Homer and His Age

Recent discoveries as to the very early date of linear non-Phoenician writing in Crete of course increase the probability of this opinion, which is corroborated by the story of the Cypria, given as a dowry with the author's daughter. Thus "the particular conditions under which the Homeric poems appeared" "been reproduced with sufficient closeness" in every respect, with surprising closeness, in the France of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. The social conditions are the same; the legendary materials are of identical character; the method of publication by recitation is identical; the cyclic decadence occurs in both cases, the monomanie cyclique. In the Greece of Homer we have the four necessary conditions of the epic, as found by M. Lйon Gautier in mediaeval France. We have:—

(1) An uncritical age confusing history by legend.

(2) We have a national milieuwith religious uniformity.

(3) We have poems dealing with—

"Old unhappy far-off things

And battles long ago."

(4) We have representative heroes, the Over-Lord, and his peers or paladins. {Footnote: Йpopйes Franзaises, Lйon Gautier, vol. i. pp. 6-9}

It may be added that in Greece, as in France, some poets adapt into the adventures of their heroes world-old Mдrchen, as in the Odyssey, and in the cycle of the parents of Charles.

In the French, as in the Greek epics, we have such early traits of poetry as the textual repetition of speeches, and the recurring epithets, "swift-footed Achilles," "Charles of the white beard," "blameless heroes" (however blamable). Ladies, however old, are always "of the clear face." Thus the technical ma

The French authors of epic, even more than Homer, abound in episodes much more distracting than those of the Iliad. Of blood and wounds, of course, both the French and the Greek are profuse: they were writing for men of the sword, not for modern critics. Indeed, the battle pieces of France almost translate those of Homer. The Achaean "does on his goodly corslet"; the French knight " sur ses espalles son halberc li colad." The Achaean, with his great sword, shears off an arm at the shoulder. The French knight—

" Trenchad le braz, Parmi leschine sun grant espee li passe."

The huge shield of Aias becomes cele grant targe dublein France, and the warriors boast over their slain in France, as in the Iliad. In France, as in Greece, a favourite epic theme was "The Wrath" of a hero, of Achilles, of Roland, of Ganelon, of Odysseus and Achilles wrangling at a feast to the joy of Agamemnon, "glad that the bravest of his peers were at strife." {Footnote: Odyssey, VIII. 75-7s {sic}.}

Of all the many parallels between the Greek and French epics, the most extraordinary is the coincidence between Charles with his peers and Agamemnon with his princes. The same historical conditions occurred, at an interval of more than two thousand years. Agamemnon is the Bretwalda, the Over-Lord, as Mr. Freeman used to say, of the Achaeans: he is the suzerain. Charles in the French epics holds the same position, but the French poets regard him in different lights. In the earliest epic, the Chansonde Roland, a divinity doth hedge the famous Emperor, whom Jea

Ganelon's advice prevailing, it is necessary to send an envoy to the Saracen court. It is a dangerous mission; other envoys have been sent and been murdered. The Peers, however, volunteer, begi

"Their whole lives long to be winding

Skeins of grievous wars, till every soul of them perish,"

in the words of Diomede.

Such is the picture of the imperial Charles in one of the oldest of the French epics. The heart of the poet is with the aged, but unbroken and truly imperial, figure of St. Charlemagne—wise, just, and brave, a true "shepherd of the people," regarded as the conqueror of all the known kingdoms of the world. He is, among his fierce paladins, like "the conscience of a knight among his warring members." "The greatness of Charlemagne has entered even into his name;" but as time went on and the feudal princes began the long struggle against the French king, the poets gratified their patrons by degrading the character of the Emperor. They created a second type of Charles, and it is the second type that on the whole most resembles the Agamemnon of the Iliad.

We ask why the widely ruling lord of golden Mycenae is so skilfully and persistently represented as respectable, indeed, by reason of his office, but detestable, on the whole, in character?

The answer is that just as the second type of Charles is the result of

feudal jealousies of the king, so the character of Agamemnon reflects

the princely hatreds of what we may call the feudal age of Greece. The

masterly portrait of Agamemnon could only have been designed to win

the sympathies of feudal listeners, princes with an Over-Lord whom they

ca

but whose power they submit to with no good will, and whose person and

character some of them can barely tolerate.

{blank space} an historical unity.The poem deals with

what may be called a feudal society, and the attitudes of the Achaean

Bretwalda and of his peers are, from begi

in every Book of it, those of the peers and king in the later Chansons

de Geste.

Returning to the decadent Charles of the French epics, we lay no stress on the story of his incest with his sister, Gilain, "whence sprang Roland." The House of Thyestes, whence Agamemnon sprang, is marked by even blacker legends. The scandal is mythical, like the same scandal about the King Arthur, who in romance is so much inferior to his knights, a reflection of feudal jealousies and hatreds. In places the reproaches hurled by the peers at Charles read like paraphrases of those which the Achaean princes cast at Agamemnon. Even Naismes, the Nestor of the French epics, cries: "It is for you that we have left our lands and fiefs, our fair wives and our children ... But, by the Apostle to whom they pray in Rome, were it not that we should be guilty before God we would go back to sweet France, and thin would be your host." {Footnote: Chevalerie Ogier, 1510-1529. Йpopйes Franзaises, Lйon Gautier, vol. iii. pp. 156-157.} In the lines quoted we seem to hear the voice of the angered Achilles: "We came not hither in our own quarrel, thou shameless one, but to please thee! But now go I back to Phthia with my ships—the better part." {Footnote: Iliad, I. 158-169.}