Introduction by Cooke - Page 2

that much of the great stories told by Homer existed before his time, but not in the beautiful form in which we have it from him. Just as a painter takes the colours scattered on his palette, and works them into a picture on his canvas, or a woman the many-coloured threads of silk from her basket, and produces a beautiful piece of needlework, so Homer took the mixed tales of gods, heroes, travel, battle, and war, and by the exercise of his great powers of language, fancy, and imagination, weaved them into the greatest poem ever written. His work is all the more wonderful since he had no model to follow; and although he had afterwards many imitators none have ever surpassed, or perhaps even equalled him. His knowledge of human nature was so great, that the best men in all ages have been glad to learn wisdom from him. In Greece boys learned his poems at school; many men could boast of knowing his poems by heart, and wherever a Greek went, he carried a love and reverence of the great poet with him. The ancients long after he was dead had such reverence for him, that they held festivals in his honour, raised temples and altars to him, offered sacrifices, and worshipped him as a god. The great charm in Homer lies in the artless and simple way in which he relates his story, and describes the varying incidents in the lives of his heroes. But his poems are chiefly valuable to us for the important lessons we learn of the manners, customs, and mode of life of the ancient Greeks, and the social conditions under which they lived. When he described all these, and sang of battles, sieges, deeds of arms, and of sacrifices to the gods, the people understood him because it related to their every-day life, and not to a time long gone by.

Homer's two great poems are the Iliad, so called because it treats of the great siege of Ilios or Troy; and the Odyssey, because it tells of the wanderings, or adventures of Odysseus or Ulysses, the name by which he is best known. These two poems are divided into twenty-four books, being the same number as the letters of the Greek alphabet. The world as known to the ancient Greeks formed but a very small portion of the world as known to us. They knew the rocky shores, promontories, and islands of their own country, the coast of Asia Minor, the shores of Egypt, and the south of Italy, round which Homer leads Ulysses in his wanderings. They peopled strange lands with giants, monsters, and cannibals, and located the gods whom they worshipped in distant mountains, islands, woods, and caves. Their notion of the world was that it was flat; and that far beyond all known countries it was bounded by a great sea river called Oceanus, across which the souls of the dead passed and for ever dwelt in gloomy and misty regions, shrouded from the sweet light of heaven. The living could not cross this ocean and return; but by the interference of a goddess Ulysses was given this privilege, as Homer describes.

The gods of the