We have first to suppose that the kernel of the _Iliad_ originated in the Mycenaean age, the age of bronze. We are next to believe that this kernel was expanded into the actual Epic in later and changed times, but that the later poets adhered in their descriptions to the Mycenaean standard, avoiding "everything modern." That poets of an uncritical period, when treating of the themes of ancient legend or song, carefully avoid everything modern is an opinion not warranted by the usage of the authors of the _Chansons de Geste_, of _Beowulf_, and of the _Nibelungenlied_. These poets, we must repeat, invariably introduce in their chants concerning ancient days the customs, costume, armour, religion, and weapons of their own time. Dr. Helbig supposes that the late Greek poets, however, who added to the _Iliad_, carefully avoided doing what other poets of uncritical ages have always done. [Footnote: _La Question Mycenienne_, p. 50.] This is his position in his text (p. 50). In his note 1 to page 50, however, he occupies the precisely contrary position. "The epic poems were chanted, as a rule, in the houses of more or less warlike chiefs. It is, then, _a priori_ probable that the later poets took into account the _contemporary_ military state of things. Their audience would have been much perturbed (_bien cheques_) if they had heard the poet mention nothing but arms and forms of attack and defence to which they were unaccustomed." If so, when iron weapons came in the poets would substitute iron for bronze, in lays new and old, but they never do. However, this is Helbig's opinion in his note. But in his text he says that the poets, carefully avoiding the contemporary, "the modern," make the heroes fight, not on horseback, but from chariots. Their listeners, according to his note, must have been _bien cheques_, for there came a time when _they_ were not accustomed to war chariots. Thus the poets who, in Dr. Helbig's text, "avoid as far as possible all that is modern," in his note, on the same page, "take account of the contemporary state of things," and are as modern as possible where weapons _are_ concerned. Their audience would be sadly put out (_bien cheques_) "if they heard talk only of arms ... to which they were unaccustomed"; talk of large suspended shields, of uncorsleted heroes, and of bronze weapons. They had to endure it, whether they liked it or not, _teste_ Reichel. Dr. Helbig seems to speak correctly in his note; in his text his contradictory opinion appears to be wrong. Experience teaches us that the poets of an uncritical age--Shakespeare, for example--introduce the weapons of their own period into works dealing with remote ages. Hamlet uses the Elizabethan rapier.