Here Helbig uses that one of his two alternate theories according to which the late Ionian poets do not cling to old epic tradition, but bring in details of the life of their own date. By Helbig's other alternate theory, the late poets cling to the model set in old epic tradition in their pictures of details of life.
Disintegrationists differ: far from thinking that the late Ionian poet who buried Hector varied from the AEolic minstrel who buried Patroclus (in Book XXIII.), Mr. Leaf says that Hector's burial is "almost an abstract" of that of Patroclus. {Footnote: Leaf, Iliad, XXII Note to 791.} He adds that Helbig's attempts "to distinguish the older AEolic from the newer and more sceptical 'Ionic' faith seem to me visionary." {Footnote: Iliad, vol. ii. p. 619. Note 2} Visionary, indeed, they do seem, but they are examples of the efforts made to prove that the Iliad bears marks of composition continued through several centuries. We must remember that, according to Helbig, the Ionians, colonists in a new country, "had no use for ghosts." A fresh colony does not produce ghosts. "There is hardly an English or Scottish castle without its spook ( spuck). On the other hand, you look in vain for such a thing in the United States"—spiritualism apart. {Footnote: Op. laud., p. 204.}
This is a hasty generalisation! Helbig will, if he looks, find ghosts enough in the literature of North America while still colonial, and in Australia, a still more newly settled country, sixty years ago Fisher's ghost gave evidence of Fisher's murder, evidence which, as in another Australian case, served the ends of justice. {Footnote: See, in TheValet's Tragedy (A. L.): "Fisher's Ghost."} More recent Australian ghosts are familiar to psychical research.
This colonial theory is one of Helbig's too venturous generalisations.
He studies the ghost, or rather dream-apparition, of Patroclus after
examining the funeral of Hector; but we shall begin with Patroclus.
Achilles (XXIII. 4-16) first hails his friend "even in the House of
Hades" (so he believes that spirits are in Hades), and says that he
has brought Hector "raw for dogs to devour," and twelve Trojans of good
family "to slaughter before thy pyre." That night, when Achilles is
asleep (XXIII. 65) the spirit ({Greek: psyche}) of Patroclus appears to
him, says that he is forgotten, and begs to be burned at once, that he
may pass the gates of Hades, for the other spirits drive him off and
will not let him associate with them "beyond the River," and he wanders
vaguely along the wide-gated dwelling of Hades. "Give me thy hand, for
never more again shall I come back from Hades, when ye have given me my
due of fire." Patroclus, being newly discarnate, does not yet know
that a spirit cannot take a living man's hand, though, in fact, tactile
hallucinations are not uncommon in the presence of phantasms of the
dead. "Lay not my bones apart from thine ... let one coffer" ({Greek:
soros}) "hide our bones."
{Greek: Soros}, like larnax, is a coffin ( Sarg), or
what the Americans call a "casket," in the opinion of Helbig: {Footnote:
OP. laud., p.217.} it is an oblong receptacle of the bones and dust.
Hector was buried in a larnax; SO will Achilles and Patroclus be
when Achilles falls, but the dust of Patroclus is kept, meanwhile, in a
golden covered cup (phialae) in the quarters of Achilles; it is not laid
in howe after his cremation (XXIII. 243).
Achilles tries to embrace Patroclus, but fails, like Odysseus with the shade of his mother in Hades, in the ODYSSEY. He exclaims that "there remaineth then even in the House of Hades a spirit and phantom of the dead, albeit the life" (or the wits) "be not anywise therein, for all night hath the spirit of hapless Patroclus stood over me...."
In this speech Helbig detects the hand of the late Ionian poet. What goes before is part of the genuine old Epic, the kernel, done at a time when men believed that spooks could take part in the affairs of the upper world. Achilles therefore (in his dream), thought that he could embrace his friend. It was the sceptical Ionian, in a fresh and spookless colony, who knew that he could not; he thinks the ghost a mere dream, and introduces his scepticism in XXIII. 99-107. He brought in "the ruling ideas of his own period." The ghost, says the Ionian bearbeiter, is intangible, though in the genuine old epic the ghost himself thought otherwise—he being new to the situation and without experience. This is the first sample of the critical Ionian spirit, later so remarkable in philosophy and natural science, says Helbig. {Footnote: Op. laud., pp. 233,234.}
We need not discuss this acute critical theory. The natural interpretation of the words of Achilles is obvious; as Mr. Leaf remarks, the words are "the cry of sudden personal conviction in a matter which has hitherto been lazily accepted as an orthodox dogma." {Footnote: Iliad, vol. ii. p. 620.} Already, as we have seen, Achilles has made promises to Patroclus in the House of Hades, now he exclaims "there really is something in the doctrine of a feeble future life."
It is vain to try to discriminate between an old epic belief in able-bodied ghosts and an Ionian belief in mere futile shades, in the Homeric poems. Everywhere the dead are too feeble to be worth worshipping after they are burned; but, as Mr. Leaf says with obvious truth, and with modern instances, "men are never so inconsistent as in their beliefs about the other world." We ourselves hold various beliefs simultaneously. The natives of Australia and of Tasmania practise, or did practise, every conceivable way of disposing of the dead—burying, burning, exposure in trees, carrying about the bodies or parts of them, eating the bodies, and so forth. If each such practice corresponded, as archaeologists believe, to a different opinion about the soul, then all beliefs were held together at once, and this, in fact, is the case. There is not now one and now another hard and fast orthodoxy of belief about the dead, though now we find ancestor worship prominent and now in the shade.
After gifts of hair and the setting up of jars full of oil and honey, Achilles has the body laid on the top of the pyre in the centre. Bodies of sheep and oxen, two dogs and four horses, are strewed around: why, we know not, for the dead is not supposed to need food: the rite may be a survival, for there were sacrifices at the burials of the Mycenaean shaft graves. Achilles slays also the twelve Trojans, "because of mine anger at thy slaying," he says (XXIII. 23). This was his reason, as far as he consciously had any reason, not that his friend might have twelve thralls in Hades. After the pyre is alit Achilles drenches it all night with wine, and, when the flame dies down, the dead hero's bones are collected and placed in the covered cup of gold. The circle of the barrow is then marked out, stones are set up round it (we see them round Highland tumuli), and earth is heaped up; no more is done; the tomb is empty; the covered cup holding the ashes is in the hut of Achilles.
We must note another trait. After the body of Patroclus was recovered, it was washed, anointed, laid on a bier, and covered from head to foot {Greek: heano liti}, translated by Helbig, "with a linen sheet" (cf. XXIII. 254). The golden cup with the ashes is next wrapped {Greek: heano liti}; here Mr. Myers renders the words "with a linen veil." Scottish cremation burials of the Bronze Age retain traces of linen wrappings of the urn. {Footnote: Proceedings of the Scottish society of Antiquaries, 1905, p. 552. For other cases, cf.Leaf, Iliad, XXIV. 796. Note.} Over all a white {Greek: pharos} (mantle) was spread. In Iliad, XXIV. 231, twelve {Greek: pharea} with chitons, single cloaks, and other articles of dress, are taken to Achilles by Priam as part of the ransom of Hector's body. Such is the death-garb of Patroclus; but Helbig, looking for Ionian innovations in Book XXIV., finds that the death-garb of Hector is not the same as that of Patroclus in Book XXIII. One difference is that when the squires of Achilles took the ransom of Hector from the waggon of Priam, they left in it two {Greek: pharea} and a well-spun chiton. The women washed and anointed Hector's body; they clad him in the chiton, and threw one {Greek: pharos} over it; we are not told what they did with the other. Perhaps, as Mr. Leaf says, it was used as a cover for the bier, perhaps it was not, but was laid under the body (Helbig). All we know is that Hector's body was restored to Priam in a chiton and a {Greek: pharos}, which do not seem to have been removed before he was burned; while Patroclus had no chiton in death, but a {Greek: pharos} and, apparently, a linen sheet.