In the first place, the division of the month into three periods of ten days each is unknown in the Iliad, is barely hinted at in the Odyssey, but is brought into detailed notice in the Hesiodic calendar. Further, the ‘turning-points of the sun’ are unmentioned in the Iliad, but serve in the Odyssey, by their position on the horizon, to indicate direction; while the winter solstice figures as a well-marked epoch in the Works and Days. Hesiod, moreover, designates the dog-star (not expressly mentioned in the Odyssey) by a name of which the author of the Iliad was certainly ignorant. Besides which an additional constellation (Boötes) to those named in the Iliad appears in the Odyssey and the Works and Days; while the title ‘Hyperion,’ applied substantively to the sun in the Odyssey, is used only adjectivally in the Iliad. Finally, stellar mythology begins with Hesiod; Homer (whether the Iliadic or the Odyssean) takes the names of the stars as he finds them, without seeking to connect them with any sublunary occurrences. To be sure, differences of place and purpose might account for some of these discrepancies, yet their cumulative effect in fixing relative epochs is considerable; and, even apart from chronology, it is something to look towards the skies with the ‘most high poet,’ and to retrace, with the aid of our own better knowledge, the simple meanings their glorious aspect held for him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER III. THE DOG IN HOMER. TWO sets of strongly contrasted, nay, one might beforehand have thought mutually exclusive qualities, go to make up the canine character. In all ages, and amongst all nations, the dog has become a byword for its uncleanly habits, disgusting voracity, its quarrelsome and aggressive selfishness. The cynic, or ‘dog-like’ philosopher, is a type of what is unamiable in human nature. Growling, snarling, whining, barking, snapping and biting, crouching and fawning, constitute a vocabulary descriptive of canine deportment conveying none but repulsive and odious associations. Our language pursues the animal through its different varieties and stages of existence in order to find varying epithets of contumely and reproach. The universal and almost prehistoric term of abuse formed by the simple patronymic—so to speak—has lost little of its pristine favour, and none of its pristine force; while amongst ourselves ‘hound,’ ‘puppy,’ ‘cur,’ ‘whelp,’ and ‘cub,’ come in as harmonics of the fundamental note of insult.