Note 391 — Chapter III · (continued 4)

I presume the meaning is that the poem in the shape we now have it dates some 400 years after the Trojan war. But it is not very clear from Hegel's language whether he regards Homer as the poet who, as in the case of his example of the poet of the Niebelungenlied, fused that together or no. For if he did how could he have lived through the poems, an expression itself which is rather vague, more particularly as the better opinion is that they represent a different age themselves.