196), her father's folk will furnish a bridal feast, and "array the [Greek: heedna], many, such as should accompany a dear daughter." Some critics think that the gifts here are _dowry_, a later institution than bride-price; others, that the father of the dear daughter merely chose to be generous, and returned the bride-price, or its equivalent, in whole or part. [Footnote: Merry, Odyssey, vol. i. p. 50. Note to Book I 277.] If the former view be correct, these passages in Odyssey, I., II. are later than the exceedingly "late" song of Demodocus. If the latter theory be correct the father is merely showing goodwill, and doing as the Germans did when they were in a stage of culture much earlier than the Homeric. The position of Penelope is very unstable and legally perplexing. Has her father her marriage? has her son her marriage? is she not perhaps still a married woman with a living husband? Telemachus would give much to have her off his hands, but he refuses to send her to her father's house, where the old man might be ready enough to return the bride-price to her new husband, and get rid of her with honour. For if Telemachus sends his mother away against her will he will have to pay a heavy fine to her father, and to thole his mother's curse, and lose his character among men (odyssey, II. 130-138). The Icelanders of the saga period gave dowries with their daughters. But when Njal wanted Hildigunna for his foster-son, Hauskuld, he offered to give [Greek: hedna]. "I will lay down as much money as will seem fitting to thy niece and thyself," he says to Flosi, "if thou wilt think of making this match." [Footnote: Story of _Burnt Njal_, ii. p. 81.] Circumstances alter cases, and we must be hard pressed to discover signs of change of manners in the Odyssey as compared with the _Iliad_ if we have to rely on a solitary mention of "men of many lots" in Crete, and on the perplexed proposals for the second marriage of Penelope. [Footnote: For the alleged "alteration of old customs" see Cauer, _Grundfragen der Homerkritik_, pp. 193-194.] We must not be told that the many other supposed signs of change, Iris, Olympus, and the rest, have "cumulative weight." If we have disposed of each individual supposed note of change in beliefs and manners in its turn, then these proofs have, in each case, no individual weight and, cumulatively, are not more ponderous than a feather. CHAPTER XII LINGUISTIC PROOFS OF VARIOUS DATES The great strength of the theory that the poems are the work of several ages is the existence in them of various strata of languages, earlier and later.