In Hesiod then, as in Homer, there are undesigned notes of
correspondence between the partly mythical ornaments imaginatively
enlarged of the heroic age, and a world of actual handicrafts. In
the shield of Hercules another marvellous detail is added in the
image of Perseus, very daintily described as hovering in some
wonderful way, as if really borne up by wings, above the surface.
And that curious, haunting sense of magic in art, which comes out
over and over again in Homer--in the golden maids, for instance, who
assist Hephaestus in his work, and similar details which seem at
first sight to destroy the credibility of the whole picture, and make
of it a mere wonder-land--is itself also, rightly understood, a
testimony to a real excellence in the art of Homer's time. It is
sometimes said that works of art held to be miraculous are always of
an inferior kind; but at least it was not among those who thought
them inferior that the belief in their miraculous power began. If
the golden images move like living creatures, and the armour of
Achilles, so [205] wonderfully made, lifts him like wings, this again
is because the imagination of Homer is really under the stimulus of
delightful artistic objects actually seen.
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