7 A terrible picture, certainly, but (unless perhaps it is to be taken allegorically) downright impious, and overstepping the bounds of decency. It seems to me that the strange medley of wounds, quarrels, revenges, tears, bonds, and other woes which makes up the Homeric tradition of the gods was designed by its author to degrade his deities, as far as possible, into men, and exalt his men into deities--or rather, his gods are worse off than his human characters, since we, when we are unhappy, have a haven from ills in death, while the gods, according to him, not only live for ever, but live for ever in misery. 8 Far to be preferred to this description of the Battle of the Gods are those passages which exhibit the divine nature in its true light, as something spotless, great, and pure, as, for instance, a passage which has often been handled by my predecessors, the lines on Poseidon:-- “Mountain and wood and solitary peak, The ships Achaian, and the towers of Troy, Trembled beneath the god’s immortal feet. Over the waves he rode, and round him played, Lured from the deeps, the ocean’s monstrous brood, With uncouth gambols welcoming their lord: The charmèd billows parted: on they flew.”[5] [Footnote 5: _Il._ xiii. 18; xx. 60; xiii. 19, 27.] 9 And thus also the lawgiver of the Jews, no ordinary man, having formed an adequate conception of the Supreme Being, gave it adequate expression in the opening words of his “Laws”: “God said”--what?--“let there be light, and there was light: let there be land, and there was.” 10 I trust you will not think me tedious if I quote yet one more passage from our great poet (referring this time to human characters) in illustration of the manner in which he leads us with him to heroic heights. A sudden and baffling darkness as of night has overspread the ranks of his warring Greeks. Then Ajax in sore perplexity cries aloud-- “Almighty Sire, Only from darkness save Achaia’s sons; No more I ask, but give us back the day; Grant but our sight, and slay us, if thou wilt.”[6] The feelings are just what we should look for in Ajax. He does not, you observe, ask for his life--such a request would have been unworthy of his heroic soul--but finding himself paralysed by darkness, and prohibited from employing his valour in any noble action, he chafes because his arms are idle, and prays for a speedy return of light. “At least,” he thinks, “I shall find a warrior’s grave, even though Zeus himself should fight against me.” [Footnote 6: _Il._ xvii. 645.] 11 In such passages the mind of the poet is swept along in the whirlwind of the struggle, and, in his own words, he “Like the fierce war-god, raves, or wasting fire Through the deep thickets on a mountain-side; His lips drop foam.”[7] [Footnote 7: _Il._ xv. 605.]