Where  then  is  the  much  vaunted  vernal  gleam  of  Homeric
humanity  ?  Fear  on  the  part  of  man ;  jealousy,  indiffer-
ence, or  arbitrary  whim  on  the  part  of  the  gods :  this,  in
essence,  is  the  Homeric  conception.  As  Achilles,  the  slayer
of  Hector,  speaks  to  suppliant  Priam  (II.,  24,  525):  "For
thus  the  gods  have  allotted  the  thread  to  wretched  mortals:
to  live  with  lamentation  ;  but  they  themselves  are  without
troublous  concern."  (We  will  think  of  these  grave  words
later  on,  again,  when  we  have  come  to  JEschylus  and  to
Herodotus.)

The  soul  of  man  with  the  experience  of  the  billions  of
his  kind  before  him,  ever  before  him,  will,  somehow,  look
upon  death  as  a  gloomy  mystery.  Why  not  cheerfully  sub-
side into  this  ocean  of  periodic  coming  and  going  ?  Why
should  men,  in  the  face  of  this  uniform  and  overwhelm-
ing experience,  call  themselves  Brotds,  Brotoi  ?  This  word
really  means,  as  the  best  etymologists  (e.g.  Vanicek)  ex-
plain it :  obsessed  by  fate,  by  death,  in  fact  mortal;  whereas
ambrosia,  conversely,  is  the  food  of  immortal  life.  But
the  voice  of  the  Latin  world  strongly  enough  confirms  this
wail ;  for  homo  is  from  humus;  man  is  of  clay  veritably  ;
but  he  alone  in  the  wide  domain  of  organic  life  is  conscious
of  his  limitation,  it  is  from  this  gloom  of  vision  that  he
designates  his  own  kind.
