The Jacob s Ladder in Homer

8/12/2019 The Jacob s Ladder in Homer

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The Jacob's Ladder in HomerAuthor(s): Rufus Town StephensonSource: The Classical Journal, Vol. 30, No. 9 (Jun., 1935), pp. 515-530Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and SouthStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3290294Accessed: 26/05/2010 04:07

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THE JACOB'S LADDER IN HOMER

By Rurus TOWN STEPHENSONDePauw UniversityGreencastle, ndiana

In Genesis we read the beautiful story of Jacob's dream, andwith Jacob we see the angels descending and ascending the roundsof that wonderful ladder which reached from heaven to earth;above it we glimpse God himself assuring Jacob of his watchful care.There are few who realize that we have that same Jacob's ladderin Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Certainly one of the things to bemost appreciated n Homer is his two-world point of view. To himearth was unthinkable without heaven, and heaven was unthink-

able without earth. Their interrelation made the world he knew.It is most interesting to note that the Iliad opens with earthreaching up to heaven for co6peration-Achilles through Thetisto Zeus; it closes with heaven reaching down to earth for coopera-tion-Zeus through Thetis to Achilles.

This would indeed be a utopian picture, but the facts force usto remember that the Greek gods were anthropomorphic. Allthe Greek knew of God was what he saw of God in man. In otherwords, his god was man idealized into something more than man,just man writ large; and his heaven was earth idealized into some-thing more than earth, just earth writ large. Naturally this con-ception was fraught with both weal and woe for the Greek godsand the Greek heaven and for men and earth as well. As theGreek gods had evil within them as well as good and as the Ho-meric Greeks, just like their contemporary Hebrews, held deityresponsible for the evil in the world as well as the good, the heav-enly influence was naturally sometimes a baneful one. Be itsaid to Homer's credit, however, that his gods usually co6perated,

515


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516 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

not for man's bane, but for his blessing, as an unbiased reading of

his poems will certainly prove.Although Homer wrote primarily to give pleasure by the artistic

portrayal of interesting transcripts from human life, one cannotread his two poems through without finding in them his belief ina providential order-call it a diabolical providential order onoccasion, if you will. The gods and fate, as a dark shadowy back-ground, rule the world; that belief permeates the Iliad and Odys-sey. The wrath of Achilles but fulfils the will of Zeus, so Homertells us in the opening lines of the Iliad. In the opening lines of the

Odyssey Zeus in the presence of a grand conclave in heaven chartsthe course of the Odyssey rom beginning to end. Issuing from thisconclave we have a most important twofold pronouncement fromthe father of the gods: First, man's sorrow comes to him throughhis own sin-this is our doctrine of the free will of man; second, thegods care for man and warn him, though frequently in spite of thishe goes heedlessly to his doom-this is our doctrine of Providence.

It was the glory of Achilles that in the exercise of free will hecould choose between two courses and that he chose the noble life.

And this leads to a consideration of one more thing-and that veryimportant-before we can have a perfect appreciation of our Ja-cob's ladder in Homer. The poet also believed something else,which naturally grew out of his anthropomorphic conception ofdeity, namely, that man has God within him-a god-force pullingtoward the evil sometimes but far more often toward the good.We often read in Homer of the man "breathed on by the gods"

(7ervvP4vos)and of the "godlike" man (Kbos). n other words,

Homer held that man has free will but that he also has the divine

within him that enables him willingly to will the will of God.In Homer the presence of the gods among men usually does not

detract from natural action, from human initiative, from humanfree will, for the reason that these Homeric gods often seem but aninnate quality of the man personified, the divine in man exter-nalized and made concrete by visible manifestation. Therefore,the man is acting in character; he is not deprived of that liberty ofaction which belongs to real life everywhere. Although the godsare continually helping men, we feel that human personality is not


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THE JACOB'S LADDER IN HOMER 517

dwarfed by the great poet; rather in Homer human personality is

emphasized and glorified by these heavenly interventions.This Jacob's ladder, up and down which the gods are continuallymaking their way, and these concrete pictures of co6peration be-tween God and man, so concrete and real that they preclude adoubt, are one of the great spiritual heritages of our race. Thisvery closeness of heaven and earth, this very nearness of God toman that Homer depicts, will be a crying and beckoning call tothe generations of men until some one generation shall make itreality in human experience. Such is the spiritual tug of Homer,

like the tug of the moon on the tides.Let us now take up interesting and characteristic examples ofthis Jacob's ladder in the Iliad and Odyssey. Let us look at thefirst appearance of divinity in the Iliad. Achilles was drawing hissword and was just on the point of slaying Agamemnon, whenAthena came down from heaven, as sudden and dramatic anapparition as the angel to Abraham. She seized him by his fairhair-her two eyes flashing terribly-her message, "Thou shaltnot kill." With almost superhuman self-control he obeyed her; he

put his sword back into its sheath and then turned around-butAthena had returned to Olympus. What is the meaning of thisJacob's ladder in action here? Achilles was being carried away bypassion when the goddess of wisdom appeared. Surely in a veryreal sense Athena was his own sober second thought personified.Why did he recognize her at once? This was by no means her firstappearance to him; she had often before nipped his anger in thebud. Why did her two eyes flash terribly at him? Because she knewhe was a very Titan among men, with volcanic passions straining

at the leash. To Homer, and even to us, what more striking waycould there be for driving home the fact that calm judgment con-trolled his passion and reason held him firm than by picturingAthena coming to him in person with discipline from the gods?How vividly dramatic the poet, who could make concrete for usthe abstract forces that play in human hearts

In a very real sense, as we have said, Athena stands for his ownsober second thought; so she does not make of Achilles here apuppet, a mere pawn on a chessboard. In fact we almost feel that


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Achilles would have done as he did without divine help or, at

least, that all he needed for the doing of his duty was just thistouch of heavenly inspiration.But if this be, in part surely, his own act, why introduce the

goddess at all? Because Homer believed in the providence of God.Athena, then, is to be thought of as inside Achilles; but she is alsoto be thought of as outside the man-divine-and it is not hard toenter into sympathy with Homer's point of view. Where, pray, dogood thoughts-conscience-come from, if not ultimately fromGod? To us, brought up on modern psychology, Athena appears

subjective, little more than an abstract thought personified; butto Homer, who had a vivid, mythologic mind, she was objective,a goddess. In terms of her godhead he thought and lived his life,and so did his Homeric world.

Thus endeth one of the most dramatic passages in literature, avivid and clear-cut picture of a human soul, victorious in a battlewith temptation. As one of my students put it, "Here we have allof the naturalness of man and all of the power of God"-a perfectexample of the Jacob's ladder.

At every crisis in Achilles' life the goddess Thetis arose from thesea like a lovely mist and tried to help her son as only a mothercan. In Book I she took his problem to Zeus in prayer; in BookxvIII she went to Olympus to ask Hephaestus to make for him asuit of divine armor. Picture her descending from heaven with thatgolden armor, and again you have our Jacob's ladder in radiantaction. Let us now consider the last appearance of Thetis toAchilles in Book xxIv. Her mission from heaven made possiblethe spiritual climax of the whole poem. The physical climax is to

be found, of course, in Book xxII where Achilles conquers Hector;but in Book xxiv he does a far harder thing-he conquers himself.For revenge Achilles has been dragging Hector's dead body thricedaily around the tomb of Patroclus. The gods look down withpity; some of them in the heavenly conclave propose that Hermesbe sent to steal away the corpse, but Zeus pronounces judgment:"No, we will send Thetis to persuade him to give Hector back."Notice how Zeus safeguards the free will of man, evidently be-lieving that Achilles in his own heart will decide to do the magnan-


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imous thing. At once we see two goddesses descending to earth

to carry out the will of Zeus: Thetis to Achilles and Iris to braveold Priam to influence him (already half minded to do so) to carryout a most daring plan, namely, to go to Achilles, bitter enemythough he was, and beg back the body of his son. Achilles alsohad evidently been fighting out this battle in his own soul; heknew that an early death was awaiting him, too, and he himselfwas beginning to be moved with compassion as he looked on thedead Hector. When his goddess mother came, in whose presencehe was always inspired to be his best, he instantly responded to

the will of Zeus: "So be it, if the Olympian himself so biddeth."No outer authority here; thus even in old Homer's view the divinewithin answered to the call of the divine without.

To Achilles' hut Priam went, conducted by Hermes. The scenethat follows between Priam and Achilles is as affecting as any inthe literature of our race. Slowly, with terrific struggle, but surelyAchilles conquers himself. The fine dramatic quality of the passageand its fine psychology, revealing step by step the changes throughwhich our hero passes until he comes out a man transformed, eave

an indelible impression upon one. We have reached the culmina-tion of our poem; what greater thing can any man do than masterhimself-and love his enemy?

"The poet's design becomes plain; he will have us regard Achil-les not merely as a physical hero but also as a spiritual one; theman is endowed with colossal passions, yet with the more colossalpower of transcending them; human he is to the last degree, yetalso divine, goddess-born."' He was not deaf to the still smallvoice of God. As we know, Achilles was not destined to a long life;

he had chosen between a long life of mediocrity and a short life ofservice to his fellowmen. And yet despite this shadow of earlydeath hovering like a cloud over the brilliant morning of his life,he climbed "the ladder of the soul" to the topmost height of him-self, and then-the poet has the good sense to bring his poem toits close, leaving Achilles in the full vigor of his young knighthood,resplendent ike the sun.

1Denton J. Snider, Homer's liad: St. Louis, William Harvey Miner Co. (1922), 480.To this book the writer is deeply indebted and also to the same author's Homer's

Odyssey, ublishedhe same

year bythe same

company.


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There are two very significant divine interventions in Book

Iir of the Iliad. As he richly deserved, Alexander was badly beatenin his duel with Menelaus. But Aphrodite saved him from death,shrouding him in thick mist, and set him down in his own chamberin Troy. Then she went to summon Helen from the wall where shehad been watching the duel with excited interest-for was notshe herself the stake? What is the meaning of this intervention ofthe goddess? We must consider t a sort of allegory, a broad generalimage of that which actually occurred. Homer says Aphroditecame to Paris; may we not say Aphrodite was his own passion

personified, ust as Athena, in part, was Achilles' own sober secondthought personified? Let us conceive of Alexander sneaking fromthe ring in some disguise, under a cloud of dust, or hidden by thedense crowd. It is Aphrodite, Passion, who leads him; she is thedominating force in his life. "His sensuous is far stronger than hiswarlike nature. She spirits him out of the combat; when there isdanger to his dear body, the grand instrument of pleasure, shemakes him a coward."2' his is just Homer's naive, concrete wayof telling the story, externalizing everything. Alexander, as we

have seen, was acting from within; he certainly was acting incharacter; but to Homer Aphrodite was outside him, too, a god-dess, the embodiment of a great, surging world-force.

As Mr. Snider writes, we have an artistic interplay in this bookbetween the outer conflict, the duel, and the inner conflict, thebattle going on in Helen's own heart (love for Menelaus versuslove for Alexander); so the outer conflict is but a reflection of theinner, which indeed gives meaning to the outer and makes it ofabsorbing nterest. Both Greeks and Trojans have made a solemn

compact that Helen is to belong to the winner of the duel. Byevery right, therefore, she now belongs to Menelaus; and that bothAlexander and Helen know right well. At this point Homer shiftsfrom the outer duel to the inner duel in Helen's heart, which shefights with Aphrodite, who has just ignominiously delivered Alex-ander and now comes to the tower to tempt her as well as him. Sheassumes the shape of an aged woman, a wool comber, an old-time

2 Snider, Homer's Iliad, 194.


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Spartan friend of Helen, who perhaps once before had encouraged

her to yield to passionate desire and elope with Alexander. Thisis Homer's way of stating what indeed we all know from bitterexperience, that temptation usually assails us in subtlest guise.She plucks the robe of Helen, saying, "Alexander wants you tocome home." She adds for Helen's temptation: "He is very hand-some and handsomely attired; he doesn't look like a man returnedfrom war but like a man going to a dance." Helen recognizes themessenger, though in disguise; she recognizes Passion, for she hasoften encountered her before. She sees the beauty of the goddess,

which not even the ugliness of the old woman can hide, " the beau-tiful neck, desireful bosom, and lustrous eyes," and she is visiblyaffected; for Homer tells us "her heart was stirred in her breast."Still she puts up a show of resistance and assails Aphrodite:"Leave heaven thyself and become his wife or his slave I shallnot return to that man's couch; it would be a shameful thing, andall the Trojan women would blame me." Then that wail, "Oh, Ihave sorrows already past counting "-the last touch of the oldcontrition before she yields. With impatience the goddess wrath-

fully replies- "I'll hate you and desert you " That is, Aphroditemeans, "You 11 ose your beauty. You won't have your beautyalways; so enjoy it while you may." Aphrodite continues: "You'lldie soon, too-I'll see that you die. I'll make both Greeks and Tro-jans hate you so that, when peace is declared, they'll kill you."That is, she means, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow wedie"--"enjoy life while youth and life last." Subdued, Helen veilsherself, ashamed of her action, and follows the goddess, Passion,into the presence of Alexander. It is the old story of a fight in the

hour of temptation, even if one yields in the end. Alexander inself-defense tells Helen that Menelaus has won in the duel becauseof Athena's aid but that he, too, has a god on his side. And mostassuredly he has That Aphrodite has just played a most base andcontemptible r6le no one will deny. Lust always plays such a r61le.Here as a force for evil she appeals to the evil in both Alexanderand Helen, and they answer to her call. This is a part of theHomeric dualism; occasionally human beings are inspired to evil.

In the beginning of Book ii we find another evil influence step-


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ping down, or rather flying down, the Jacob's ladder connecting

heaven and earth. Here, too, as in Aphrodite's appearances toboth Alexander and Helen, this evil influence seems to be but aquality or faculty of mind personified and externalized. Homertells us that Zeus, in carrying out his plan of honoring Achilles,sent a lying dream to Agamemnon. This dream stood above hishead in the likeness of Nestor, who was held in unusual honor byAgamemnon-there again we have temptation in subtlest guise.The dream whispered n his ear: "Arm your Greeks with all speed;you can now capture broad-wayed Troy." Agamemnon believed

this (Homer adds, "Fool that he was "), for this dream was reallyhis own egotistic plan personified, his own egotism externalized.The dream was within him, the thought that he could get alongvery well without Achilles' help, but it was also outside him, a partof the divine plan. We exclaim, "What Zeus deceive his worship-ers God lie to man " But there is no shock here for the mind withperspective. The fact is that Homer and our Old Testament alikefind in God the source of human error. An exact parallel is foundin the passage of the Old Testament where Jehovah sent a lying

spirit to entice Ahab to his doom.In the Odyssey we find this same Jacob's ladder cementing

earth and heaven together. One of the most interesting interven-tions is the descent of Athena to the princess Nausicaa in the firstpart of the Phaeacian episode. The goddess hovers over her in adream in the form of one of her girl companions and sends her tothe seashore to make her wedding clothes clean and glistening andto superintend the family washing-ostensibly-but really to haveOdysseus meet her and find welcome in the palace. "Yet Athena's

scheme does not conflict with the free will of the maiden, whichfinds its fullest scope just in this household duty."3 As Homerpictures her, Nausicaa stands for girlhood in the bloom of youth,and thoughts of marriage are ever in her mind. The young princesof the island are all wooing her, so fair is she. It is only naturalfor her to be thinking about accepting one of them, about anearly marriage, and, therefore, about the washing of her wedding

3Snider, Homer's Odyssey, 61.


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clothes. So she goes out that eventful Monday (?) morning to

wash; but who can say she is not acting in character, since she isbut doing what a girl in her situation would naturally do? Athenais in the girl as well as outside her; in Homer we often have theinner man and the outer God co6perating in just such delightfulways.

It is worth noting that Homer found Providence in the tossingof a ball. When Nausicaa and her maidens were playing ball, whilewaiting for the clothes to dry, the poet reminds us: "The goddess,flashing-eyed Athena, took other counsel, that Odysseus might

awake and see the fair-faced girl, who should lead him to thePhaeacian city. So then the princess tossed the ball to one of hermaids; the maid she missed but cast it into a deep eddy, andthereat they screamed aloud, and noble Odysseus awoke."4 Thatmisthrown ball of the princess Nausicaa was one of the links inthe chain of the providential home-going of Odysseus. He was tomeet Nausicaa, that through her he might have a favorablereception in her father's court and, therefore, an escort home.

In the first part of Book I of the Odyssey we have the assembly

of the gods in heaven; in the second we have the carrying out oftheir will on earth. Athena (taking the form of Mentes, an islanderfriend of Odysseus) descended to Ithaca to inspire Telemachusto play a man's part in the world. At the time of her comingTelemachus was sitting among the wooers in the reception hall ofhis father's palace, seeing in his mind's eye his noble father, re-turned, scattering the suitors and held in honor once more as kingover his own people. Truly this young prince had a receptive heart,for it was something like the content of this daydream of his that

Athena had come to tell him. Still Athena here had a very impor-tant work. Telemachus was only daydreaming; as a matter offact, he had almost ceased to look for his father's return; and withthe suitors there outrageously consuming his inheritance the poorboy had almost ceased to believe in a divine providence. Surely heneeded God's help She assured him that his father would not belong absent from Ithaca. She fed him on constructive thoughts,

4Od. vI, 112-117.


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realizing their value as surely as any modern psychotherapist.

She told him that he looked like Odysseus and asked him if hewere not Odysseus' son; when assured that he was, she said: "Actlike him then; be the man your great father was and is; lay downthe law to the suitors and go with ship in search of your father."Thus she prompted him to action and inspired him to do what, asa growing young man, he had already begun to feel he ought to do."She is a veritable goddess to the young striver, speaking theword of hope and wisdom. Still the goddess is in him just as well,is his thought, his wisdom."' Here again, as so often in Homer,

we have inner man and outer God reaching toward each other andfinding themselves akin, united in a common bond of thought andaction.

With this new inspiration in his heart, he called an assembly ofthe people and demanded that the suitors leave his home and givehim a ship so that he might set sail in search of his father. Butbecause of the influence of those brigand-wooers the Ithacanassembly broke up without granting either request. In fact, thelast thing the wooers desired was the return of Odysseus. One

thing was clear: Telemachus could expect no aid from the townmeeting. Where should he get his help? From God. Out to theseashore he went and prayed; and Athena drew near in the likenessof Mentor, guardian friend of the family. She inspired him again;she told him that she would equip for him a swift ship and thatshe herself would go with him. There is heavenly co6iperationfor you Not "God so loved the world," but still an instanceof God's care for man that bids one pause and think. As she hadpromised, Athena, in the likeness of Telemachus, went through

the city to secure for him his ship and crew. This done (again inthe guise of Mentor) she spoke these cheering words:"Telemachus,already thy comrades sit at the oar. Come, let us go."' Homeradds: "Saying this, Pallas Athena led the way in haste, and hefollowed in the footsteps of the goddess." That reminds us of theChristian hymn, "Where He Leads Me, I Will Follow." Now

6 Snider, Homer's Odyssey, 6.6 Od. , 402-406.


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why did Athena take the form of Telemachus when she was ar-

ranging for this trip? Are we rationalizing too much if we put it inthe following way? Was it not because Homer realized that, if aman wants something done, after all God usually cannot, or willnot, do it for him, but the man must do it for himself-Godworking through the man? I know Homer said the goddess did it,and with his mythologic spirit he more than half believed it.Indeed, Telemachus was god-filled when he did it. Homer was aborn fabulist, mythologist. Those appearances of Athena wereHomer's natural, objective way of telling us that God's spirit of

wisdom is at work in the world.In Book iii Athena (still in Mentor's shape) and Telemachusreach Pylus, Nestor's home. But unfortunately the old king knowsnothing about Odysseus, since he and Odysseus had separated onthe homeward road; so he advises Telemachus to go to Sparta toquestion Menelaus about his father. Athena agrees with Nestor inadvising this visit. She now quits Telemachus as a personal com-panion in the flesh (Mentor); now he must shift for himself andmake the rest of the journey for the most part on his own re-

sources. Homer's view of life is that too much reliance must notbe placed on external deity; it is the man inspired of God who is toaccomplish the tasks of the world. Man must exert himself tre-mendously, or else the gods cannot help him. We like the Homericheavenly interventions, for they ring true to human experience.

Just before the climax of our poem Odysseus, ostensibly a poorbeggar, had gone to bed in the forehall of his own palace, ponderingevil for the suitors and watching with almost uncontrollable exas-peration his own serving girls slipping out to their embraces. He

tossed upon his bed wondering how he could endure it and yethow he could do anything, one man against so many. Then it wasthat Athena came down from heaven in the likeness of a womanand stood above his head and said:"Why now again art thou wake-ful, unfortunate beyond all men? Lo, this is thy house, and therewithin are thy wife and thy child, such a man, methinks, as anyone might pray to have for his son."7 And Odysseus answered her:

7Od. xx, 33 ff.


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"Yea, goddess, but how can I, all alone as I am, handle the suitors

who are always in a body?" Then the goddess replied: "Obstinateone, many men trust weaker friends, friends who are mortal andnot wise as I am wise; but I am a god, and I guard thee to the endin all thy toils. . . . Go to sleep." So she spoke and shed sleep uponhis eyelids, but herself, the fair goddess, went back to Olympus.Another most inspiring example of our Jacob's ladder. AnotherBible verse comes to mind, "Lo, I am with you alway, even untothe end of the world."

Such continual recurrence of the intervention of the gods in

human affairs-what does it all mean? Denton Snider writes:"Let us observe, then, first, that the poet's principle s not to allowa divine intervention to degenerate nto a merely external mechan-ical act; Homer puts the divine influence inside the individual aswell as outside, and thus preserves the latter's freedom in theprovidential order."' God is in man That is the great hypothesisof Europe's first poet; that made possible in both Iliad and Odysseythe Jacob's ladder, which rainbow-like oined earth to heaven andheaven to earth.

This principle reconciles us to the seemingly unfair part playedby Athena in the duel between Achilles and Hector. The goddessbrings back to Achilles the spear that had missed Hector, but shefails to restore to Hector the spear that had vainly struck Achilles'shield-on the face of it most perfidious favoritism on the part ofthe goddess. But "Homer is the direst confusion, unless we seethe ever recurring correspondence between the inner man andthe outer divine influence."' Hector was the author of his owndestruction.

In his soliloquy spoken just before he faced Achilles we have ina nutshell the tragedy of the last ten years and especially thetragedy of the last twenty-four hours of Hector's life. For tenyears he had been fighting for a cause in which he did not believe;and yet he had been compelled to fight for it, for it was the causeof his father and mother, his wife and baby boy.

8 Homer's Odyssey, 159.9 Snider, Homer's Iliad, 419.


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Yet well in my undoubting mind I know

The day shall come in which our sacred Troy,And Priam, and the people over whomSpear-bearing riam rules, shall perish all.10

These words voice the forebodings of his inner heart. Hectorrealized that he was fighting for a lost and perfidious cause. Thisrealization plus the tragedy of the last twenty-four hours of hislife, to which I shall now refer, caused even in that gallant warriora character disintegration that inwardly corresponded o the out-ward confusion brought upon him by Athena. We must remember

that Polydamas had advised him, and that his aged father andmother had pleaded with him, to come inside the walls and notto face Achilles outside alone, but Hector had refused. Intoxicatedwith success and the desire for personal glory-for just this oncein his noble life-Hector had refused to put country before self,and he now felt resting upon him the crushing weight of the deathof countless comrades slain on the very morning of this fatal dayby impetuous Achilles. Could he go back within the walls andacknowledge his mistake amid the jeers of hate and the I-told-

you-so's of Polydamas and his party? At this crisis-strangelyunlike himself-Hector seemed unable to do his duty; and so hestayed out there to meet his foe.

Under such circumstances could he fight his best? He fled,pursued by Achilles around the walls of Troy. And then when hedid deceive himself (Homer says Athena deceived him in thesemblance of his brother Deiphobus) into thinking that he couldturn around and confront Achilles, could he make good use ofhis arms? True, he hurled one spear, but without force enough to

perforate Achilles' shield. Then, Homer says, "He stood confused."He turned around, expecting to receive from Deiphobus (namelyAthena, who had already restored to Achilles the spear he hadhurled) a second spear; but lo he had vanished-and Hector hadno spear to use. Hector had thrown his spear away in the innerman; Homer says the outer goddess brought it not back to him."It was Athena who played me false," he cried. Yes, it was his

10 Iliad vi, 447-449 (Bryant's ranslation).


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own poor judgment that had tricked him. In desperation he rushed

on Achilles with his sword-only to be struck down before Achilles'feet Say that this contest was disappointingly unfair, as from ourpoint of view it was; say that Athena's help given Achilles herewas external and that it lessened his glory; say that Athena's helppromised to Hector (though withheld) would have been externaland unfair; but it seems to me that the help Hector needed on thisoccasion was primarily internal, and no internal help was forth-coming. The weakness of a lost cause was manifest in Hector'stryst with Fate in that last hour. In a very sad way, he personified

the cause of a dying Troy. Internal weakness-guilt-how couldthey wield effective weapons or win the day? Hector's confusionof spirit was but attributed to Athena, whose function it was togive wisdom and take it away-it was really his own. Think backover the phenomena of the duel. Were they external, caused bythe outer goddess? Rather, was not all that was significant nternaland but the imagery of Hector's own tragic thoughts, externalizedas phenomena caused by the goddess? Achilles won fairly enough,for Hector was in a daze; so dazed that, to strip the passage of all

its imagery, he had somehow forgotten to provide himself withthat second spear. It was a case of disintegrated personality. Andyet the world's verdict is that Hector was the noblest knight thatfought in the war at Troy on either side-and so he was-and,therefore, the most pathetically tragic character, for the guilt ofhis country struck home upon him as upon no other. We shallalways admire Hector as a man, despite the fact that, in thiscrisis of the war, he fell just a little short as a soldier. His verytragedy, which whelmed him into ruin, gives him entrance to our

hearts.To Homer's mind the outer god was so intimately connected

with inner experience that he naturally described this duel interms of divine causation, for the Homeric man apparently wasalways translating internal experience nto external imagery. Thisexternal imagery served to give him the same ideas we get fromour abstract thinking. Our difficulty in appreciating the coursethis duel took lies in the fact that in our thinking there is no con-nection at all between the outer god and the inner experience. But


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when we have acquired he poet's point of view, this combat gives

us in a measure the same satisfaction it afforded him and his Ho-meric world." Homer used the gods to explain all sorts of accidentsl2and psychological phenomena, and such descriptions gave nooffense to his contemporaries, because to their minds these religiousstories still left the world-as we know it today-at the mercyof accident and subject to the laws of human psychology and ex-perience. We moderns, if we find no allegory here, are offendedwhen the gods are made responsible for the accidents and evils oflife. How badly Homer needed our biblical devil

For a last generalization, we may say that Homer's explanationfor everything that takes place in outer nature,'3 as for everythingthat takes place in the psychology of our inner lives, is God workingaround us and in us. All of the phenomena of our outer lives, eventhe accidents that befall us, are due to God; likewise, all of thephenomena of our inner lives, our thoughts, dreams, deeds, talents,and accomplishments, we owe to God; to Homer God and manwere in a very real sense one. His universe was a universe God-explained and God-inspired. He naturally thought in terms of God.

Perhaps the blind old bard could see with his eyes shut more thanwe can see with our eyes open. He found God everywhere in hisworld both outside and inside man. There is, to be sure, a greatdifference between "everywhere" and "somewhere," but some-where the modern world, too, must find God. Homer gives us anaive, a childlike, an imperfect religion but a religion that cannotbe scoffed at, because it springs from the deep wells of the humanheart and answers to some of its deepest needs.

This splendid co6peration and interrelation between God and

man, which the Greeks recognized centuries ago, needs to berethought today in modern terms. We have gone to the other ex-

11 An interpretation long similar ines reconciles us to Apollo's nterference n theduel between Hector and Patroclus. For another nstance of daze, attributed by Homerto Poseidon, which the modern psychologist would call a natural experience of con-fusion, see Iliad xii, 434-442.

12These accidents may well have been caused by the individual's own carelessness.For example, ee Iliad xxm, 774-784.11Cf. Od. v, 282-453, where Poseidon piled up the waves mountain high.


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treme and have almost bowed God out of his universe and elimi-

nated spiritual things altogether. Until the modern world redis-covers this Jacob's ladder, finds God again and regains this two-world consciousness, life will be a cheapened thing, and poetrywill be a cheapened thing, nor can we hope to produce poems likethe Iliad and the Odyssey.

The Jacob s Ladder in Homer

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