Complete Works of Plutarch Part 51

But significance is given by him in many ways. One of which is Proanaphonesis, which is used when any one in the midst of a narration uses an order proper to other things, as in the following line (O. xxi, 98):--

He was to be the first that should taste the arrow,-- and Epiphonesis (I. xvii. 32):--

After the event may e'en a fool be wise.

The use of Prosopopoiia is frequent and varied with him. For he introduces many different people speaking together, to whom he attributes various characteristics. Sometimes he re-creates characters no longer living, as when he says (I. vii. 125):--

What grief would fill the aged Pellus's soul.

There is, too, Diatyposis, which is the working out of things coming into being or actually existent or that have come to pa.s.s, brought in to make what is said clearer, as in the following (I. ix. 593):--

The slaughtered men, the city burnt with fire, The helpless children and deep-bosomed dames.

Or, to produce pity (I. xxii. 60):--

Look, too, on me with pity: me on whom E'en on the threshold of mine age, hath Jove A bitter burthen cast, condemned to see My sons struck down, my daughters dragged away In servile bonds: our chamber's sanct.i.ty Invaded; and our babes by hostile hands Dashed to the ground.

There is also to be found in him Irony, i.e. an expression revealing the opposite of what is said with a certain ethical artifice; as in the speech of Achilles (I. ix. 391):--

Let him choose among the Greeks a fitter King.

For he hints that he would not find one of more royal temper. And this is the same Trope used when one speaks about himself in extenuation and gives a judgment contrary to one's own. There is another form when any one pretends to praise another and really censures him. As the verse in Homer, put in the mouth of Telemachus (O. xvii. 397):--

Antinous--verily thou hast good care of me, as it were a father for his son.

For he says to an enemy that he cares as a father for his son, and, again, when any one by way of jest extolls his neighbor, as the suitors (O. ii. 325):--

In my truth Telemachus planneth our destruction. He will bring a rescue either from sandy Pylos, or it may be from Sparta, so terribly is he set on slaying us.

Sarcasm is a species of Irony used when any one jibes at another with a pretence of smiling. As Achilles, in the following pa.s.sage (I. ix.

335):--

He meted out Their several portions, and they hold them still.

From me, from me alone of all the Greeks, He bore away and keeps my cherished wife.

Well! let him keep her, solace of his bed.

Like this in kind is Allegory, which exhibits one thing by another, as in the following (O. xxii. 195):--

Now in good truth Melanthiusi shalt thou watch all night, lying on, a soft bed as beseems thee.

For being in chains and hanging, he says he can rest on a soft bed.

Often, too, he makes use of Hyperbole, which, by exaggerating the truth, indicates emphasis, as (I. x. 437):--

These surpa.s.s in brilliancy the snow, in speed the eagle.

Homer used Tropes and figures of this sort and handed them down to posterity, and justly obtains glory beyond all others.

Since there are also Characters of speech called Forms, of which one is Copiousness, the other Gracefulness, and the third Restraint, let us see if Homer has all these separate cla.s.ses, on which poets and orators have worked after him. There are examples of these--copiousness in Thucydides, gracefulness in Lysias, restraint in Demosthenes. That is copious which by combination of words and sentences has great emphasis.

An example of this is (O. v. 291):--

With that he gathered the clouds and troubled the waters of the deep, rasping his trident in his hands: and he roused all storms of all manner of winds and shrouded in clouds the land and sea: and down sped night from heaven.

The graceful is delicate by the character of the matter. It is drawn out by the way it is expressed (I. vi. 466).--

Thus he spake, great Hector stretch'd his arms To take the child: but back the infant shrank, Crying, and sought his nurse's sheltering breast, Scar'd by the brazen helm and horse-hair plume.

The restrained is between the two, the copious and the graceful, as (O.

xxii. 291):--

Then Odysseus, rich in counsel, stripped him of his rags and leaped on the great threshold with his bow and quiver full of arrows, and poured forth all the swift shafts there before his feet, and spake among the wooers.

But the florid style of speech, which has beauty and capacity for creating delight and pleasure, like a flower, is frequent in our poet; his poetry is full of such examples. The kinds of phrasing have much novelty in Homer, as we shall go on to show, by giving a few examples from which the rest may be gathered.

Every type of style practised among men is either historical, theoretic, or political. Let us examine whether the beginnings of these are to be found in him. Historical style contains a narration of facts.

The elements of such a narration are character, cause, place, time, instrument, action, feeling, manner. There is no historical narration without some of these. So it is with our poet, who relates many things in their development and happening. Sometimes in single pa.s.sages can be found relations of this kind.

Of character, as the following (I. v. 9):--

There was one Dores 'mid the Trojan host, The priest of Vulcan, rich, of blameless life; Two gallant sons he had, Idaeus named And Phegeus, skilled in all the points of war.

He describes features, also, as in the case of Thersites (I. ii. 217):--

With squinting eyes, and one distorted foot, His shoulders round, and buried in his breast His narrow head, with scanty growth of hair.

And many other things, in which he often pictures the type or appearance or character, or action or fortune of a person, as in this verse (I. xx.

215):--

Darda.n.u.s first, cloud-compelling Zeus begot,--and the rest.

There is in his poetry description of locality; where he speaks about the island near that of the Cyclops, in which he describes the look of the place, its size, its quality, and the things in it, and what is near it. Also, when he describes the things adjacent to the island of Calypso (O. v. 63):--

And round about the cave there was a wood-blossoming alder and poplar, and sweet-smelling cypress.

And what follows. And innumerable other things of the same kind.

Time narratives are found as follows (I. ii. 134):--

Already now nine weary years have pa.s.sed.

And (I. ii. 303):--

Not long ago, when s.h.i.+ps of Greece were met at Aulis charged with evil freight for Troy.

Then there are the causes, in which he shows why something is coming to pa.s.s or has come to pa.s.s. Such are the things said at the beginning of the "Iliad" (I. i. 8):--

Say then, what G.o.d the fatal strife provoked Jove's and Latona's son; he filled with wrath Against the King, with deadly pestilence The Camp afflicted--and the people died For Chryses' sake, his priest, whom Atreus' son With scorn dismissed,

--and the rest. In this pa.s.sage he says the cause of the difference between Achilles and Agamemnon was the plague; but the plague was caused by Apollo, and his wrath was due to the insult put upon his priest.