Homer’s object was not so much to describe two staves of different shape and material, as to give us a graphic picture of the different degrees of power which these staves represented. One the work of Vulcan, the other cut upon the hills by an unknown hand; one the old possession of a noble house, the other destined to be grasped by the first comer; one extended by a monarch over many islands and over all Argos, the other borne by one from among the Greeks, who, in connection with others, had been intrusted with the duty of upholding the laws. This was in fact the difference between Agamemnon and Achilles; and Achilles, even in the blindness of his passion, could not but admit it. Not only when Homer’s descriptions have these higher aims in view, but even when his sole object is the picture, he will yet break this up into a sort of history of the object in order that the various parts, which we see side by side in nature, may just as naturally follow each other in his picture, and, as it were, keep pace with the flow of the narrative. He wants, for instance, to paint us the bow of Pandarus. It is of horn, of a certain length, well polished, and tipped at both ends with gold. What does he do? Does he enumerate these details thus drily one after another? By no means. That would be telling off such a bow, setting it as a copy, but not painting it. He begins with the hunting of the wild goat from whose horns the bow was made. Pandarus had lain in wait for him among the rocks and slain him. Owing to the extraordinary size of the horns, he decided to use them for a bow. They come under the workman’s hands, who joins them together, polishes, and tips them. And thus, as I have said, the poet shows us in the process of creation, what the painter can only show us as already existing.[105] τόξον ἐύξοον ἰξάλου αἰγὸς ἀγρίου, ὅν ῥά ποτ’ αὐτὸς στέρνοιο τυχήσας πέτρης ἐκβαίνοντα, δεδεγμένος ἐν προδοκῇσιν, βεβλήκει πρὸς στῆθος· ὁ δ’ ὕπτιος ἔμπεσε πέτρῃ. τοῦ κέρα ἐκ κεφαλῆς ἑκκαιδεκάδωρα πεφύκει· καὶ τὰ μὲν ἀσκήσας κεραοξόος ἤραρε τέκτων, πᾶν δ’ εὖ λειήνας, χρυσέην ἐπέθηκε κορώνην. I should never have done, were I to try to write out all the examples of this kind. They will occur in numbers to every one familiar with Homer. XVII. But, it may be urged, the signs employed in poetry not only follow each other, but are also arbitrary; and, as arbitrary signs, they are certainly capable of expressing things as they exist in space. Homer himself furnishes examples of this. We have but to call to mind his shield of Achilles to have an instance of how circumstantially and yet poetically a single object can be described according to its coexistent parts.