atisfied
either the poet or his hearers. For further particulars I must refer
the reader to the excellent criticisms of Mr. Gladstone, and also to the
article on "Greek History and Legend" in the second volume of Mr. Mill's
"Dissertations and Discussions." A careful study of the arguments of
these writers, and, above all, a thorough and independent examination of
the Iliad itself, will, I believe, convince the student that this great
poem is from beginning to end the consistent production of a single
author.

The arguments of those who would attribute the Iliad and Odyssey, taken
as wholes, to two different authors, rest chiefly upon some apparent
discrepancies in the mythology of the two poems; but many of these
difficulties have been completely solved by the recent progress of the
science of comparative mythology. Thus, for example, the fact that,
in the Iliad, Hephaistos is called the husband of Charis, while in the
Odyssey he is called the husband of Aphrodite, has been cited even by
Mr. Grote as evidence that the two poems are not by the same author. It
seems to me that one such discrepancy, in the midst of complete general
agreement, would be much better explained as Cervantes explained his own
inconsistency with reference to the stealing of Sancho's mule, in the
twenty-second chapter of "Don Quixote." But there is no discrepancy.
Aphrodite, though originally the moon-goddess, like the German
Horsel, had before Homer's time acquired many of the attributes of the
dawn-goddess Athene, while her lunar characteristics had been to a
great extent transferred to Artemis and Persephone. In her renovated
character, as goddess of the dawn, Aphrodite became identified with
Charis, who appears in the Rig-Veda as dawn-goddess. In the post-Homeric
mythology, the two were again separated, and Charis, becoming divided in
personality, appears as the Charites, or Graces, who were supposed to be
constant attendants of Aphrodite. But in the Homeric poems the two are
still identical, and either Charis or Aphrodite may be called the wife
of the fire-god, without inconsistency.

Thus to sum up, I believe that Mr. Gladstone is quite right in
maintaining that both the Iliad and Odyssey are, from beginning to end,
with the exception of a few insignificant interpolations, the work of a
single author, whom we have no ground for calling by any other name than
that of Homer. I believe, moreover, that this author lived before the
beginning of