Note 305 — Chapter XXI · GRECIAN EPIC.—HOMERIC POEMS. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Iliad, xx. 25. Zeus addresses the agora of the gods,—
Ἀμφοτέροισι δ᾽ ἀρήγετ᾽, ὅπη νόος ἐστὶν ἑκάστου· Εἰ γὰρ Ἀχιλλεὺς οἶος ἐπὶ Τρώεσσι μαχεῖται, Οὐδὲ μίνυνθ᾽ ἕξουσι ποδώκεα Πηλείωνα. Καὶ δέ τέ μιν καὶ πρόσθεν ὑποτρομέεσκον ὁρῶντες· Νῦν δ᾽ ὅτε δὴ καὶ θυμὸν ἑταίρου χώεται αἰνῶς, Δείδω μὴ καὶ τεῖχος ὑπὲρ μόρον ἐξαλαπάξῃ.
The formal restriction put upon the gods by Zeus at the beginning of the eighth book, and the removal of that restriction at the beginning of the twentieth, are evidently parts of one preconceived scheme.
It is difficult to determine whether the battle of the gods and goddesses in book xxi. (385-520) is to be expunged as spurious, or only to be blamed as of inferior merit (“improbanda tantum, non resecanda—hoc enim est illud, quo plerumque summa criseôs Homericæ redit,” as Heyne observes in another place, Obss. Iliad. xviii. 444). The objections on the score of non-Homeric locution are not forcible (see P. Knight, ad loc.), and the scene belongs to that vein of conception which animates the poet in the closing act of his Achillêis.