Читать книгу Stories from the Iliad - H. L. Havell - Страница 7

One word must be added on the frequent comparisons, or similes, which form one of the most characteristic features of the poem. At least half the Iliad is occupied with descriptions of battle, and Homeric warfare is exceedingly simple and uniform, consisting almost entirely of single combats between individual chieftains, or wholesale slaughter wrought by some puissant arm on the promiscuous herd of soldiers. To render so unpromising a theme interesting and attractive must have taxed the skill and invention of the poet to their utmost limit; and his principal resources for attaining this end is in the lavish use of the simile. In those parts of the poem where much is to be told in little space this ornament occurs rarely, or not at all. In the first book, which is crowded with incidents, not a single simile is used. But where the action is to be delayed or elaborated, and especially in the battle pieces, the similes are flung broadcast, shining like stars among the racing clouds of a stormy sky. Every corner of nature, and every province of human life, are ransacked to furnish illustrations of the eternal drama of "battle, and murder, and sudden death." In a moment we are rapt by the magic of the poet from the steam and squalor of slaughter to some busy scene of human industry, or some living picture, grand, lovely, or terrible, drawn from the great panorama of nature. Nothing is too great, nothing too little, to furnish material for this splendid treasury of poetry. It would be easy to discourse for pages on this fascinating subject; but we must content ourselves with the above brief hint, and will conclude our remarks by declaring our full agreement with those who regard the similes in the Iliad as the chief glory and beauty in the first and greatest of epic poems.