第 144 节

Opusc. Mythol. Dionys. Halic. de Hom. Poes. c. 15; Apul. de Deo Socrat. s. f.

[14] Vit. Hom. § 28.

[15] The riddle is given in Section 35. Compare Mackenzie’s note, p. xxx.

[16] Heeren’s Ancient Greece, p. 96.

[17] Compare Sir E. L. Bulwer’s Caxtons v. i. p. 4.

[18] Pericles and Aspasia, Letter lxxxiv., Works, vol ii. p. 387.

[19] Quarterly Review, No. lxxxvii., p. 147.

[20] Viz., the following beautiful passage, for the translation of which I am indebted to Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. 286.

“Origias, farewell! and oh! remember me Hereafter, when some stranger from the sea, A hapless wanderer, may your isle explore, And ask you, maid, of all the bards you boast, Who sings the sweetest, and delights you most Oh! answer all,—‘A blind old man and poor Sweetest he sings—and dwells on Chios’ rocky shore.’”

_See_ Thucyd. iii, 104.

[21] Longin., de Sublim., ix. § 26. Ὅθεν ἐν τῇ Ὀδυσσείᾳ παρεικάσαι τις ἂν καταδυομένῳ τὸν Ὅμηρον ἡλίῳ, οδ δίχα τῆς σφοδρότητος παραμένει το μέγεθος.

[22] See Tatian, quoted in Fabric. Bibl. Gr. v. II t. ii. Mr. Mackenzie has given three brief but elaborate papers on the different writers on the subject, which deserve to be consulted. See Notes and Queries, vol. v. pp. 99, 171, and 221. His own views are moderate, and perhaps as satisfactory, on the whole, as any of the hypotheses hitherto put forth. In fact, they consist in an attempt to blend those hypotheses into something like consistency, rather than in advocating any individual theory.

[23] Letters to Phileleuth; Lips.

[24] Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 191, sqq.

[25] It is, indeed not easy to calculate the height to which the memory may be cultivated. To take an ordinary case, we might refer to that of any first rate actor, who must be prepared, at a very short warning, to ‘rhapsodize,’ night after night, parts which when laid together, would amount to an immense number of lines. But all this is nothing to two instances of our own day. Visiting at Naples a gentleman of the highest intellectual attainments, and who held a distinguished rank among the men of letters in the last century, he informed us that the day before he had passed much time in examining a man, not highly educated, who had learned to repeat the whole Gierusalemme of Tasso, not only to recite it consecutively, but also to repeat those stanzas in utter defiance of the sense, either forwards or backwards, or from the eighth line to the first, alternately the odd and even lines—in short, whatever the passage required; the memory, which seemed to cling to the words much more than to the sense, had it at such perfect command, that it could produce it under any form. Our informant went on to state that this singular being was proceeding to learn the Orlando Furioso in the same manner. But even this instance is less wonderful than one as to which we may appeal to any of our readers that happened some twenty years ago to visit the town of Stirling, in Scotland. No such person can have forgotten the poor, uneducated man Blind Jamie who could actually repeat, after a few minutes consideration any verse required from any part of the Bible—even the obscurest and most unimportant enumeration of mere proper names not excepted. We do not mention these facts as touching the more difficult part of the question before us, but facts they are; and if we find so much difficulty in calculating the extent to which the mere memory may be cultivated, are we, in these days of multifarious reading, and of countless distracting affairs, fair judges of the perfection to which the invention and the memory combined may attain in a simpler age, and among a more single minded people?—Quarterly Review, _l. c._, p. 143, sqq. Heeren steers between the two opinions, observing that, “The Dschungariade of the Calmucks is said to surpass the poems of Homer in length, as much as it stands beneath them in merit, and yet it exists only in the memory of a people which is not unacquainted with writing. But the songs of a nation are probably the last things which are committed to writing, for the very reason that they are remembered.”— _Ancient Greece_. p. 100.

[26] Vol. II p. 198, sqq.

[27] Quarterly Review, _l. c._, p. 131 sq.

[28] Betrachtungen über die Ilias. Berol. 1841. See Grote, p. 204. Notes and Queries, vol. v. p. 221.

[29] Prolegg. pp. xxxii., xxxvi., &c.

[30] Vol. ii. p. 214 sqq.

[31] “Who,” says Cicero, de Orat. iii. 34, “was more learned in that age, or whose eloquence is reported to have been more perfected by literature than that of Peisistratus, who is said first to have disposed the books of Homer in the order in which we now have them?” Compare Wolf’s Prolegomena 33, §.

[32] “The first book, together with the eighth, and the books from the eleventh to the twenty-second inclusive, seems to form the primary organization of the poem, then properly an Achilleïs.”—Grote, vol. ii. p. 235

[33] K. R. H. Mackenzie, Notes and Queries, p. 222 sqq.

[34] See his Epistle to Raphelingius, in Schroeder’s edition, 4to., Delphis, 1728.

[35] Ancient Greece, p. 101.

[36] The best description of this monument will be found in Vaux’s “Antiquities of the British Museum,” p. 198 sq. The monument itself (Towneley Sculptures, No. 123) is well known.

[37] Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. 276.

[38] Preface to her Homer.

[39] Hesiod. Opp. et Dier. Lib. I. vers. 155, &c.

[40] The following argument of the Iliad, corrected in a few particulars, is translated from Bitaubé, and is, perhaps, the neatest summary that has ever been drawn up:—“A hero, injured by his general, and animated with a noble resentment, retires to his tent; and for a season withdraws himself and his troops from the war. During this interval, victory abandons the army, which for nine years has been occupied in a great enterprise, upon the successful termination of which the honour of their country depends. The general, at length opening his eyes to the fault which he had committed, deputes the principal officers of his army to the incensed hero, with commission to make compensation for the injury, and to tender magnificent presents. The hero, according to the proud obstinacy of his character, persists in his animosity; the army is again defeated, and is on the verge of entire destruction. This inexorable man has a friend; this friend weeps before him, and asks for the hero’s arms, and for permission to go to the war in his stead. The eloquence of friendship prevails more than the intercession of the ambassadors or the gifts of the general. He lends his armour to his friend, but commands him not to engage with the chief of the enemy’s army, because he reserves to himself the honour of that combat, and because he also fears for his friend’s life. The prohibition is forgotten; the friend listens to nothing but his courage; his corpse is brought back to the hero, an