Note 295 — Chapter XXI · GRECIAN EPIC.—HOMERIC POEMS. (continued 2)

Heyne treats the eighth book as decidedly a separate song, or epic; a supposition which the language of Zeus and the agora of the gods at the beginning are alone sufficient to refute, in my judgment (Excursus 1, ad lib. xi. vol. vi. p. 269). This Excursus, in describing the sequence of events in the Iliad, passes at once and naturally from book eighth to book eleventh.

And Mr. Payne Knight, when he defends book eleventh against Heyne, says, “Quæ in undecimâ rhapsodiâ Iliadis narrata sunt, haud minus ex ante narratis pendent: neque rationem pugnæ commissæ, neque rerum in eâ gestarum nexum atque ordinem, quisquam intelligere posset, nisi iram et secessum Achillis, et victoriam quam Trojani inde consecuti erant, antea cognosset.” (Prolegom. c. xxix.)

Perfectly true: to understand the eleventh book, we must have before us the first and the eighth (which are those that describe the anger and withdrawal of Achilles, and the defeat which the Greeks experience in consequence of it); we may dispense with the rest.