do they eat the fat and drink the sweet, for they fight ever in the front." Now, indeed, if we might live forever, nor know old age nor death, neither would I fight among the first, nor would I bid thee arm thyself for the battle. But seeing that there are ten thousand fates about us which no man may avoid, let us see whether we shall win glory from another, or another shall take it from us.'"

That passage stands as it stood in the earlier volume ; but we think Mr. Church might have greatly improved it if, instead of "let us see whether" in the last clause of the sentence, he had kept to Homer's simple "let us go,—whether we are to win glory from another, or another from us." Sarpedon's motive in going was not curiosity as to his fate, but disdain,—the disdain he felt of trying by elaborate policy to evade his destiny, instead of boldly ignoring arts which he was confident could not succeed.

Now and then we think that even in this fuller form of his work, Mr. Church has compressed unduly, or rather, has not duly availed himself of his greater space to enlarge the ex- cessive compression of his earlier book. We feel this especially

in such passages as the account of the bending of Ulysses' bow, which is full of points in the Homeric original which Mr. Church had not found it possible to transfer to his brief narra- tive, but which,—as it marks the very crisis of the Odyssey,— it would have added greatly to the literary value of his book that he should have included in his new version. As it is, it

reads precisely as it read in the shorter version :—

" Then Ulysses handled the great bow, trying it, whether it had taken any hurt, but the suitors thought scorn of him. Then, when he had found it to be without flaw, just as a minstrel fastens a string upon his harp and strains it to the pitch, so he strung the bow without toil ; and holding the string in his right hand, he tried its tone, and the tone was sweet as the voice of a swallow. Then he took an arrow from the quiver, and laid the notch upon the string and drew it, sitting as he was, and the arrow passed through every ring, and stood in the wall beyond. Then he said to Telemachus :—• There is yet a feast to be held before the sun go down.' And he nodded the sign to Telemachus. And forthwith the young man stood by him, armed with spear and helmet and shield."

But that misses many of Homer's finest effects,—the horror which ran through the hearts of the suitors, and the paleness which crept into their faces, when the bow gave out its swal- low's note ; the sign which Zeus gave by his thunderclap, and the joy which strikes the heart of Ulysses when he hears

the sign ; and Homer's remark that of the arrows which lay beside him in the quiver, the suitors themselves were about to experience the force. Again, the brief, stern speech to Telemachus, in which Ulysses boasts that his ancient strength had not deserted him, and taunts the suitors with their intention to make a feast-night of their night of doom, is omitted, while the only vestige of it which remains has lost a good deal of the irony of the original. The scorn with which Ulysses exhorts them to enjoy the song and the lute,—" for these are the proper accompaniments of the banquet,"—is too characteristically Homeric to be omitted at the crisis of the great tragedy. We cannot help hoping that in a future edition,—and the book is far too good not to reach many editions,—Mr. Church may carefully consider where he might amend, where he might enlarge, and where,

without serious loss, he might even curtail, one of the most beautiful pieces of prose in the English language, as well as

one which gives a better notion of Homer than any one, probably, of our many,—and many meritorious,—metrical and rhymed versions.