The end, we learn, was peace, and beauty was
reconciled to life. There is no explanation, no _denouement_; and we
know how much _denouement_ and explanations hampered Scott and
Shakespeare. From these trammels Homer is free, as a god is free from
mortal limitations.
All this manner of telling a tale--a manner so ancient, so original--is
akin, in practice, to recent theories of what art should be, and what art
seldom is, perhaps never is, in modern hands.
Modern enough, again, is the choice of a married woman for the heroine of
the earliest love tale. Apollonius Rhodius sings (and no man has ever
sung so well) of a maiden's love; Virgil, of a widow's; Homer, of love
that has defied law, blindly obedient to destiny, which dominates even
Zeus. Once again, Helen is not a very young girl; ungallant
chronologists have attributed to her I know not what age. We think of
her as about the age of the Venus of Milo; in truth, she was "ageless and
immortal." Homer never describes her beauty; we only see it reflected in
the eyes of the old men, white and weak, thin-voiced as cicalas: but hers
is a loveliness "to turn an old man young." "It is no marvel," they say,
"that for her sake Trojans and Achaeans slay each other."
She was embroidering at a vast web, working in gold and scarlet the
sorrows that for her sake befell mankind, when they called her to the
walls to see Paris fight Menelaus, in the last year of the war.
Pages:
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232