Homer and His Age

Helbig appears to think that to clothe the dead in garmentswas an Ionian, not an ancient epic custom. But in Homer the dead always wear at least one garment, the {Greek: pharos}, a large mantle, either white or purple, such as Agamemnon wears in peace (Iliad, II 43), except when, like Eetion and Elpenor in the Odyssey, they are burned in their armour. In Iliad,XXIII. 69 ff., the shadow of the dead unburned Patroclus appears to Achilles in his sleep asking for "his dues of fire." The whole passage, with the account of the funeral of Patroclus, must be read carefully, and compared with the funeral rites of Hector at the end of Book XXIV. Helbig, in an essay of great erudition, though perhaps rather fantastic in its generalisations, has contrasted the burials of the two heroes. Patroclus is buried, he says, in a true portion of the old Aeolic epic (Sir Richard Jebb thought the whole passage "Ionic"), though even into this the late Ionian bearbeiter(a spectral figure), has introduced his Ionian notions. But the Twenty-fourth Book itself is late and Ionian, Helbig says, not genuine early Aeolian epic poetry. {Footnote: Helbig, Zu den Homerischen Bestattungsgebraьchen. Aus den Sitzungsberichten der philos. philol. und histor. Classe der Kgl. bayer. Academie der Wissenschaften. 1900. Heft. ii. pp. 199-299.} The burial of Patroclus, then, save for Ionian late interpolations, easily detected by Helbig, is, he assures us, genuine "kernel," {Footnote: 2 Op. laud., p. 208.} while Hector's burial "is partly Ionian, and describes the destiny of the dead heroes otherwise than as in the old Aeolic epos."

Here Helbig uses that one of his two alternate theories according to which the late Ionian poets do not cling to old epic tradition, but bring in details of the life of their own date. By Helbig's other alternate theory, the late poets cling to the model set in old epic tradition in their pictures of details of life.

Disintegrationists differ: far from thinking that the late Ionian poet who buried Hector varied from the AEolic minstrel who buried Patroclus (in Book XXIII.), Mr. Leaf says that Hector's burial is "almost an abstract" of that of Patroclus. {Footnote: Leaf, Iliad, XXII Note to 791.} He adds that Helbig's attempts "to distinguish the older AEolic from the newer and more sceptical 'Ionic' faith seem to me visionary." {Footnote: Iliad, vol. ii. p. 619. Note 2} Visionary, indeed, they do seem, but they are examples of the efforts made to prove that the Iliad bears marks of composition continued through several centuries. We must remember that, according to Helbig, the Ionians, colonists in a new country, "had no use for ghosts." A fresh colony does not produce ghosts. "There is hardly an English or Scottish castle without its spook ( spuck). On the other hand, you look in vain for such a thing in the United States"—spiritualism apart. {Footnote: Op. laud., p. 204.}

This is a hasty generalisation! Helbig will, if he looks, find ghosts enough in the literature of North America while still colonial, and in Australia, a still more newly settled country, sixty years ago Fisher's ghost gave evidence of Fisher's murder, evidence which, as in another Australian case, served the ends of justice. {Footnote: See, in TheValet's Tragedy (A. L.): "Fisher's Ghost."} More recent Australian ghosts are familiar to psychical research.

This colonial theory is one of Helbig's too venturous generalisations.

He studies the ghost, or rather dream-apparition, of Patroclus after

examining the funeral of Hector; but we shall begin with Patroclus.

Achilles (XXIII. 4-16) first hails his friend "even in the House of

Hades" (so he believes that spirits are in Hades), and says that he

has brought Hector "raw for dogs to devour," and twelve Trojans of good

family "to slaughter before thy pyre." That night, when Achilles is

asleep (XXIII. 65) the spirit ({Greek: psyche}) of Patroclus appears to

him, says that he is forgotten, and begs to be burned at once, that he

may pass the gates of Hades, for the other spirits drive him off and

will not let him associate with them "beyond the River," and he wanders

vaguely along the wide-gated dwelling of Hades. "Give me thy hand, for

never more again shall I come back from Hades, when ye have given me my

due of fire." Patroclus, being newly discarnate, does not yet know

that a spirit ca

hallucinations are not uncommon in the presence of phantasms of the

dead. "Lay not my bones apart from thine ... let one coffer" ({Greek:

soros}) "hide our bones."

{Greek: Soros}, like larnax, is a coffin ( Sarg), or

what the Americans call a "casket," in the opinion of Helbig: {Footnote:

OP. laud., p.217.} it is an oblong receptacle of the bones and dust.

Hector was buried in a larnax; SO will Achilles and Patroclus be

when Achilles falls, but the dust of Patroclus is kept, meanwhile, in a

golden covered cup (phialae) in the quarters of Achilles; it is not laid

in howe after his cremation (XXIII. 243).

Achilles tries to embrace Patroclus, but fails, like Odysseus with the shade of his mother in Hades, in the ODYSSEY. He exclaims that "there remaineth then even in the House of Hades a spirit and phantom of the dead, albeit the life" (or the wits) "be not anywise therein, for all night hath the spirit of hapless Patroclus stood over me...."

In this speech Helbig detects the hand of the late Ionian poet. What goes before is part of the genuine old Epic, the kernel, done at a time when men believed that spooks could take part in the affairs of the upper world. Achilles therefore (in his dream), thought that he could embrace his friend. It was the sceptical Ionian, in a fresh and spookless colony, who knew that he could not; he thinks the ghost a mere dream, and introduces his scepticism in XXIII. 99-107. He brought in "the ruling ideas of his own period." The ghost, says the Ionian bearbeiter, is intangible, though in the genuine old epic the ghost himself thought otherwise—he being new to the situation and without experience. This is the first sample of the critical Ionian spirit, later so remarkable in philosophy and natural science, says Helbig. {Footnote: Op. laud., pp. 233,234.}

We need not discuss this acute critical theory. The natural interpretation of the words of Achilles is obvious; as Mr. Leaf remarks, the words are "the cry of sudden personal conviction in a matter which has hitherto been lazily accepted as an orthodox dogma." {Footnote: Iliad, vol. ii. p. 620.} Already, as we have seen, Achilles has made promises to Patroclus in the House of Hades, now he exclaims "there really is something in the doctrine of a feeble future life."

It is vain to try to discriminate between an old epic belief in able-bodied ghosts and an Ionian belief in mere futile shades, in the Homeric poems. Everywhere the dead are too feeble to be worth worshipping after they are burned; but, as Mr. Leaf says with obvious truth, and with modern instances, "men are never so inconsistent as in their beliefs about the other world." We ourselves hold various beliefs simultaneously. The natives of Australia and of Tasmania practise, or did practise, every conceivable way of disposing of the dead—burying, burning, exposure in trees, carrying about the bodies or parts of them, eating the bodies, and so forth. If each such practice corresponded, as archaeologists believe, to a different opinion about the soul, then all beliefs were held together at once, and this, in fact, is the case. There is not now one and now another hard and fast orthodoxy of belief about the dead, though now we find ancestor worship prominent and now in the shade.