perry, e. the early greek capacity for viewing things separately

8/13/2019 Perry, E. the Early Greek Capacity for Viewing Things Separately

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American Philological Association

The Early Greek Capacity for Viewing Things SeparatelyAuthor(s): Ben Edwin PerrySource: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 68 (1937),pp. 403-427Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/283278.

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Vol. lxviii] ViewingThingsSeparately 403

XXX.-The EarlyGreekCapacity orViewing hingsSeparatelyBEN EDWIN PERRYUNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

Ha1riraolV, S' OS, a&EX?XVoas f3oV hOVO/lJKOV rlVOS avapos.(Plato Rep. 561E)The firstpart of this essay defines and describes more fully the psycho-logical phenomenon mentioned in the title, indicating the range of itsmanifestations in Greek life and literature. The second part (pp. 410 ff)illustrates the matter concretely and points out its bearing upon certainproblems of literary interpretation.

If modern habits of mind were the same as those of thepre-SocraticGreeks,we shouldnot often rr n theinterpreta-tion of their literature nd thought;but since the psycho-logical differencesetween themand us are considerable, tfrequently appens that moderncritics,too much influencedby their own patternsof thought,either findsomething nearly Greek literature hat is not there,or else are puzzledand even disappointed by not finding heresomethingwhichtheyfeeloughtto be there. Since this is so, it behooves usas interpreterso keep in view at all times, and in manydifferentonnections, hose particularcharacteristics f theearlyGreek mind whichcan be recognized s such, and whichstand in contrast to modernways of thinking. I am aboutto describe and illustratewhat I conceive to be one of thosefundamental haracteristics- Greekway of ooking t thingswhich is quite familiar, o be sure, in many of its separatemanifestations, ut which deserves to be recognizedmoreclearly than it has been, and to be conceived in broaderperspective, onsidering hat thefailure o recognize ts appli-cation in specific nstanceshas oftenresulted n the raisingofunnecessary roblems with resultant rop of false olutions),or in a simple ack of understanding.

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404 Ben EdwinPerry [1937The titlechosen for his paperis not quite adequate. WhatI have in mindmightbe furtherndicatedby such captions as'the occasional disregard of logical, moral, or aesthetic se-quence in early literature,' r 'the triumph f parataxis overhypotaxis n thought s well as in grammar,' r 'immediacyof interest n the earlyGreekmind,' or,morefully till, thecapacity forcontemplating nlyone thingor one aspect of athingor personat one time,purelyfor ts own interest nd

without regard to the ulterior mplications or associationsthat an earlyGreeknarratormightndeedbe concerned bout,but oftenis not, and that a modernperson with his moreschematic habits of mind would almost inevitably bring n.I find bundant llustration f this nthe anguage,mythology,religion, nd life, s well as in the literature f early Greece.In the sixth book of the Iliad, forexample, the meetingbetween Diomedes and Glaucus is describedat lengthin aspirit fthehighest thical dealism,but thatdoes notpreventthe poet from dding at the end what seems to us the dis-concerting nd incongruousremarkthat Glaucus was a foolforallowing Diomedes to get the better of himin the tradeof armor. We are startledbythissuddentransition rom hepoetic to the comic and shrewdlymaterialistic spect of thesame transaction, y the fact that Glaucus appears first s ahero and then as a simpleton. The fancyof a modernpoet,and indeed thatof Homer himself n anotheroccasion,wouldhave been so dominatedby the ideal aspect of the precedingscene, and by the heroicpersonalityof the actors, that hewould have continuedto the end in the same spirit;in otherwords,he would have been governedby a verycommonyetconsciousand literaryprincipleof aestheticor artisticunitywhich in this episode is conspicuously gnored. Why is itignored? Because, I believe,thepoet's mind s herefunction-ing in a purelynatural and unrestrained ashion. He con-templates n successiontwoverydifferentspectsof thesameact, the second of which is mentionedsolely for its own



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Vol. lxviii] ViewingThingsSeparately 405interest nd in spite of the fact that forus it is artisticallyincongruouswiththe first.The successionof thoughts nd images n the humanmindis not regulatedby considerationsof logic or choice; theypresentthemselvesautomaticallyone afterthe other in re-sponseto various incidental nd immediate timuli, nd with-out regardto uniformityf any kind. There are more on-tradictions n nature than in any kind of art. The actualrecordofwhat passed through he mind of a normalpersonin a singleday would be something xtremely haotic. Butofcourse whatgoeson in themindon the one hand,and whatis actually uttered or writtenon the other, thoughcloselyconnected,are differenthings;it is quite unlikelythat wehave any record fthought rom hepast that is as absolutelyspontaneousas Joyce'sUlyssespurports o be. Probablythenearestapproach to such extremenaturalness s made in theprimitive olktale, where there s a maximumof objectivityand of paratactical arrangement,nd a minimum f person-ality, morality,sentiment,cause and effect, esthetic uni-formity, r other kinds of inner coherence. In such talesthe narrator,as a rule, merelydescribes what he sees orimagines withoutmaking inferences r being conscious ofkindred deas. When he does becomeconsciousofsuch ideashe mentions hem. The primitivemindresembles he mindof a child n that t occupies tselfwith theobject immediatelybefore t rather than with anything more remote. "Whenyou pointyour finger t something cross the room," says arecentcommentator n the magician's art, "an adult looksin the directionyou indicate,but a child looks first t yourfinger." Such immediacy s typical, n kind f not indegree,ofadult psychology t an early stage ofculturaldevelopment.At the oppositeextreme, n the otherhand, stands the everconscious iteraryrtist, hetypicallymodernwriter rthinkerwho has inherited ome twenty-threeenturies of doctrineabout lifeand art, and who,workingn oppositionto nature,

1Fred C. Kelly, " Nothing up the Sleeve" in Reader's Digest, Sept. 1937, 95.



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406 Ben Edwin Perry [1937and witha relativelywide perspective, hooses,arranges, ndsubordinateshis conceptionsone to the other. Such a nar-rator,unliketheprimitive r purely pontaneous toryteller,and incidentallyunlike Homer in the passage above men-tioned,will not allow his interest n the thing mmediatelybeforehimto interfere iththe larger ynthesisupon whichhe is intent. For him the implicationsof an action areusually more important han the action itself;he dares notproceed in a purelydisinterested,bjective, impersonal ndparatacticalfashion, escribing nlywhathe sees or imagines,like the teller fthefolk ale, lestby so doinghisstory houldinculcatea wrongattitudetowardsomething,est he ascribethewrongfeelings r thewrongmoralsto the charactersoutof whichhe thinks,or lest he make these characters, r hisepisodes, in some way inconsistent r incongruous. In hisworkor thought verything endsto have meaning n termsof personality,or morality,or sentiment,or philosophicalbelief,or all of these combined; and these elementsmust,moreover, e broughtntoharmonywiththewriter's onsciousartistic deals. In all these respectsthe typicallymodern-one might ay the Platonic mind-differs harplyboth fromthe primitivemind as revealed in folklore nd mythology,and to a great extentalso, and in the same way, fromthecontemporarymindat those rare momentswhen the latter,temporarilyffguard,happens to be functioningn a purelyspontaneousway.I have described two psychologicalextremes,which formomentary onveniencemay be called the 'primitive' andthe artificial'respectively;my point s that in respectto thehabitof drawing nferencesnd of always takingassociatedideas into account, the type of mind manifested n manyways and in varyingdegrees by the Greek writersbeforeSocrates,2represents n intermediate tage of evolutionbe-

2 That is, before philosophy was commonly recognized as a guide to life forindividual men. The thought of Plato and his followers, in so far as it relatesto ethics and to man in his environment, is far more ideal and schematic thanthat ofearlier philosophers or ofThucydides. I do not mean to imply, however,



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Vol. lxviii] ViewingThingsSeparately 407tween the primitive nd the artificial-in the sense in whichI am using these terms. In otherwords, the early Greekmind s mature but has as yetnothing n excess; it has muchof the childlike n it, i.e. much of thenatural,but notenoughto merit heepithet naive,' for t is rich n thesimplewisdomof experience; t is neitherprimitivenor beset with artificialcomplexes,neither averse to logic nor, like Plato, foreverdominatedby it; notreallyunmoral,yet certainly otobsessedby the moral outlook: it can be verymoralor very ogicalonoccasion,but neither ttitude s habitual. Within the limitsthat a Greek artist sets for himselfhe is guided by a finesense of measure and of form,but those limits can be morerestricted han modern taste expects them to be, and so weoften ook for,or assume the presenceof,a background hatis not in thepicture nd was not meant to be.Looking at the matter in a slightlydifferentway, theHellenic temperaments extremely ersatile and manysided.It is wontto enjoy, contemplate, r deifyby turns, nd witha remarkable ntensity, irectness, nd truthfulnessn eachcase, everything n experiencegood or bad that naturallypertains oman; but while tgivesplaytoevery ide ofhumannature, it does not allow any one side to tyrannize ver orinterfere iththe others. In that respect the earlyHellenictemperament iffers rom ur own; for we are system-riddenand are constantly ubordinatingne idea or image to anotherto which we have given superiorauthority,whereas in theearlyGreek mind all ideas and images tend to remain, s inthe childhood of the race, free and independent. That isthe case in religion,where polytheism, olerant by nature,deifies he mostvaried and oppositetypesof humanexperiencewithoutever allowing one cult to interferewith another; itthat the phenomenon in question ceases to exist after the fifth entury; on thecontrary there are many evidences of it in Xenophon, especially in the Hellenikaand in the Anabasis, and the average Greek, even at a much later period,was always versatile and paratactic, so to speak, by instinct-quem vis hominemsecum adtulit ad nos (Juv. Sat. 3.75). But in literature, generally speaking,this phenomenon is not very noticeable after the fifth entury.



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408 Ben Edwin Perry [1937is the case, moreover, n mythology,with its innumerablecontradictions nd its disregard of character and moralitythroughpreoccupationwith the al'Trov; it is the case in earlyGreek literature,where the old myths and traditions arehandled from poetic, dramatic,or purely ntellectual tand-pointwithoutbeing nterpreted, r even thought f, in termsof thecontemporaryocial ormoraloutlook,whereone aspectof a characteror of an action is dealt with ntensively o theexclusionof other spectsthata modernreader s accustomedto find n similarcontexts,where rony-which views thingscoordinately,disinterestedly, nd objectively-prevails inplace ofsatire, o common n latertimes, n which the author,as pleaderof a cause, ridicules omething ecause it does notfit in with his ideal system,4 nd where such authors asHomer and Herodotus show more interest n the man thanin the cause he representsnd concentrate heir rtistic ffortsmoreupon the episode per se than upon the connectionbe-tweenone episodeand another, r upon the effect f the sum

3 Grote in his History of Greece (Everyman edition i 76) refersto the mythof Io as "one of the numerous tales which the fancy of the Greeks deducedfrom the amorous dispositions of Zeus and the jealousy of Hera." Now theanalogy of similar stories about Zeus may have helped at the birth of this one,but most mythologistswould agree, I think, that the characterof Zeus and Herawas not the starting point from which this myth was "deduced," as Groteimplies; rather the myth was told in order to explain something in the historyof the cult of Hera, while "character" is something that results only for themodern or later mind. The myth-maker is oblivious to character. He thinksof the gods only as actors with plausible human motives. Their morals areassumed to be no better and no worse than those of the normal human being.Given the opportunities for love-making that Zeus had, any man would pre-sumably behave in about the same way on any one occasion. The "eroticpropensity" of Zeus is not an individual peculiarity, nor is there any cynicismor implied condemnation in the assumption that such conduct is normal.Moreover, the number of instances in which Zeus was supposed to have madelove to a mortal woman was not so present to the mind of the myth-maker asit is to us, who peruse classical dictionaries. Like many other modern students,Grote cannot refrainfromintroducing considerations of character into a realmwhere they do not belong.

4 Satire is foreignto tragedy; like the representation of individuals in dramait belongs properly to comedy. Euripides helped the downfall of tragedy byintroducing both.



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Vol. lxviii] ViewingThingsSeparately 409total ofepisodes;and finally, o pass overgeography, olitics,and freedom fspeech,we find similar ndependence n theGreek languageitself,whosesyntax,not to mention herule-defying arietyof itsmorphologynd accent,showsa markedfondnessfor coordinationrather than subordination, spe-cially in the early period. Nor shouldwe leave philosophyentirely ut of account. The attemptofpre-Socratic hinkersto explainthe physicaluniverse n termsof a singleprincipleor substance, therebyfollowing ogic in defiance of senseperception, nded by committinghybris n the formof theEleatic monism, nd was promptly ollowedby a reassertionof the realityof the Many in the formof Atomism,whichwas Greek philosophy'sfinal answer to the riddle of thephysical universe. In the fieldof ethics and metaphysicsPlato's idealismhas much ncommonwith the Eleatic system,since it followslogic and language beyond experienceandtends to findrealityin the One ratherthan in the Many.It was naturaltherefore hat Plato shouldexplicitly ondemncertainforms f pluralism nd immediacywhichwererootedin the instincts f his countrymen nd widelymanifestednthe everyday ifeand thought fthe average Hellene. Thushe objects to the 0AXoOcad/uwvvx'p who recognizesbeauty onlyin a multitude of different erceptionsand who refusestoadmit the existenceof the one absolute and perfectbeauty.5His "democraticman," to whomhe applies the noteworthyadjectivecrovo,ILKoS, s such s to"makenodistinctionetweenhis pleasures,but to suffer imself o be led by the passingpleasure which chance throws n his way, and to turn toanotherwhenthefirsts satisfied-scorningnonebutfosteringall alike. . . . Hence he lives fromday to day to the end, inthe gratificationf the casual appetite,now drinking imselfdrunkto the sound of music, and presentlyputtinghimselfunder training, ometimes dlingand neglecting verything,and then iving ike a studentofphilosophy. Oftenhe takespartinpublicaffairs,nd starting p, speaks and acts accord-

5Plato Rep. 479a.



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410 Ben EdwinPerry [1937ing to the impulseof the moment. Now he follows agerlyin the steps of certaingreatgenerals,because he covets theirdistinctions, nd anon he takes to trade, because he enviesthe successful rader. And there s no order or constrainingrule nhis life;buthe calls this ifeof hispleasant,and liberal,and happy, and follows t out to the end." 6Here is written n large letters, n the life and conductofan imaginarybut typicalGreek, that quality of soul whichreveals itself n varyingdegreesand aspects in almost everyproductof the earlyGreekmind. AfterPlato we mightcallit icoovojtia, intellectual sonomy, s it were. On the positiveside this means the habit of lookingat differenthings oneat a time with about equal interest n each; on the negativeside, more importantforus, the capacity to view one thingbyitselfwithout etting nother nterfere. This psychologicalcondition underliesand explains a wide varietyof artistic,especially iterary, henomena. We recognizet mostreadilyof course when it appears in outstanding peculiaritiesofsyntax,or in the composition f short sectionsof text as inthestoryofGlaucus and Diomedes citedabove; but we mustalso recognize t in the generalattitude of the early poets,historians nd dramatists. It may condition n entireworkof art, or it may give us the key to understanding ne partof a literarywork in comparisonwith anotherpart of thesame work that seems contradictory,r it may give us theproper perspectiveforviewingtwo different orks by thesame author. Moreover,differentuthorshave differente-greesof t and mayreveal t in different ays. I pass nowtoillustrations.

IISince epic poety is oral in origin nd early, ts syntaxandstyleof composition re consequentlymorespontaneousandless logicalinmany respects hanthesyntax nd styleof aterauthors. Anacoluthon and various formsof parataxis are6Plato Rep. 561b-d, as syncopated and translated by R. W. Livingstone,The GreekGenius and its Meaning to Us3 (Oxford Univ. Press, 1924), 178.



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Vol. lxviii] ViewingThingsSeparately 411especially frequentand familiarto every reader of Homer.Consider the natureof the mentalprocessesrevealed in thefollowingypicalphenomena:

Iliad 6.510f: o 6' aiyXatktrer otO6s,p'M,4a zyoiv'a pEt. ...Iliad 9.167: -t6' &ayE,ovs av eiywvr6lo/0,at,Ot 6UrtONoOwv.Compare such expressionsn laterliterature s oltco'cs 70o7i-ov(Soph.O.T. 543),7 Ot XE'yOVTV (Hdt. 1.89),orL . . KTa0 wv(Thuc. 4.92); and contrastthe logicalHomericformula 's ave'yw 71-ExwrE06/cAa 4avrTsIl. 2.139; 9.26).Iliad 1.259:

aXXa 7rtOEaoO' 6E vEcoTrEpCOTOV E9/LO.Iliad 13.375f:EtETEov ) w7r4avTaEXEVT70ELsa' v7r-a0rTsAap6avt6c7pt4uca, 6' '7rorXETovuyarTpav.Iliad 3.79f:rcZ ' E7rEroaovro Kap?7 KO6O ES AXalOtoLV TE TMlOUKO/IEVOt Xaco-ol Tr 43aXXov.8Odyssey 16.418-20:'AvTlvo',fptV XWV, aKoI XavE Kal 6 a oaatvEV 6,ucO 'I0aK7S ,uE' ,t XtKas ulu.Ev aptaroTvoVXj'Ka,t uotar oa' 6' OUK 'apa ToZos Eq7oOa.Cf. Pindar01. 1.36; 8.15; Pyth.5.45; 10.10; 11.41.Odyssey4.235-38:'Arp&Et6?EvEXaEorTpEc,bEs M Ka' OMhEavi6pCv rOXc\v raZ6Esarap OEo'saXXorEaXXwZEvs ayaOovTE KaKO6VTE &6LOZ- uvvraL yaparavTa

TOl VVV 6aaLvvaO0EaG77AnEvOL...7 See J. P. Postgate, Trans. Cam. Phil. Soc. iII (1886-93), London, Clay,

1894, pp. 50-55; W. W. Goodwin, GreekMoods and Tenses3 (Boston, Ginn andCo., 1897), 253.8 Cf. Pindar 01. 1.14; Pyth. 1.55 and 3.53. Cauer, Homerkrilik (Leipzig,S. Hirzel, 1895), 261, notes that Barnes, Buttmann, and Dindorf, besidesseveral Alexandrians, have wanted to emend this same construction in Od. 11.83by reading A&yopdov in place of &y6pevev. If modern scholars can err in assimple a matter as this, by being too logical, how much more likely are theyto err throughfailure to recognize the same paratactic principle when it appliesto the interpretation of literature.



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412 Ben EdwinPerry [1937Iliad 3.59-67:

"EKTOP, 7rE1 LE aC' aTcLav ciEVELKErCoasv3' iv7rp ato-av,atcIETOL Kpabl 7rEXKEKVUSC-rTLV tpns . . .vvv avT EtLu EXELs.

In the Cbrd'clause Paris gives the reasonfortheconcessiontoHector that he intends to make and finally oes make eightlines below; meanwhile everalotherthoughts uggested uc-cessivelyby EiVKEK-oaSand by &2pa (64) have been utteredindependently.9Odyssey .262ff, s translatedby Butcherand Lang: "Butwhenwe set foot within the city-wherebygoes a highwallwith towers,and there s a fair haven on eitherside of thetown; and narrow is the entrance," etc. The descriptioncontinues nd theapodosis is completely orgotten.'0The examplesabove quoted are typicalof a great deal inthe syntaxand styleof the Homeric poems,wherethe Xcttsdpo&Ev77,hestrung-alongtyle, ppears nthemostpronouncedformknown to Greek literature. Spontaneous absorptionwithwhat happens to be uppermost n the mind of the poet(his audience, or his character) at the moment, eads thenarrator o disregard ll logical syntaxand to treat as inde-pendentthat which,eitherby the natureof the case or bynormal grammaticalusage, is dependent. As in informalspeech, where there is no strivingfor logicallyconstructedperiodsand paragraphs, o too in theXctts tpolu4vmq,uccessivethoughtstend to be utteredone afterthe otheras soon astheycometo mind,each one beingsuggestedby theone thatprecedes;and while thenarrators occupiedwithone ofthese

(@.9Cf. d. 4.204-212, 6.187-191, 17.185-190; D. B. Monro, Homeric Grammar2(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1891), 324, b and c.10With such passages in mind (cf. II. 6.242-51; 18.101 ff,22.111 ff),we mayhesitate to regard as interpolated even the 70-line episode inserted at the dra-matic moment in the Odyssey (19.386 ff)when Eurycleia recognizes Odysseusby the scar on his thigh; the temptation to digress on the history of the scaras soon as it was mentioned may have been strong enough to cause the poetto ignore everything else even for the space of 70 lines-like the Scythian armyin Herodotus (4.134) that was all ready to join battle with the Persians andwould have done so immediately, had they not stopped to chase a rabbit.



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Vol. lxviii] ViewingThingsSeparately 413thoughtshe takes little heed of the others. There is con-tinuity r rather oncatenation fthought lmosteverywhere.In contrast o theperiodic tyle,which s post-Socratic, hereis very littlesubordinating f one idea to another; like thelinks in a chain each tends to have equal value and to beequally detachablefrom he whole.The same immediacy f nterest,with ts resulting oordina-tionofideas, reveals tselfnot onlyin Homericsyntax but inmany otherfeaturesof style,composition, nd arrangementof episodes." To dwell on theseat lengthwould be to mis-

"1 Cf. S. E. Bassett, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology xxx (1920),39-53, on the wide application in Homer of the principle of composition knownas V5repov 7rp6TEpoV,hich tends to defystrict logic in the interest of immediacyand continuity. As concerns the broader features of composition both inHomer and in other early authors, the case has been so well stated by J. Tate(C.R. LI 174f) in his summary of B. A. Van Groningen's recent essay, Para-tactische compositie in de oudste Grieksche literatuur (Amsterdam 1937) that Iventure to quote his words at length. Mr. Tate says: " Plato demanded that aliterary work should have the unity of a living organism; the parts should beconsistent with one another and subordinate to the whole. This demandsprings from the new rhetoric, which was all for rule and system. The 'pre-classical' method of composition was not organic or hypotactic but paratactic.The 'parts' tend to be autonomous, and the 'whole' is not a genuine whole buta 'dossier.' Such 'wholes' have neither true beginning nor true end. Theyare arbitrarily chosen portions of larger 'wholes' (as the Iliad, itselfepisodic, isonly an episode in the Trojan War). And this is true even if the whole piecebe 'framed' or 'boxed' with prologue and epilogue; for these mark no essentialdelimitation of the subject-matter. The unity-if there be unity in such awork-is due to the fact that the essentially disparate parts are ingeniouslystitched together by devices such as recurring lines, transitions, echoes andforeshadowings. Professor Van Groningen draws support from Alcman'sPartheneion, the Hymn to Apollo, Hesiod, Xenophanes (who actually begins apoem with a transitional line), and, above all, Semonides, who is revealed byhis poem on women as a master of the paratactic technique. What then of theIliad and the Odyssey? The characteristic features of paratactic compositionare to be found in both poems. Homer's aim is the perfection of the partsrather than the integrityof the whole; he thinks more ofvariety and abundancethan of qualitative selection and the orderly disposition of the parts. Toattack the unity of either poem because of the paratactic features, or to defendtheir unity on the ground that each is an organic and well-knit structure,betrays a concern for literary canons which are irrelevant in the field of pre-classical Greek literature. . . . Perhaps, as literature develops, organic patternis increasingly superimposed on sheer agglutinative parataxis."



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414 Ben EdwinPerry [1937direct the emphasisof the presentessay,which s concernedprimarilynot with externalfeaturesof composition, xceptin so faras thesereveala certainqualityof mind,but ratherwith the attitude of early writerstoward the thingstheydescribe.From thispointof view let us considerfora momenttheHomeric simile. It is a familiarfact that the poet is notalwayscontent o illustrateust theparticularpointforwhichthe comparison s made; often, through oncentrationuponthe image beforehim,he adds detailsthathave nothing o dowiththe narrative nd whichdo not belonglogically n thecomparison.'2 He can dwell upon B withoutat the sametime thinking fA. Moreover,the analogy betweenA andB is at times o narrowly estrictedhatto the modernmind,accustomedto see things n a wideror a differenterpsective,the similemayseemquaintorundignified.ThuswhenHomercomparesthegatheringAchaeans to flies warming bout thepails ofmilk n a stable (Iliad 2.469), he is thinking rimarilyof their numbersand restlessmovement;but the modernreader, ubconsciouslyxpanding heanalogy, s likely o takemore notice of the incongruitybetween flies and heroes.Andso itis whenwe find hevaliantAjax likened oa stubbornass whichthe boys are cudgelling n vain, in theireffortodrivehimfrom he cornfieldIliad 11.558),or whentheTrojaneldersare comparedto cicadas (Iliad 3.151), or whenAthenainspiresMenelaus with the courage of a fly (Iliad 17.570).In such cases the modernmind is consciousof associationsthatare notpresentfortheGreek.-3

12One would think that this could hardly escape the attention of any Greekstudent; and yet Professor L. E. Lord (Class. Jour. xviii 73-81), finding thesame thing at the end of the book of Jonah, fails to recognize it, though hesearches Greek literature fora parallel. The biblical passage in question readsas follows: "And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city,wherein are morethan six score thousand persons who cannot discern between their right handand their lefthand, and also much cattle?"

13 The tendency to ignore in a simile everything except a very special pointof likeness (which may be merely the general quality of excellence) is morepronounced in early Hebrew poetry than in Greek; cf. Song of Solomon 1.9:



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Vol. lxviii] ViewingThingsSeparately 415Concentrationof interestupon the individual, withoutregardto the public cause in which he is enlisted, s anotherimportantfeatureof the Homeric outlook. It matters ittletoHomer whether manis fightingosave Troyor to destroyit; he findsnobility, eauty,tragedy,human interest n bothsides; and that is all he cares about. But the case is verydifferentn Vergil's Aeneid, for there the largerscheme ofthings with its strong patriotic bias is always beforeus,

dominating and overshadowingthe man. In contrast toVergil, Homer's outlook is more restricted,mmediate,andhuman in any one part, moremanifold n range of interestthroughout, nd more independentof standardizedpatternsofthought.In commenting pon the lay ofAres and Aphrodite n theeighthbookoftheOdyssey, typicalmodern tudentobserves:"There is nothingfunny bout marital nfidelity." No, butthere s somethingfunny bout being caught in the act, asAreswas, and it is amusingto reflectwithHermesand ApollothatHephaestus' triumphwas somewhatmorethandubious.Homeris notconcernedwiththeconcept"marital infidelity."He is picturing n act,withoutreferenceo its social ormoralimplications-a thing hatfewmoderns,whenon their ignity,are capable ofdoing. For Homer it was easy and natural todo so, partlybecause thosesocial and moral deas wereby nomeans so all-importantn theminds ofhis contemporaries stheyare forus, and partlybecause, howevermuch he mightdeprecate adultery as such if the propositionwere put tohim in that light,he is nevertheless n the habit of viewingone thing, r onlyone aspect ofone thing, t a time. As hecan neglectelementaryogic in his syntaxand similes, o hecan neglect ocial and moralconsiderationswhenhe happens," I have compared thee, 0 my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh'schariots; " ibid. 7.4: " Thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which lookethtoward Damascus." I assume that some kind of excellence other than sizeis here in point; or were very large noses considered beautiful by the ancientHebrews?



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416 Ben EdwinPerry [1937as often, o be interestedn something lse. In order to fitHomer into the procrusteanbed of his Christianmorality(many are inclined that way), ProfessorF. P. Donnelly 4declares it noteworthy hat "Homer's worst lapse in story-tellingtakes place among the luxuriousPhaeacians, ancientprototypesof degeneracy. Homer may have felt justifiedartisticallybecause he was depictingthe non-Grecianworldthroughwhose monsters," tc. More hypotactic nterpreta-tion Homer needed no justification therthan the delightofhis Greek udience nthe story er e. Odysseus nd Homeras well as the Phaeacians were charmed with it (line 368),and theepisodeendswithdignity nd unusualbeauty:

And fast wayfled he,Aphrodite,over f aughter,oCyprus verthe ea,To thepleasant hores fPaphos, nd the ncensed ltar-stone,WhereheGraceswashed erbody, nd shed weetbalm hereon,Ambrosial almthat hinethnthegodsthatwax notold,And wrapped er nlovely aiment, wonder o behold.'5In general there are two different ttitudes towards thegods in Homer,and neithers felt o be incompatiblewith theother;thegods are viewedeither s actorsin a drama, wheretheymustbe anthropomorphic,r as powersto be propitiated

and prayedto by men. In relation to men theyare objectsof reverent concern,but when viewed in relation to eachother,and as actors in a drama, they have all the normalcharacteristics,ncluding heweaknesses,ofhumankind. Astherewillordinarily e squabblingamonghumanbeingswhen,in spiteof conflictingnterests,'6hey tryto live together na big family, o very naturallywe findthe same situationamongtheanthropomorphicodsonOlympus. But inHomer-as in primitive olktales, as in old Atticcomedy, s in theHymntoHermes, nd as in theparallelcultivationofreligion

14As quoted in Class. WeeklyXIX (1926), 92. With what ProfessorDonnellyhas to say in this article concerning individualism in art I am in hearty accord;but that is something else.15Od. 8.362 ff,as translated by J. W. Mackail.16 These were probably suggested to some extent by the facts of cult history.



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Vol. lxviii] ViewingThingsSeparately 417and divine mythology he world over17- the reverentmaystand side by side withtheridiculous rgrotesque,whilebothattitudesremainperfectlyincereand neither s impairedbythe proximity fthe other. Here again the analogyofpara-taxis in Homeric syntax and compositiongives us the rightperspective. And yet thisperspective, o whichI have beenpointing hroughout s profoundlyharacteristic f the earlyGreek mind n general, nd as manifested oncretelyn manydifferent ays, is completelydisregardedby those numerousHomeric critics,Murray ncluded,who believe that the comicor grotesquescenes on Mount Olympus are conceived in aspirit of mockery, that they are "consciously satirical ordoctrinal, onnectedwith theskepticism fIonianphilosophy,distinguishable romother,earlier parts of the text in whichthe gods are objects of reverent aith,or useful to the highercritic nhis attempts o identifyhe workof differentoets indifferenteriods." 8 The task of demolishing hese artificialtheorieswhereinHomer, or a certain type of Homeric inter-polator, is conceived as an early Greek philosopher"mit

17 Cf. G. M. Calhoun, A.J.P. LVIII 266f, who refers to Andrew Lang'sMyth, Ritual and Religion and adds (note 20): "More recent studies have madeadditions to the data without materially altering their general character orimpairing the value of Lang's conclusions in regard to the conflict betweenreligion and myth, between the 'mood ofearnest contemplation and submission'and the mood of 'playful and erratic fancy' both of them 'present and inconflict, through the whole religious history of the human race."' The conflicthowever, is far more apparent to the modern or Platonic mind than to theisonomic mind and temperament of early, natural, or polytheistic man. Inthe Frogs Aristophanes can burlesque Dionysus and do him honor and worshipat the same time. And so it is to some extent in the Hymn to Hermes. Con-sider the following remarks by J. A. K. Thomson, Irony (Cambridge, Harv.Univ. Press, 1927), 72: "For the average ancient man piety consisted in be-lieving in the gods and propitiating them with the appropriate ceremonies andsacrifices. To believe in the goodness of God was not an essential tenet in hiscreed at all. Consequently he did not greatly care what people said about thegods. as long as they did not deny their existence or their power. Of course, aPlato or an Aristotle may raise the point of the divine omnipotence or omnis-cience. But the Dramatists were not writing for the philosopher; they werewriting for the average Athenian. for whom the important question was thepractical, not the moral, one."18Calhoun op. cit. (see note 17), 257.



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418 Ben Edwin Perry [1937durchdachterWeltanschauung"Finsler),may well be lefttoProfessorCalhoun, who has already effectivelyointed outhowunhistorical heyare.The Greekmood or pointof view may shift uddenlyandfrequently;hence the endless varietyof Homer, Herodotus,and Aristophanes,the unrestricted, apid-fire magery ofAeschylus nd Pindar-and their nacolutha. In commentingon Pindar, Gildersleeve emarks: And so Pindar'smetaphorsare slides that come out in such quick successionthat thefigureseem to blendbecause theuntrained ye cannotfollowthe rapid movement f the artist. . . . In such passages theabsence of conjunctions s sufficiento show that no connec-tion was aimedat, and it is thefaultof thereader fhe choosesto complain of an incongruousblendingof thingsthat areleft part." 19In regardto the preservation f parataxis in syntax andcompositionHerodotus, oosely peaking, eemsto standaboutmidwaybetweenHomer and Isocrates, thoughin many re-spects he is closer to Homer. Like the Iliad, his History sepisodic and held togetheronly by a looselyunifying lan;and like Homerhe is more nterestedn close-upviews of thecareersand actions of individualmen than in the historicalsignificancef those actions,or in the implications hat theymay have for either ndividualor nationalhonor. How dif-ferent hisoutlook s from henormaloutlookofmen in latertimes, speciallysuch as lean to Platonism,maybe seen fromPlutarch's essay On theMalignity fHerodotus. As a tender-minded dealistwith trong onvictions bout right nd wrongand theglory f ancientGreece,Plutarchassumesthatevery-thingmentionedby the historianmusthave been thought fprimarilyn relation o the ameideals,and thatforHerodotus,as forhimself,verythingn history hat can be lookeduponas goodor bad is, fmentioned,merely testimonial oncerningthe honoror dishonorof the men involved. Accordingly e

19B. L. Gildersleeve, Pindar, The Olympian and Pythian Odes2 (New York,Ameiican Book Co., 1890) xliv.



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Vol. lxviii] ViewingThingsSeparately 419scolds Herodotus and accuses him ofdeliberatemalicewhen-ever the latter reportsanythingthat may, by his way ofthinking, etract from he gloryof the ancientGreeks. Hecannot understand that Herodotus is interested nly in thefactperse as he believed it to be, and that the inferencesndcharacter-conceptswhich are so importantfor himself ndothers ikehim, re eithernotpresent o the mindofHerodotusat all,or ifpresent re offar ess concern. Plutarch'scriticismof Herodotus resemblesthe strictures f Dionysius of Hali-carnassus on thehistory fThucydides,concerningwhicholdThomas Hobbes remarks: "I thinkthereneverwas writtenso much absurdity in so few lines." 20 Although moderncritics are able to overcomethe patrioticbias that vitiatesthe judgmentof such men as Plutarch and Dionysius,manyofthemnevertheless rr n the same way throughnability oovercome hemoral,philosophical, rsentimental ias. Theyhave a habit ofputting ogether hings hatwereviewedsepa-rately, nd withoutperturbation,n themorenaturaloutlookof theearlyGreekauthors.Many events and descriptionsn the history f Herodotusare recorded n thesame, to us peculiar, piritofdetachmentthat characterizesthe so-called Ionian novella-those vividtales of action born of the primitiveand still unfetteredhumanspirit,wherein hings re depicted n theirmost mme-diate, objective aspect, without regard for social or moralprejudicesorfor heaestheticconventions hatdominate aterart. If thereis art in these Xo&yot,t is not quite what weordinarilymean by that term;rather t is the ease and skillinstraightforwardarration eveloped bygenerations fracon-teurs ndowedwiththe Homeric (and primitive) nstinctfordirectness nd immediacy. To the temperofHerodotusthis

20 The English Works of Thomas Hobbes (London, John Bohn, 1843) VIII,xxvi. In the passage to which Hobbes refers Ad Cn. Pomp. 3.4-9), Dionysiuscomplains that Thucydides chose the wrong war to write about, and that, ifhe must write about that disastrous affair,he should at least have found someway to put the blame for it on others, instead of maliciously laying the faultto his own countrymen.



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420 Ben EdwinPerry [1937non-moral ype of narrativewas especiallycongenial,as wesee from he fact that he introduces largenumberof suchtales intohiswork,21 nd thatmuchofwhathe relatesabouthistoricalpersonsis conceivedin the same purelydramaticspirit,withoutregardto consistency n character-portrayal,or to theprobabilitiesnherentn thesituation tself. He hasheardinterestingtoriesabout certainfamouspersons,whichspranginto beingamong the people, and whichhad alreadybeen cast into thevariedmolds of folklore t differentimesand places and from ifferentiewpoints; nd thesehe recordsone afterthe other,each for the sake of its own peculiarcharm,and regardlessof the fact that taken togethertheyoftenyield no consistentor plausible pictureeither of indi-vidual characters r of historical vents.22Like Solon,Herodotus travelled nd gazed upon theworld'sbazaar OEcop1'qsIVEKEV-not in orderto interprett, but forthejoy of seeingwhat was there. Passing fromone exhibit toanother he concentrateshis attention upon each with anintellectualcuriosity, sense of wonder,and a singlenessofvision that belong ratherto the cultural childhoodof manthanto thesomewhat ge-weary nd academic outlookoftheaverage modernthinker. Things that Herodotus delights ocontemplatefor theirown interestoftenpresentthemselvesto our minds as merely o manydata out ofwhichto shapewider or secondaryconceptions. In commenting pon He-rodotus' account of the Scythian customof blindingslaves(in order, pparently, o preventthemfrom eeinghow their

21Cf. W. Aly, Volksmiirchen, Sage und Novelle bei Herodot and seinenZeitgenossen (Gottingen, Vandenhoeck u. Ruprecht, 1921).22 Cf. I. Bruns, Das literarischePortrdtder Griechen Berlin, W. Hertz, 1896),

114: Es gehort nicht viel Stilgefuhl dazu, um zu erkennen, dass die Geschichtevon dem Periander, der mit der Leiche seiner Frau Unzucht treibt und dieFrauen von Korinth entkleiden lasst, um ihre Gewander zu verbrennen, nichtauf demselben Boden gewachsen ist, auf dem diese ergreifende Erzahlung(P. and his son, Hdt. 3.50-53) entstand. Jene erfand der Hass, diese dasliebevolle sich Versenken eines Dichters in die Schicksale des Periander. Dennjener Periander ist ein Ungethuim, dieser eine acht tragische Figur. Werunvermitteltso Verschiedenartiges vereinigen konnte, der hat uber die innerlicheZusammengehorigkeit der Ueberlieferung nicht nachgedacht.



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Vol. lxviii] ViewingThingsSeparately 421mastersget theirmilk),23Livingstone 153) observes: "If wecould ask him (Herodotus) whetherhe approved of treatingslaves thus, he would of course have answeredno. But heis so absorbed in the way in which the Scythiansget theirmilk,what theydo with t and what theythinkofit, thatheforgets o be angryor disgustedabout the slaves. Hence astring fdetailsquite irrelevant o the mainhorror,nd whichindicate that Herodotus is full of intellectualcuriositybuttemporarilyndifferento the moralaspects ofthe story. Inthathe is a truedevotee ofOEcopt'a." On theotherhand,thereare many parts of the History n whichattention s focusedupon the ethical,religious, r philosophical spect of things,forthese too are interesting o contemplate;but Herodotusdiffers romPlutarch (and many of us), in that he is notaccustomed to look upon everything rimarilyfromone ofthosestandpoints.The pointofviewinAeschylus, s inHerodotusand Homer,may be differentt differentimes,accordingto theoccasionand thevaryingnatureoftheOEcopta. It is religious nd philo-sophical,in the pre-Socraticmanner,whenthe chorusspecu-lates upon theways ofGod withman; it is poeticallymoral,in themannerofHomer,whenthepoet is exhibiting heloftycharacterof a Prometheusor an Amphiaraus;and it is non-moral, .e. independent f considerations fgood and evil, inthosemany sceneswhere,as often n theAgamemnon,ronyis the chiefsource of effect. Now all these elements,andmanyothersbesides,thatconstitutemoreor less independentsourcesof poetic or dramaticeffect,re co-ordinate n valueand are called forth ne afterthe otheror simultaneously ythenatureofthetraditionalplot,fromwhichthepoetextractsas much entertainment s possible. For that reason theystand in perfectly armonious, houghmostlyparatacticrela-tion one to the otheras we read the plays. And while it istrue that Aeschylus is especially fond of certain religiousideas, and thathedwellsuponthesefrequentlynd withgreat

23 Hdt. 4.2: rovs be bovXovs oL KvOat 7ravras rv4Xo-o rov 7aXaKros eLveKevlro P7rvovo-,roLeuz'-res&E, KTX.



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422 Ben EdwinPerry [1937powerand earnestness n the interpretationf certainmythsthat naturally nvite them,it is nevertheless rue also thatthese ideas hold no such monopoly n his mindas do similarideas in themindsofPlato and his spiritualheirs; f theydid,he could neverhave written uch a play as the Prometheus.Unlikesomeofhis interpreters,eschylusdoes notlook at allthingsthroughglasses colored by one or two favoritecon-ceptions. His artistic nterests re too many-sidedforthat,too isonomic, s Plato mightsay. Pursuantto the primarypurposeof entertaining is audience withthe varied charmsofmusic,poetry, nd spectacle,he can concentratehis atten-tion upon other thingsthan religiousedification nd upondifferentspects of gods and men, especially the dramaticaspects, withoutseekingat every point to bringhis repre-sentationinto conformitywith the religiousor moral ideasthat he has proclaimedon previousoccasionsand in connec-tionwithdifferent yths. That is whyhe can represent hegods now and then n a lightthatoffends lato and confrontsProfessorFarnell with an insolubleparadox.24 Plato (Rep.380a and 383b) willnot allow a righteous oet to introducecharactersaying that "God invents a pretextwheneverhewishes to bringutterruinon a family" (Aesch. fr. 156), orthat Apollo,after irtually romising hetisa life fhappinessin her children,has since treacherously eceived her by be-comingdirectly esponsible orher on'sdeath (Aesch.fr.350).For Aeschylus,as forHomer, the mythand the dramaticsituationdetermine o a great extent the representation fdeity; but for Plato, as for certainmoderninterpretersfAeschylus, hefixeddea ofwhat God is, oroughtto be, over-rides all other considerations. Among those who seek todefine he religion fAeschylusthere s an unfortunateend-ency to look upon his plays not as dramaticentertainmentsbased upQnprimitivemythsand poeticallyelaborated fromdiversepointsofview (as theyreallywere), but as so manyarticles in a cOmDact theologicalcreed. The Zeus of the

24 See L. R. Farnell, "The Paradox of the Prometheus Vinctus," Jour. Hell.Stud. LIII (1933), 40-50; and below.



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Vol. lxviii] ViewingThingsSeparately 423Prometheuss verydifferentrom heZeus of the Suppliantsorthe Oresteia; this fact must remain incomprehensibleo allwho, like Farnell,assume that 'Zeus' is a fixedvalue in themind ofAeschylus, hat if he has once been conceivedas theHigh God, then thisnoble and gratifyingonceptionof Himought to be preserved s a matterof courseon all otherocca-sionswhen He is mentioned, nd that in the Prometheus hisgod is represented s utterly vil and 'vile.' 25 On the otherhand, the representationf Zeus in the Prometheus ill seemperfectlynatural to one who realizes that Aeschylus s pri-marilya dramatist,26hat the traditionalmyth with which

25 The adjective belongs to W. K. Prentice,Class. Weeklyxv 28. Theshocking haracterof Zeus in the Prometheuss greatly xaggeratedby thosewhofancy hat theGreek godswere somehowboundto show a tender nterestinmankind s a whole a Christian ather han a Greek, reven a Hebrew dea;cf.supra note 17), that Zeus in the Prometheus as an intensehatredformen(ratherhe is onlyindifferent),nd that the cruelpunishment f Prometheus,who in theeyes ofZeuswas a rebelno less than a benefactor, as incompatiblewiththeGreekconception ftheHigh God. Let us rememberhat our ownancestors,not so long ago, could hymnthe High God as All Justand AllMerciful nd at the same timerepresenthimas one who consigned o ever-lastingfire-about themostfiendish unishmentman could imagine-all thosewho, ikePrometheus,ransgressed isdecrees, rwho had not beenso favoredas to learnrightly bout them. ThatGod toowas evil, fyoumustbe logical;butneither urancestorsnor theGreekswere ogical n justthatway. To theGreekaudience it was a plausible and not uncomfortablessumption forthedrama'ssake) thateventheHighGod,whohad notbeengreatly elebrated orthequalityofhismercy nyhow, hould nflictruelpunishment pona rebel,even thoughthat rebel was a benefactor-at least whiletheywere thinkingmoreabout Prometheus hanabout the characterofthe absentZeus. Whilegazingupon the spectacle of Prometheus, hey could be as obliviousto theup-to-date roprietyfZeus' conduct the factsof which onductwerealreadyfamiliar o themin the old unquestionedmyth)as theycould be oblivious(likewiseforthe drama's sake) to the unrealitynvolved n the miraculouslyspeedyarrival ofAgamemnon romTroya fewhours fter ending hebeaconsignal. Here, incidentally,Verralwould not have foundany difficultyadhe realizedthe truenatureofAeschylean nd earlyGreekpsychology,whichis to a greatextent, fter ll, onlywhat one may appropriately all dramaticpsychology.

26As ProfessorFitch well observes (Class. Weeklyxxviii 101), Farnellcomesclose to resolving isownriddlewhenheremarks entativelyop. cit.48,see above note 24): "we might ay thathe (Aeschylus)giveshimself pwhollytohisdramaticmagination, hich omesnear toshattering isnormal heologic



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424 Ben EdwinPerry [1937he deals picturedZeus in a remotely rimitive ge and at themomentwhenhe had by violentrevolution stablishedhim-self on a new and as yet insecurethrone, hat a7ras be rpaXvsoaTTs aP vEO KpaT? (35), and thatthecharacterf Zeus,exceptas adversary, s a far less importantconsiderationfor thepurposesof thisdrama than what Prometheus, s the grandprotagonist,wills and suffers. If Prometheussuffers, heone who causes it must be cruel. In this play (577 ff,759,894 ff) Zeus appears as one who has wrongedJo,as he haswrongedPrometheus;but in the Suppliants (524-535) he ishailed as "king of kings,most blessed of the blest, mostperfect f rulers . lover f o." (Save us, pray thechorus,fromthe rape of the sons of Egyptus ) Here is anotherparadox for Farnell: to be consistenthe would have had toallow that the High God is appropriatelyaddressed onlydown to E`awrrop 'Ious (535), at whichpointsomethingn-fortunate nd unaccountablebesmircheshismoralcharacter.For how can one speak of the High God as theviolatorof apoor innocentyoung girl? But the truth s of course-andeven Farnell would have seen it here, thoughhe failed torecognizethe exactly parallel phenomenonof Zeus in thePrometheus-thatJo ntheSuppliants s mentionedna totallydifferentight,not as the victim ofZeus, but as his beloved,and as theancestress f theDanaid chorus.The ease withwhichAeschyluscan ignore favorite heo-logical idea when he happens to be occupied with anothercontraryone, springsfrom the same immediacyof interestthat makes it possibleforhim and his audience to overlookalso, fordramaticconvenience, he most obviousprobabilitiesof time and circumstance. We are told by Dio Chrysostom(Or. 52.5-7) that in the lost Philoctetes f Aeschylus theaudience was expected to assume, contraryto the naturalprobabilities f the case, that Philoctetescould not recognizethe well-knownOdysseus, and that his evil plightwas dis-creed." What a calamity for the searcher after 'higher' monotheistic religionamong the polytheistic Greeks But Fitch adds: "Precisely so. Aeschylusis primarily a dramatist."



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Vol. lxviii] ViewingThingsSeparately 425covered by the sympathetic horusof Lemnians only at thebeginningof the play, ten years after his abandonmentonthe sland. But Sophoclesand Euripideswere moreconsciousof these difficulties; or the formermade Lemnos an un-inhabited island, assigned Greek sailors to his chorus,andmade Neoptolemos the active agent in the intrigue,whileEuripides caused Odysseus to be miraculouslydisguisedbyAthena, and made his chorusof Lemnians apologize to Phi-loctetesfor theirlong neglect. Thus Aeschylus,while con-centratingon a dramatic scene, can be oblivious to manythings,both logical and theological, hat in the modernmindloom up as moreconspicuous nd moreconsequential.In the matterof drawing nferences nd of associatingornot associatingone idea or image withanother,thereare, asit seems to me, threedistinctways of lookingat things, hefirst wo ofwhich, nthe orderbelowmentioned, re especiallycharacteristicof the Greek mind in the fifth enturyandearlier:1. Two ormore hings or deas) thatmight e logicallyor otherwise onnectedwith each otherare each viewed sepa-rately, nd thebeholderor narrator s aware of onlyone at atime-parataxis in various forms. 2. Two things re viewedin uxtapositionor contrast, ach ofwhich n some way deniesthe other, while the onlooker,thoughintellectuallypleasedor even deeplymoved by the spectacle,nevertheless emainsaloofand impartial n his attitude,beingaffected or.the imebeing armore y theobjective ealityfthingsOEwpia) thanby any sympathy,howevernatural,forone ofthe two thingsin conflict-irony, heantithetic tyle, heintellectual etach-ment of Thucydides. 3. The spectator, turned partisan,judgesone oftwothingsnterms f theother, rwithreferenceto a preconceivedsystem or sentiment, r by pure logic-philosophynstead ofnature as theguide to truth.Concerningthe firstof these three attitudes enough hasalready been said, exceptperhaps to remindthe reader that,althoughthemanifestations fit are by no meansconfined oany one stage ofculturalprogress, r to anyparticular ace of



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426 Ben Edwin Perry [1937men, t is neverthelessmostfrequentlymet with n the earliestperiod f Greek iterature,speciallyn theXELs LpO/Ev'7,andbecomes gradually less common from that time onwards.The thirdway of looking t thingshas been mentioned bovenow and then by way of contrast to the other two. As aconstant habit of mind it is essentially modern and post-Socratic, although of course there are many instances of it,withina smaller range of ideas, even in Homer. The inter-preterof early Greek literaturemust guard against assumingthat his author s looking t things n this modernfashion 3)on a greatmanyoccasionswhen, s a matter ffact, he atter'soutlook is essentially that indicated above by (1) or (2).When an early author is fitting hings together n his mindhe usually makes the fact plain, but to take this forgranted,as one does in dealing with a modern writer's thought, shazardous.The second of the three attitudes mentioned bove is onewhich I will not attemptto discuss at length. It resemblesthe firstn pointof detachment, r emotionalrestraint, ndin having nothing n common with the third. The kind ofironythat predominates n the writings f Aeschylus,Soph-ocles,andThucydides s serenelynd proudly ealistic,makingno concessionto idealismor to wishful hinking f any kind,butrather loryingnthe consciousness fbeing trong noughto refrain rom uchanodynes. The brave and virtuousherodoes not triumph. The noble effortsf Oedipus, Antigone,and Nicias are rewardedwith death or utter ruin. And weare cruelenoughbynatureto enjoythecontemplationfthis;not because we are greatlyedifiedby any principleof socialor cosmic ustice thereby llustrated, ut because, apart fromour interestn the ironiesof the play,we have a triumphantfeelingof satisfaction n beingable to look straight t suchunpleasantrealities withoutflinchingnd withouttrying o'mold themnearer to the heart's desire.' 7 When the spec-

27 "What is it that the soul of the tragic artist communicates to others? Isit not precisely his fearless attitude towards that which is terribleand question-able? This attitude is in itself a highly desirable one; he who has once expe-



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Vol. lxviii] ViewingThings Separately 427tator's nerve fails and he no longerfeelshimself o be masterof life s it is,his reactionto those unpleasanttruthsbecomesso subjective and personal that he begins to deprecate themor denythem or fitthem ntoa morecomfortable,deal, andconventional scheme of things. There can be no tragedywhenyou tellyourselfwith Plato that noharmcan come to agood man; and there an be noreal appreciation fThucydidesand his typeofmind, f,owing to your cordial disapproval ofimperial ruthlessness,you fail to see that in the Meliandialogue,for nstance, hefolly f the Melians rather hanthecruelty ftheAthenians s thechief ubject of contemplation.Thucydides has the strange facultyof seeing and tellingtheplain truthof a matterwithouttrying n any way to bring tinto line with the cherishedbeliefsof men. For that reasonhe has often scaped comprehension.rienced t honours t above everythinglse. . . . A courageous nd free pirit,in the presenceof a mighty oe, n the presenceofa sublimemisfortune,ndface to facewith problem hat nspires orror-this s thetriumphantttitudewhich hetragic rtist elects nd whichheglorifies . .the heroicmanextolshisexistencebymeans oftragedy; o him alone does thetragic rtistoffer hiscup of sweetestcruelty."Fr. Nietzsche, The Twilight f the Idols (tr. A.Ludovici; Edinburgh, . N. Foulis, 1915) 80f.

perry, e. the early greek capacity for viewing things separately

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