122
PARTISAN REVIEW
has had the example of force and narrative clarity, from the second
accuracy of phrase, and when the occasion demands it, grace of move–
ment.
More than all else we are indebted to Mr. Lattimore for restoring
to us the character of Achilles and the internal evidence, since we have
no other, that Homer was an artist. Achilles is, of course, a military hero;
he has physical brilliance, swiftness in action, passion, ruthlessness, and
is not without such a hero's propensity toward error. More than that, the
figure of Achilles is the ancient and Greek ideal of chivalry; he is the
Greek knight, the very myth of ancient knighthood, the short-lived son
of Thetis, whose horses were creatures of the West Wind ; and Achilles
is the myth out of which Alexander the Great fashioned his career.
It
is inevitable that Achilles should be short-lived, possessed of youthful
felicity, egocentric, and in love with his reflected image in the person
of Patroclus, for the military man and knight grown old are figures of
lesser glory than crafty and mature Odysseus; all they possess are
reminiscences that are better told by others, preferably poets who have
the wit to discern the hero's errors as well as his magnitude.
It
is just
as well that we know far more of Achilles and Odysseus than of Homer,
that singularly inactive person, of whom only the necessary legend of
his blindness persists, since blindness was an attribute of Tiresias and
was compensated for by Zeus's gifts of longevity and the triple knowledge
of past, present and future.
In a somewhat contentious introduction to his version of
Th e Iliad
Mr. Lattimore rightfully insists that the poem is dramatic, that Homer's
selection of incident is important, that his action is of concern to the
lives of Achilles and Hector, that the poem does not pretend to tell the
entire story of the fall of Troy. But whether or not the poem is the
"tragedy" of Achilles, as Mr. Lattimore thinks it is, is another matter;
if so, why did Homer place the death of Achilles and the completed
meaning of his flaws so far off stage? Mr. Lattimore's statement raises
more questions than it solves.
It
is better to conclude, for the sake of
the scenes that Homer has presented, that his work can best be viewed as
serious comedy written by a moralist, aware, as a moralist would
be, of divine power and the errors of human will and action.
In this connection-and Mr. Lattimore's version of the poem
admirably sustains us-Homer knew well what he was saying or dictating
and had no intention of mystifying those who heard him; and in an
appropriate place, he described the making of a work of
art
in
Hephaestus' creation of Achilles' shield: the shield is the image of life
itself with its scenes of peace and of war, of human joy and grief, all
