THE AUTHORESS
OF THE
ODYSSEY,
WHERE AND WHEN SHE WROTE, WHO SHE WAS, THE USE SHE
MADE OF THE ILIAD,
AND
HOW THE POEM GREW UNDER HER HANDS,
BY
SAMUEL BUTLER
AUTHOR OF "EREWHON," "LIFE AND HABIT," "ALPS AND SANCTUARIES,"
"THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF DR. SAMUEL BUTLER," ETC.
"There is no single fact to justify a conviction," saidMr. Cock; whereon the Solicitor General replied that hedid not rely upon any single fact, but upon a chain offacts, which taken all together left no possible meansof escape.
Times, Leader, Nov. 16, 1894.
(The prisoner was convicted).
New York
E. P. Dutton & Company
1922
AL PROFESSORE
CAV. BIAGIO INGROIA,
PREZIOSO ALLEATO
L'AUTORE RICONOSCENTE.
PREFACE.
The following work consists in some measure of matter alreadypublished in England and Italy during the last six years. The originalpublications were in the Athenœum, Jan. 30 and Feb. 20, 1892, and inthe Eagle for the Lent Term, 1892, and for the October Term, 1892.Both these last two articles were re-published by Messrs. Metcalfe &Co. of Cambridge, with prefaces, in the second case of considerablelength. I have also drawn from sundry letters and articles thatappeared in Il Lambruschini, a journal published at Trapani andedited by Prof. Giacalone-Patti, in 1892 and succeeding years, as alsofrom two articles that appeared in the Rassegna della LetteraturaSiciliana, published at Acireale in the autumn of 1893 and of 1894,and from some articles published in the Italian Gazette (then editedby Miss Helen Zimmern) in the spring of 1895.
Each of the publications above referred to contained some matterwhich did not appear in the others, and by the help of local studentsin Sicily, among whom I would name the late Signor E. Biaggini ofTrapani, Signor Sugameli of Trapani, and Cavaliere Professore Ingroiaof Calatafimi, I have been able to correct some errors and becomepossessed of new matter bearing on my subject. I have now entirelyre-cast and re-stated the whole argument, adding much that has notappeared hitherto, and dealing for the first time fully with thequestion of the writer's sex.
No reply appeared to either of my letters to the Athenœum nor to myItalian pamphlets. It is idle to suppose that the leading Iliadic andOdyssean scholars in England and the continent do not know what I havesaid. I have taken ample care that they should be informed concerningit. It is equally idle to suppose that not one of them should havebrought forward a serious argument against me, if there were any such[Pg x]argument to bring. Had they brought one it must have reached me, and Ishould have welcomed it with great pleasure; for, as I have said in myconcluding Chapter, I do not care whether the Odyssey was written byman or by woman, nor yet where the poet or