And the voices are often changed. Instead of the active, the passive and middle are often used, as (I. i. 194):-- A great sword is drawn from its sheath,-- instead of "he drew." And (I. xiii. 4):-- His keen glance turning to view,--instead of "seeing."
And, on the other hand, the active instead of the passive:-- I shall give a tripod with a golden handle,--instead of "shall be given."
It can be seen how he changes numbers, putting the plural for the singular as often happens in common speech when one speaks of himself as if of several, as in the following (O. i. 10):-- Of these things, goddess daughter of Zeus, from whatsoever source thou wilt declare even to us,-- instead of "to me."
We find with him a change of persons of one sort, as (I. v. 877):-- The other gods, who in Olympus dwell, Are to thee obedient and we are submissive.
For since there are many gods, among whom is the person speaking, both classes are well indicated by saying, "they are obedient" and "we are submissive." In another way leaving the person who is spoken of, he changes from one to another. This is called specifically Apostrophe, and affects us by its emotional character and stimulates the hearer, as in the following stanza (I. xv. 346):-- While loudly Hector to the Trojans called To assail the ships and leave the bloody spoils Whom I elsewhere and from the ships aloof Shall find,-- changing from the narrative to direct discourse. In the narration itself he often uses Apostrophe (I. xx. 2.): Round thee eager for the fray stood the sons of Greece.
But he makes use of direct narrative and change of persons, as in the following passage (I. ii. 337):-- Like children, Grecian warriors, ye debate Like babes to whom unknown are feats of arms.
Atrides thou, as is thy wont, maintain Unchang'd thy counsel; for the stubborn fight Array the Greeks.
There is another kind of this Apostrophe (I. ii. 344):-- Thou wouldst not know to whom Tydides may join himself,-- instead of "no one can know."
And again (O. ix. 210):-- And a marvellous sweet smell went up from the mixing bowl: then truly it was no pleasure to refrain.
58. He uses participles in the place of verbs, as in these words (I.
viii. 306):-- Weighed down in a garden by this fruit,-- instead of "it is weighed," and (O. xiii. 113):-- Thither they as having knowledge of that place drive their ships,-- instead of "before they knew."
And articles he often changes, setting demonstrative instead of relatives (I. xvi. 150):-- Whom Podarge, swift of foot, to Zephyr bore,--and the contrary (I. xvii. 460):-- And breastplate: for his own his faithful friend hath lost.
So he was wont to change prepositions (I. i. 424):-- Yesterday he went through the banquet,--instead of "to the banquet."
And (I. i. 10):-- And he stirred up an evil plague through the army.
Likewise he joins with a preposition a noun improperly, as in the verse (I. x. 101):-- Lest perchance they wish to decide the contest in the night,-- where the preposition is followed by, the accusative, not the genitive. And as to other prepositions, some he changes, some he omits (I. ii. 696):-- Of whom he lies lamenting,--instead of "concerning whom."
And (O. xxiii. 91):-- Expecting whether he would bespeak him,--instead of "speak to him."
And other prepositions he in the same fashion changes or leaves out. And adverbs he changes, using indifferently motion towards, rest in, and motion from a place (I. xx. 151):-- His grandchildren were setting down from elsewhere,--instead of "elsewhere" (I. vii. 219):-- And Ajax came from near,--instead of "near."
Finally he has changes of conjunctions, as (O. i. 433):-- He never lay with her and he shunned the wrath of his lady,-- instead of "for he shunned," etc. And these are the figures of speech which not only all poets but the writers of prose have employed.
But significance is given by him in many ways. One of which is Proanaphonesis, which is used when any one in the midst of a narration uses an order proper to other things, as in the following line (O. xxi, 98):-- He was to be the first that should taste the arrow,-- and Epiphonesis (I. xvii. 32):-- After the event may e'en a fool be wise.
The use of Prosopopoiia is frequent and varied with him. For he introduces many different people speaking together, to whom he attributes various characteristics. Sometimes he re-creates characters no longer living, as when he says (I. vii. 125):-- What grief would fill the aged Pellus's soul.
There is, too, Diatyposis, which is the working out of things coming into being or actually existent or that have come to pass, brought in to make what is said clearer, as in the following (I. ix. 593):-- The slaughtered men, the city burnt with fire, The helpless children and deep-bosomed dames.
Or, to produce pity (I. xxii. 60):-- Look, too, on me with pity: me on whom E'en on the threshold of mine age, hath Jove A bitter burthen cast, condemned to see My sons struck down, my daughters dragged away In servile bonds: our chamber's sanctity Invaded; and our babes by hostile hands Dashed to the ground.
There is also to be found in him Irony, i.e. an expression revealing the opposite of what is said with a certain ethical artifice; as in the speech of Achilles (I. ix. 391):-- Let him choose among the Greeks a fitter King.
For he hints that he would not find one of more royal temper. And this is the same Trope used when one speaks about himself in extenuation and gives a judgment contrary to one's own. There is another form when any one pretends to praise another and really censures him. As the verse in Homer, put in the mouth of Telemachus (O. xvii. 397):-- Antinous--verily thou hast good care of me, as it were a father for his son.
For he says to an enemy that he cares as a father for his son, and, again, when any one by way of jest extolls his neighbor, as the suitors (O. ii. 325):-- In my truth Telemachus planneth our destruction. He will bring a rescue either from sandy Pylos, or it may be from Sparta, so terribly is he set on slaying us.
Sarcasm is a species of Irony used when any one jibes at another with a pretence of smiling. As Achilles, in the following passage (I. ix.
335):-- He meted out Their several portions, and they hold them still.
From me, from me alone of all the Greeks, He bore away and keeps my cherished wife.
Well! let him keep her, solace of his bed.
Like this in kind is Allegory, which exhibits one thing by another, as in the following (O. xxii. 195):-- Now in good truth Melanthiusi shalt thou watch all night, lying on, a soft bed as beseems thee.
For being in chains and hanging, he says he can rest on a soft bed.
Often, too, he makes use of Hyperbole, which, by exaggerating the truth, indicates emphasis, as (I. x. 437):-- These surpass in brilliancy the snow, in speed the eagle.
Homer used Tropes and figures of this sort and handed them down to posterity, and justly obtains glory beyond all others.
Since there are also Characters of speech called Forms, of which one is Copiousness, the other Gracefulness, and the third Restraint, let us see if Homer has all these separate classes, on which poets and orators have worked after him. There are examples of these--copiousness in Thucydides, gracefulness in Lysias, restraint in Demosthenes. That is copious which by combination of words and sentences has great emphasis.
An example of this is (O. v. 291):-- With that he gathered the clouds and troubled the waters of the deep, rasping his trident in his hands: and he roused all storms of all manner of winds and shrouded in clouds the land and sea: and down sped night from heaven.
The graceful is delicate by the character of the matter. It is drawn out by the way it is expressed (I. vi. 466).-- Thus he spake, great Hector stretch'd his arms To take the child: but back the infant shrank, Crying, and sought his nurse's sheltering breast, Scar'd by the brazen helm and horse-hair plume.
The restrained is between the two, the copious and the graceful, as (O.
xxii. 291):-- Then Odysseus, rich in counsel, stripped him of his rags and leaped on the great threshold with his bow and quiver full of arrows, and poured forth all the swift shafts there before his feet, and spake among the wooers.
But the florid style of speech, which has beauty and capacity for creating delight and pleasure, like a flower, is frequent in our poet; his poetry is full of such examples. The kinds of phrasing have much novelty in Homer, as we shall go on to show, by giving a few examples from which the rest may be gathered.
Every type of style practised among men is either historical, theoretic, or political. Let us examine whether the beginnings of these are to be found in him. Historical style contains a narration of facts.
The elements of such a narration are character, cause, place, time, instrument, action, feeling, manner. There is no historical narration without some of these. So it is with our poet, who relates many things in their development and happening. Sometimes in single passages can be found relations of this kind.
Of character, as the following (I. v. 9):-- There was one Dores 'mid the Trojan host, The priest of Vulcan, rich, of blameless life; Two gallant sons he had, Idaeus named And Phegeus, skilled in all the points of war.
He describes features, also, as in the case of Thersites (I. ii. 217):-- With squinting eyes, and one distorted foot, His shoulders round, and buried in his breast His narrow head, with scanty growth of hair.
And many other things, in which he often pictures the type or appearance or character, or action or fortune of a person, as in this verse (I. xx.
215):-- Dardanus first, cloud-compelling Zeus begot,--and the rest.
There is in his poetry description of locality; where he speaks about the island near that of the Cyclops, in which he describes the look of the place, its size, its quality, and the things in it, and what is near it. Also, when he describes the things adjacent to the island of Calypso (O. v. 63):-- And round about the cave there was a wood-blossoming alder and poplar, and sweet-smelling cypress.
And what follows. And innumerable other things of the same kind.
Time narratives are found as follows (I. ii. 134):-- Already now nine weary years have passed.
And (I. ii. 303):-- Not long ago, when ships of Greece were met at Aulis charged with evil freight for Troy.
Then there are the causes, in which he shows why something is coming to pass or has come to pass. Such are the things said at the beginning of Say then, what god the fatal strife provoked Jove's and Latona's son; he filled with wrath Against the King, with deadly pestilence The Camp afflicted--and the people died For Chryses' sake, his priest, whom Atreus' son With scorn dismissed, --and the rest. In this passage he says the cause of the difference between Achilles and Agamemnon was the plague; but the plague was caused by Apollo, and his wrath was due to the insult put upon his priest.
Description of the instrument he gives, as when he tells of the shield made by Vulcan for Achilles. And there is a briefer one on the spear of Hector (I. viii. 493):-- In his hand His massive spear he held twelve cubits long, Whose glittering point flash'd bright with hoop of gold Encircled round.
Narrations of fact are of several kinds, some like the following (I.
vii. 60):-- When in the midst they met, together rush'd Bucklers and lances, and the furious might Of mail-clad warriors; bossy shield on shield Clattered in conflict; loud the clamor rose.
The emotional narrative is where the incident is connected with some personal cause or energy, as when he speaks about things arising from anger or fear or sorrow, or when people are wounded, killed, or any other such thing happens to them. As a specimen of cause, take the His dark soul filled with fury, and his eyes Flashed like flames of fire.
Of an action (I. xvii. 51):-- Those locks, that with the Graces hair might vie, Those tresses bright, with gold and silver bound, Were dabbled all with blood.
A Trope is constructive of action, or experience, or form, according as one acts in a special way or is acted upon. He follows the whole scene in this sort of narrative. An example of it would be as follows (O.
xxii. 15):-- But Odysseus aimed and smote him with the arrow in his throat, and the point passed clean out through his delicate neck and he fell back, and the cup dropped from his hand as he was smitten, and at once through his nostrils there came up a thick jet of slain man's blood.
There is also in Homer narration which has for the most part copious expression, a method of working in full, fitting the subject. Sometimes, however, it is concise, as in the following (I. xviii. 20):-- Patroclus lies in death, And o'er his body now the war is waged, His naked body, for his arms are now The prize of Hector of the glancing helmet.
This type is often useful, for the quickness of the words make the reader and speaker more intent, and he immediately takes in the subject.
Sometimes he tells his story lightly; sometimes by an image or likeness or simile. An image, as when he says (O. xix. 53):-- Now forth from her chamber came the wise Penelope like Artemis or golden Aphrodite.
A likeness as (I. iii. 196):-- He like a goat crossed the serried lines first.
A simile, when he makes a comparison of closely related things that has a connection with subject narrated. There are in Homer various kinds of similes. Constantly and in many ways he compares the behavior and nature of animals to the arts and habits of men.
Sometimes he takes a similitude from very small things, not considering the size of the body, but the nature of each; whence he likens boldness to a fly (I. xvii. 570):-- And she breathed in his breast the courage of the fly.
And he compares assiduity to the same creature (I. ii. 469):-- As the many generations of numberless flies.
The packing together and orderly moving crowd to bees (I. ii. 87):-- As are the crowds of countless bees.
So he shows anger and irritation (I. xvi. 259):-- Like skilful wasps.
And he adds in the same place "when boys are wont to tease," in order that he might heighten their passionate temper by being stirred up by children. Of a continuous sound, he says (I. iii. 151):-- Abundant as the cricket.
For it is a most chattering creature and incessant in it.
But those that produce with no order all kinds of sounds, he likens to (I. iii. 3):-- Just as the clamor of geese strikes to heaven.
But the multitudes resting in order, he likens to birds settling down (I. ii. 493):-- Sitting down with clamor.
Sharpness of sight and act he sometimes likens to the falcon (I. xv.
238):-- Like to a falcon, swooping on a dove, swiftest of birds.
But sometimes to an eagle (I. xvii. 676):-- Like to an eagle, famed of sharpest sight Of all that fly beneath the vault of Heav'n Whom, soaring in the clouds, the crouching dove Eludes not.
He declares its sharpness by its seeing from afar off; its swiftness, by its seizing a very active animal. A man, overcome by the sight of an enemy he compares to one who sees a snake, for he does not hesitate to take examples from reptiles (I. iii. 33):-- As when some traveller spies, could in his path upon the mountain side, a deadly snake.
From the other animals he takes examples; of timidity from the hare and also from the stag (I. iv. 243):-- Why stand ye thus like timid fawns?
From dogs sometimes he takes daring (I. x. 360):-- And as the hounds, well practis'd in the chase.
Sometimes love for their offspring (I. x. 14):-- As a dog loves and defends its pups.
But sometimes their readiness in watching (I. x. 183):-- As round a sheepfold keep their anxious watch The dogs.
A capture done with passion and boldness he is wont to compare to wolves (I. xvi. 352):-- As rav'ning wolves that lambs or kids assail.
Bravery and constancy he shows by wild boars, panthers, and lions, dividing to each one what belongs to its nature. From boars, the onslaught they have, in fighting, making it irresistible (I. iv. 253):-- Idomeneus of courage stubborn as the forest boar.
From panthers, inexhaustible daring (I. xxi. 577):-- As when a panther by the spear transfixed does not remit her rage.
From lions, hesitation, finally bravery, as (I. xx. 171):-- And with his tail he lashes both his flanks and limbs.
Again the rush of a valiant man he likens to a horse which has had a full meal (I. vi. 506):-- As some proud steed, at well-fill'd manger fed.
And, on the contrary, one slow to move; but in endurance not easily overcome, he shows in this way (I. xi. 558):-- As near a field of corn, a stubborn ass o'powers his boyish guides.
The kingly temper and dignity he expresses in the following (I. ii.
480):-- As 'mid the thronging heifers in a herd Stands, proudly eminent, the lordly bull.
He does not omit similes taken from marine creatures, the perseverance of a polypus and the difficulty of removing it from a rock (O. v.
432):-- As when the cuttlefish is dragged forth from his chamber.
The leadership and prominence of the dolphin over the rest (I. xxi.
22):-- As fishes flying from a dolphin.
Oftentimes things made by men he compares to others similarly made, as in this (I. xi. 67):-- The rival bands of reapers mow the swathe.
Showing the resistance and bravery of men. But one lamenting ignobly, he blames in a clear comparison (I. xvi. 7):-- Why weeps Patroelus like an infant girl?
He dared to compare human actions to the elements of nature, as in the following passage (I. ii. 394):-- From th' applauding ranks of Greece Rose a loud sound, as when the ocean wave, Driv'n by the south wind on some lofty beach, Dashes against a prominent crag expos'd To blasts from every storm that wars around.
In these it is plain he used Hyperbola and Amplification, for he was not satisfied with comparing the clamor to the sound of the wind, but to the waves beating on a craggy shore, where the high sea makes the noise greater. Nor is the tempest an ordinary one, but it comes from the south, which especially stirs up the billows, and it is driven against a projecting crag stretching out into the sea, and surrounded by it, and it has the sea over it constantly, and from every side the winds blow and fall upon it. Such things as these are worked out by him in his descriptions. From a few examples we can become acquainted with many.
Let us see if the other forms of narrative are to be found in our author and how he took cognizance of them and clearly prepared them. We will give a few examples and so facilitate acquaintance with the rest.
There is the theoretic style, which embraces what is called speculative matter, which is a knowledge of the truth conceived in art. By these it is possible to know the nature of reality, both divine and human things, and to discriminate virtues and vices in morals and to learn how to attain truth by logical skill. These things are the province of those who are occupied in philosophy, which is divided into natural, ethical, and dialectical. If we find out Homer supplying the beginnings and the seeds of all these, is he not, beyond all others, worthy of admiration?
Because he shows matters of intelligence by dark sayings and mythical expressions, it ought not to be considered strange. The reason is to be found in poetic art and ancient custom. So those who desired to learn, being led by a certain intellectual pleasure, might the easier seek and find the truth, and that the unlearned might not despise what they are not able to understand. For what is indicated indirectly is stimulating, while what is said clearly is valued more moderately.
Let us begin with the beginning and creation of the whole universe, which Thales the Milesian refers to the substance water, and let us see whether Homer first discovered this when he said (I. xiv. 246):-- Even to the stream of old Oceanus Prime origin of all.
After him Xenophanes of Colophon, laying down that the first elements were water and land, seems to have taken this conception from the Homeric poems (I. vii. 99):-- To dust and water turn all ye who here inglorious sit.
For he indicates their dissolution into the original elements of the universe. But the most likely opinion makes four elements,--fire, air, water, earth. These Homer shows he knows, as in many places he makes mention of them.
He knew, too, the order of their arrangement. We shall see that the land is the lowest of them all, for as the world is spherical, the sky, which contains all things, can reasonably be said to have the highest position. The earth being in the midst everywhere is below what surrounds it. This the poet declares chiefly in the lines where he says if Zeus let a chain down from Olympus, he could turn over the land and sea so that everything would be in the air (I. viii. 23):-- But if I choose to make my pow'r be known, The earth itself and ocean I could raise, And binding round Olympus' ridge the cord Leave them suspended so in middle air.
Although the air is around the earth, he says the ether is higher in the following lines (I. xiv. 287):-- And going up on a lofty pine, which then grew on the summit of Ida and through the air reached into the ether.
But higher than the ether is heaven (I. xvii. 424):-- And thus they fought: the iron clangor pierc'd The airless ether and brazen vault of Heaven.
And, besides, in the following (I. i. 497):-- The vapor ascended to the great heaven and to Olympus.
The top part of the air is finer and more distant from the earth and its exhalations. Therefore it is said Olympus is called "wholly shining."
Where the poet says Hera is the wife of Zeus, although she is his sister, he seems to speak in an allegory, since Hera stands for the air, which is a humid substance. Therefore he says (I. xxi. 6):-- Hera spread before their path clouds of thick darkness.
By Zeus is signified the ether, that is the fiery and heated substance (I. xv. 192):-- Broad Heav'n amid the sky and clouds, to Jove.
They seem brother and sister on account of a certain likeness and relationship, because both are light and mobile; they dwell together and are intimate, because from their intercourse all things are generated.
Therefore they meet in Ida, and the land produces for them plants and flowers.
The same explanation have those words in which Zeus says he will, hang Hera and fasten two weights to her feet, namely, the land and the sea.
He works out especially the principles of the elements in what Poseidon says to him (I. xv. 187):-- We were brethren, all of Rhaea born To Saturn: Jove and I and Pluto third, Who o'er the nether regions holds his sway, and (I. xv. 189):-- Threefold was our partition: each obtain'd His meed of honor due.
And in the division of the whole, Zeus obtained the element fire, Poseidon water, and Hades that of air. Him he also calls "aerial darkness," because the air has no proper light, but is lightened by the sun, moon, and other planets.
The fourth part was left common to all, for the primal essence of the three elements is always in motion. The earth alone remains unmoved, to which he added also Olympus; it may have been because it is a mountain, being a part of the earth. If it belongs to heaven, as being the most brilliant and purest part of it, this may be the fifth essence in the elements, as certain distinguished philosophers think. So he, with reason, has conjectured it was common, the lowest part belonging to the earth by its weight, and the top parts to Olympus by their lightness.
The natures between the two are borne upward to the one and downward to the other.
Since the nature of the elements is a combination of contraries, of dryness and moisture, hot and cold, and since by their relation and combination all things are constructed and undergo partial changes,--the whole not admitting of dissolution,--Empedocles says all things exist in this manner: "Sometimes in love all things meeting together in one.
Sometimes, again, each being carried away by animosity of hate." The concord and unity of the elements he calls love, their opposition, hate.
Before his time Homer foreshadowed love and hate in what he says in his poetry (I. xiv. 200):-- I go to visit old Oceanus The sire of gods, and Tethys, I go to visit them and reconcile a lengthen'd feud.
A similar meaning has the myth about, Aphrodite and Ares, the one having the same force as Empedocles's love, the other his hate. When they sometimes come together, and again separate, the sun reveals them, Hephaestus binds them, and Poseidon releases them. Whence it is evident that the warm and dry essence, and the contrary of these, the cold and wet, sometimes combine all things and again dissolve them.
Related to these is what is said by other poets that by the intercourse of Ares and Aphrodite arises Harmony; a combination of contraries grave and acute analogously accommodating themselves to one another. By which arrangement things which are endowed with a contrary nature are all mutually opposed. The poet seems to have signified this enigmatically in the conflict of the gods, in which he makes some help the Greeks and some the Trojans, showing allegorically the character of each. And he set over against Poseidon Phoebus, the cold and wet against the hot and dry: Athene to Ares, the rational to the irrational, that is, the good to the bad. Hera to Artemis, that is, the air to the moon, because the one is stable and the other unstable. Hermes to Latona, because speech investigates and remembers, but oblivion is contrary to these.
Hephaestus to the River God, for the same reason that the sun is opposed to the sea. The spectator of the fight was the primary god, and he is made taking joy in it.
From the afore-mentioned matter Homer seems to show this: that the world is one and finite. For if it had been infinite, it would never have been divided in a number having a limit. By the name "all" he signifies the collective whole. For in many other cases he uses the plural for the singular. He signifies the same thing more clearly in saying (I. xiv.
200):-- The ends of the earth,--and again where he says (I. vii. 478):-- Nor should I care Though thou wert thrust beneath the lowest deep Of earth and ocean,--and in On the very top of many-peaked Olympus where there is a top, there, too, is a limit.
His opinions about the sun are plain. That it has an orbicular energy sometimes appearing over the earth, sometimes going under it, this he makes evident by saying (O. x. 190):-- My friends, lo we know not where is the place of darkness or of dawning, nor where the sun that gives light to men goes beneath the earth, nor where he rises.
And that he is always preceding over us and on this account is called Hyperion by our poet; that he makes the sun rising from the water which surrounds the earth the ocean, that the sun descends into it, is clearly expressed. First, as to the rising (O. iii. l):-- Now the sun arose and left the lovely mere speeding to the brazen heaven, to give light to the immortals and to mortal men on the earth.
Its setting (I. vii. 486):-- The sun, now sunk beneath the ocean wave, Drew o'er the teeming earth the veil of night.
And he declares its form (O. xix. 234):-- He was brilliant as the sun, and its size (I. xi. 735):-- We as sunlight overspread the earth.
and more in the following (O. iv. 400):-- So often as the sun in his course has reached the mid-heaven,--and its power (O. ii. log):-- Of Helios, who overseeth all and ordereth all things.
Finally that it has a soul, and in its movement is guided by choice in certain menaces it makes (O. xii. 383):-- I will go down to Hades and shine among the dead.
And on this thus Zeus exhorts him:-- Helios, see that thou shine on amidst the deathless gods amid mortal men upon the earth, the grain giver.
From which it is plain that the sun is not a fire, but some more potent being, as Aristotle conjectured. Assuredly, fire is borne aloft, is without a soul, is easily quenchable and corruptible; but the sun is orbicular and animate, eternal and imperishable.
And as to the other planets scattered through the heavens, that Homer is not ignorant is evident in his poems (I. xviii. 480):-- Pleiads and Hyads and Orions might.
The Bear which always encircles the North Pole is visible to us. By reason of its height it never touches the horizon, because in an equal time, the smallest circle in which the Bear is, and the largest in which Orion is, revolves in the periphery of the world. And Bootes, slowly sinking because it makes a frequent setting, has that kind of position, that is carried along in a straight line. It sinks with the four signs of Zodiac, there being six zodiacal signs divided in the whole night.
That he has not gone through all observations of the stars, as Aratus or some of the others, need be surprising to no one. For this was not his purpose.
He is not ignorant of the causes of disturbances to the elements as earthquakes and eclipses, since the whole earth shares in itself air, fire, and water, by which it is surrounded. Reasonably, in its depths are found vapors full of spirit, which they say being borne outward move the air; when they are restrained, they swell up and break violently forth. That the spirit is held within the earth they consider is caused by the sea, which sometimes obstructs the channels going outward, and sometimes by withdrawing, overturns parts of the earth. This Homer knew, laying the cause of earthquakes on Poseidon, calling him Earth Container and Earth Shaker.
Now, then, when these volatile movements are kept within the earth, the winds cease to blow, then arises the darkness and obscurity of the sun.
Let us see whether he was aware also of this. He made Poseidon moving the earth after Achilles issued forth to fight. For he had previously mentioned on the day before what the state of the air was. In the incident of Sarpedon (I. xvi. 567):-- Zeus extended opaque shadows over the fight,-- and again in the case of Patroclus (I. xvii. 366):-- Now might ye deem the glorious sun himself nor moon was safe, for darkest clouds of night overspread the warriors.
And a little while afterward Ajax prays (I. xvii. 645):-- O Father Jove, from o'er the sons of Greece, Remove this cloudy darkness; clear the sky That we may see our fate.
But after the earthquake, the vapor issuing forth, there are violent winds, whence Hera says (I. xxi. 334):-- While from the sea I call the strong blast Of Zephyr and brisk Notus who shall drive The raging flames ahead.
On the following day Iris calls the winds to the pyre of Patroclus (I.
xxiii. 212):-- They with rushing sound rose and before them drove the hurrying clouds.
So the eclipse of the sun takes place in a natural manner, when the moon on its passage by it goes under it perpendicularly and is darkened. This he seems to have known. For he said before that Odysseus was about to come (O. xiv. 162):-- As the old moon wanes, and the new is born;-- that is, when the month ends and begins, the sun being conjoined with the moon at the time of his coming. The seer says to the suitors (O. xiv. 353):-- Ah, wretched men, what woe is this ye suffer, shrouded in night are your heads and your faces and knees, and kindled is the voice of wailing and the path is full of phantoms and full is the court, the shadows of men hasting hellwards beneath the gloom, and the sun is perished out of heaven, and an evil mist has overspread the world.
He closely observed the nature of the winds, how they arise from the moist element. For the water transformed goes into air. The wind is air in motion. This he shows in very many places, and where he says (O. v.
478):-- The force of the wet winds blew,-- he arranged the order of their series (O. v. 295):-- The East wind and the South wind clashed and the stormy West and the North that is born in the bright air, welling onwards a great wave.
Of these one comes from the rising, one from the midday quarter, one from the setting, one from the north.
And Subsolanus, being humid, changes into the South, which is warm. And the South, rarefying, is changed into the East; but the East, becoming further rarefied, is purified into the North wind, therefore (O. v.
385):-- She roused the swift North and brake the waves before him.
Their contention he explains naturally (O. v. 331):-- Now the South would toss it to the North to carry, and now again the East would yield it to the West.
He knew besides that the North Pole is suspended over the earth, and how it weighs on the men who dwell in that climate. But the South Pole, on the contrary, is profound; as when he says of the North Pole (O. v.
296):-- And the North that is born in the bright air rolling on a great wave on the Southwest wind.
(O. iii. 295):-- Where the Southwest wind drives a great wave against the left headland."
For by saying "rolling" he notes the force of the wave rushing on from above, but the wind "driving" signifies a force applied to what is higher, coming from what is lower.
That the generation of rains comes from the evaporation of the humid, he demonstrates, saying (I. xi. 54):-- and (I. xvi. 459):-- But to the ground some drops of blood let fall,-- for he had previously said (I. vii. 329):-- Whose blood, beside Scamander's flowing stream, Fierce Mars has shed, while to the viewless shade Their spirits are gone,-- where it is evident that humors of this sort exhaled from the waters about the earth, mixed with blood, are borne upward. The same argument is found in the following (I. xvi. 385):-- As in the autumnal season when the earth with weight of rain is saturate,--for then the sun on account of the dryness of the ground draws out humors from below and brings from above terrestrial disturbances. The humid exhalations produce rains, the dry ones, winds.