[Footnote 5: _Il._ xiii. 18; xx. 60; xiii. 19, 27.]
9 And thus also the lawgiver of the Jews, no ordinary man, having formed an adequate conception of the Supreme Being, gave it adequate expression in the opening words of his “Laws”: “God said”--what?--“let there be light, and there was light: let there be land, and there was.”
10 I trust you will not think me tedious if I quote yet one more passage from our great poet (referring this time to human characters) in illustration of the manner in which he leads us with him to heroic heights. A sudden and baffling darkness as of night has overspread the ranks of his warring Greeks. Then Ajax in sore perplexity cries aloud--
“Almighty Sire, Only from darkness save Achaia’s sons; No more I ask, but give us back the day; Grant but our sight, and slay us, if thou wilt.”[6]
The feelings are just what we should look for in Ajax. He does not, you observe, ask for his life--such a request would have been unworthy of his heroic soul--but finding himself paralysed by darkness, and prohibited from employing his valour in any noble action, he chafes because his arms are idle, and prays for a speedy return of light. “At least,” he thinks, “I shall find a warrior’s grave, even though Zeus himself should fight against me.”
11 In such passages the mind of the poet is swept along in the whirlwind of the struggle, and, in his own words, he
“Like the fierce war-god, raves, or wasting fire Through the deep thickets on a mountain-side; His lips drop foam.”[7]
12 But there is another and a very interesting aspect of Homer’s mind. When we turn to the _Odyssey_ we find occasion to observe that a great poetical genius in the decline of power which comes with old age naturally leans towards the fabulous. For it is evident that this work was composed after the _Iliad_, in proof of which we may mention, among many other indications, the introduction in the _Odyssey_ of the sequel to the story of his heroes’ adventures at Troy, as so many additional episodes in the Trojan war, and especially the tribute of sorrow and mourning which is paid in that poem to departed heroes, as if in fulfilment of some previous design. The _Odyssey_ is, in fact, a sort of epilogue to the _Iliad_--