Homer: The Iliad; The Odyssey

The resemblance which these Homeric poems bear, in many remarkable features, to the romances of mediæval chivalry, has been long ago remarked, and has already been incidentally...

Adopting for himself a method which has since become a rule of art, more or less acknowledged in the literature of fiction, the poet dashes off at once into the full action of h...

The fifth book of the poem opens with a second council of the gods. It has been remarked with some truth that the gods of the Odyssey are, on the whole, more dignified than thos...

As before, while the Greek line advances in perfect silence, the Trojans make their onset with loud shouts and a clamour of discordant war-cries in many tongues. Mars animates t...

The surviving heroes of the great expedition against Troy, after long wanderings, have at length reached their homes, with one exception--Ulysses has not been heard of in his is...

The character of Hector has been very differently estimated. Modern writers upon Homer generally assume that the ancient bard had, as it were, a mental picture of all his great...

Hitherto, and throughout the first four books of the poem, Telemachus, and not Ulysses, is the hero of the tale. The voyagers soon reach the rocky shores of Pylos,[29] the stron...

The battle is set in array, “army against army.” But there is a difference in the bearing of the opposed forces which is very significant, and is probably a note of real charact...

Hector remains alone outside the Scæan gate, awaiting his great enemy. In vain his aged father and mother from the walls entreat him to take shelter within, like the rest of his...

The narrative, which Ulysses proceeds to relate to his host, takes back his story to the departure of the Greek fleet from Troy. First, on his homeward course, he and his comrad...

The eleventh book of the poem, in which Ulysses goes down to the Shades to consult the Dead, has been considered by some good authorities as a later interpolation into the tale....

The opening of the Ninth Book shows us the Greeks utterly disheartened inside their intrenchments. The threat of the dishonoured Achilles is fast being accomplished: they cannot...

With the morrow’s dawn begins the third and great battle, at the Greek lines, which occupies from the eleventh to the eighteenth book of the poem. Agamemnon is the hero of the e...

Penelope, far off in her chamber, has not heard the tumult, for the doors between the men’s and women’s apartments had been carefully locked by Eumæus, by his lord’s order. Even...

Patroclus, sitting in the tent of the wounded Eurypylus, sees the imminent peril of his countrymen. He cannot bear the sight, and taking hasty leave of his friend, hurries back...

Great is the consternation amongst the riotous crew in the palace, when they find that Telemachus has escaped their toils, and has returned; and great the joy of Penelope when s...

The morrow is a festival of Apollo. It is kept by the riotous crew in the halls of Ulysses with more than their usual revelry. The disguised hero himself, feeding at a small tab...

With a fierce delight Achilles gazes on the work of the Olympian armourer, before the dazzling brightness of which even the Myrmidons veil their faces. He sets forth at once for...

The hero, at his departure, is loaded with rich presents of honour from his Phæacian hosts. The twelve princes of the kingdom each contribute their offering--gold and changes of...

The Greeks claim the victory--reasonably, since the Trojan champion has fled the lists; but again the intrigues of the court of Olympus interfere to interrupt the course of mort...

By the advice of his brother Helenus, who knows the counsels of heaven, Hector now challenges the Greek host to match some one of their chieftains against him in single combat....

The story returns to Telemachus, whom we left at Sparta. His stay at that court has been prolonged a whole month, for which the excuse, we must suppose, is to be found in the ho...