#WingedWordsWindsday: 2022/11/16 -- Homer, the Sovereign Poet

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 2, No. 3: November 16, 2022

 

 

Homer, the Sovereign Poet

“Ad Niniannam, Sibyllam Caecam et Animam Caram Primam in Univeristate Illinois”

 

Editor’s Note

                On the afternoon of Friday, October 28, I gave an invited presentation to the Campus Honors Program students about Homer, the legendary epic poet of ancient Greece – discussing not only the poems and tales ascribed to him, but also tracing how Homer became a literary character in his own right down through the centuries. As a Classics major at the University of Illinois during the late 1980s and early 1990s, Homer was an inspirational figure to me because I have lived all my life with low vision, and he was widely believed in antiquity to have been blind.

                Here is a short introduction to Homeric studies, along with two of my favorite poems about Homer, and a pair of ancient Greek hymns to the Muses, who inspired his masterful poetry. We conclude with some verses comparing the genius of Homer with two other epic poets: Virgil (70-19 BCE) and John Milton (1608-1674 CE), whose sonnet reflecting on his blindness (the last item in this week’s posting) reminds me of a very insightful quote by my oracular cousin, who has low vision, like me:

 

“Sight doesn’t define vision. Eyes of the heart will see far beyond any physical force.”

à Ambrosiastra (“Immortal Star”)

 

Excerpt from Chapter 35 of The Age of Fable by Thomas Bulfinch (1796-1867)

                Homer, from whose poems of the Iliad and Odyssey we have taken the chief part of our chapters of the Trojan war and the return of the Grecians, is almost as mythical a personage as the heroes he celebrates. The traditionary story is that he was a wandering minstrel, blind and old, who travelled from place to place singing his lays to the music of his harp, in the courts of princes or the cottages of peasants, and dependent upon the voluntary offerings of his hearers for support. Byron calls him “the blind old man of Scio’s rocky isle,” and a well-known epigram, alluding to the uncertainty of the fact of his birthplace, says:

“Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead,

Through which the living Homer begged his bread.”

These seven were Smyrna, Scio, Rhodes, Colophon, Salamis, Argos, and Athens.

                Modern scholars have doubted whether the Homeric poems are the work of any single mind. This arises from the difficulty of believing that poems of such length could have been committed to writing at so early an age as that usually assigned to these, an age earlier than the date of any remaining inscriptions or coins, and when no materials capable of containing such long productions were yet introduced into use. On the other hand it is asked how poems of such length could have been handed down from age to age by means of the memory alone. This is answered by the statement that there was a professional body of men, called Rhapsodists, who recited the poems of others, and whose business it was to commit to memory and rehearse for pay the national and patriotic legends.

                The prevailing opinion of the learned, at this time, seems to be that the framework and much of the structure of the poems belong to Homer, but that there are numerous interpolations and additions by other hands.

                The date assigned to Homer, on the authority of Herodotus, is 850 BC.

 

“On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”

By John Keats (1795-1821)

                Editor’s Note: The Chapman here referred to is George Chapman (1559-1634), a British classical scholar, translator, and poet. His was the first complete English translation of the works attributed to Homer – the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Homeric Hymns.

 

Much have I travelled in the realms of gold,

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;

Round many western islands have I been

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He stared at the Pacific — and all his men

Looked at each other with a wild surmise —

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

 

“To Homer”

By John Keats (1795-1821)

Standing aloof in giant ignorance,

Of thee I hear and of the Cyclades,

As one who sits ashore and longs perchance

To visit dolphin-coral in deep seas.

So thou wast blind; -- but then the veil was rent,

For Jove uncurtained Heaven to let thee live,

And Neptune made for thee a spumy tent,

And Pan made sing for thee his forest-hive;

Aye on the shores of darkness there is light,

And precipices show untrodden green,

There is a budding morrow in midnight,

There is a triple sight in blindness keen;

Such seeing hadst thou, as it once befell

To Dian, Queen of Earth, and Heaven, and Hell.

The Apotheosis of Homer, a marble relief by Archelaus of Priene, dating from the 3rd century BCE, now in the British Museum. It shows Homer’s postmortal assumption into the divine realm as an immortal demigod. (Photo Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

“Omero, sovrano poeta.” (Dante)

“Homer, the sovereign poet.”

 

Excerpt from The Age of Fable (Chapter 1) by Thomas Bulfinch (1796-1867)

                The Muses were the daughters of Jupiter and Mnemosyne (Memory). They presided over song, and prompted the memory. They were nine in number, to each of whom was assigned the presidence over some particular department of literature, art, or science. Calliope was the muse of epic poetry, Clio of history, Euterpe of lyric poetry, Melpomene of tragedy, Terpsichore of choral dance and song, Erato of love poetry, Polyhymnia of sacred poetry, Urania of astronomy, Thalia of comedy.

 

Homeric Hymn #25: “To the Muses and Apollo”

Translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (1914)

                I will begin with the Muses and Apollo and Zeus. For it is through the Muses and Apollo that there are singers upon the Earth and players upon the lyre; but kings are from Zeus. Happy is he whom the Muses love: sweet flows speech from his lips.

                Hail, children of Zeus! Give honor to my song! And now I will remember you and another song also.

 

Orphic Hymn #75: “To the Muses”

Translated by Thomas Taylor (1758-1835)

Daughters of Jove, dire-sounding and divine,

Renowned Pierian, sweetly speaking Nine;

To those whose breasts your sacred furies fire

Much-formed, the objects of supreme desire:

Sources of blameless virtue to mankind,

Who form to excellence the youthful mind;

Who nurse the soul, and give her to descry

The paths of right with Reason's steady eye.

Commanding queens who lead to sacred light

The intellect refined from Error's night;

And to mankind each holy rite disclose,

For mystic knowledge from your nature flows.

Clio, and Erato, who charms the sight,

With thee Euterpe ministering delight:

Thalia flourishing, Polyhymnia famed,

Melpomene from skill in music named:

Terpsichore, Urania heavenly bright,

With thee who gavest me to behold the light.

Come, venerable, various, powers divine,

With favoring aspect on your mystics shine;

Bring glorious, ardent, lovely, famed desire,

And warm my bosom with your sacred fire.

 

Excerpt from “Table Talk”

By William Cowper (1731-1800)

Ages elapsed ere Homer’s lamp appeared,

And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard.

To carry nature lengths unknown before,

To give a Milton birth, asked ages more.

Thus genius rose and set at ordered times,

And shot a dayspring into distant climes,

Ennobling every region that he chose;

He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose,

And, tedious years of Gothic darkness past,

Emerged all splendor in our isle at last.

Thus lovely Halcyons dive into the main,

Then show far off their shining plumes again.

 

Sonnet #19: “On His Blindness”

By John Milton (1608-1674)

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide,

“Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?”

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts: who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed

And post o'er land and ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait.”