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  Homer's Odyssey.
instinctive, and far less explicit than in the Odyssey. It is
reasonable to suppose, therefore, that the poet has reached a
grounds, in our judgment.
_The Invocation._ The first line speaks of the man, Ulysses, and
designates his main attribute by a word, which may be translated
_versatile_ or _resourceful_, though some grammarians construe it
Furthermore, there is a third trait which is still higher, also
mentioned here: he sought to save not only himself but also his
Mark again the emphatic word in this Invocation; it is the Return
gradations, from the shortest and simplest to the longest and
The second obstacle is Neptune, whom we at once think of as the
Such, then, are the two obstacles, both connected far back with
And even in the two present obstacles we may note that the one,
Neptune, seems more external--that of the physical sea; while the
concerning the work. The poet at the start summons before us the
successful criminal. It made a profound impression upon the Greek
freedom and that of justice. The latter, indeed, springs from the
Such is the structure of the poem, which is organized in its main
Very old and still very new is the problem of the Odyssey; with a
approaching conflict with the suitors in Ithaca.
Still their insolence goes on; the ethical world of justice and
_Appendix._ The reader will have observed that, in the preceding
The most celebrated of these dissectors is probably the German
The general relation between the First and Second Books is to be
including the rest.
congresses, and other cognate institutions, together with oratory
But the most interesting thing in his speech is to discover the
contemned, the call to a change of conduct goes unheeded.
Leiocrates, the third Suitor, responds in a speech which is the
education, which is at present the first object.
Already it has been remarked that the Goddess is made to command
Thus in general the Mythus shadows forth objective mind, not
objective forms translated into subjective thoughts; then we can
understand them better. But the Homeric man shows the opposite
reception; he must bring himself back to his own by his skill and
artistic procedure.
No accident is it that this Book of Nestor begins and ends with a
recognition of divinity in the events of the world.
restoration after the estrangement.
narrative we behold the starting-point of the calamities, the
established order of things.
Nestor, though unable himself to give much information about the
Return, can point to the second grand Returner, Menelaus, who has
Several times Homer repeats in the Odyssey the tragic story of
The transition from Book Third to Book Fourth involves a very
restoration, because it has no alienation.
The account of the various Returns from Troy is continued. In the
ordinary real life we hear at the start in the reception and
Nor must we pass by that astonishing utterance of Menelaus to his
The Spartan king takes a short retrospect of life as it has been
Now for a true female trait. Helen at once recognizes the young
personally identified him. When the wife had spoken the words of
expressing thought; the day of philosophic reflection had not yet
Menelaus begins to feel sorrow, which is a penitent condition
When this one first principle is clearly revealed, then all is
fire--hold fast; he will become running water--hold fast; he will
sea-faring Hellene, but in the wilderness and desert, like the
inwardness.
Telemachus has graduated, he can now go home; so he asks to be
monster destroys itself.
Pallas sends to the distressed mother a refreshing sleep and a
communion with his great father.
Here the Fourth Book, or rather the Telemachiad, reaches out and
connects with the Ithakeiad, which begins in the Thirteenth Book.
But before this task can be accomplished, the grand experience of
character. Here again we should observe the author employing his
Telemachiad as well as in the Ulyssiad.
education of the son, the practical discipline of the father;
Telemachus, the son of his father, Nausicaa, the daughter of her
These bonds of connection are so strong that they overbalance all
The first thing to be noticed is that there are two very distinct
consider.
The objective sweep with its three localities is coupled with
institutional life, into Phæacia, which then enters into certain
acknowledgment of error from first to last. He is the poetical
development, of a genetic process. These lands and peoples are
division of the Odyssey.
The first part of the Book gives the Council of the Gods and its
consequences reaching down to the mortal who is the subject of
Of this divine activity in removing the first obstacle we may
distinguish three phases:--
elaborate the former a little more fully.
environment for Calypso, and suggests her character.
The answer of Calypso is significant, she charges the Gods with
transcended. Appetite may preserve man, still he is to rise above
home-sickness.
To be sure, the other side is not to be forgotten: it had to be
Island, where she rules; but she is a lesser deity who has to be
appearances thereof, specially in their relation to man. The
appearance; he runs up and down a scale of doubt, complaint,
resolution. His weakness he will show, yet also his strength;
Pallas also comes to the aid of her favorite, but in an indirect
water-gods. She plays in by the way in this marine emergency; her
underneath him. When he quits his raft, and is seen in the water,
recognition of the true nature of deity; no wonder that the River
conquers. The Gods come to his aid when he believes and acts. His
clinging to the mast, though he had just said: "Now I shall die a
conflicts of higher forms of society resulting from a pursuit of
Nausicaa, its ideal image.
somnolescent reader is only too ready to spare himself the poetic
In the present Book there is not by any means as much divine
suggestion.
(2.) Nausicaa, when she awakes, obeys the suggestion and
proceeds to the place of the washing.
same spot, when Pallas starts the plan for his waking.
(2.) Meeting of Ulysses and Nausicaa, and the going to the city.
First is a short introduction giving a bit of the history of the
The storm-wind shakes it not, nor is it wet
By showers, and there the snow doth never fall;
The calm clear ether is without a cloud,
And over all is spread a soft white sheen.
present.
altogether escaped from a tinge of disrelish.
Nausicaa obtains without difficulty wagon and mules and help of
Of course, the latter had at first his usual fit of doubt and
matter"--and so by an act of will he rescues himself from inner
brooding and finds out the truth.
innocent herself, what can she he afraid of? Thus does the poet
profoundest chord of her heart; he has divined her secretest yet
exhortation of the young maiden to the much-enduring man; she has
Family, its heart, as it were, full of the tender feelings of
comparatively, to be a prophecy unto us still at this late date?
So we catch a very fascinating glimpse of the Phæacian world. Two
We now begin to catch a hint of the sweep of the poem in these
beautiful for man. All this Ulysses now beholds.
Ulysses follows the direction of Nausicaa and passes to the city
The poet introduces his mythical forms; we hear also the fabulous
peoples; they too must be transcended.
But not only the Fine Arts, the Industries also are touched upon.
After the palace the garden is described with its cultivated
raisin, and wine. Finally the last part is set off for kitchen
unfortunate wanderer and succor him to the fullest extent. More
impressive still is their religious faith; they live in intimate
hereafter, her part being finished; her husband takes the lead
In the sweep of the present Book, many origins are suggested. The
industrial arts are suggested, and to a degree are realized.
The artistic soul of Hellas is fully felt in Homer's Phæacia. The
King Alcinous; thy fair palace has had fairer offspring,
Thou art ruling the world still by the beautiful form;
Out of thy mansion majestic was born in a song the Greek Temple,
Sentineled round with a choir--Titans columnar of stone,
Bearing forever their burden to hymns of a Parian measure,
Wearing out heaviest Fate to a Pindaric high strain.
Look! those boys of thy garden with tapers are moving to statues,
Hellas springs out of thy palace all sculptured with actions
heroic,
Even the God we discern turning to marble by faith.
Thou, old Homer, wert the first builder in Greece, the first
carver,
Afterward she could but turn fancies of thine into stone;
Architects followed thee, building thy poem aloft into temples,
Sculptors followed thee too, thinking in marble thy line.
Nor must we forget the Industrial Arts here suggested--weaving,
manifests itself in the Phæacian singer.
beautiful loving picture, painted with strong deep undertones of
Gods, corresponding to the story of Helen on earth. Sung by the
bard.
the market-place to the palace and into the presence of Arete.
Horse, not by the physical might and courage of Achilles. Sung by
Venus who favored Troy.
We are now to witness two kinds of entertainment, both of which
debauch.
physically, requiring also no little mental alertness.
grammarians.
Demodocus indicate a Pre-Iliad, an Iliad, and a Post-Iliad in due
In the second place one asks very emphatically: Why this present
treatment of the Gods on Homer's part? But here we must make an
inactive, quiet, self-indulgent phase, in decided contrast to the
dissension; no dispute with neighboring nations about commercial
presents--hospitable gifts, such as the host gives to his honored
The Wooden Horse is not employed in the Iliad, but is one of the
Ulysses in his strongest emotions unite himself with the Trojan
enterprise of aforetime. He is not simply a wanderer over the sea
Previously Ulysses wept at the first lay of Demodocus, now he
_Appendix._ It seems never to have been noticed what an important
nothing more?
Homer, therefore, in this Book as well as in the First Book where
A step further we may carry the thought. Homer is not only not a
world-builder, and then puts into his world a ballad-singer as a
passing character, he certainly emphasizes the difference between
Most emphatically, therefore, Homer shows himself not to be a
necessity of his genius.
exposition given in some detail.
The transition from Phæacia to Fableland is, therefore, full of
What are these shapes and why? Man has created them that he may
indicate his own spiritual state when he has fallen out with the
The store of Fairy Tales in those four Books was unquestionably
It is now manifest that those who resolve these Tales into a
Olympians. There is no room in Pylos for a Circe or a Polyphemus.
transcendental Fairyland. There is as yet no Greek language of
Still deeper must we look into this act of self-revelation. "I am
The great sea with its tempests is now before them, heaving and
But there is one man among them, who, though not guiltless by any
forgetfulness; it must proceed to action, to virulent destructive
Cyclops, Polyphemus, in his conflict with Ulysses.
The main thing to be noticed in the present account is the
extraordinary number of negatives. No laws, no assemblies, no
At this point we can trace his connection with the great Trojan
experience, which, as already set forth, has begotten a negative
tendency in its participators. The war at Troy, like all war
negative side, as hostile to a civilized order; so the poet has
thought somewhat more distinct.
During the day the "man of many shifts" has an opportunity for
sarcastic humor.
desperate efforts to grasp this slippery, double-doing and
Thus Ulysses nullifies the Cyclops, inflicting three deprivations
opportunity of learning, and was trying to get possession of his
dominating thought to the Book in which he or she appears.
As already stated, there are three different localities to which
necessity, a strict evolution. The work here, according our best
The first fact about the Æolian Isle is that it was afloat in the
dwelling-place.
Assistant: Sure, a continuation for this poem could be:
  So Ulysses tries again to get the bladder of winds from Æolus,
Æolus, therefore, refuses to receive Ulysses and his companions a
Many have been the interpretations of this marvelous King and his
Penelope. Such is his experience at present.
vengeance.
Onward the wanderer, now with his single ship, has to sail again;
This genealogy we have set down in full, as given by the poet, on
migration and ethnical kinship which had been in his time long
Ulysses in a certain sense; he sees her just now and not before,
because he has created her. Why is he thus repelled by Family and
battle.
Very famous has this story of Circe become in literature. It has
furnished proverbs, allusions, texts for exhortation; it has been
Now the main point to be seized in this tale is the movement, the
Of these three stages the last seems inappropriate to Circe's
however, be said in advance that Circe is not a man-eater, but a
man-transformer; she is a new phase of the great experience, she
animal.
thereof; her mighty spell can change character and shape.
There has been a difference of opinion from antiquity down to the
intelligence without body; Ulysses must now reach forth to the
supersensible world? If we watch her development through the two
The same transformation we may note on her artistic side, for she
limited in Space and Time.
The reader has now witnessed the three stages of this Tenth
It is one phase of the great Mythus of the Apocalypse, or the
uncovering of the Future State, which in some form belongs to all
We have, therefore, in the present Book the Greek glance into
The connection with the preceding Book can not be too strongly
movement.
expressed in the color of the animal and of Hades.
Thus is the Past linked into the Present, which to receive the
The common ground in these three cases of prophetic insight is
Ulysses should quit the watery element) give hecatombs to the
aforetime.
It is the beautiful instinct of the mother, that she flits in the
has already appeared, even before Tiresias came; now she is the
first after that prophet, who gives directions to Ulysses
return, while old age weighs hard upon him." Such is the father,
still living, whom Ulysses may yet see.
The mother died from longing for her son and "the memory of his
gentleness;" still her longing brings her to him in the life
beyond. The great revelation is concerning the future state: the
soul is immortal, this fact Ulysses is to tell in Phæacia. The
strong desire to behold the loved ones who have passed away is
indeed the impulse; but they too return, though insubstantial. It
broken by death. Still the mother is but a ghost and cannot be
embraced; this the son has to accept, though he would have her in
_b._ At once there is the transition to the famous mothers of
First is the group of mortal women who were embraced by some god,
himself will appear as the supreme example of the Greek Hero.
Such were three typical mothers, famed in Hellenic legend, being
child of divinity, with an immortal portion. This view, in its
purely sensuous aspect, is dubious enough to the modern ethical
mind, still its real meaning must be looked at with sympathetic
something more than divine license; it has indeed a wonderful
pre-Christian suggestiveness, and gives a glimpse of the movement
The second group of famous mothers are mortal women with mortal
husbands. The wedded wife brings up now the domestic relation,
which is passingly introduced by the spouse of Hercules, Megara,
who is simply mentioned. The two chief women of the group are
Epicaste and Chloris, the one supremely tragic in her motherhood,
marries her after slaying his own father who is her husband, both
world-famous use, in his two dramas on the subject of OEdipus.
Chloris is, on the contrary, the mother of Nestor, not a tragic
character by any means; also she is mother of Pero, the beautiful
happily won by an heroic deed. Mark the interest of those
listeners, Arete and Nausicaa, mother and daughter in this tale.
In the third group are two mothers who have a double honor; each
has borne twins and heroic ones at that; moreover the Gods again
brother to share his immortality with his mortal brother; hence
Iphidameia, who declares Neptune to be the father of Otus and
Ephialtes, of her monstrous twins, "who at the age of nine years
threatened war upon the Gods," and proposed to storm heaven by
piling Mount Ossa upon Olympus and Pelion on top of that. Such is
order, and are slain by the arrows of Apollo "ere the down
blossomed beneath their temples, and covered their chins with
tender furze."
whole of the present catalogue; the wives and maidens now come in
betrayer of woman, and in the other case woman is the betrayer of
But the singer is tired and sleepy; moreover has he not told the
essence of the matter in this portion of his song? He at once
the myth-making Imagination, are types, are the ghosts of Hades
which Ulysses must see and know, ere he return to the Upperworld.
heroism, and a warning also, to the living.
"fabricating lies, out of which we, looking into them, can get
nothing," can draw no meaning. Such at least is our view of this
certainly devoid of the noble spirit or worthy content.
The third heroic shade is that of Ajax, son of Telamon, with whom
reconciliation.
certainly he shows himself no saint in his wanderings. Moreover
consciousness of Hellas in its complete cycle.
characters of Homer, ranging from guilt, through repentance, to
Unquestionably a punitive element enters now, there is guilt and
punishment in Hades. But who has not felt that in the preceding
explicit and organizes itself upon the same.
features akin to Hesiod; well, Homer is Hesiod and many more.
punishment is an eternal chase, the hunter is compelled to hunt
We hope the reader feels how inadequate Hades would be, and how
Thus Ulysses, the supreme spiritual Hero of the Greeks, is shown
important document. A many-sided production also; its poetic, its
Having the entire Book now before us, we observe that it shows a
themselves into Hades.
ambiguous vesture. Moreover they are in profound harmony with the
subordinated to the rational, she is no longer the indulgence of
Thus Ulysses is now ready to listen to the coming event and to
Accordingly Circe foretells, and Ulysses foreknows; the two are
over-doing. Such then are the Plangctæ, which Ulysses must avoid
differentiation both in the mind and in the world; it hints the
fundamental form into which the whole Book is cast.
transcript out of the Vedas.
Such is the outlook upon the Future given by Circe, in the way of
We now have reached the second portion of the Book, which is the
transgress, and they will receive the penalty.
companions and tells them all that he dares about the approaching
anywhere, and his eyes grew weary, peering about at the mist-like
universality, to the all-seeing light within. Ulysses, having
transcended the limit he showed in his last experience, has gone
companions and even exacts an oath from them not to harm the holy
defiantly repeated their deed, "for six whole days they feasted,
escapes.
One cannot help feeling that the poet in this description has a
Such are the main points in the structure of the present Book,
All these monsters have been supposed to represent perils of
captain to the mast? Surely some other peril is suggested.
phenomena. Already we have unfolded the ethical meaning which
creative act and present it in an image.
constitutes the chief human calamity.
At this point we hear the cry of dissent: You make Homer too
introspective, you make him a self-introverted, self-torturing
nineteenth century man, whereas he is the most unreflective,
character: Prospero is at one time magician, that is, poet, and
suggestiveness, and is found in one form or other in the World's
greatest Books. Mind destroying mind may be shown as light
wherewith we enter upon a new grand division of the poem.
But Ulysses, before he can reform his country, has had to reform
himself. When he attacked the Ciconians, he was as negative to
The poet has, however, his wrongful set, the Suitors, about whose
We have already indicated the fact (p. 19) that Pallas starts to
institutional life of his country and the poem ends. This second
Telemachus to Ithaca, the transition from the long and elaborate
marvelous ship and at the marvelous land which has just been left
Why this interference from above? Wherein is the escort by the
vanishes.
The poem henceforth quits the sea, after marking the fate of the
steam-ship has taken its place in these Ithacan waters. Still the
compelled to assume a mask? Thus the poet brings before us the
wonderful interplay between the human and divine, till they fully
It is also to be noted by the reader that each, the man and the
Even the mist which hung over the landscape at first, has now
The scheme shows the structure of these four Books (XIII-XVI),
fundamental in the creed of the poet.
information.
swineherd, but he has extracted from it his greatest blessing--an
contained in the first, which is the tale of Eumæus.
prophecy.
Indeed we are compelled to think that Homer here suggests his own
Moreover, it is a tale of providential escapes; thrice has the
content of the Odyssey, as the latter was sung to the whole Greek
slavery, with its accompaniment, man-stealing; the pirate and the
The fiction in the previous Book, which Ulysses began to tell to
Pallas, also started in Crete, looked back at the Trojan war, and
disguise is its title, here represented by the Hero in disguise.
But the other hint the swineherd did not take, the hint of the
The general theme of the Book is, accordingly, the Return of
situation; the divine and human side easily come together, with a
Interesting touches of the Phoenician traders are given: "Sharp
Phoenicians, whose workmanship is also suggested. "The palace
people seem not to have been sea-faring. His fundamental trait is
Phæacians, and with their love of the Trojan conflict.
It is interesting to note the significance of this Phoenician
background, with its universal commerce. The Phoenician traded
experts to return to Jerusalem, the holy city of his fathers. The
entertainment. A curious touch of policy; it was well to have the
Telemachus so active.
wretched rags." He resumes his disguise "lest the swineherd might
organism of the poem, and then give a brief outline of each Book
separately.
It has already often been stated that the Odyssey is a Return, an
insolent, destructive conduct of the Suitors is set forth in all
institutional world in its three leading forms: (1) Property, (2)
Ulysses had to grapple repeatedly in Fableland, and of which the
introduces a kind of story, which we have called the Novelette in
The poet does not leave out of this Book the previous tendency of
The present Book is one of warnings; on all sides the Suitors are
Another note of warning is given specially to Amphinomus, who had
One other point we should note in this speech of Penelope to the
reckoning: such is his repeated warning to all these people.
In the second place, Penelope applies her test, for she is not so
At this point the disguised Ulysses makes his third and principal
Short is the life of man, and whoso bears
A cruel heart, devising cruel things,
On him men call down evil from the gods
While living, and pursue him when he dies,
With scoffs. But whoso is of generous heart,
And harbors generous aims, his guests proclaim
His praises far and wide to all mankind,
And numberless are they who call him good.
conscious of some hope now.
_Book Twenty-first._ The test presented in many a tale is here
Suitors, "and to me ye shall be as companions and brothers of
punishment of the guilty women (servants) with the sparing of the
discrimination, according to the deed.
attendant can be found skulking anywhere, and none have escaped.
household.
A still harsher and more ignoble punishment awaits the goatherd
corpses, is simply the Destroyer, the very picture and embodiment
The book may be divided into two portions--before and after the
In fact the complete restoration of Ulysses is both to Family and
Of the present Book there are two parts: the Underworld and the
Very hurried are these later incidents of the Book, but they are
Other matters may also be noticed. Pallas, the Goddess of Wisdom,
suggestion. She will remain with him ever afterwards, manifesting
Thus we may well hold to these unities in Homer: the unity of the
Such is the more external, the historical phase of the Iliad and
destroyer in deed and in spirit; home and country he is not only
separated from but is destructive of--he is a negative man.
himself, and, through his absence, in Ithaca?
greatest epochs in the Trojan War.
themselves.
(_b_) Stay at Troy for 10 years. This is also a long training to
destruction. Ulysses is an important man, but not the hero. Here
lies the sphere of the Iliad.
(_c_) Destruction of the city and the restoration of Helen to her
subordinately in the Odyssey. Thus is the separation from the
Orient completed on its negative side, that is, as far as
destruction can complete it.
(_b_) It is no wonder that the journey home was very difficult.
Quarrels arose at the start (see Nestor's account Book III., and
that of Menelaus Book IV.). Many perished on the way; some were
(_c_) Those who reached home, the successful returners, were of
three main kinds, represented by Nestor, by Menelaus, and by
the completion of its cycle.
explicit, quite conscious. When Ulysses comes back to Ithaca, and
cyclical, and that both together make a cycle.
continues the story, installing Ulysses as hero over Ajax in the
conceived and employed.
training for the deed. This training has two very distinct
portions, as it pertains to a young man and a middle-aged
man--Telemachiad and Ulyssiad.
left without the influence of his father, when the latter went
to Troy. But he has his father's spirit, hence he must know;
from Ithaca he goes to Nestor and Menelaus for instruction. Four
been a man over 40 years old. He is to be trained out of the
negative spirit which he imbibed from the Trojan war. Herein
lies his analogy to Faust, who is also a middle-aged man, and
negative, but from study and thought.
Both the Telemachiad and the Ulyssiad are essentially one great
Property, Family, State, the Gods; they are really in their way
Reconciliations; thus each division is subdivided:
(_a_) His wrath--both rightful and wrongful.
(_b_) His reconciliation with Agamemnon and his own people.
(_a_) His wrath--both rightful and wrongful.
(_b_) His reconciliation with Priam and the Trojans.
(_a_) The ignorance of the son and its overcoming.
(_b_) The destructive tendency of the father and its overcoming.
(_a_) The hut of the swineherd (preparation).
(_b_) The palace of the King (execution).
That is, Ulysses and Telemachus have the double problem, which
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