HESIOD, THE HOMERIC HYMNS, AND HOMERICA

INTRODUCTION




General

The early Greek epic--that is, poetry as a natural and popular, and not
(as it became later) an artificial and academic literary form--passed
through the usual three phases, of development, of maturity, and of
decline.

No fragments which can be identified as belonging to the first period
survive to give us even a general idea of the history of the earliest
epic, and we are therefore thrown back upon the evidence of analogy
from other forms of literature and of inference from the two great
epics which have come down to us. So reconstructed, the earliest period
appears to us as a time of slow development in which the characteristic
epic metre, diction, and structure grew up slowly from crude elements
and were improved until the verge of maturity was reached.

The second period, which produced the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey", needs
no description here: but it is very important to observe the effect
of these poems on the course of post-Homeric epic. As the supreme
perfection and universality of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" cast into
oblivion whatever pre-Homeric poets had essayed, so these same qualities
exercised a paralysing influence over the successors of Homer. If they
continued to sing like their great predecessor of romantic themes, they
were drawn as by a kind of magnetic attraction into the Homeric style
and manner of treatment, and became mere echoes of the Homeric voice: in
a word, Homer had so completely exhausted the epic genre, that after him
further efforts were doomed to be merely conventional. Only the rare
and exceptional genius of Vergil and Milton could use the Homeric medium
without loss of individuality: and this quality none of the later epic
poets seem to have possessed. Freedom from the domination of the great
tradition could only be found by seeking new subjects, and such freedom
was really only illusionary, since romantic subjects alone are suitable
for epic treatment.

In its third period, therefore, epic poetry shows two divergent
tendencies. In Ionia and the islands the epic poets followed the Homeric
tradition, singing of romantic subjects in the now stereotyped heroic
style, and showing originality only in their choice of legends hitherto
neglected or summarily and imperfectly treated. In continental Greece
[1101], on the other hand, but especially in Boeotia, a new form of
epic sprang up, which for the romance and PATHOS of the Ionian School
substituted the practical and matter-of-fact. It dealt in moral and
practical maxims, in information on technical subjects which are
of service in daily life--agriculture, astronomy, augury, and the
calendar--in matters of religion and in tracing the genealogies of men.
Its attitude is summed up in the words of the Muses to the writer of the
"Theogony": `We can tell many a feigned tale to look like truth, but we
can, when we will, utter the truth' ("Theogony" 26-27). Such a poetry
could not be permanently successful, because the subjects of which it
treats--if susceptible of poetic treatment at all--were certainly not
suited for epic treatment, where unity of action which will sustain
interest, and to which each part should contribute, is absolutely
necessary. While, therefore, an epic like the "Odyssey" is an organism
and dramatic in structure, a work such as the "Theogony" is a merely
artificial collocation of facts, and, at best, a pageant. It is not
surprising, therefore, to find that from the first the Boeotian school
is forced to season its matter with romantic episodes, and that later
it tends more and more to revert (as in the "Shield of Heracles") to the
Homeric tradition.




The Boeotian School

How did the continental school of epic poetry arise? There is little
definite material for an answer to this question, but the probability is
that there were at least three contributory causes. First, it is likely
that before the rise of the Ionian epos there existed in Boeotia a
purely popular and indigenous poetry of a crude form: it comprised,
we may suppose, versified proverbs and precepts relating to life in
general, agricultural maxims, weather-lore, and the like. In this sense
the Boeotian poetry may be taken to have its germ in maxims similar to
our English

'Till May be out, ne'er cast a clout,'

or

'A rainbow in the morning
Is the Shepherd's warning.'

Secondly and thirdly we may ascribe the rise of the new epic to the
nature of the Boeotian people and, as already remarked, to a spirit of
revolt against the old epic.