A distinguished classical authority has remarked that the description of Achilles’ shield occupies an anomalous position in Homer’s ‘Iliad.’ On the one hand, it is easy to show that the poem—for the description may be looked on as a complete poem—is out of place in the ‘Iliad;’ on the other, it is no less easy to show that Homer has carefully led up to the description of the shield by a series of introductory events.

I propose to examine, briefly, the evidence on each of these points, and then to exhibit a theory respecting the shield which may appear bizarre enough on a first view, but which seems to me to be supported by satisfactory evidence.

An argument commonly urged against the genuineness of the ‘Shield of Achilles’ is founded on the length and laboured character of the description. Even Grote, whose theory is that Homer’s original poem was not an Iliad, but an Achilleis, has admitted the force of this argument. He finds clear evidence that from Book II. to Book XX. Homer has been husbanding his resources for the more effective description of the final conflict. He therefore concedes the possibility that the ‘Shield of Achilles’ may be an interpolation—perhaps the work of another hand.

It appears to me, however, that the mere length of the description is no argument against the genuineness298 of the passage. Events have, indeed, been hastening to a crisis up to the end of Book XVII., and the action is checked in a marked manner by the ‘Oplop?ia’ in Book XVIII. Yet it is quite in Homer’s manner to introduce, between two series of important events, an interval of comparative inaction, or at least of events wholly different in character from those of either series. We have a marked instance of this in Books IX. and X. Here the appeal to Achilles and the night-adventure of Diomed and Ulysses are interposed between the first victory of the Trojans and the great struggle in which Patroclus is slain, and Agamemnon, Ulysses, Diomed, Machaon, and Eurypylus wounded.19 In fact, one cannot doubt that in such an arrangement Homer exhibits admirable taste and judgment. The contrast between action and inaction, or between the confused tumult of a heady conflict and the subtle advance of the two Greek heroes, is conceived in the true poetic spirit. The dignity and importance of the action, and the interest of the interposed events, are alike enhanced. Indeed, there is scarcely a noted author whose works do not afford instances of corresponding contrasts. How skilfully, for example, has Shakespeare interposed the ‘bald, disjointed chat’ of the sleepy porter between the conscience-wrought horror of Duncan’s murderers and the ‘horror, horror, horror’ which299 ‘tongue nor heart could not conceive nor name’ of his faithful followers. Nor will the reader need to be reminded of the frequent and effective use of the contrast between the humorous and the pathetic by others.

The laboured character of the description of the shield is an argument—though not, perhaps, a very striking one—for the independent origin of the poem.

But the arguments on which I am disposed to lay most stress lie nearer the surface.

Scarcely anyone, I think, can have read the description of the shield without a feeling of wonder that Homer should describe the shield of a mortal hero as adorned with so many and such important objects. We find the sun and moon, the constellations, the waves of ocean, and a variety of other objects, better suited to adorn the temple of a great deity than the shield of a warrior, however noble and heroic. The objects depicted even on the ?gis of Zeus are much less important. There is certainly no trace in the ‘Iliad’ of a wish on Homer’s part to raise the dignity of mortal heroes at the expense of Zeus, yet the ?gis is thus succinctly described:—
Fring’d round with ever-fighting snakes, though it was drawn to life,
The miseries and deaths of fight; in it frown’d bloody Strife,
In it shone sacred Fortitude, in it fell Pursuit flew,
In it the monster Gorgon’s head, in which held out to view
Were all the dire ostents of Jove.—Chapman’s Translation.

Five lines here, as in the original, suffice for the description of Jove’s ?gis, while one hundred and thirty lines are employed in the description of the300 celestial and terrestrial objects depicted on the shield of Achilles.

Another circumstance attracts notice in the description of Achilles’ armour—the disproportionate importance attached to the shield. Undoubtedly, the shield was that portion of a hero’s armour which admitted of the freest application of artistic skill. Yet this consideration is not sufficient to account for the fact, that while so many lines are given to the shield, the helmet, corselet, and greaves are disposed of in four.

But the argument on which I am inclined to lay most stress is the occurrence elsewhere of a description which is undoubtedly only another version of the ‘Shield of Achilles.’ The ‘Shield of Hercules’ occurs in a poem ascribed to Hesiod. But whatever opinion may be formed respecting the authorship of the description, there can be no doubt that it is not Hesiod’s work. It exhibits no trace of his dry, didactic, somewhat heavy style. Elton ascribes the ‘Shield of Hercules’ to an imitator of Homer, and in support of this view points out those respects in which the poem resembles, and those in which it is inferior to, the ‘Shield of Achilles.’ The two descriptions are, however, absolutely identical in many places; and this would certainly not have happened if one had been an honest imitation of the other. And those parts of the ‘Shield of Hercules,’ which have no counterparts in the ‘Shield of Achilles,’ are too well conceived and expressed to be ascribed to a very inferior poet—a poet so inferior as to be reduced to the necessity of simply reproducing301 Homer’s words in other parts of the poem. Those parts which admit of comparison—where, for instance, the same objects are described, but in different terms—are certainly inferior in the ‘Shield of Hercules.’ The description is injured by the addition of unnecessary or inharmonious details. Elton speaks, accordingly, of these portions as if they were expansions of the corresponding parts of the ‘Shield of Achilles.’ This appears to me a mistake. It seems far more likely that both descriptions are by the same poet. It is not necessary for the support of my theory that this poet should be Homer, but I think both descriptions show undoubted traces of his handiwork. Indeed, all known imitations of Homer are so easily recognisable as the work of inferior poets, that I should have thought no doubt could exist on this point, but for the attention which the German theory respecting the ‘Iliad’ has received. Assigning both poems to Homer, the ‘Shield of Hercules’ may be regarded, not as an expansion (in parts) of the ‘Shield of Achilles,’ but as an earlier work of Homer’s, improved and pruned by his maturer judgment, when he desired to fit it into the plan of the ‘Iliad.’ Or rather, each poem may be looked on as an abridgment (the ‘Shield of Hercules’ the earlier) of an independent work on a subject presently to be mentioned.

It is next to be shown that in the events preceding the ‘Oplop?ia,’ there is a preparation for the introduction of a separate poem.

In the first place, every reader of Homer is familiar with the fact that the poet constantly makes use, when302 occasion serves, of expressions, sentences, often even of complete passages, which have been already applied in a corresponding, or occasionally even in a wholly different relation. The same epithets are repeatedly applied to the same deity or hero. A long message is delivered in the very words which have been already used by the sender of the message. In one well-known instance (in Book II.), not only is a message delivered thus, but the person who has received it repeats it to others in precisely the same terms. In the combat between Hector and Ajax (Book VI.), the flight of Ajax’s spear and the movement by which Hector avoids the missile, are described in six lines, differing only as to proper names from those which had been already used in describing the encounter between Paris and Menelaus (Book III.).

This peculiarity would be a decided blemish in a written poem. Tennyson, indeed, occasionally copies Homer’s manner—for instance, in ‘Enid,’ he twice repeats the line—

As careful robins eye the delver’s toil;—

but with a good taste which prevents the repetition from becoming offensive. The fact is, that the peculiarity marks Homer as the singer, not the writer, of poetry. I would not be understood as accepting the theory, according to which the ‘Iliad’ is a mere string of ballads. I imagine that no one who justly appreciates that noble poem would be willing to countenance such a theory. But that the whole poem303 was sung by Homer at those prolonged festivals which formed a characteristic peculiarity of Achaian manners seems shown, not only by what we learn respecting the later ‘rhapsodists,’ but by the internal evidence of the poem itself.20

Homer, reciting a long and elaborate poem of his own composition, occasionally varying the order of events, or adding new episodes, extemporized as the song proceeded, would exhibit the peculiarity invariably observed in the ‘improvisatore,’ of using, more than once, expressions, sentences, or passages which happened to be conveniently applicable. The art of extemporizing depends on the capacity for composing fresh matter while the tongue is engaged in the recital of matter already composed. Anyone who has watched a clever improvisatore cannot fail to have noticed that, though gesture is aptly wedded to words, the thoughts are elsewhere. In the case, therefore, of an improvisatore, or even of a rhapsodist reciting from memory, the occasional recurrence of a well-worn form of words serves as a relief to the strained invention or memory.

We have reason then for supposing that if Homer had, in his earlier days, composed a poem which was applicable, with slight alterations, to the story of the304 ‘Iliad,’ he would endeavour, by a suitable arrangement of the plan of his narrative, to introduce the lines whose recital had long since become familiar to him.

Evidence of design in the introduction of the ‘Shield of Achilles’ certainly does not seem wanting.

It is by no means necessary to the plot of the ‘Iliad’ that Achilles should lose the celestial armour given to Peleus as a dowry with Thetis. On the contrary, Homer has gone out of his way to render the labours of Vulcan necessary. Patroclus has to be so ingeniously disposed of, that while the armour he had worn is seized by Hector, his body is rescued, as are also the horses and chariot of Achilles.

We have the additional improbability that the armour of the great Achilles should fit the inferior warriors Patroclus and Hector. Indeed, that the armour should fit Hector, or rather that Hector should fit the armour, the aid of Zeus and Ares has to be called in—
To this Jove’s sable brows did bow; and he made fit his limbs
To those great arms, to fill which up the war-god enter’d him
Austere and terrible, his joints and every part extends
With strength and fortitude.—Chapman’s Translation.

It is clear that the narrative would not have been impaired in any way, while its probability and consistency would have been increased, if Patroclus had fought in his own armour. The death of Patroclus would in any case have been a cause sufficient to arouse the wrath of Achilles against Hector—though certainly the hero’s grief for his armour is nearly as poignant as his sorrow for his friend.

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It appears probable, then, that the description of Achilles’ Shield is an interpolation—the poet’s own work, however, and brought in by him in the only way he found available. The description clearly refers to the same object which is described (here, also, only in part) in the ‘Shield of Hercules.’ The original description, doubtless, included all that is found in both ‘shields,’ and probably much more.

What, then, was the object to which the original description applied? An object, I should think, far more important than a warrior’s shield. I imagine that anyone who should read the description without being aware of its accepted interpretation, would consider that the poet was dealing with an important series of religious s............