The Homeric Hymns

ISBN-10
ISBN-13: 9798737178864
Series: The Homeric Hymns
Pages: 118
Language: English
Published: 2021-04-28
Author: Andrew Lang

Description

To the English reader familiar with the Iliad and Odyssey the Hymns must appeardisappointing, if he come to them with an expectation of discovering merits likethose of the immortal epics. He will not find that they stand to the Iliad as Milton's"Ode to the Nativity" stands to "Paradise Lost." There is in the Hymns, in fact, noscope for the epic knowledge of human nature in every mood and aspect. We arenot so much interested in the Homeric Gods as in the Homeric mortals, yet theHymns are chiefly concerned not with men, but with Gods and their mythicaladventures. However, the interest of the Hymn to Demeter is perfectly human, forthe Goddess is in sorrow, and is mingling with men. The Hymn to Aphrodite, too, isHomeric in its grace, and charm, and divine sense of human limitations, of old agethat comes on the fairest, as Tithonus and Anchises; of death and disease that waitfor all. The life of the Gods is one long holiday; the end of our holiday is always nearat hand. The Hymn to Dionysus, representing him as a youth in the fulness ofbeauty, is of a charm which was not attainable, while early art represented the Godas a mature man; but literary art, in the Homeric age, was in advance of sculptureand painting. The chief merit of the Delian Hymn is in the concluding description ofthe assembled Ionians, happy seafarers like the Phæacians in the morning of theworld. The confusions of the Pythian Hymn to Apollo make it less agreeable; andthe humour of the Hymn to Hermes is archaic. All those pieces, however, havedelightfully fresh descriptions of sea and land, of shadowy dells, floweringmeadows, dusky, fragrant caves; of the mountain glades where the wild beasts fawnin the train of the winsome Goddess; and the high still peaks where Pan wandersamong the nymphs, and the glens where Artemis drives the deer, and the spacioushalls and airy palaces of the Immortals. The Hymns are fragments of the work of aschool which had a great Master and great traditions: they also illustrate manyaspects of Greek religion.