DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61301#0218
184
STUDIES IN GREEK ART.
akin to despair. We catch early glimpses of it in
Homer ; there is a frank mention of personal gifts, an
open praising of them as coming from the gods, which
strikes us as very simple and pleasing. A Greek would
never say to his children, “ What does it matter as
long as you are good whether you are beautiful or
clever or not?”—such a doctrine would have been
not only false, which it always is, and therefore de-
spicable and pernicious, but also, to his mind, a dis-
honour to the gods who had dowered mortals with
fair gifts. We are not however to suppose they were a
nation uniformly beautiful. There were plenty of ugly
and mediocre individuals, and this contrast would be
necessary to stimulate the critical and appreciative
faculty. Odysseus says very frankly to the beautiful
but discourteous Phaeakian :
“ Stranger, thou hast not spoken well: thou art like a
man presumptuous. So true it is that the gods do not
give every gracious gift to all, neither shapeliness, nor
wisdom, nor skilled speech. For one man is feebler than
another in presence, yet the god crowns his words with
beauty, and men behold him and rejoice, and his speech
runs surely on his way with a sweet modesty, and he
shines forth among the gathering of his people, and as
he passes through the town men gaze on him as a god.
Another again is like the deathless gods for beauty, but
his words have no crown of grace about them, even as
STUDIES IN GREEK ART.
akin to despair. We catch early glimpses of it in
Homer ; there is a frank mention of personal gifts, an
open praising of them as coming from the gods, which
strikes us as very simple and pleasing. A Greek would
never say to his children, “ What does it matter as
long as you are good whether you are beautiful or
clever or not?”—such a doctrine would have been
not only false, which it always is, and therefore de-
spicable and pernicious, but also, to his mind, a dis-
honour to the gods who had dowered mortals with
fair gifts. We are not however to suppose they were a
nation uniformly beautiful. There were plenty of ugly
and mediocre individuals, and this contrast would be
necessary to stimulate the critical and appreciative
faculty. Odysseus says very frankly to the beautiful
but discourteous Phaeakian :
“ Stranger, thou hast not spoken well: thou art like a
man presumptuous. So true it is that the gods do not
give every gracious gift to all, neither shapeliness, nor
wisdom, nor skilled speech. For one man is feebler than
another in presence, yet the god crowns his words with
beauty, and men behold him and rejoice, and his speech
runs surely on his way with a sweet modesty, and he
shines forth among the gathering of his people, and as
he passes through the town men gaze on him as a god.
Another again is like the deathless gods for beauty, but
his words have no crown of grace about them, even as