The Iliad - 02

Total number of words is 4753
Total number of unique words is 1455
40.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words
59.5 of words are in the 5000 most common words
68.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.

“Those who maintain the Homeric poems to have been written from the
beginning, rest their case, not upon positive proofs, nor yet upon the
existing habits of society with regard to poetry—for they admit
generally that the Iliad and Odyssey were not read, but recited and
heard,—but upon the supposed necessity that there must have been
manuscripts to ensure the preservation of the poems—the unassisted
memory of reciters being neither sufficient nor trustworthy. But here
we only escape a smaller difficulty by running into a greater; for the
existence of trained bards, gifted with extraordinary memory,[25] is
far less astonishing than that of long manuscripts, in an age
essentially non-reading and non-writing, and when even suitable
instruments and materials for the process are not obvious. Moreover,
there is a strong positive reason for believing that the bard was under
no necessity of refreshing his memory by consulting a manuscript; for
if such had been the fact, blindness would have been a disqualification
for the profession, which we know that it was not, as well from the
example of Demodokus, in the Odyssey, as from that of the blind bard of
Chios, in the Hymn to the Delian Apollo, whom Thucydides, as well as
the general tenor of Grecian legend, identifies with Homer himself. The
author of that hymn, be he who he may, could never have described a
blind man as attaining the utmost perfection in his art, if he had been
conscious that the memory of the bard was only maintained by constant
reference to the manuscript in his chest.”
The loss of the digamma, that _crux_ of critics, that quicksand upon
which even the acumen of Bentley was shipwrecked, seems to prove beyond
a doubt, that the pronunciation of the Greek language had undergone a
considerable change. Now it is certainly difficult to suppose that the
Homeric poems could have suffered by this change, had written copies
been preserved. If Chaucer’s poetry, for instance, had not been
written, it could only have come down to us in a softened form, more
like the effeminate version of Dryden, than the rough, quaint, noble
original.
“At what period,” continues Grote, “these poems, or indeed any other
Greek poems, first began to be written, must be matter of conjecture,
though there is ground for assurance that it was before the time of
Solôn. If, in the absence of evidence, we may venture upon naming any
more determinate period, the question at once suggests itself, What
were the purposes which, in that state of society, a manuscript at its
first commencement must have been intended to answer? For whom was a
written Iliad necessary? Not for the rhapsodes; for with them it was
not only planted in the memory, but also interwoven with the feelings,
and conceived in conjunction with all those flexions and intonations of
voice, pauses, and other oral artifices which were required for
emphatic delivery, and which the naked manuscript could never
reproduce. Not for the general public—they were accustomed to receive
it with its rhapsodic delivery, and with its accompaniments of a solemn
and crowded festival. The only persons for whom the written Iliad would
be suitable would be a select few; studious and curious men; a class of
readers capable of analyzing the complicated emotions which they had
experienced as hearers in the crowd, and who would, on perusing the
written words, realize in their imaginations a sensible portion of the
impression communicated by the reciter. Incredible as the statement may
seem in an age like the present, there is in all early societies, and
there was in early Greece, a time when no such reading class existed.
If we could discover at what time such a class first began to be
formed, we should be able to make a guess at the time when the old epic
poems were first committed to writing. Now the period which may with
the greatest probability be fixed upon as having first witnessed the
formation even of the narrowest reading class in Greece, is the middle
of the seventh century before the Christian æra (B.C. 660 to B.C.
630), the age of Terpander, Kallinus, Archilochus, Simonidês of
Amorgus, &c. I ground this supposition on the change then operated in
the character and tendencies of Grecian poetry and music—the elegiac
and the iambic measures having been introduced as rivals to the
primitive hexameter, and poetical compositions having been transferred
from the epical past to the affairs of present and real life. Such a
change was important at a time when poetry was the only known mode of
publication (to use a modern phrase not altogether suitable, yet the
nearest approaching to the sense). It argued a new way of looking at
the old epical treasures of the people as well as a thirst for new
poetical effect; and the men who stood forward in it, may well be
considered as desirous to study, and competent to criticize, from their
own individual point of view, the written words of the Homeric
rhapsodies, just as we are told that Kallinus both noticed and
eulogized the Thebaïs as the production of Homer. There seems,
therefore, ground for conjecturing that (for the use of this
newly-formed and important, but very narrow class), manuscripts of the
Homeric poems and other old epics,—the Thebaïs and the Cypria, as well
as the Iliad and the Odyssey,—began to be compiled towards the middle
of the seventh century (B.C. 1); and the opening of Egypt to Grecian
commerce, which took place about the same period, would furnish
increased facilities for obtaining the requisite papyrus to write upon.
A reading class, when once formed, would doubtless slowly increase, and
the number of manuscripts along with it; so that before the time of
Solôn, fifty years afterwards, both readers and manuscripts, though
still comparatively few, might have attained a certain recognized
authority, and formed a tribunal of reference against the carelessness
of individual rhapsodes.”[26]
But even Peisistratus has not been suffered to remain in possession of
the credit, and we cannot help feeling the force of the following
observations—
“There are several incidental circumstances which, in our opinion,
throw some suspicion over the whole history of the Peisistratid
compilation, at least over the theory, that the Iliad was cast into its
present stately and harmonious form by the directions of the Athenian
ruler. If the great poets, who flourished at the bright period of
Grecian song, of which, alas! we have inherited little more than the
fame, and the faint echo, if Stesichorus, Anacreon, and Simonidês were
employed in the noble task of compiling the Iliad and Odyssey, so much
must have been done to arrange, to connect, to harmonize, that it is
almost incredible, that stronger marks of Athenian manufacture should
not remain. Whatever occasional anomalies may be detected, anomalies
which no doubt arise out of our own ignorance of the language of the
Homeric age, however the irregular use of the digamma may have
perplexed our Bentleys, to whom the name of Helen is said to have
caused as much disquiet and distress as the fair one herself among the
heroes of her age, however Mr. Knight may have failed in reducing the
Homeric language to its primitive form; however, finally, the Attic
dialect may not have assumed all its more marked and distinguishing
characteristics—still it is difficult to suppose that the language,
particularly in the joinings and transitions, and connecting parts,
should not more clearly betray the incongruity between the more ancient
and modern forms of expression. It is not quite in character with such
a period to imitate an antique style, in order to piece out an
imperfect poem in the character of the original, as Sir Walter Scott
has done in his continuation of Sir Tristram.
“If, however, not even such faint and indistinct traces of Athenian
compilation are discoverable in the language of the poems, the total
absence of Athenian national feeling is perhaps no less worthy of
observation. In later, and it may fairly be suspected in earlier times,
the Athenians were more than ordinarily jealous of the fame of their
ancestors. But, amid all the traditions of the glories of early Greece
embodied in the Iliad, the Athenians play a most subordinate and
insignificant part. Even the few passages which relate to their
ancestors, Mr. Knight suspects to be interpolations. It is possible,
indeed, that in its leading outline, the Iliad may be true to historic
fact, that in the great maritime expedition of western Greece against
the rival and half-kindred empire of the Laomedontiadæ, the chieftain
of Thessaly, from his valour and the number of his forces, may have
been the most important ally of the Peloponnesian sovereign; the
preeminent value of the ancient poetry on the Trojan war may thus have
forced the national feeling of the Athenians to yield to their taste.
The songs which spoke of their own great ancestor were, no doubt, of
far inferior sublimity and popularity, or, at first sight, a Theseid
would have been much more likely to have emanated from an Athenian
synod of compilers of ancient song, than an Achilleid or an Olysseid.
Could France have given birth to a Tasso, Tancred would have been the
hero of the Jerusalem. If, however, the Homeric ballads, as they are
sometimes called, which related the wrath of Achilles, with all its
direful consequences, were so far superior to the rest of the poetic
cycle, as to admit no rivalry,—it is still surprising, that throughout
the whole poem the callida junctura should never betray the workmanship
of an Athenian hand, and that the national spirit of a race, who have
at a later period not inaptly been compared to our self admiring
neighbours, the French, should submit with lofty self denial to the
almost total exclusion of their own ancestors—or, at least, to the
questionable dignity of only having produced a leader tolerably skilled
in the military tactics of his age.”[27]
To return to the Wolfian theory. While it is to be confessed, that
Wolf’s objections to the primitive integrity of the Iliad and Odyssey
have never been wholly got over, we cannot help discovering that they
have failed to enlighten us as to any substantial point, and that the
difficulties with which the whole subject is beset, are rather
augmented than otherwise, if we admit his hypothesis. Nor is
Lachmann’s[28] modification of his theory any better. He divides the
first twenty-two books of the Iliad into sixteen different songs, and
treats as ridiculous the belief that their amalgamation into one
regular poem belongs to a period earlier than the age of Peisistratus.
This, as Grote observes, “explains the gaps and contradictions in the
narrative, but it explains nothing else.” Moreover, we find no
contradictions warranting this belief, and the so-called sixteen poets
concur in getting rid of the following leading men in the first battle
after the secession of Achilles: Elphenor, chief of the Eubœans;
Tlepolemus, of the Rhodians; Pandarus, of the Lycians; Odius, of the
Halizonians; Pirous and Acamas, of the Thracians. None of these heroes
again make their appearance, and we can but agree with Colonel Mure,
that “it seems strange that any number of independent poets should have
so harmoniously dispensed with the services of all six in the sequel.”
The discrepancy, by which Pylæmenes, who is represented as dead in the
fifth book, weeps at his son’s funeral in the thirteenth, can only be
regarded as the result of an interpolation.
Grote, although not very distinct in stating his own opinions on the
subject, has done much to clearly show the incongruity of the Wolfian
theory, and of Lachmann’s modifications with the character of
Peisistratus. But he has also shown, and we think with equal success,
that the two questions relative to the primitive unity of these poems,
or, supposing that impossible, the unison of these parts by
Peisistratus, and not before his time, are essentially distinct. In
short, “a man may believe the Iliad to have been put together out of
pre-existing songs, without recognising the age of Peisistratus as the
period of its first compilation.” The friends or literary _employês_ of
Peisistratus must have found an Iliad that was already ancient, and the
silence of the Alexandrine critics respecting the Peisistratic
“recension,” goes far to prove, that, among the numerous manuscripts
they examined, this was either wanting, or thought unworthy of
attention.
“Moreover,” he continues, “the whole tenor of the poems themselves
confirms what is here remarked. There is nothing, either in the Iliad
or Odyssey, which savours of modernism, applying that term to the age
of Peisistratus—nothing which brings to our view the alterations
brought about by two centuries, in the Greek language, the coined
money, the habits of writing and reading, the despotisms and republican
governments, the close military array, the improved construction of
ships, the Amphiktyonic convocations, the mutual frequentation of
religious festivals, the Oriental and Egyptian veins of religion, &c.,
familiar to the latter epoch. These alterations Onomakritus, and the
other literary friends of Peisistratus, could hardly have failed to
notice, even without design, had they then, for the first time,
undertaken the task of piecing together many self existent epics into
one large aggregate. Everything in the two great Homeric poems, both in
substance and in language, belongs to an age two or three centuries
earlier than Peisistratus. Indeed, even the interpolations (or those
passages which, on the best grounds, are pronounced to be such) betray
no trace of the sixth century before Christ, and may well have been
heard by Archilochus and Kallinus—in some cases even by Arktinus and
Hesiod—as genuine Homeric matter.[29] As far as the evidences on the
case, as well internal as external, enable us to judge, we seem
warranted in believing that the Iliad and Odyssey were recited
substantially as they now stand (always allowing for partial
divergences of text and interpolations) in 776 B.C., our first
trustworthy mark of Grecian time; and this ancient date, let it be
added, as it is the best-authenticated fact, so it is also the most
important attribute of the Homeric poems, considered in reference to
Grecian history; for they thus afford us an insight into the
anti-historical character of the Greeks, enabling us to trace the
subsequent forward march of the nation, and to seize instructive
contrasts between their former and their later condition.”[30]
On the whole, I am inclined to believe, that the labours of
Peisistratus were wholly of an editorial character, although, I must
confess, that I can lay down nothing respecting the extent of his
labours. At the same time, so far from believing that the composition
or primary arrangement of these poems, in their present form, was the
work of Peisistratus, I am rather persuaded that the fine taste and
elegant mind of that Athenian[31] would lead him to preserve an ancient
and traditional order of the poems, rather than to patch and
re-construct them according to a fanciful hypothesis. I will not repeat
the many discussions respecting whether the poems were written or not,
or whether the art of writing was known in the time of their reputed
author. Suffice it to say, that the more we read, the less satisfied we
are upon either subject.
I cannot, however, help thinking, that the story which attributes the
preservation of these poems to Lycurgus, is little else than a version
of the same story as that of Peisistratus, while its historical
probability must be measured by that of many others relating to the
Spartan Confucius.
I will conclude this sketch of the Homeric theories, with an attempt,
made by an ingenious friend, to unite them into something like
consistency. It is as follows:—
“No doubt the common soldiers of that age had, like the common sailors
of some fifty years ago, some one qualified to ‘discourse in excellent
music’ among them. Many of these, like those of the negroes in the
United States, were extemporaneous, and allusive to events passing
around them. But what was passing around them? The grand events of a
spirit-stirring war; occurrences likely to impress themselves, as the
mystical legends of former times had done, upon their memory; besides
which, a retentive memory was deemed a virtue of the first water, and
was cultivated accordingly in those ancient times. Ballads at first,
and down to the beginning of the war with Troy, were merely
recitations, with an intonation. Then followed a species of recitative,
probably with an intoned burden. Tune next followed, as it aided the
memory considerably.
“It was at this period, about four hundred years after the war, that a
poet flourished of the name of Melesigenes, or Mœonides, but most
probably the former. He saw that these ballads might be made of great
utility to his purpose of writing a poem on the social position of
Hellas, and, as a collection, he published these lays, connecting them
by a tale of his own. This poem now exists, under the title of the
‘Odyssea.’ The author, however, did not affix his own name to the poem,
which, in fact, was, great part of it, remodelled from the archaic
dialect of Crete, in which tongue the ballads were found by him. He
therefore called it the poem of Homeros, or the Collector; but this is
rather a proof of his modesty and talent, than of his mere drudging
arrangement of other people’s ideas; for, as Grote has finely observed,
arguing for the unity of authorship, ‘a great poet might have re-cast
pre-existing separate songs into one comprehensive whole; but no mere
arrangers or compilers would be competent to do so.’
“While employed on the wild legend of Odysseus, he met with a ballad,
recording the quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon. His noble mind seized
the hint that there presented itself, and the Achilleïs[32] grew under
his hand. Unity of design, however, caused him to publish the poem
under the same pseudonyme as his former work: and the disjointed lays
of the ancient bards were joined together, like those relating to the
Cid, into a chronicle history, named the Iliad. Melesigenes knew that
the poem was destined to be a lasting one, and so it has proved; but,
first, the poems were destined to undergo many vicissitudes and
corruptions, by the people who took to singing them in the streets,
assemblies, and agoras. However, Solôn first, and then Peisistratus,
and afterwards Aristoteles and others, revised the poems, and restored
the works of Melesigenes Homeros to their original integrity in a great
measure.”[33]
Having thus given some general notion of the strange theories which
have developed themselves respecting this most interesting subject, I
must still express my conviction as to the unity of the authorship of
the Homeric poems. To deny that many corruptions and interpolations
disfigure them, and that the intrusive hand of the poetasters may here
and there have inflicted a wound more serious than the negligence of
the copyist, would be an absurd and captious assumption, but it is to a
higher criticism that we must appeal, if we would either understand or
enjoy these poems. In maintaining the authenticity and personality of
their one author, be he Homer or Melesigenes, _quocunque nomine vocari
eum jus fasque sit_, I feel conscious that, while the whole weight of
historical evidence is against the hypothesis which would assign these
great works to a plurality of authors, the most powerful internal
evidence, and that which springs from the deepest and most immediate
impulse of the soul, also speaks eloquently to the contrary.
The minutiæ of verbal criticism I am far from seeking to despise.
Indeed, considering the character of some of my own books, such an
attempt would be gross inconsistency. But, while I appreciate its
importance in a philological view, I am inclined to set little store on
its æsthetic value, especially in poetry. Three parts of the
emendations made upon poets are mere alterations, some of which, had
they been suggested to the author by his Mæcenas or Africanus, he
would probably have adopted. Moreover, those who are most exact in
laying down rules of verbal criticism and interpretation, are often
least competent to carry out their own precepts. Grammarians are not
poets by profession, but may be so _per accidens_. I do not at this
moment remember two emendations on Homer, calculated to substantially
improve the poetry of a passage, although a mass of remarks, from
Herodotus down to Loewe, have given us the history of a thousand minute
points, without which our Greek knowledge would be gloomy and jejune.
But it is not on words only that grammarians, mere grammarians, will
exercise their elaborate and often tiresome ingenuity. Binding down an
heroic or dramatic poet to the block upon which they have previously
dissected his words and sentences, they proceed to use the axe and the
pruning knife by wholesale, and inconsistent in everything but their
wish to make out a case of unlawful affiliation, they cut out book
after book, passage after passage, till the author is reduced to a
collection of fragments, or till those, who fancied they possessed the
works of some great man, find that they have been put off with a vile
counterfeit got up at second hand. If we compare the theories of
Knight, Wolf, Lachmann, and others, we shall feel better satisfied of
the utter uncertainty of criticism than of the apocryphal position of
Homer. One rejects what another considers the turning-point of his
theory. One cuts a supposed knot by expunging what another would
explain by omitting something else.
Nor is this morbid species of sagacity by any means to be looked upon
as a literary novelty. Justus Lipsius, a scholar of no ordinary skill,
seems to revel in the imaginary discovery, that the tragedies
attributed to Seneca are by _four_ different authors.[34] Now, I will
venture to assert, that these tragedies are so uniform, not only in
their borrowed phraseology—a phraseology with which writers like
Boethius and Saxo Grammaticus were more charmed than ourselves—in their
freedom from real poetry, and last, but not least, in an ultra-refined
and consistent abandonment of good taste, that few writers of the
present day would question the capabilities of the same gentleman, be
he Seneca or not, to produce not only these, but a great many more
equally bad. With equal sagacity, Father Hardouin astonished the world
with the startling announcement that the Æneid of Virgil, and the
satires of Horace, were literary deceptions. Now, without wishing to
say one word of disrespect against the industry and learning—nay, the
refined acuteness—which scholars, like Wolf, have bestowed upon this
subject, I must express my fears, that many of our modern Homeric
theories will become matter for the surprise and entertainment, rather
than the instruction, of posterity. Nor can I help thinking, that the
literary history of more recent times will account for many points of
difficulty in the transmission of the Iliad and Odyssey to a period so
remote from that of their first creation.
I have already expressed my belief that the labours of Peisistratus
were of a purely editorial character; and there seems no more reason
why corrupt and imperfect editions of Homer may not have been abroad in
his day, than that the poems of Valerius Flaccus and Tibullus should
have given so much trouble to Poggio, Scaliger, and others. But, after
all, the main fault in all the Homeric theories is, that they demand
too great a sacrifice of those feelings to which poetry most powerfully
appeals, and which are its most fitting judges. The ingenuity which has
sought to rob us of the name and existence of Homer, does too much
violence to that inward emotion, which makes our whole soul yearn with
love and admiration for the blind bard of Chios. To believe the author
of the Iliad a mere compiler, is to degrade the powers of human
invention; to elevate analytical judgment at the expense of the most
ennobling impulses of the soul; and to forget the ocean in the
contemplation of a polypus. There is a catholicity, so to speak, in the
very name of Homer. Our faith in the author of the Iliad may be a
mistaken one, but as yet nobody has taught us a better.
While, however, I look upon the belief in Homer as one that has nature
herself for its mainspring; while I can join with old Ennius in
believing in Homer as the ghost, who, like some patron saint, hovers
round the bed of the poet, and even bestows rare gifts from that wealth
of imagination which a host of imitators could not exhaust,—still I am
far from wishing to deny that the author of these great poems found a
rich fund of tradition, a well-stocked mythical storehouse from whence
he might derive both subject and embellishment. But it is one thing to
_use_ existing romances in the embellishment of a poem, another to
patch up the poem itself from such materials. What consistency of style
and execution can be hoped for from such an attempt? or, rather, what
bad taste and tedium will not be the infallible result?
A blending of popular legends, and a free use of the songs of other
bards, are features perfectly consistent with poetical originality. In
fact, the most original writer is still drawing upon outward
impressions—nay, even his own thoughts are a kind of secondary agents
which support and feed the impulses of imagination. But unless there be
some grand pervading principle—some invisible, yet most distinctly
stamped archetypus of the great whole, a poem like the Iliad can never
come to the birth. Traditions the most picturesque, episodes the most
pathetic, local associations teeming with the thoughts of gods and
great men, may crowd in one mighty vision, or reveal themselves in more
substantial forms to the mind of the poet; but, except the power to
create a grand whole, to which these shall be but as details and
embellishments, be present, we shall have nought but a scrap-book, a
parterre filled with flowers and weeds strangling each other in their
wild redundancy: we shall have a cento of rags and tatters, which will
require little acuteness to detect.
Sensible as I am of the difficulty of disproving a negative, and aware
as I must be of the weighty grounds there are for opposing my belief,
it still seems to me that the Homeric question is one that is reserved
for a higher criticism than it has often obtained. We are not by nature
intended to know all things; still less, to compass the powers by which
the greatest blessings of life have been placed at our disposal. Were
faith no virtue, then we might indeed wonder why God willed our
ignorance on any matter. But we are too well taught the contrary
lesson; and it seems as though our faith should be especially tried
touching the men and the events which have wrought most influence upon
the condition of humanity. And there is a kind of sacredness attached
to the memory of the great and the good, which seems to bid us repulse
the scepticism which would allegorize their existence into a pleasing
apologue, and measure the giants of intellect by an homeopathic
dynameter.
Long and habitual reading of Homer appears to familiarize our thoughts
even to his incongruities; or rather, if we read in a right spirit and
with a heartfelt appreciation, we are too much dazzled, too deeply
wrapped in admiration of the whole, to dwell upon the minute spots
which mere analysis can discover. In reading an heroic poem we must
transform ourselves into heroes of the time being, we in imagination
must fight over the same battles, woo the same loves, burn with the
same sense of injury, as an Achilles or a Hector. And if we can but
attain this degree of enthusiasm (and less enthusiasm will scarcely
suffice for the reading of Homer), we shall feel that the poems of
Homer are not only the work of one writer, but of the greatest writer
that ever touched the hearts of men by the power of song.
And it was this supposed unity of authorship which gave these poems
their powerful influence over the minds of the men of old. Heeren, who
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Next - The Iliad - 03
  • Parts
  • The Iliad - 01
    Total number of words is 4668
    Total number of unique words is 1603
    41.9 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    62.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    72.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 02
    Total number of words is 4753
    Total number of unique words is 1455
    40.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    59.5 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    68.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 03
    Total number of words is 4954
    Total number of unique words is 1407
    44.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    66.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    75.2 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 04
    Total number of words is 4976
    Total number of unique words is 1361
    44.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    64.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    74.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 05
    Total number of words is 4798
    Total number of unique words is 1577
    42.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    62.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    73.4 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 06
    Total number of words is 4676
    Total number of unique words is 1557
    38.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    59.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    69.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 07
    Total number of words is 4582
    Total number of unique words is 1722
    33.4 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    51.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    61.4 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 08
    Total number of words is 4667
    Total number of unique words is 1607
    37.4 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    57.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    66.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 09
    Total number of words is 4757
    Total number of unique words is 1626
    40.3 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    60.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    71.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 10
    Total number of words is 4731
    Total number of unique words is 1555
    36.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    57.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    67.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 11
    Total number of words is 4659
    Total number of unique words is 1625
    37.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    56.6 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    66.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 12
    Total number of words is 4638
    Total number of unique words is 1623
    38.1 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    57.6 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    66.4 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 13
    Total number of words is 4783
    Total number of unique words is 1552
    41.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    61.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    71.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 14
    Total number of words is 4712
    Total number of unique words is 1562
    38.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    59.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    69.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 15
    Total number of words is 4703
    Total number of unique words is 1621
    40.4 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    60.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    69.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 16
    Total number of words is 4749
    Total number of unique words is 1564
    41.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    59.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    69.2 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 17
    Total number of words is 4760
    Total number of unique words is 1555
    44.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    64.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    74.0 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 18
    Total number of words is 4689
    Total number of unique words is 1596
    37.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    55.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    64.9 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 19
    Total number of words is 4693
    Total number of unique words is 1697
    37.3 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    57.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    67.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 20
    Total number of words is 4688
    Total number of unique words is 1595
    37.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    59.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    69.0 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 21
    Total number of words is 4737
    Total number of unique words is 1588
    37.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    57.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    67.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 22
    Total number of words is 4719
    Total number of unique words is 1661
    37.2 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    56.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    66.2 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 23
    Total number of words is 4700
    Total number of unique words is 1612
    38.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    57.5 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    67.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 24
    Total number of words is 4805
    Total number of unique words is 1600
    37.9 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    57.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    68.7 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 25
    Total number of words is 4715
    Total number of unique words is 1614
    39.2 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    57.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    67.0 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 26
    Total number of words is 4698
    Total number of unique words is 1523
    36.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    56.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    68.2 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 27
    Total number of words is 4774
    Total number of unique words is 1527
    40.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    57.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    67.5 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 28
    Total number of words is 4811
    Total number of unique words is 1548
    41.1 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    59.6 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    69.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 29
    Total number of words is 4721
    Total number of unique words is 1677
    38.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    57.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    67.0 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 30
    Total number of words is 4718
    Total number of unique words is 1636
    39.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    59.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    69.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 31
    Total number of words is 4754
    Total number of unique words is 1521
    37.2 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    56.6 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    65.5 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 32
    Total number of words is 4749
    Total number of unique words is 1674
    37.4 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    58.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    67.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 33
    Total number of words is 4785
    Total number of unique words is 1570
    41.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    60.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    70.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 34
    Total number of words is 4763
    Total number of unique words is 1596
    39.9 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    59.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    69.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 35
    Total number of words is 4773
    Total number of unique words is 1631
    39.3 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    59.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    68.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 36
    Total number of words is 4822
    Total number of unique words is 1564
    42.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    63.6 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    71.7 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 37
    Total number of words is 4620
    Total number of unique words is 1834
    37.1 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    54.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    61.9 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 38
    Total number of words is 4464
    Total number of unique words is 1749
    37.2 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    53.5 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    63.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 39
    Total number of words is 4401
    Total number of unique words is 1798
    35.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    53.1 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    63.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 40
    Total number of words is 4490
    Total number of unique words is 1699
    37.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    57.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    67.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • The Iliad - 41
    Total number of words is 161
    Total number of unique words is 114
    65.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    83.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    84.0 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.