It is admitted, then, on all hands, that in the Homeric poetry something of man survives death, under the name of &vxí, which is indestructible and immortal. What is it? Let us escape from tiresome verbal analysis, and join one of these yuxaí in its mysterious migration to "that undiscovered country" which lies beyond death. The Homeric necrology is so ample and circumstantial as to enable us to observe it in almost every conceivable stage of its existence. Let us, then, take our stand beside the expiring Patroclus. Pierced by three wounds, he has sunk at the feet of the exulting Hector. The faintness of death already palsies his tongue, but the mind, so far from suffering any obscuration or weakness, rises to a strength, clearness, and dignity unknown before. He sees into the future. He foretells to Hector (as Hector does afterwards, under the same circumstances, to Achilles) his own quickly approaching death, and the very hand which is to inflict it: 1 Τὸν δ ̓ ὀλιγοδρανέων προσέφη, Πατρόκλεις ἱππεῦ, Αλλο δέ τοι ἐρέω, σὺ δ ̓ ἐνὶ φρεσὶ βάλλεο σῇσιν, The impending stroke of death, then, under which the physical energies were already "drooping," did not impair, but rather exalted, the intellectual and spiritual faculties. Not such a prelude as might be expected to their instant and utter annihilation. And here let us notice a peculiarity (not without significance) in the Homeric description of death. In the act of 1 II. 16. 843 seq. The reader will be reminded of the dying words of Hotspur (K. Hen. IV. Act 5): "O, I could prophesy, But that the earthy and cold hand of death Lies on my tongue!" The idea that the soul, in the moment of death, has an insight into the future, has been general from the earliest times. Cf. Plat. Apol. Soc. near the end. dying, the ʊx, μévos, Dvμós, or life-principle, by whatever name designated, goes out and forsakes the body in brutes as well as in men. But in the former case, that is the last of it. There is no hint of its continued existence. In man only and always, the vital principle outlasts death. Was it only the animal vitality that remained? Why then did it not survive in mere animals? Homer makes the possession of intellect (vóos) the distinction (as Dr. Voelcker admits) between men and beasts. It was a distinction which even the wand of Kirke could not demolish; for νοῦς ἦν ἔμ πεδος, ὡς τὸ πάρος περ, even in those whom she had transformed; a plain proof that the sinking from a human to a mere animal nature was a transformation which the intuitively delicate discrimination of Homer rejected as monstrous and impossible. But these writers have charged him with so gross a psychological blunder. According to them, the stroke of death is more powerful than the paßƐos of Kirke. That which is common to man and beasts (die animalische seele) survives, while that which is peculiar to man (vous) perishes in the Homeric death! But to return to Patroclus: Ὣς ἄρα μιν εἰπόντα τέλος θανάτοιο κάλυψε The oxy here escaping from overshadowing death, "flies from the limbs," and "takes its way towards Hades," "deploring its lot," "the manly strength and youthful bloom" which it had "forsaken." It is clearly not "unconscious" yet. Recollection, anticipation, comparison of the past and future, sorrow for lost life and happiness, and consciousness of course, as the nexus or rather basis of all these operations, are affirmed of the disembodied ux in this terribly magnificent picture of a soul on its flight to the invisible world. That "large discourse, 1 Nägelsbach, too, calls it the "specifisch Unterscheid zwischen Menschen und Thieren." p. 338. 2 Od. 10. looking before and after," which are supposed to indicate the "capability and godlike reason" of man, is yet in full force. The vx of Patroclus afterwards "ascends out of Hades," as Dr. Voelcker expresses it," shows itself to Achilles," and addresses him in one of the most eloquent passages of the poem. We can only insert it in scraps, but to feel its full force, one must read it entire. Εὕδεις, αὐτὰρ ἐμεῖο λελασμένος ἔπλευ, ̓Αχιλλεϋ ; Θάπτε με, ὅττι τάχιστα .... Οὐ μὲν γὰρ ζωοί γε φίλων ἀπάνευθεν ἑταίρων He gently upbraids his friend for sleeping and forgetting him; entreats immediate burial; laments that they shall no longer alive hold sweet counsel, apart from other dear friends; "me," he says, "a mournful fate has swallowed up, which indeed is the lot of him " just "born;"" and thy lot, too," he adds, " immortal Achilles, is to fall beneath the wall of the noble Trojans." He reminds him of their early friendship and even of the circumstance which caused his father to take him from home and place him in the palace of Peleus, and so give occasion for that intimacy which lasted till death. In memory of that life-long friendship, he entreats that the same "golden urn" may enclose their ashes. Dr. Voelcker regards this as no illusion, woven by the morbidly excited fancy of the hero, but as a real and objective affair. Such was evidently the poet's conception of it. Consciousness and every mental faculty and susceptibility are still in possession of the ψυχή. But says Dr. V. " an exception is formed" to the general unconsciousness "as in the cases of Patroclus and Elpenor, 1 II. 23. 65 seq. by those whose bodies are yet unburned and unburied, and therefore their corporeal part has not been annihilated." Has Dr. Voelcker forgotten his theory? It was that "the mental faculties, in death, leave the body and cease to exist." Now he supposes the mental faculties to survive so long as "the corporeal part has not been annihilated! What, then, would have become of the ux in the case of those whose "bodies" were never either burned or buried? They must doubtless have wasted away with the slow decomposition of "the corporeal part." Homer shows himself well acquainted with the usages of the Egyptians. What would he have done with the yux of an embalmed body? It would be a curious problem, to what substance and dimensions the soul of man would be reduced in the course of thirty or forty centuries of connection with a mummy. We leave it for the authors of this theory to solve. Homer has nothing to do with it. He nowhere hints at any connection between the dead body and the departed soul, save that while the former is unburned and unburied, the latter cannot fully enter into Hades nor associate with the other dead. The yuxý, it is true, desires sepulture also for the body as a memorial to future men of its former existence on earth (oñμa.. καὶ ἐσσομενοίσι πυθέσθαι); and therefore a sepulture characteristic of its former pursuits (e. g. the sailor Elpenor desires the oar with which he rowed when alive, to be set up at his grave (πῆξαι τ' ἐπὶ τύμβῳ ἐρετμὸν, τῷ καὶ ζωὸς ἔρεσσον) α complete proof by the way, in itself, of continued consciousness and of those complex mental operations which are involved in every act of it. a But let us pass to the general congregation of the departed. Thither the poet has sent Odysseus under divine guidance. Εἰς Αίδαο δόμους καὶ ἐπαινῆς Περσεφονείης,2 He there beheld an innumerable multitude of the dead (ἔπνεα μυρία νεκρῶν)* of generations long gone by (προτέρους ldov ȧvépas),* as well as his mother and those of his com 1 Od. 11. 778. 8 Od. 11. 631. 4 Od. 11.629. 66 panions in arms who had died before him. He saw, too, the historic women of the olden time, each of whom "related to him her extraction ” (ἡ δὲ ἑκάστη ὃν γόνον ἐξαγόρευεν). ΑΠ manifest a perfect recollection of the events which had taken place during their abode on earth. Those who had recently departed show that all human affections and sympathies still live within them. Achilles inquires how his son bears him in the war: ̓Αλλ ̓ ἄγε μοι τοῦ παιδὸς ἀγαυοῦ μύθον ἔνισπε, and how it fares with his old father: Εἰπὲ δὲ μοι, Πηλῆος ἀμύμονος εἴ τι πέπυσσαι, Οἵνεκα μιν κατὰ γῆρας ἔχει χεῖρας τε πόδας τε. And all the son and hero revives within him, as he says: "Could I come back but a little while to my father's palace, such as I was under the rays of the sun before spacious Troy, my might and invincible hands would strike terror into every one who oppresses him and denies him reverence." Εἰ τοῖόσ δ ̓ ἔλθοιμι μίνυνθά περ ἐς πατέρος δῶ, Τῷ κε τέῳ στύξαιμι μένος καὶ χεῖρας ἀάπτους, Οἱ κεῖνον βιόωνται, ἐέργουσίν τ' ἀπὸ τιμῆς. When Odysseus pronounces him the happiest of men for the incomparable glory which had attended him in life, and which he still retained in death, he replies: " do not console me for having died, illustrious Odysseus. I would rather be the hired laborer of some poor man on earth, than reign over all the dead:" Βουλοίμην κ' ἐπάρουρος ἐὼν θητευέμεν ἄλλῳ Antikleia 3 gives her son an account of his family and realm 1 Od. 11. 232, 3. 2 Od. 11. 491 seq. 3 Od. 11. 154 seq. |