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American Philological Association

The Early Greek Capacity for Viewing Things Separately Author(s): Ben Edwin Perry Source: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 68 (1937), pp. 403-427 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/283278 . Accessed: 08/09/2013 18:57
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forViewing XXX.-The Early GreekCapacity Things Separately


BEN EDWIN
UNIVERSITY Ha1riraolV,

PERRY

OF ILLINOIS

S a&EX?XVoas f3oV hOVO/lJKOV 6' OS,

rlVOS avapos.

(Plato Rep. 561E)


The firstpart of this essay defines and describes more fully the psychological phenomenon mentioned in the title, indicating the range of its manifestations in Greek life and literature. The second part (pp. 410 ff) illustrates the matter concretely and points out its bearing upon certain problems of literary interpretation.

If modern habits of mind were the same as those of the pre-Socratic Greeks,we should not oftenerrin the interpretation of their literatureand thought; but since the psychobetween them and us are considerable,it logical differences frequently happens that moderncritics,too much influenced by their own patterns of thought,either find somethingin early Greek literaturethat is not there,or else are puzzled and even disappointed by not finding theresomethingwhich they feel ought to be there. Since this is so, it behooves us as interpreters to keep in view at all times, and in many different connections,those particular characteristics of the early Greek mindwhichcan be recognizedas such, and which stand in contrast to modernways of thinking. I am about to describe and illustratewhat I conceive to be one of those fundamental characteristics-a Greekway of lookingat things which is quite familiar,to be sure, in many of its separate but which deserves to be recognized more manifestations, clearly than it has been, and to be conceived in broader perspective, considering that the failureto recognizeits application in specificinstanceshas oftenresultedin the raisingof unnecessary problems(witha resultant cropof falsesolutions), or in a simplelack of understanding.

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The titlechosenforthispaper is not quite adequate. What I have in mindmightbe further indicatedby such captionsas 'the occasional disregard of logical, moral, or aesthetic sequence in early literature,'or 'the triumphof parataxis over hypotaxisin thoughtas well as in grammar,'or 'immediacy of interestin the early Greek mind,' or, more fullystill, 'the capacity for contemplating only one thingor one aspect of a thingor person at one time, purely for its own interestand without regard to the ulterior implicationsor associations that an earlyGreeknarrator mightindeedbe concerned about, but often is not, and that a modern person with his more schematic habits of mind would almost inevitablybring in. I find abundant illustration of thisin the language,mythology, religion,and life,as well as in the literature of early Greece. In the sixth book of the Iliad, for example, the meeting between Diomedes and Glaucus is described at length in a ethicalidealism,but that does not prevent spiritof the highest the poet fromadding at the end what seems to us the disconcertingand incongruousremarkthat Glaucus was a fool for allowing Diomedes to get the betterof him in the trade of armor. We are startledby this sudden transition fromthe poetic to the comic and shrewdlymaterialisticaspect of the same transaction, as a by the fact that Glaucus appears first hero and then as a simpleton. The fancyof a modernpoet, on anotheroccasion, would and indeed that of Homer himself have been so dominatedby the ideal aspect of the preceding scene, and by the heroic personalityof the actors, that he would have continuedto the end in the same spirit; in other words, he would have been governedby a very commonyet conscious and literaryprincipleof aesthetic or artisticunity which in this episode is conspicuouslyignored. Why is it ignored? Because, I believe,the poet's mindis herefunctionfashion. He coning in a purely natural and unrestrained templatesin successiontwo verydifferent aspects of the same act, the second of which is mentioned solely for its own

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interestand in spite of the fact that for us it is artistically incongruous with the first. The successionof thoughtsand images in the human mind is not regulated by considerationsof logic or choice; they present themselvesautomatically one after the other in response to various incidentaland immediatestimuli,and withof any kind. There are moreconout regard to uniformity tradictionsin nature than in any kind of art. The actual record of what passed throughthe mind of a normal person in a single day would be somethingextremely chaotic. But of course what goes on in the mindon the one hand, and what is actually uttered or writtenon the other, though closely connected, are different things; it is quite unlikelythat we have any recordof thoughtfromthe past that is as absolutely spontaneousas Joyce's Ulyssespurportsto be. Probably the nearest approach to such extremenaturalnessis made in the primitivefolk tale, where there is a maximumof objectivity and of paratactical arrangement, and a minimumof personality, morality,sentiment,cause and effect,aesthetic unior other kinds of inner coherence. In such tales formity, the narrator,as a rule, merely describes what he sees or imagines without making inferencesor being conscious of kindredideas. When he does become consciousof such ideas he mentionsthem. The primitivemind resemblesthe mind of a child in that it occupies itself withthe object immediately before it rather than with anythingmore remote. "When you point your finger at somethingacross the room," says a recent commentatoron the magician's art, "an adult looks in the directionyou indicate, but a child looks firstat your I Such immediacyis typical,in kind if not in degree, finger." of adult psychology at an early stage of culturaldevelopment. At the opposite extreme,on the other hand, stands the ever consciousliterary artist,the typically modernwriter or thinker who has inheritedsome twenty-three centuries of doctrine about lifeand art, and who, workingin oppositionto nature,
1 Fred C. Kelly, " Nothing up the Sleeve"

in Reader's Digest, Sept. 1937, 95.

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chooses,arranges,and wide perspective, and with a relatively subordinateshis conceptionsone to the other. Such a naror purelyspontaneousstoryteller, rator,unlikethe primitive and incidentallyunlike Homer in the passage above mentioned, will not allow his interestin the thing immediately with the largersynthesisupon which beforehim to interfere he is intent. For him the implications of an action are usually more importantthan the action itself; he dares not objective, impersonaland proceed in a purely disinterested, only what he sees or imagines, describing paratactical fashion, like the tellerof the folktale, lest by so doing his storyshould lest he ascribe inculcate a wrongattitude toward something, charactersout the to morals wrong or the feelings the wrong of which he thinks,or lest he make these characters,or his episodes, in some way inconsistentor incongruous. In his tends to have meaningin terms work or thoughteverything of personality,or morality,or sentiment,or philosophical belief, or all of these combined; and these elements must, conscious withthewriter's be broughtinto harmony moreover, artistic ideals. In all these respects the typicallymodernone mightsay the Platonic mind-differssharplyboth from the primitivemind as revealed in folkloreand mythology, and to a great extent also, and in the same way, fromthe mind at those rare momentswhen the latter, contemporary in a purely off temporarily guard, happens to be functioning spontaneousway. I have described two psychological extremes,which for momentaryconvenience may be called the 'primitive' and my point is that in respectto the the 'artificial' respectively; and of always taking associated inferences habit of drawing ideas into account, the type of mind manifestedin many ways and in varying degrees by the Greek writersbefore Socrates,2representsan intermediatestage of evolution be2 That is, before philosophy was commonly recognized as a guide to life for individual men. The thought of Plato and his followers, in so far as it relates to ethics and to man in his environment, is far more ideal and schematic than that of earlier philosophers or of Thucydides. I do not mean to imply, however,

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tween the primitiveand the artificial-in the sense in which I am using these terms. In other words, the early Greek mind is maturebut has as yet nothingin excess; it has much of the childlikein it, i.e. much of the natural,but not enough to meritthe epithet'naive,' forit is richin the simplewisdom of experience;it is neitherprimitivenor beset with artificial complexes, neither averse to logic nor, like Plato, forever not obsessed dominatedby it; not reallyunmoral, yetcertainly or the moral outlook: it can moral be very by very logical on occasion, but neitherattitude is habitual. Within the limits that a Greek artist sets for himselfhe is guided by a fine sense of measure and of form,but those limits can be more restrictedthan modern taste expects them to be, and so we oftenlook for,or assume the presenceof, a backgroundthat is not in the pictureand was not meant to be. Looking at the matter in a slightly different way, the is extremely Hellenic temperament versatile and manysided. It is wont to enjoy, contemplate,or deifyby turns,and with a remarkableintensity,directness,and truthfulness in each case, everythingin experience good or bad that naturally pertainsto man; but whileit gives play to everyside of human nature, it does not allow any one side to tyrannizeover or interfere with the others. In that respectthe early Hellenic differs fromour own; forwe are system-ridden temperament and are constantlysubordinating one idea or image to another to which we have given superiorauthority,whereas in the early Greek mind all ideas and images tend to remain,as in the childhood of the race, free and independent. That is the case in religion,where polytheism,tolerant by nature, deifies the mostvaried and oppositetypesof humanexperience without ever allowing one cult to interfere with another; it
that the phenomenon in question ceases to exist after the fifthcentury; on the contrary there are many evidences of it in Xenophon, especially in the Hellenika and in the Anabasis, and the average Greek, even at a much later period, was always versatile and paratactic, so to speak, by instinct-quem vis hominem secum adtulit ad nos (Juv. Sat. 3.75). But in literature, generally speaking, this phenomenon is not very noticeable after the fifthcentury.

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is the case, moreover,in mythology, with its innumerable contradictionsand its disregard of character and morality throughpreoccupationwith the al'Trov; 3 it is the case in early Greek literature,where the old myths and traditions are handled froma poetic,dramatic,or purelyintellectualstandpoint withoutbeing interpreted, or even thoughtof, in terms of the contemporary social or moraloutlook,whereone aspect of a characteror of an action is dealt with intensively to the that exclusionof otheraspects a modernreaderis accustomed to findin similarcontexts,where irony-which views things coordinately, disinterestedly,and objectively-prevails in place ofsatire,so commonin later times,in whichthe author, because it does not as pleader of a cause, ridiculessomething fit in with his ideal system,4and where such authors as Homer and Herodotus show more interestin the man than and concentrate theirartisticefforts in the cause he represents more upon the episode per se than upon the connectionbeof the sum tweenone episode and another,or upon the effect
3 Grote in his History of Greece (Everyman edition i 76) refers to the myth of Io as "one of the numerous tales which the fancy of the Greeks deduced Now the from the amorous dispositions of Zeus and the jealousy of Hera." analogy of similar stories about Zeus may have helped at the birth of this one, but most mythologists would agree, I think, that the characterof Zeus and Hera was not the starting point from which this myth was "deduced," as Grote implies; rather the myth was told in order to explain something in the history of the cult of Hera, while "character" is something that results only for the modern or later mind. The myth-maker is oblivious to character. He thinks of the gods only as actors with plausible human motives. Their morals are assumed to be no better and no worse than those of the normal human being. Given the opportunities for love-making that Zeus had, any man would presumably behave in about the same way on any one occasion. The "erotic propensity" of Zeus is not an individual peculiarity, nor is there any cynicism or implied condemnation in the assumption that such conduct is normal. Moreover, the number of instances in which Zeus was supposed to have made love to a mortal woman was not so present to the mind of the myth-maker as it is to us, who peruse classical dictionaries. Like many other modern students, Grote cannot refrain from introducing considerations of character into a realm

where they do not belong. 4 Satire is foreign to tragedy; like the representation of individuals in drama it belongs properly to comedy. Euripides helped the downfall of tragedy by introducing both.

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his pleasures, but to suffer himselfto be led by the passing pleasure which chance throws in his way, and to turn to anotherwhen the first is satisfied-scorning none but fostering all alike. . . . Hence he lives fromday to day to the end, in the gratification of the casual appetite, now drinking himself drunk to the sound of music, and presentlyputtinghimself under training,sometimesidling and neglectingeverything, and then livinglike a studentof philosophy. Oftenhe takes part in public affairs, and startingup, speaks and acts accord5 Plato Rep. 479a.

adjective Icrovo,ILKoS,is suchas to " makeno distinction between

to pass over geography, total of episodes; and finally, politics, and freedomof speech, we finda similarindependencein the Greek language itself,whose syntax,not to mentionthe ruleand accent, shows a marked defying varietyof its morphology fondness for coordination rather than subordination,especially in the early period. Nor should we leave philosophy out of account. The attemptof pre-Socratic entirely thinkers to explain the physical universein termsof a single principle or substance, thereby followinglogic in defiance of sense perception,ended by committing hybrisin the formof the Eleatic monism,and was promptlyfollowedby a reassertion of the reality of the Many in the formof Atomism,which was Greek philosophy's final answer to the riddle of the physical universe. In the field of ethics and metaphysics Plato's idealismhas muchin commonwith the Eleatic system, since it follows logic and language beyond experience and tends to find reality in the One rather than in the Many. It was natural therefore that Plato should explicitly condemn certainformsof pluralismand immediacywhich were rooted in the instinctsof his countrymen and widely manifestedin the everydaylife and thoughtof the average Hellene. Thus he objects to the 0AXoOcad/uwv avx'p who recognizesbeauty only in a multitude of different perceptions and who refusesto admit the existenceof the one absolute and perfectbeauty.5 His "democratic man," to whom he applies the noteworthy

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ing to the impulse of the moment. Now he followseagerly in the steps of certaingreat generals,because he covets their and anon he takes to trade, because he envies distinctions, the successfultrader. And thereis no orderor constraining rule in his life;but he calls thislifeof his pleasant,and liberal, and happy, and followsit out to the end." 6 Here is writtenin large letters,in the life and conduct of an imaginarybut typical Greek, that quality of soul which reveals itselfin varyingdegrees and aspects in almost every productof the early Greek mind. AfterPlato we mightcall it icoovojtia, intellectualisonomy,as it were. On the positive thingsone side this means the habit of looking at different at a time with about equal interestin each; on the negative side, more importantfor us, the capacity to view one thing withoutletting anotherinterfere. This psychological by itself condition underliesand explains a wide variety of artistic, phenomena. We recognizeit most readily especiallyliterary, of course when it appears in outstanding peculiarities of syntax,or in the compositionof short sections of text as in the storyof Glaucus and Diomedes cited above; but we must also recognizeit in the general attitude of the early poets, historiansand dramatists. It may conditionan entirework one part of art, or it may give us the key to understanding of a literarywork in comparisonwith another part of the or it may give us the same work that seems contradictory, works by the two different proper perspective for viewing deauthorshave different same author. Moreover,different ways. I pass now to greesof it and may reveal it in different illustrations. II Since epic poety is oral in originand early, its syntax and style of compositionare consequentlymore spontaneous and less logical in many respectsthan the syntaxand styleof later authors. Anacoluthon and various forms of parataxis are
6 Plato Rep. 561b-d, as syncopated and translated by R. W. Livingstone, The Greek Genius and its Meaning to Us3 (Oxford Univ. Press, 1924), 178.

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especially frequentand familiar to every reader of Homer. Consider the nature of the mental processes revealed in the following typical phenomena: Iliad 6.510f:o 6' aiyXat ktrer otO6s,p'M,4a zyoiv'a pEt. ... Iliad 9.167: -t6' &ayE, rovs av eiywv ir6lo/0,at,Ot 6U rtONoOwv. Compare such expressionsin later literature as oltco'cs 70o7i-ov (Soph. O.T. 543),7 Ot XE'yOVTV (Hdt. 1.89), orL . . . KTa0 wv (Thuc. 4.92); and contrastthe logical Homeric formulac's av
e'yw

Iliad 1.259:

71-Exw IrE06/cAa

4avrTs (Il. 2.139; 9.26).


6E vEcoTrEpCO ETOV
E9/LO.

' . aXXa 7rtOEaoO

Iliad 13.375f:
Et ETEov ) w7r4avTa oa' v7r-a0rTs TEXEVT70ELs

6 6' '7rorXETo iv. Hpt4uca, Aap6avt6c7 OvuyarTpa


Kap?7 KO6O
ES

Iliad 3.79f:
rcZ6' E7rEroaovro Odyssey 16.418-20:
KaKoI 'AvTlvo', UfptVEXWV, EV 6,ucO 'I0aK7S

AXa

lOtoLV TE TMlOUKO/IEVOt

Xaco-ol Tr 43aXXov.8

W, ,uE'

XavE

Kal

6 a 4aatv o
Eq7oOa.

XtKas`ulu.Ev 'aptaroTv
OUK

Cf. Pindar 01. 1.36; 8.15; Pyth.5.45; 10.10; 11.41.


Odyssey 4.235-38: 'Arp&Et6? MEvEXaE &orTpEc,bEs
ZEvs 'ayaOov TE
TOl VVV

oVXj' Ka,tluotar

oa' 6'

'apa

ToZos

Ka' OMhE

avi6pCvirOXc\v 7raZ6Es arap OEo's aXXorE aXXw


KaKO6VTE &6LOZ6uvvraL-yap aravTa

. .. 6aaLvvaO0E KaG77AnEvOL.

7 See J. P. Postgate, Trans. Cam. Phil. Soc. iII (1886-93), London, Clay, 1894, pp. 50-55; W. W. Goodwin, Greek Moods and Tenses3 (Boston, Ginn and Co., 1897), 253. 8 Cf. Pindar 01. 1.14; Pyth. 1.55 and 3.53. Cauer, Homerkrilik (Leipzig, S. Hirzel, 1895), 261, notes that Barnes, Buttmann, and Dindorf, besides several Alexandrians, have wanted to emend this same construction in Od. 11.83 by reading A&yopdov in place of &y6pevev. If modern scholars can err in as simple a matter as this, by being too logical, how much more likely are they to err through failure to recognize the same paratactic principle when it applies to the interpretation of literature.

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412 Iliad 3.59-67:

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ov3' KaC' aTcLav ciEVELKErCoas /LE "EKTOP,E7rE1 atcIE TOL Kpabl vvv avT EtLu s C-rTLV 7rEXKEKVUS &tpns EXELs.

iv7rp ato-av,

. . .

In the Cbrd' clause Paris gives the reason forthe concession to Hector that he intendsto make and finallydoes make eight lines below; meanwhileseveral other thoughtssuggestedsuccessively by EiVKEK-oaSand by &2pa (64) have been uttered independently.9 Odyssey6.262 ff,as translatedby Butcherand Lang: "But when we set foot withinthe city-whereby goes a high wall with towers,and there is a fair haven on either side of the town; and narrow is the entrance," etc. The description continuesand the apodosis is completelyforgotten.'0 The examples above quoted are typical of a great deal in the syntax and style of the Homeric poems, where the Xctts thestrung-along style,appears in themostpronounced dpo&Ev77, form known to Greek literature. Spontaneous absorption with what happens to be uppermostin the mind of the poet (his audience, or his character) at the moment, leads the narratorto disregardall logical syntax and to treat as independent that which, either by the nature of the case or by normal grammatical usage, is dependent. As in informal speech, where there is no strivingfor logically constructed successive periods and paragraphs,so too in the Xcttsdtpolu4vmq, thoughtstend to be uttered one after the other as soon as theycome to mind,each one being suggestedby the one that is occupied with one of these precedes;and while the narrator
Od. 4.204-212, 6.187-191, 17.185-190; D. B. Monro, Homeric Grammar2 (@.9Cf. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1891), 324, b and c. 10 With such passages in mind (cf. II. 6.242-51; 18.101 ff,22.111 ff), we may hesitate to regard as interpolated even the 70-line episode inserted at the dramatic moment in the Odyssey (19.386 ff) when Eurycleia recognizes Odysseus by the scar on his thigh; the temptation to digress on the history of the scar as soon as it was mentioned may have been strong enough to cause the poet to ignore everything else even for the space of 70 lines-like the Scythian army in Herodotus (4.134) that was all ready to join battle with the Persians and would have done so immediately, had they not stopped to chase a rabbit.

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thoughts he takes little heed of the others. There is continuityor ratherconcatenationof thoughtalmost everywhere. In contrastto the periodicstyle,whichis post-Socratic, there is very little subordinatingof one idea to another; like the links in a chain each tends to have equal value and to be equally detachable fromthe whole. The same immediacyof interest, withits resulting coordination of ideas, reveals itselfnot only in Homeric syntax but in many other featuresof style, composition,and arrangement of episodes." To dwell on these at lengthwould be to mis"1 Cf. S. E. Bassett, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology xxx (1920), 39-53, on the wide application in Homer of the principle of composition known as V5repov 7rp6TEpoV, which tends to defy strict logic in the interest of immediacy and continuity. As concerns the broader features of composition both in Homer and in other early authors, the case has been so well stated by J. Tate (C.R. LI 174f) in his summary of B. A. Van Groningen's recent essay, Paratactische compositie in de oudste Grieksche literatuur (Amsterdam 1937) that I venture to quote his words at length. Mr. Tate says: " Plato demanded that a literary work should have the unity of a living organism; the parts should be consistent with one another and subordinate to the whole. This demand springs from the new rhetoric, which was all for rule and system. The 'preclassical' method of composition was not organic or hypotactic but paratactic. The 'parts' tend to be autonomous, and the 'whole' is not a genuine whole but a 'dossier.' Such 'wholes' have neither true beginning nor true end. They are arbitrarily chosen portions of larger 'wholes' (as the Iliad, itself episodic, is only an episode in the Trojan War). And this is true even if the whole piece be 'framed' or 'boxed' with prologue and epilogue; for these mark no essential delimitation of the subject-matter. The unity-if there be unity in such a work-is due to the fact that the essentially disparate parts are ingeniously stitched together by devices such as recurring lines, transitions, echoes and foreshadowings. Professor Van Groningen draws support from Alcman's Partheneion, the Hymn to Apollo, Hesiod, Xenophanes (who actually begins a poem with a transitional line), and, above all, Semonides, who is revealed by his poem on women as a master of the paratactic technique. What then of the Iliad and the Odyssey? The characteristic features of paratactic composition are to be found in both poems. Homer's aim is the perfection of the parts rather than the integrity of the whole; he thinks more of variety and abundance than of qualitative selection and the orderly disposition of the parts. To attack the unity of either poem because of the paratactic features, or to defend their unity on the ground that each is an organic and well-knit structure, betrays a concern for literary canons which are irrelevant in the field of preclassical Greek literature. . . . Perhaps, as literature develops, organic pattern is increasingly superimposed on sheer agglutinative parataxis."

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direct the emphasis of the presentessay, which is concerned primarilynot with external featuresof composition,except in so faras these reveal a certainquality of mind,but rather with the attitude of early writers toward the things they describe. From this point of view let us considerfor a momentthe Homeric simile. It is a familiarfact that the poet is not just the particularpoint forwhich always contentto illustrate the comparisonis made; often,throughconcentrationupon the image beforehim,he adds details that have nothingto do with the narrativeand which do not belong logically in the comparison.'2 He can dwell upon B without at the same of A. Moreover, the analogy between A and time thinking that to the modernmind, restricted B is at timesso narrowly perpsective, accustomedto see thingsin a wideror a different thesimilemay seemquaint or undignified. Thus whenHomer Achaeans to fliesswarmingabout the comparesthe gathering in stable primarily milk a (Iliad 2.469), he is thinking pails of of their numbers and restless movement; but the modern expandingthe analogy,is likelyto take reader,subconsciously more notice of the incongruitybetween flies and heroes. thevaliant Ajax likenedto a stubborn And so it is whenwe find to ass which the boys are cudgellingin vain, in their effort the cornfield (Iliad 11.558), or whentheTrojan drivehimfrom elders are compared to cicadas (Iliad 3.151), or when Athena inspires Menelaus with the courage of a fly (Iliad 17.570). In such cases the modern mind is conscious of associations that are not presentforthe Greek.-3
12 One would think that this could hardly escape the attention of any Greek student; and yet Professor L. E. Lord (Class. Jour. xviii 73-81), finding the same thing at the end of the book of Jonah, fails to recognize it, though he searches Greek literature for a parallel. The biblical passage in question reads as follows: "And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?" 13 The tendency to ignore in a simile everything except a very special point of likeness (which may be merely the general quality of excellence) is more pronounced in early Hebrew poetry than in Greek; cf. Song of Solomon 1.9:

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Concentration of interest upon the individual, without regard to the public cause in which he is enlisted,is another importantfeatureof the Homeric outlook. It matterslittle to Homer whether a man is fighting to save Troy or to destroy it; he findsnobility,beauty, tragedy,human intereston both sides; and that is all he cares about. But the case is very different in Vergil's Aeneid, for there the larger scheme of things with its strong patriotic bias is always before us, dominating and overshadowing the man. In contrast to Vergil, Homer's outlook is more restricted, immediate,and human in any one part, more manifoldin range of interest and more independentof standardized patterns throughout, of thought. In commenting upon the lay of Ares and Aphroditein the eighthbook of the Odyssey, a typicalmodernstudentobserves: "There is nothingfunnyabout marital infidelity." No, but there is somethingfunnyabout being caught in the act, as Ares was, and it is amusingto reflect with Hermes and Apollo that Hephaestus' triumph was somewhatmore than dubious. Homer is not concernedwith the concept "marital infidelity." He is picturing an act, withoutreference to its social or moral implications-a thingthat fewmoderns, whenon theirdignity, are capable of doing. For Homer it was easy and natural to do so, partlybecause those social and moral ideas were by no means so all-important in the minds of his contemporaries as they are for us, and partly because, howevermuch he might deprecate adultery as such if the propositionwere put to him in that light,he is neverthelessin the habit of viewing one thing,or only one aspect of one thing,at a time. As he can neglect elementarylogic in his syntax and similes,so he can neglectsocial and moral considerations when he happens,
" I have compared thee, 0 my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots; " ibid. 7.4: " Thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus." I assume that some kind of excellence other than size is here in point; or were very large noses considered beautiful by the ancient Hebrews?

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as often,to be interestedin somethingelse. In order to fit Homer into the procrusteanbed of his Christian morality (many are inclined that way), ProfessorF. P. Donnelly 14 that "Homer's worst lapse in storydeclares it noteworthy the luxuriousPhaeacians, ancient among takes place telling prototypesof degeneracy. Homer may have felt justified artisticallybecause he was depicting the non-Grecianworld throughwhose monsters,"etc. More hypotacticinterpretaother than the delight tion! Homer needed no justification ofhis Greekaudiencein thestoryperse. Odysseusand Homer as well as the Phaeacians were charmed with it (line 368), and the episode ends with dignityand unusual beauty: she, And fastaway fled overthesea, to Cyprus loveroflaughter, Aphrodite, shores ofPaphos,and theincensedaltar-stone, To thepleasant andshedsweetbalmthereon, herbody, theGraceswashed Where on thegodsthatwax notold, Ambrosial balmthatshineth a wonder to behold.'5 herin lovelyraiment, And wrapped attitudes towards the In general there are two different is feltto be incompatible with the gods in Homer,and neither other; the gods are viewed eitheras actors in a drama, where or as powersto be propitiated theymustbe anthropomorphic, and prayed to by men. In relationto men they are objects of reverent concern, but when viewed in relation to each other, and as actors in a drama, they have all the normal includingthe weaknesses,of humankind. As characteristics, be squabblingamonghuman beingswhen, therewill ordinarily they try to live togetherin in spite of conflicting interests,'6 a big family,so very naturally we find the same situation gods on Olympus. But in Homer amongtheanthropomorphic in folk -as tales, as in old Attic comedy,as in the primitive Hymn to Hermes,and as in the parallel cultivationof religion
With what Professor Donnelly 14 As quoted in Class. Weekly XIX (1926), 92. has to say in this article concerning individualism in art I am in hearty accord; but that is something else. 15 Od. 8.362 ff, as translated by J. W. Mackail. 16 These were probably suggested to some extent by the facts of cult history.

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and divine mythologythe world over17- the reverentmay stand side by side with the ridiculousor grotesque,while both sincereand neitheris impairedby attitudes remain perfectly of the other. Here again the analogy of parathe proximity taxis in Homeric syntax and compositiongives us the right perspective. And yet this perspective,to which I have been characteristic of the early pointingthroughout as profoundly in many Greek mind in general,and as manifested concretely different ways, is completelydisregardedby those numerous Homeric critics,Murray included,who believe that the comic or grotesque scenes on Mount Olympus are conceived in a spirit of mockery, that they are "consciously satirical or of Ionian philosophy, doctrinal,connectedwith the skepticism distinguishable fromother,earlier parts of the text in which the gods are objects of reverentfaith,or usefulto the higher criticin his attemptsto identify the workof different poets in different these artificial periods." 18 The task of demolishing theorieswhereinHomer, or a certain type of Homeric interpolator, is conceived as an early Greek philosopher "mit
17 Cf. G. M. Calhoun, A.J.P. LVIII 266f, who refers to Andrew Lang's Myth, Ritual and Religion and adds (note 20): "More recent studies have made additions to the data without materially altering their general character or impairing the value of Lang's conclusions in regard to the conflict between religion and myth, between the 'mood of earnest contemplation and submission' and the mood of 'playful and erratic fancy' both of them 'present and in conflict, through the whole religious history of the human race."' The conflict however, is far more apparent to the modern or Platonic mind than to the isonomic mind and temperament of early, natural, or polytheistic man. In the Frogs Aristophanes can burlesque Dionysus and do him honor and worship at the same time. And so it is to some extent in the Hymn to Hermes. Consider the following remarks by J. A. K. Thomson, Irony (Cambridge, Harv. Univ. Press, 1927), 72: "For the average ancient man piety consisted in believing in the gods and propitiating them with the appropriate ceremonies and sacrifices. To believe in the goodness of God was not an essential tenet in his creed at all. Consequently he did not greatly care what people said about the gods. as long as they did not deny their existence or their power. Of course, a Plato or an Aristotle may raise the point of the divine omnipotence or omniscience. But the Dramatists were not writing for the philosopher; they were writing for the average Athenian. for whom the important question was the practical, not the moral, one." 18 Calhoun op. cit. (see note 17), 257.

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Weltanschauung"(Finsler), may well be left to durchdachter pointed out ProfessorCalhoun, who has already effectively theyare. how unhistorical The Greek mood or point of view may shiftsuddenlyand frequently;hence the endless variety of Homer, Herodotus, and Aristophanes, the unrestricted,rapid-fireimagery of Aeschylusand Pindar-and theiranacolutha. In commenting on Pindar, Gildersleeveremarks:"And so Pindar's metaphors are slides that come out in such quick succession that the seem to blend because the untrainedeye cannot follow figures the rapid movementof the artist. . . . In such passages the to show that no connecabsence of conjunctionsis sufficient tionwas aimed at, and it is the faultof the readerifhe chooses to complain of an incongruousblending of things that are leftapart." 19 In regard to the preservationof parataxis in syntax and Herodotus,looselyspeaking,seemsto stand about composition midway between Homer and Isocrates, though in many respects he is closer to Homer. Like the Iliad, his Historyis plan; episodic and held togetheronly by a loosely unifying in close-upviews of the and like Homer he is more interested careers and actions of individual men than in the historical of those actions, or in the implicationsthat they significance may have foreitherindividual or national honor. How difthis outlook is fromthe normaloutlook of men in later ferent times,especiallysuch as lean to Platonism,may be seen from Plutarch's essay On theMalignityofHerodotus. As a tenderabout rightand wrong mindedidealist withstrongconvictions Plutarch assumes that everyof ancient Greece, and the glory thingmentionedby the historianmust have been thoughtof in relationto thesame ideals, and thatforHerodotus, primarily in historythat can be looked upon as forhimself, everything a testimonial concerning merely as good or bad is, ifmentioned, he the honor or dishonorof the men involved. Accordingly
19B. L. Gildersleeve, Pindar, The Olympian and Pythian Odes2 (New York, Ameiican Book Co., 1890) xliv.

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scolds Herodotus and accuses him of deliberate malice whenever the latter reports anything that may, by his way of detract fromthe gloryof the ancient Greeks. He thinking, cannot understandthat Herodotus is interestedonly in the fact per se as he believed it to be, and that the inferences and which are so importantfor himselfand character-concepts otherslike him,are eithernot presentto the mindofHerodotus at all, or ifpresentare of farless concern. Plutarch'scriticism of Herodotus resemblesthe stricturesof Dionysius of Halicarnassus on the historyof Thucydides,concerning whichold Thomas Hobbes remarks: "I think there never was written so much absurdity in so few lines." 20 Although modern critics are able to overcome the patriotic bias that vitiates the judgment of such men as Plutarch and Dionysius, many of themnevertheless err in the same way throughinabilityto overcomethe moral,philosophical, or sentimental bias. They have a habit of puttingtogether thingsthat wereviewed separately,and withoutperturbation, in the morenatural outlook of the early Greek authors. Many events and descriptionsin the historyof Herodotus are recordedin the same, to us peculiar,spiritof detachment that characterizes the so-called Ionian novella-those vivid tales of action born of the primitive and still unfettered human spirit,whereinthingsare depictedin theirmost immediate, objective aspect, without regard for social or moral prejudicesor forthe aestheticconventions that dominatelater art. If there is art in these Xo&yot, it is not quite what we ordinarilymean by that term; ratherit is the ease and skill in straightforward narration developedby generations ofraconteursendowed with the Homeric (and primitive)instinctfor directnessand immediacy. To the temperof Herodotus this
20 The English Works of Thomas Hobbes (London, John Bohn, 1843) VIII, xxvi. In the passage to which Hobbes refers (Ad Cn. Pomp. 3.4-9), Dionysius complains that Thucydides chose the wrong war to write about, and that, if he must write about that disastrous affair, he should at least have found some way to put the blame for it on others, instead of maliciously laying the fault to his own countrymen.

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non-moraltype of narrativewas especially congenial,as we see fromthe fact that he introducesa large numberof such tales into his work,21and that much of what he relates about historicalpersons is conceived in the same purely dramatic spirit,without regard to consistencyin character-portrayal, in the situationitself. He has inherent or to the probabilities storiesabout certainfamouspersons,which heard interesting sprang into being among the people, and which had already times at different been cast into the varied molds of folklore viewpoints;and these he records different and places and from one after the other, each for the sake of its own peculiar charm, and regardlessof the fact that taken togetherthey often yield no consistentor plausible picture either of individual charactersor of historicalevents.22 Like Solon, Herodotus travelledand gazed upon the world's in orderto interpret it, but forthe EIVEKEV-not bazaar OEcop1'qs from one exhibit to was there. Passing what joy of seeing another he concentrates his attention upon each with an intellectualcuriosity,a sense of wonder,and a singlenessof vision that belong rather to the cultural childhood of man than to the somewhatage-wearyand academic outlook of the average modernthinker. Things that Herodotus delightsto contemplatefor their own interestoften present themselves to our minds as merelyso many data out of which to shape wider or secondary conceptions. In commentingupon Herodotus' account of the Scythian custom of blinding slaves (in order,apparently,to preventthem fromseeing how their
21 Cf. W. Aly, Volksmiirchen, Sage und Novelle bei Herodot and seinen Zeitgenossen (Gottingen, Vandenhoeck u. Ruprecht, 1921). 22 Cf. I. Bruns, Das literarischePortrdt der Griechen (Berlin, W. Hertz, 1896), 114: Es gehort nicht viel Stilgefuhl dazu, um zu erkennen, dass die Geschichte von dem Periander, der mit der Leiche seiner Frau Unzucht treibt und die Frauen von Korinth entkleiden lasst, um ihre Gewander zu verbrennen, nicht auf demselben Boden gewachsen ist, auf dem diese ergreifende Erzahlung (P. and his son, Hdt. 3.50-53) entstand. Jene erfand der Hass, diese das liebevolle sich Versenken eines Dichters in die Schicksale des Periander. Denn jener Periander ist ein Ungethuim, dieser eine acht tragische Figur. Wer unvermittelt so Verschiedenartiges vereinigen konnte, der hat uber die innerliche Zusammengehorigkeit der Ueberlieferung nicht nachgedacht.

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mastersget theirmilk),23 Livingstone (153) observes: "If we could ask him (Herodotus) whetherhe approved of treating slaves thus, he would of course have answered no. But he is so absorbed in the way in which the Scythians get their milk,what theydo with it and what theythinkof it, that he forgetsto be angry or disgusted about the slaves. Hence a stringof details quite irrelevant to the main horror, and which indicate that Herodotus is full of intellectual curiositybut indifferent temporarily to the moral aspects of the story. In that he is a truedevotee ofOEcopt'a." On the otherhand, there are many parts of the Historyin which attentionis focused upon the ethical, religious,or philosophicalaspect of things, for these too are interesting to contemplate; but Herodotus differs from Plutarch (and many of us), in that he is not accustomed to look upon everythingprimarilyfromone of those standpoints. The pointof view in Aeschylus,as in Herodotusand Homer, may be different at different times,accordingto the occasion and the varyingnatureof the OEcopta. It is religious and philosophical, in the pre-Socraticmanner,when the chorusspeculates upon the ways of God with man; it is poeticallymoral, in the mannerof Homer,when the poet is exhibiting the lofty characterof a Prometheusor an Amphiaraus; and it is nonmoral, i.e. independentof considerations of good and evil, in those many scenes where,as oftenin the Agamemnon, irony is the chief source of effect. Now all these elements, and many othersbesides, that constitutemoreor less independent sources of poetic or dramatic effect, are co-ordinatein value and are called forthone afterthe otheror simultaneously by the natureof the traditional "plot,from whichthe poet extracts as much entertainment as possible. For that reason they stand in perfectly harmonious, thoughmostlyparatactic relation one to the other as we read the plays. And while it is true that Aeschylus is especially fond of certain religious ideas, and that he dwells upon thesefrequently and withgreat
23 Hdt. 4.2: rovs be bovXovs oL KvOat 7ravras rv4Xo-o rov 7aXaKros lro P7rvovo-, 7roLeuz'-res W&E, KTX. eLveKev

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of certain myths power and earnestnessin the interpretation that naturally invite them, it is neverthelesstrue also that these ideas hold no such monopolyin his mind as do similar ideas in the mindsof Plato and his spiritualheirs;if theydid, he could never have writtensuch a play as the Prometheus. Aeschylusdoes not look at all Unlike some of his interpreters, things throughglasses colored by one or two favorite conceptions. His artisticinterestsare too many-sidedfor that, too isonomic,as Plato mightsay. Pursuant to the primary his audience with the varied charms purpose of entertaining of music,poetry,and spectacle,he can concentratehis attention upon other things than religious edificationand upon aspects of gods and men, especially the dramatic different aspects, without seeking at every point to bring his reprewith the religiousor moral ideas sentation into conformity that he has proclaimedon previous occasions and in connecthe myths. That is why he can represent tion with different confronts and Plato gods now and then in a lightthat offends ProfessorFarnell with an insoluble paradox.24 Plato (Rep. poet to introducea 380a and 383b) will not allow a righteous character saying that "God invents a pretext wheneverhe wishes to bring utter ruin on a family" (Aesch. fr. 156), or Thetis a lifeof happiness thatApollo,aftervirtuallypromising deceived her by bein her children,has since treacherously forherson's death (Aesch. fr.350). responsible comingdirectly For Aeschylus, as for Homer, the myth and the dramatic of situation determineto a great extent the representation of deity; but for Plato, as for certain modern interpreters Aeschylus,the fixedidea of what God is, or ought to be, overrides all other considerations. Among those who seek to tenddefinethe religionof Aeschylusthereis an unfortunate entertainments ency to look upon his plays not as dramatic based upQn primitivemyths and poetically elaborated from diverse points of view (as they really were), but as so many articles in a cOmDact theological creed. The Zeus of the
24 See L. R. Farnell, "The Paradox of the Prometheus Vinctus," Jour. Hell. Stud. LIII (1933), 40-50; and below.

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from the Zeus of the Suppliantsor Prometheus is verydifferent to all the Oresteia; this fact must remain incomprehensible who, like Farnell, assume that 'Zeus' is a fixedvalue in the mind of Aeschylus,that if he has once been conceived as the conceptionof Him High God, then this noble and gratifying ought to be preservedas a matterof course on all otheroccathis sions when He is mentioned, and that in the Prometheus as utterlyevil and 'vile.' 25 On the other god is represented will seem of Zeus in the Prometheus hand, the representation perfectlynatural to one who realizes that Aeschylus is prithat the traditionalmyth with which marily a dramatist,26
25 The adjective belongs to W. K. Prentice, Class. Weeklyxv 28. The is greatlyexaggeratedby those shockingcharacterof Zeus in the Prometheus who fancythat the Greekgods were somehowbound to show a tenderinterest in mankind as a whole (a Christian ratherthana Greek,or even a Hebrewidea; cf. supra note 17), that Zeus in the Prometheus has an intensehatredformen (ratherhe is only indifferent), and that the cruel punishment of Prometheus, who in the eyes of Zeus was a rebelno less than a benefactor, was incompatible with the Greek conceptionof the High God. Let us remember that our own ancestors,not so long ago, could hymn the High God as All Just and All Mercifuland at the same time representhim as one who consignedto everlastingfire-about the most fiendish punishment man could imagine-all those who,like Prometheus, transgressed his decrees,or who had not been so favored as to learn rightly about them. That God too was evil, if you mustbe logical; but neither our ancestorsnor the Greekswerelogical in just that way. To the Greek audience it was a plausible and not uncomfortable assumption(forthe drama's sake) that even the High God, who had not been greatly celebrated for the quality of his mercyanyhow,should inflict cruel punishment upon a rebel, even though that rebel was a benefactor-at least while they were thinking moreabout Prometheusthan about the characterof the absent Zeus. While gazing upon the spectacle of Prometheus, they could be as oblivious to the up-to-datepropriety of Zeus' conduct (the factsofwhichconductwerealready familiarto them in the old unquestionedmyth) as they could be oblivious (likewiseforthe drama's sake) to the unrealityinvolvedin the miraculously speedy arrivalof Agamemnon fromTroy a fewhoursaftersendingthe beacon signal. Here, incidentally, Verral would not have found any difficulty had he realized the true nature of Aeschyleanand early Greek psychology, which is to a great extent,afterall, only what one may appropriatelycall dramatic psychology. 26As ProfessorFitch well observes (Class. Weeklyxxviii 101), Farnell comes close to resolving his own riddlewhenhe remarks tentatively (op. cit.48, see above note 24): "we might say that he (Aeschylus)gives himself up wholly to his dramaticimagination, whichcomesnearto shattering his normaltheologic

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age and at the primitive he deals picturedZeus in a remotely momentwhen he had by violent revolutionestablished himself on a new and as yet insecurethrone,that a7ras be rpaXvs ofZeus,except oaTTs aP vEO KpaT? (35), and thatthecharacter as adversary, is a far less importantconsiderationfor the purposes of this drama than what Prometheus,as the grand protagonist,wills and suffers. If Prometheus suffers,the one who causes it must be cruel. In this play (577 ff,759, 894 ff)Zeus appears as one who has wronged Jo, as he has wrongedPrometheus;but in the Suppliants (524-535) he is hailed as "king of kings, most blessed of the blest, most . lover of rulers of lo." (Save us, pray the chorus, perfect from the rape of the sons of Egyptus!) Here is another paradox for Farnell: to be consistenthe would have had to allow that the High God is appropriatelyaddressed only undown to E`awrrop 'Ious (535), at whichpointsomething his character. and unaccountablebesmirches moral fortunate For how can one speak of the High God as the violatorof a poor innocentyoung girl? But the truthis of course-and even Farnell would have seen it here, though he failed to recognize the exactly parallel phenomenonof Zeus in the in a totally Prometheus-thatJoin the Suppliantsis mentioned different light,not as the victimof Zeus, but as his beloved, and as the ancestressof the Danaid chorus. The ease with which Aeschyluscan ignorea favoritetheological idea when he happens to be occupied with another contraryone, springsfromthe same immediacyof interest that makes it possible for him and his audience to overlook the most obvious probabilities also, fordramaticconvenience, of time and circumstance. We are told by Dio Chrysostom (Or. 52.5-7) that in the lost Philoctetesof Aeschylus the audience was expected to assume, contraryto the natural probabilitiesof the case, that Philoctetescould not recognize the well-knownOdysseus, and that his evil plight was discreed." What a calamity for the searcher after 'higher' monotheistic religion among the polytheistic Greeks! But Fitch adds: "Precisely so. Aeschylus is primarily a dramatist."

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covered by the sympatheticchorus of Lemnians only at the beginningof the play, ten years after his abandonment on the island. But Sophocles and Euripideswere moreconscious for the formermade Lemnos an unof these difficulties; inhabited island, assigned Greek sailors to his chorus, and made Neoptolemos the active agent in the intrigue,while Euripides caused Odysseus to be miraculouslydisguised by Athena, and made his chorus of Lemnians apologize to Philoctetes for their long neglect. Thus Aeschylus,while concentratingon a dramatic scene, can be oblivious to many things,both logical and theological,that in the modernmind loom up as more conspicuousand moreconsequential. In the matter of drawing inferences and of associating or not associating one idea or image with another,thereare, as it seems to me, three distinctways of lookingat things,the first two of which,in the orderbelow mentioned, are especially characteristicof the Greek mind in the fifthcentury and earlier:1. Two or morethings(or ideas) thatmightbe logically or otherwiseconnectedwith each otherare each viewed separately,and the beholderor narratoris aware of only one at a time-parataxis in various forms. 2. Two thingsare viewed in juxtapositionor contrast, each of whichin some way denies the other, while the onlooker, though intellectuallypleased or even deeply moved by the spectacle, nevertheless remains aloof and impartialin his attitude,being affected for.thetime by any sympathy, howevernatural,forone of the two things in conflict-irony,the antitheticstyle,the intellectualdetachment of Thucydides. 3. The spectator, turned partisan, judges one of two thingsin termsof theother,or withreference to a preconceivedsystem or sentiment,or by pure logicphilosophyinstead of natureas the guide to truth. Concerning the firstof these three attitudes enough has already been said, except perhaps to remindthe reader that, althoughthe manifestations of it are by no means confined to any one stage of culturalprogress, or to any particularrace of

beingfarmoreby theobjective reality ofthings (OEwpia) than

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becomes gradually less common from that time onwards. The thirdway of lookingat thingshas been mentionedabove now and then by way of contrast to the other two. As a constant habit of mind it is essentially modern and postSocratic, although of course there are many instances of it, withina smaller range of ideas, even in Homer. The interpreterof early Greek literature must guard against assuming that his author is lookingat thingsin this modernfashion(3) on a greatmanyoccasionswhen,as a matteroffact,the latter's outlook is essentially that indicated above by (1) or (2). When an early author is fitting thingstogetherin his mind he usually makes the fact plain, but to take this forgranted, as one does in dealing with a modern writer's thought, is hazardous. The second of the three attitudes mentionedabove is one which I will not attempt to discuss at length. It resembles and the firstin point of detachment,or emotional restraint, in having nothingin common with the third. The kind of irony that predominatesin the writingsof Aeschylus,Sophand proudlyrealistic, ocles,and Thucydidesis serenely making of any kind, no concessionto idealism or to wishfulthinking in the consciousness of beingstrong but rather glorying enough fromsuch anodynes. The brave and virtuoushero to refrain of Oedipus, Antigone, does not triumph. The noble efforts and Nicias are rewardedwith death or utter ruin. And we of this; are cruelenoughby natureto enjoy the contemplation not because we are greatlyedifiedby any principleof social but because, apart from or cosmic justice therebyillustrated, our interestin the ironiesof the play, we have a triumphant feelingof satisfactionin being able to look straightat such and without tryingto unpleasant realitieswithout flinching 'mold them nearer to the heart's desire.' 27 When the spec27 "What is it that the soul of the tragic artist communicates to others? Is it not precisely his fearless attitude towards that which is terrible and questionable? This attitude is in itself a highly desirable one; he who has once expe-

period of Greekliterature, especially in theXELsELpO/Ev'7, and

men,it is nevertheless mostfrequently metwithin the earliest

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to be master tator's nerve fails and he no longerfeelshimself of lifeas it is, his reactionto those unpleasant truthsbecomes so subjective and personal that he begins to deprecate them or deny them or fitthem into a more comfortable, ideal, and conventional scheme of things. There can be no tragedy with Plato that no harm can come to a when you tell yourself good man; and therecan be no real appreciationofThucydides and his type of mind,if,owing to your cordial disapproval of imperial ruthlessness,you fail to see that in the Melian dialogue, forinstance,the follyof the Melians ratherthan the crueltyof the Atheniansis the chiefsubject of contemplation. Thucydides has the strangefacultyof seeing and tellingthe plain truthof a matterwithouttrying in any way to bringit into line with the cherishedbeliefsof men. For that reason he has oftenescaped comprehension.
riencedit honoursit above everything else. . . . A courageousand freespirit, in the presenceof a mightyfoe, in the presenceof a sublimemisfortune, and faceto facewitha problemthat inspires horror-thisis the triumphant attitude whichthe tragicartistselectsand whichhe glorifies . . .the heroicman extols his existenceby means of tragedy;to himalone does the tragicartistoffer this cup of sweetest cruelty." -Fr. Nietzsche, The Twilightof the Idols (tr. A. Ludovici; Edinburgh, T. N. Foulis, 1915) 80f.

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