When Homer wishes to tell us how Agamemnon was dressed, he makes the king put on every article of raiment in our presence: the soft tunic, the great mantle, the beautiful sandals, and the sword. When he is thus fully equipped he grasps his sceptre. We see the clothes while the poet is describing the act of dressing. An inferior writer would have described the clothes down to the minutest fringe, and of the action we should have seen nothing.[102] μαλακὸν δ’ ἔνδυνε χιτῶνα, καλὸν νηγάτεον, περὶ δὲ μέγα βάλλετο φᾶρος· ποσσὶ δ’ ὑπὸ λιπαροῖσιν ἐδήσατο καλὰ πέδιλα, ἀμφὶ δ’ ἄρ’ ὤμοισιν βάλετο ξίφος ἀργυρόηλον. εἵλετο δὲ σκῆπτρον πατρώϊον, ἄφθιτον αἰεί· How does he manage when he desires to give a more full and minute picture of the sceptre, which is here called only ancestral and undecaying, as a similar one in another place is only χρυσέοις ἥλοισι πεπαρμένον,—golden-studded? Does he paint for us, besides the golden nails, the wood, and the carved head? He might have done so, had he been writing a description for a book of heraldry, from which at some later day an exact copy was to be made. Yet I have no doubt that many a modern poet would have given such heraldic description in the honest belief that he was really making a picture himself, because he was giving the painter material for one. But what does Homer care how far he outstrips the painter? Instead of a copy, he gives us the history of the sceptre. First we see it in the workshop of Vulcan; then it shines in the hands of Jupiter; now it betokens the dignity of Mercury; now it is the baton of warlike Pelops; and again the shepherd’s staff of peace-loving Atreus.[103] σκῆπτρον, τὸ μὲν Ἥφαιστος κάμε τεύχων· Ἥφαιστος μὲν δῶκε Διὶ Κρονίωνι ἄνακτι, αὐτὰρ ἄρα Ζεὺς δῶκε διακτόρῳ Ἀργειφόντῃ· Ἑρμείας δὲ ἄναξ δῶκεν Πέλοπι πληξίππῳ, αὐτὰρ ὃ αὖτε Πέλοψ δῶκ’ Ἀτρέϊ, ποιμένι λαῶν· Ἀτρεὺς δὲ θνήσκων ἔλιπεν πολύαρνι Θυέστῃ, αὐτὰρ ὃ αὖτε Θυέστ’ Ἀγαμέμνονι λεῖπε φορῆναι, πολλῇσιν νήσοισι καὶ Ἄργεϊ παντὶ ἀνάσσειν. And so at last I know this sceptre better than if a painter should put it before my eyes, or a second Vulcan give it into my hands.