A COMMON source of misunderstanding in Homeric interpretation is the assumption that Homeric language and modern languages are parallel, and that, to understand Homer, all we have to do is match two corresponding sets of terms.'A useful technique'adopted by several German scholars has helped to dispel this assumption. It involves the investigation, not of what Homeric language says, but rather of what it cannot say; and the results indicate that certain ideas which are commonplace in modern thought have no true Homeric equivalent. Finsler3 notes several words for different ways of thinking, but finds none that really means" to think," with emphasis on the function; Snell examines nine verbs that involve the use of the eyes, but finds no real equivalent of" to see"; 4 and Boehme concludes that Homeric language lacks expressions for such familiar notions as" intellect" and" character" as we know them." The point is, of course, that abstraction is undeveloped: Homeric man is too closely concerned with all the detail of his experience to stand back from it and indulge in abstraction and synthesis. And for our purposes the most significant deficiency that results from this is his lack of any concept of" soul" or" spirit." 6 Instead we find several seats of mental life which can perhaps best be described as" mental organs."'Before we consider these, the Homeric awrpa deserves mention because its use is often misunderstood. As far as we can judge from Homeric xFor a bibliography of recent work see HJ Mette in Lustrum 1956, 21ff. and add: TBL Webster," Language and Thought in Early Greece," Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc. Proc. 94 (1952-3) No. 3, 15 if., and DJ Furley," The Early History of the Concept of Soul," London Inst. of Class. Studies Bulletin No. 3 (1956) 1 ff.'But one that needs careful handling: cf. p. 79, below. 8G. Finsler, Homer8 (Leipzig 1924) 1. 2. 78. 4B. Snell, The Discovery of the Mind (Oxford: Blackwell 1953) lff.'J. Boehme, Die Seele und das Ich im homerischen Epos (Goettingen 1929) 45, 76. This does not of course affect the poet's ability to portray character. On this point see H. Frankel's criticism of W. Marg's Der Charakter in der Sprache derfrnhigriechischen Dichtung (Wiirzburg 1938) 43 ff., in AP 60 (1939) 475 ff. 6Boehme, op. cit. 89; Snell, Discovery 8 ff.; H. Frankel, Dichtung und Philosophie des fruehen Griechentums (New York 1951) 108. Unfortunately Boehme reached this con-clusion after basing his whole work on a body-soul antithesis (cf. Snell, Gnomon 7 [19311 76). Cf. also P. Vivante, Archivio Glottologico Italiano 41 (1956) 113 ff. GMA Grube makes a similar point in more general terms, Plato's Thought (London 1935) 120 ff. TFor this term cf. Snell, Discovery 12 if; ER Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley 1951) 16; Frinkel, Dichtung 109.