Toynbee "Omero"
the poet Homer, [Inf. iv. 88]; V.N. ii. 8, V.N. xxv. 9; Conv. I. vii. 15; Conv. IV. xx. 4; Homerus, Mon. I. v. 5; Mon. II. iii. 9; he is referred to as quel signor de l'altissimo canto / che sovra li altri com'aquila vola, [Inf. iv. 95-96]; Virgil (addressing Statius in Purgatory) speaks of him as quel greco / che le Muse lattar più ch'altro mai, [Purg. xxii. 101-102].

D. places Homer, together with Horace, Ovid, and Lucan, in Limbo, where he is represented, with a sword in his hand, at the head of the other three, [Inf. iv. 86-88]; these poets, with Virgil, make up la bella scuola / di quel signor de l'altissimo canto, [Inf. iv. 94-95]; he is mentioned by Virgil as being in Limbo along with him and other poets of antiquity, [Purg. xxii. 101-102]. [Limbo.]

D., who knew no Greek, had no direct knowledge of Homer, of whose works no complete or direct translation existed in the Middle Ages; the Iliad and the Odyssey were known only by means of quotations in classical authors and through the medium of a narrative on the Trojan War in Latin verse which went by the name of Homerus Latinus, Homerus minor, or Pindarus Thebanus (supposed to be a translation by Pindar from the Iliad). [Achille.] [See E. Moore, SiD, i, pp. 164-165; and P. Toynbee, SR, pp. 204-215.]

D. himself refers to the fact that there was no Latin translation of Homer, alleging as the reason the impossibility of translating him, or any other poet, without entirely destroying all the sweetness and harmony of the poetic diction in the process, Conv. I. vii. 15. His quotations from Homer are borrowed (with or without acknowledgement) from Aristotle or Horace; thus the description of Hector as being more like the son of a god than of a man ({Iliad xxiv. 258-259}) is quoted (and applied to Beatrice) as if directly from Homer, V.N. ii. 8; but the same passage is twice subsequently referred to as occurring in the {Ethics vii. 1} of Aristotle, Conv. IV. xx. 4; Mon. III. iii. 9 [Ethica]; the opening of the Odyssey is quoted from the {Ars poetica 141-142} of Horace, V.N. xxv. 9 [Ars Poetica]; Homer's definition of the duties of the head of a household {Odyssey ix. 114} is quoted (from Aristotle, {Pol. i. 2}), Mon. I. v. 5 [Politica]; a passage from Homer {Iliad ii. 204} is quoted as Aristotle's, it being introduced by the latter in the B Metaphysics xii. 10, but without a reference to Homer (as it is also by Boethius, {Cons. phil. i. 5}, Mon. I. x. 6 [Metaphysica].

©Oxford University Press 1968. From A Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante by Paget Toynbee (1968) by permission of Oxford University Press