[Greek: "Andra moi ennepe, mousa, polytropon, hos mala polla
planchthê, epei Troiês hieron ptoliethron epersen,
pollôn d'anthrôpôn iden astea kai noon egnô;
polla d' o g' pontô pathen algea on kata thymon,
arnymenos ên te psychên kai noston etairôn.
all oud ôs etarous errysato hiemenos per;
autôn gar spheterêsin atasthaliêsin olonto,
nêpioi, oi kata bous Yperionos 'Êelioio
êsthion; autar ho toisin apheileto nostimon êmar.
tôn hamothen ge, thea thygater Dios, eios, eipe kai hêmin.]
The talent of Homer shows itself completely in the Odyssey; it dominates the genius there, so to speak, as much as the genius had dominated it in the Iliad. The fire which animates the Iliad has been, with reason, compared to that of the sun arrived at the height of its course, and the splendour which shines in the Odyssey to that with which the occident is coloured on the evening of a fine day. Perhaps if we had his Thebaid, we would see those brilliant lights which accompany the aurora, developed there, and then we would possess in all its shades this immortal genius who depicted all nature.
There are people who, feeling by a sort of intuition that Homer had been created the poetic incentive of Europe, even as I have said, and judging on the other hand that Ariosto had made an epic poem, are convinced that the Italian poet had copied the Greek; but this is not so. Ariosto, who has made only a romanesque poem, has not received the inspiration of Homer; he has simply followed the fictions attributed to Archbishop Turpin and clothing them with forms borrowed from the Arabs by the troubadours makes himself creator in this secondary style. The rhyme is as essential to it as it is harmful to veritable epopœia; this is why the eumolpique verses never conform to it in the slightest degree. To apply them to it, is to make serious what is by nature gay, it is to give a character of force and of truth to what is only light, airy, and fantastic. I am
