Those features
of it which make for tedium when it is read--repetition, stock epithets,
set phrases for given situations--are the very things best suited, with
their recurring well-known syllables, to fix the attention of listeners
more firmly, or to stir it when it drowses; at the least they provide a
sort of recognizable scaffolding for the events, and it is remarkable
how easily the progress of events may be missed when poetry is
declaimed. Indeed, if the primitive epic poet could avoid some of the
anxieties peculiar to the composition of literary epic, he had others to
make up for it. He had to study closely the delicate science of holding
auricular attention when once he had got it; and probably he would have
some difficulty in getting it at all. The really great poet challenges
it, like Homer, with some tremendous, irresistible opening; and in this
respect the magnificent prelude to _Beowulf_ may almost be put beside
Homer. But lesser poets have another way. That prolixity at the
beginning of many primitive epics, their wordy deliberation in getting
under way, is probably intentional. The _Song of Roland_, for instance,
begins with a long series of exceedingly dull stanzas; to a reader, the
preliminaries of the story seem insufferably drawn out. But by the time
the reciter had got through this unimportant dreariness, no doubt his
audience had settled down to listen. The _Chanson d'Antioche_ contains
perhaps the most illuminating admission of this difficulty.
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