manliness, courage, reverence for old age and for the hospitable
hearth; justice, piety, pity, a brave attitude towards life and
death, are all conspicuous in Homer. He has to write of battles;
and he delights in the joy of battle, and in all the movement of
war. Yet he delights not less, but more, in peace: in prosperous
cities, hearths secure, in the tender beauty of children, in the
love of wedded wives, in the frank nobility of maidens, in the
beauty of earth and sky and sea, and seaward murmuring river, in sun
and snow, frost and mist and rain, in the whispered talk of boy and
girl beneath oak and pine tree.

Living in an age where every man was a warrior, where every city
might know the worst of sack and fire, where the noblest ladies
might be led away for slaves, to light the fire and make the bed of
a foreign master, Homer inevitably regards life as a battle. To
each man on earth comes "the wicked day of destiny," as Malory
unconsciously translates it, and each man must face it as hardily as
he may.

Homer encourages them by all the maxims of chivalry and honour. His
heart is with the brave of either side--with Glaucus and Sarpedon of
Lycia no less than with Achilles and Patroclus. "Ah, friend," cries
Sarpedon, "if once escaped from this battle we were for ever to be
ageless and immortal, neither would I myself fight now in the
foremost ranks, nor would I urge thee into the wars that give
renown; but now--for assuredly ten thousand fates of death on every
side beset us, and these may no man shun, nor none avoid--forward
now let us go, whether we are to give glory or to win it!" And
forth they go, to give and take renown and death, all the shields
and helms of Lycia shining behind them, through the dust of battle,