Book xxii. 76.

Footnote 56:

_Iliad_, xxii. 339.

Footnote 57:

_Ib._ 348.

Footnote 58:

_Ib._ xxiii. 183.

Footnote 59:

_Ib._ xxiv. 211.

It is true that a different view has been advocated by Sir William Geddes, who, in his valuable work, ‘The Problem of the Homeric Poems,’ first dwelt in detail on the contrasted treatment of the horse and dog in those early epics. He did not, however, stop there. A theory, designed to solve the secular puzzle of Homeric authorship, had presented itself to him, and demanded for its support a somewhat complex marshalling of facts. His contention was briefly this:—that the Odyssey, with the ten books of the Iliad[60] amputated by Mr. Grote’s critical knife from the trunk of a supposed primitive Achilleid, are the work of one and the same author, an Ionian of Asia Minor, to whom the venerable name of Homer properly belongs; while the fourteen books constituting the nucleus and main substance of our Iliad are abandoned to an unknown Thessalian bard. He has not, indeed, succeeded in engaging on his side the general opinion of the learned, yet it cannot be denied that his ingenious and patient analysis of the Homeric texts has served to develop some highly suggestive minor points. The validity of his main argument obviously depends, in the first place, upon the discovery of striking correspondences between the Odyssey and the non-Achillean cantos of the Iliad; in the second, upon the exposure of irreconcilable discrepancies between the Odyssey and the Grotean Achilleid. But the attempt is really hopeless to transplant the canine sympathy manifest in the Odyssey to any part of the Iliad, or to localise in any particular section of the Iliad the equine sympathies displayed throughout the many-coloured tissue of its composition.

Footnote 60:

These are Books ii. to vii. inclusive, ix. x. xxiii. and xxiv. The _Achilleid_ thus consists of Books i. viii. and xi.-xxii.

Everywhere alike enthusiasm for the horse is evoked, vividly and spontaneously, on all suitable occasions. Ardent admiration is uniformly bestowed upon his powers and faculties. He is nowhere passed by with indifference. The verses glow with a kind of rapture of enjoyment that describe his strength and beauty, his eager spirit and fine nervous organisation, his intelligent and disinterested participation in human struggles and triumphs. In the region of the Iliad claimed for the Odyssean Homer, it suffices to point to the episode of the capture by Diomed and Sthenelus of the divinely-descended steeds of Æneas;[61] to the careful provision of ambrosial forage for the horses of Heré along the shores of Simoeis;[62] to the resplendent simile of Book vi.;[63] to the gleeful zeal with which Odysseus and Diomed secure, as the fruit and crown of their nocturnal expedition, the milk-white coursers of Rhesus;[64] to the living fervour imported into the chariot-race at the funeral games of Patroclus; to the tender pathos with which Achilles describes the grief of his immortal horses for their well-loved charioteer.[65] The enumeration of similar examples from non-Achillean cantos might be carried much further, but where is the use of ‘breaking in an open door’? The evidence is overwhelming as to homogeneity of sentiment, in this important respect, through the entire Iliad. If more than one author was concerned in its production, the coadjutors were at least unanimous in their glowing admiration for the heroic animal of battle.

Footnote 61:

_Iliad_, v. 267.

Footnote 62:

_Ib._ 775-77.

Footnote 63:

This is certainly original in book vi. It comes in as an awkward interpolation at xv. 263.

Footnote 64:

_Iliad_, x. 474-569.

Footnote 65:

_Ib._ xxiii. 280-84.

Nor can the search, in the same ten cantos, for indications of a sympathetic feeling towards the dog consonant to that displayed in the Odyssey, be pronounced successful. Certainly much stress cannot be laid, for the purpose, upon the striking passage in the Twenty-third Book, descriptive of the cremation of Patroclus; yet it makes the nearest discoverable approach to the desired significance. It runs as follows in Lord Derby’s translation:

A hundred feet each way they built the pyre, And on the summit, sorrowing, laid the dead. Then many a sheep and many a slow-pac’d ox They flay’d and dress’d around the fun’ral pyre; Of all the beasts Achilles took the fat, And covered o’er the dead from head to foot, And heap’d the slaughter’d carcases around; Then jars of honey plac’d, and fragrant oils, Resting upon the couch; next, groaning loud, Four pow’rful horses on the pyre he threw; Then, of nine[66] dogs that at their master’s board Had fed, he slaughter’d two upon his pyre; Last, with the sword, by evil counsel sway’d, Twelve noble youths he slew, the sons of Troy. The fire’s devouring might he then applied, And, groaning, on his lov’d companion call’d.[67]

Footnote 66:

The number _nine_ is curiously associated with the canine species. The herdsmen’s pack on the Shield of Achilles consists of _nine_; _nine_ were the dogs of Patroclus; and we learn from Mr. Richardson (_Dogs: their Origin and Varieties_, p. 37), that Fingal kept _nine_ great dogs, and _nine_ smaller game-starting dogs.

Footnote 67:

_Iliad_, xxiii. 164-78.

These sanguinary rites have been thought to afford proof that canine companionship was necessary to the happiness of a Greek hero in the other world. For, amongst rude peoples, from the Scythians of Herodotus[68] to the Indians of Patagonia, such sacrifices have been a common mode of testifying respect to the dead. And it may readily be admitted that their originally inspiring idea was that of continued association after death with the objects most valued in life. But such an idea appears to have been very remotely, if at all, present to the mind of our poet. The Ghost of Patroclus, at any rate, though sufficiently communicative, expresses no desire for canine, equine, bovine, or ovine society, although specimens of all four species were immolated in its honour. The purpose of Achilles in instituting the ghastly solemnity was, as he himself expressed it,

Footnote 68: