The Iliad of Homer - Get a Free Blog

to which a persevering, patient, and
learned—but by no means consistent—series
of investigations has led. In
doing so, I profess to bring forward statements,
not to vouch for their reasonableness
or probability.
"Homer appeared. The history of this
poet and his works is lost in doubtful obscurity,
as is the history of many of the
first minds who have done honour to humanity,
because they rose amidst darkness.
The majestic stream of his song,
blessing and fertilizing, flows like the
Nile, through many lands and nations;
and, like the sources of the Nile, its fountains
will ever remain concealed."
[pg
xvi]
Such are the words in which one of the
most judicious German critics has eloquently
described the uncertainty in
which the whole of the Homeric question