tacle of human life by the true poets.

We moderns read Homer with delight in the roll of the music, the
vividness of the pictures, the humanity so near us in its essence and so
unlike in its dress. When we inquire what are the moral ideals, we are
often uncertain how far the impressions made on us may differ from those
of the original audience, or the intention of the singer. But often his
work is like the painting of great Nature herself. We pass upon it as we
pass upon the facts of life.

The supernal features in the story are not here discussed. The deities,
judged by our standards, have little of divinity. Beyond the grave lies
a dim and dreamy realm. All this, with its great significance, we here
omit, to linger a little on the essential and permanent humanity.

Achilles, the embodiment of power and passion, just touched with human
ruth; Hector, the selfless, brave and gentle champion; Odysseus, victor
in the long pilgrimage by fortitude and by wisdom,--these are the three
ideal types of the early world, portrayed by its noblest genius.

The Iliad culminates in the triumph of pity. The heart of Zeus is
melted, the harder heart of Achilles is melted, before the sorrows of
bereaved old age. An exquisite gentleness breathes through the closing
scenes. All the wrath and terror and savagery of the story have led up
to this height of pure compassion. A new light falls on all that has
gone before. Achilles, the fierce hero of the earlier story, is outshone
by his victim, Hector of the great and gentle heart. The crowning word
of praise, after father, mother, wife have uttered their lament, is
spoken by the frail woman whose sin had brought ruin on Hector and his
people: "If any other haply upbraided me in the palace halls, then
wouldst thou soothe such with words, and refrain them by the gentleness
of thy spirit and by thy gentle words. Therefore bewail I thee with pain
at heart, and my hapless self with thee, for no more is any left in wide
Troy-land to be my friend and kind to me, but all men shudder at me."

We see the sin of man and woman wrecking nations and leaving the sinner
in dreary isolation. We see unrelenting wrath, even when provoked by
wrong, spreading woe upon the innocent, and at last smiting the wrathful
man through his dearest affections. We see the heroism which meets death
in defense of the beloved, yet has only tender pity for her who has
wrought the ruin.

The Iliad is mostly war