endish ingenuity in torture and
painful modes of execution. It is very interesting to notice in Homer
criticism of conduct from the standpoint of taste and judgment as to
what is seemly.[1637] Homer thought it unseemly for Achilles to drag the
corpse of Hector behind his chariot. He says that the gods thought so
too.[1638] He disapproved of the sacrifice of twelve Trojan youths on
the pyre of Patroclus.[1639] In the poems there are recorded many
unseemly acts. Achilles spurned the prayer of Hector that his body might
be redeemed, and wished that he could eat part of the body of his
conquered foe. The Greeks mutilated the corpse with their weapons.[1640]
Agamemnon and Ajax Oileus cut off the heads of the slain.[1641] Odysseus
ordered twelve maidens who had been friends to the suitors to be put to
the sword. Telemachus hanged them. Melantheus, who had traitorously
taken the suitors' side, was mutilated alive, member by member.[1642]
Odysseus tells Eurykleia that it is a cruel sin to exult over a dead
enemy, but the heroes often did it. This doctrine expresses the better
sense of the age, but a doctrine which was beyond their self-control
when their passions were aroused. The Olympian household must be taken
to represent the society of the time, especially if we throw out the
stories of the violations of the sex taboo which were often myths of
nature processes or survivals of earlier mores. The Olympian gods show
no dignity, magnanimity, or moral earnestness. They entertain mean
sentiments of jealousy, envy, offended vanity, resentment, and rancor.
They are divided by enmities and feuds. The females are frivolous and
shallow; their fathers and husbands are often angry with them for
levity, folly, disobedience, and self-will; but they have to remember
that the goddesses are females and make the best of it with a groan and
a laugh. The gods have great weakness for feminine grace and charm. They
make allowances for the women, pet them, and despise them. There is some
recognition of a possibly nobler relation of men to women, but it is
only a transitory ideal. The goddesses get into difficulties by their
intrigues and follies, but they avail themselves to the utmost of their
feminine privileges to escape the penalties. They fool the gods. It
reminds us of a modern French novel. We meet with the same sentiments,
maxims, and philosophy. What were the gods for? They were superfluous
and useless, or mischievous, but theology taught