earth; justice, piety, pity, a brave attitude
towards life and death, are all conspicuous in Homer. He has to write of
battles; and he delights in the joy of battle, and in all the movement of
war. Yet he delights not less, but more, in peace: in prosperous cities,
hearths secure, in the tender beauty of children, in the love of wedded
wives, in the frank nobility of maidens, in the beauty of earth and sky
and sea, and seaward murmuring river, in sun and snow, frost and mist and
rain, in the whispered talk of boy and girl beneath oak and pine tree.

Living in an age where every man was a warrior, where every city might
know the worst of sack and fire, where the noblest ladies might be led
away for slaves, to light the fire and make the bed of a foreign master,
Homer inevitably regards life as a battle. To each man on earth comes
"the wicked day of destiny," as Malory unconsciously translates it, and
each man must face it as hardily as he may.

Homer encourages them by all the maxims of chivalry and honour. His
heart is with the brave of either side--with Glaucus and Sarpedon of
Lycia no less than with Achilles and Patroclus. "Ah, friend," cries
Sarpedon, "if once escaped from this battle we were for ever to be
ageless and immortal, neither would I myself fight now in the foremost
ranks, nor would I urge thee into the wars that give renown; but now--for
assuredly ten thousand fates of death on every side beset us, and these
may no man shun, nor none avoid--forward now let us go, whether we are to
give glory or to win it!" And forth they go, to give and take renown and
death, all the shields and helms of Lycia shining behind them, through
the dust of battle, the singing of the arrows, the hurtling of spears,
the rain of stones from the Locrian slings. And shields are smitten, and
chariot-horses run wild with no man to drive them, and Sarpedon drags
down a portion of the Achaean battlement, and Aias leaps into the trench
with his deadly spear, and the whole battle shifts and shines beneath the
sun. Yet he who sings of the war, and sees it with his sightless eyes,
sees also the Trojan women working at the loom, cheating their anxious
hearts with broidery work of gold and scarlet, or raising the song to
Athene, or heating the bath for Hector, who never again may pass within
the gates of Troy. He sees the poor weaving woman, weighing the wool,
that she may not defraud her employers, and yet may win bread for her
chil