hieving and lying"; and the
information is given in a manner which shows that the poet intended it
as a grave compliment. In another passage the same hero is celebrated
as an accomplished burglar. So low was the standard of Homeric ethics
in this respect; and even in the historical age of Greece, want of
honesty and want of truthfulness were too often conspicuous failings
in some of her most famous men.

Even more shocking to the moral sense is the wild ferocity which
sometimes breaks out in the language and conduct of both men and
women. The horrible practice of mutilating the dead after a battle is
viewed with indifference, and even with complacency, by the bravest
warriors. Even Patroclus, the most amiable of the heroes in the
_Iliad_, proposes to inflict this dastardly outrage on the body of the
fallen Sarpedon. Achilles drags the body of Hector behind his chariot
from the battlefield, and keeps it in his tent for many days, that he
may repeat this hideous form of vengeance in honour of his slaughtered
friend. When the dying Hector begs him to restore his body to the
Trojans for burial he replies with savage taunts, and wishes that he
could find it in his heart to carve the flesh of Hector and eat it
raw! And Hecuba, the venerable Queen of Troy, expresses herself in
similar terms when Priam is preparing to set forth on his mission to
the tent of Achilles.

Turning now to the more attractive side of the picture, we shall find
much to admire in the character of Homer's heroes. In the first place
we have to note their intense vitality and keen sense of pleasure,
natural to a young and vigorous people. The outlook on life is
generally bright and cheerful, and there is hardly any trace of that
corroding pessimism which meets us in later literature. Cases of
suicide, so common in the tragedians, are almost unknown.

In one respect, and that too a point of the very highest importance,
the Greeks of this age were far in advance of those who came after
them, and not behind the most polished nations of modern Europe. We
refer to the beauty, the tenderness, and the purity of their domestic
relations. The whole story of the _Odyssey_ is founded on the faithful
wedded love of Odysseus and Penelope, and the contrasted example of
Agamemnon and his demon wife is repeatedly held up to scorn and
abhorrence. The world's poetry affords no nobler scene than the
parting of Hector and Andromache in the _Iliad_, nor has the ideal of
pe