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It is worthy of notice that this custom, so universal among the Indians, of a blood atonement of money, was also the usage of the tribes of Greece We read in Homer's Iliad, as translated by Pope, "If a brother bleed, On just atonement we remit the deed; A sire the slaughter of his sons forgives, The price of blood discharged, the murderer lives."
Master Homer's exhibition of learning on this occasion did not reach us, but we know that it must have been considerable, since he stood the ordeal. "What is orthography?" said an inspector once, in our presence. The candidate writhed a good deal, studied the beams overhead and the chickens out of the window, and then replied,
So he has everlasting variation; manages his storms and billows; and so I think his music is greater in effect than Homer's would still be greater, could we be sure of Homer's tones and vowel- values; as I think his vision goes deeper into the realm of the Soul and the Eternal. Yet is Homer majestic and beautiful abundantly.
And yet, who had not rather be your fool and sot, always merry, ever young, and making sport for other people, than either Homer's Jupiter with his crooked counsels, terrible to everyone; or old Pan with his hubbubs; or smutty Vulcan half covered with cinders; or even Pallas herself, so dreadful with her Gorgon's head and spear and a countenance like bullbeef?
That doctrine of Homer's is in full play: "The days in autumn when in violent flood Zeus pours his waters, wroth at sinful men" for it falls in with the acquittal of Gabinius "Who wrench the law to suit their crooked ends And drive out justice, recking naught of Gods." But I have made up my mind not to care about such things.
But Homer's words are as costly and admirable to Homer as Agamemnon's victories are to Agamemnon.
Even a keeper of swine is called noble, and fights like a hero; and the young princess of Phoeacia the loveliest and gracefullest of Homer's women drove the clothes-cart and washed linen with her own beautiful hands.
We who have for thousands of years put in writing our records cannot grasp the fullness of the system by which the old Polynesian chiefs and priests, totally without letters, or even ideographs, except in Easter Island, kept the archives of the tribe and nation by frequent repetition of memorized annals. So we got Homer's Odyssey, and the Song of Solomon. What Tahiti was like before the white?
There are one or two other passages in the same book that speak of "that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan," but they have no more connection with or relation to the story of Eden, than Homer's "Iliad" has to the nebular hypothesis.
'That last question is a very different one. God made flesh! My reason revolts at it. 'Old Homer's reason did not. Hypatia started, for she recollected her yesterday's cravings after those old, palpable, and human deities. And 'Go on, she cried eagerly. 'Tell me, then This archetype of man, if it exists anywhere, it must exist eternally in the mind of God? At least, Plato would have so said?
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