HOMER'S ODYSSEY. (continued 5)

This curse will now follow Ulysses and drive him from island to island through Fableland, till he gets back to Ithaca with much suffering and with all companions lost, where he will find many troubles. In this manner the return of Ulysses becomes intertwined with Polyphemus and this Fableland, which furnish an underlying motive for the third Part of the Odyssey (the last 12 Books). The curse here spoken is still working when Ulysses reaches home and finds the suitors in possession. Verily his negative spirit lies deep; in cursing Polyphemus, he has cursed himself.

Thus the impartial poet shows both sides—the guilt as well as the good in Polyphemus and in Ulysses. The man of nature has his right when he offers to transform his conduct, and it shows that Ulysses still needs discipline when he scorns such an offer. Polyphemus too is to have his chance of rising, for he certainly has within himself the possibility. Has not the poet derived the noble Arete and Alcinous and institutional Phæacia from the savage Cyclops? But Ulysses negatives Polyphemus just at the start upward. The character which he showed in sacking the city of the Ciconians is in him still, he is not yet ready to return.

The Ninth Book has thus run through its three stages and has landed us in pure Fableland. These three stages—the attack on the Ciconians, the Lotus-eaters, the adventure with the Cyclops—may now be seen to be parts of one entire process, which we may call the purification of the spirit from its own negative condition. The man, having become destructive-minded (oloophrōn) must be put under training by the Gods, and sent to battle with the monsters of Fableland.

So we advance to the next Book with the certainty that there is still some stern discipline in store for the wandering Ulysses.

BOOK TENTH.

At the first glance we can observe a certain similarity between this Book and the last one. There are in each three distinct portions or adventures, two very short and simple, and one very long and intricate. Each Book culminates in a fabulous being with whom the Hero has a wrestle for supremacy, and in both cases he comes out victorious. We are still in Wonderland, we have to reach into the ideal realm in order to find out what these strange incidents mean. The two central figures are Polyphemus and Circe, respectively, each of whom imparts the dominating thought to the Book in which he or she appears.

The first thing we ask for is the connection, the inner thread which joins these Books together. It was stated that Polyphemus was the negation of the institutional world, he was individualistic, he belonged to neither Family nor State. No laws, no councils, no civil polity; he is a huge man of violence, hostile specially to man's social life. Circe on the contrary, is the woman hostile to woman's domestic world, the Family, first of all; she is the grand enchantress, representing the power and seductiveness of the senses; she is the enemy of what we call morals. To be sure, we shall find in her something more, whereof the full unfolding will be given hereafter.

Ulysses is the one who is to meet those negative forces and put them down. His companions give him special trouble in the present Book, they seem to represent the weaker phases of man, possibly of Ulysses himself. Already he has suppressed Polyphemus, or the institutional negation; now he is to subordinate Circe or the moral negation. The latter is a woman because she must have sensuous beauty and all the charm of passionate enticement; the former is a man because he must show strength and violence rather than the allurement of pleasure.

Nor should we forget that these forms are in Ulysses himself, and were really generated out of his Trojan life; that spirit of his, shown at the start by the attack on the Ciconians, has all these phases in its process. He is traveling through an Inferno, seeing its entire demonic brood, which he has begotten, and which he has to fight and subject. At the same time these fantastic shapes are typical, and shadow forth the universal experience of man, belonging to all countries and all ages.

As already stated, there are three different localities to which Ulysses is brought. Three islands, bounded, yet in a boundless sea, through which he moves on his ships; such is the outermost setting of nature, suggestive of much. No tempest occurs in this Book; the stress is upon the three fixed places in the unfixed aqueous element.

I. First is the island where dwells Æolus with his Family; hither Ulysses comes after putting down Polyphemus who was hostile to domestic life. In this spot the bag of winds is given into the possession of the navigator, whose companions, however, release them, and he is driven to the starting-point, with the winds at large. Æolus refuses to receive him the second time.

II. Next is the city of the Læstrigonians, where is a civil life, a State, to which Ulysses can come after subjecting the Cyclops, who had no polity of the sort. But the State is verily a giant, a cannibal to him now, with all the winds loose. Hence he has to flee for his life. Whither now does he go?

III. Not to Penelope and Ithaca, but to Circe, and her isle. She is the form which next rises before Ulysses, banished from the domestic world of Æolus, and fleeing from the civil life of the Læstrigonians.

We shall try to bring the threads of connection to light, for it is our emphatic opinion that these three islands with their shapes are spiritually bound and wound together. Still further, they reach back and interlink with the forms of the previous Book, which furnish antecedent stages of the grand total movement of Fairyland. Separated in image are these islands and their inhabitants, but they have to be united in thought. Not a mere accident is the sequence, but a necessity, a strict evolution. The work here, according our best belief, is organic, and the reader must not rest contented with his understanding of it, till he moves with the poet from place to place by the interior path of the spirit.

I.

The first fact about the Æolian Isle is that it was afloat in the waters of the sea, as Delos and other islands of antiquity were reported to be. Not stationary then; the king of it, Æolus, has a name which indicates a changeable nature, veering about like the winds, of which he is king. The second fact pertaining to this Isle is that a wall of brass encircles it not to be broken through; "and the cliff runs up sheer from the sea." Manifestly two opposite ideas are suggested in this description: the fixed and the movable; the island within itself is bound fast, and cannot be driven asunder; yet it floats in the most unstable of elements, in the sea and winds. Such is the physical environment, clearly mirroring the meaning. Something permanent in the midst of all that is mutable we may expect to find here.

On the island dwell the King of the Winds and his wife, along with six blooming sons and daughters. He gave his daughters to his sons for wives; a custom not elsewhere found in Homer outside of the realm of the Gods; yet is claimed to have been a very ancient custom, which the Ptolomies revived in Egypt. At any rate here is the picture of the Family in its patriarchal form, wholly separated from other connections and set apart by itself, on the brass-bound precipitous island. The Family is abstracted from the rest of the world and given a dwelling-place.

At this point we begin to catch a glimpse of the significance of the story. The Family is the first power which seizes the emotions and passions and caprices of men (the winds of his soul) and starts the taming of them; the marriage tie is fixed, is not for a day; thus the Family makes itself permanent, and makes the human being stable through feeling and duty. None but married people are here; very different will it be hereafter in the island of Circe. The king of the winds is not only Æolus, but also his institution, the Family, rules here, for there is no State to be governed. Not polygamy, but monogamy, as the great Homeric principle of domestic life, do we witness—the mutual devotion of one man and one woman. Externally we found the fixed and the floating; internally also we discover the fixed and the floating, or rather, that principle which fixes the floating, and makes the world stable. Thus we see the reason why Homer puts the Family upon the Isle of the Winds.

It is no wonder, therefore, that in such a place is held up before us a picture of happiness and plenty. "All feast from day to day with endless change of meats;" why ask whence the viands come? The inner peace provides them. Even the sound of flutes is heard round about, according to one way of translating the passage; music attunes the everlasting festival. Not mere gratification is this, but happiness, the outer again mirroring the inner; domestic harmony is the matter set forth.

Hither Ulysses comes with his companions, "to the city and beautiful houses" of Æolus. A city is here, but no civil life is introduced into the story. "A whole month the monarch entertained me;" what was again the interest? "He asked me about Ilium," the eternal theme, which lies always in the background of Fairyland as well as of Historic Hellas. The Trojan war and also "the Return of the Greeks" were recounted, we may say, sung by Ulysses; the Iliad and the Odyssey, delighted also those domestic Æolians. Was not Troy destroyed because of a wrong done to the Greek Family? Finally Ulysses was gotten ready to be sent home by his host.

Æolus, the ruler of the winds, gives them into the might of Ulysses; he confines them in "a bullock's bladder," which, tied by a silver chain, he places in the ship. It is manifest that the sea, deprived of these windy powers, cannot hinder the passage. Again we behold the main fact of the island: the unstable, uncertain, capricious, is held by the fixed, the permanent; during his sojourn with Æolus, Ulysses has obtained an inner hold, an anchorage of the moral kind, which he sorely needed. This was given him by his view of the Family, which was the real security of the island. All the conditions of his return (but one) are placed in his hand, tied up in a bag. "Only the west-wind was allowed to blow," which sent him homewards.

Still the supreme condition was not, could not be given by Æolus or by anybody else, could not be tied up in a bag. The free man must be alert, he must watch, and win his own salvation; his prime duty is to keep the bag tied, and therein to exercise his will. This is just what he failed to do at the last moment. He went to sleep when in sight of Ithaca; his companions, led by curiosity and avarice (two blasts of the soul) open the bag, expecting to find gold and silver, and find the rushing winds. Of course all are driven back to the starting-point, to the island, on which they soon land.

What will Ulysses do in such extremity? "Shall I drop into the sea and perish, or shall I still endure and stay among the living?" Suicide will not solve his problem: "I remained and suffered." Herein also we trace the stamp of the hero, whose special call it is to master fate.

So Ulysses tries again to get the bladder of winds from Æolus, confessing that it was equally the fault of himself and his companions. But the opportunity is gone; the sum total of conditions, all bagged and tied up, and put into his hands, presents itself only once. Moreover the sleep of Ulysses, just at the nick of destiny, showed an internal weakness; he became careless, almost insolent under such circumstances; he manifested a similar trait to that which led to the curse of the Cyclops. Again he hears a malediction, now uttered by his former host: "Get thee out of my island quickly, most guilty of men, hated by the Gods!" Thus Æolus regards the man before him, and reinforces the curse of Polyphemus. But if Ulysses had to fall asleep by sheer fatigue (which construction the passage hardly demands), then he did not look properly after his companions, making them the sharers of his knowledge. A foolish question has been asked here and much discussed: How did Ulysses know what his companions said during his sleep? Easily enough; but the answer is not worth the candle.

Æolus, therefore, refuses to receive Ulysses and his companions a second time; they have fallen, they must experience the full meaning of their conduct; they must go to Circe, and some of them, at least, be changed into swine, till they know the nature of their deed. Æolus cannot receive them, they have destroyed his gift; they would repeat their act, if he gave all into their hands again, without the deeper penalty. The law thus is clear; they, having disregarded the fixed control of appetite and passion, which the King of the Island imparts, are swept back into brutishness.

Many have been the interpretations of this marvelous King and his children and his island. The supporters of the physical theory of mythology have maintained that the twelve sons and daughters are the twelve months of the year, six of summer and six of winter, while Æolus, the father, is the Sun who produces them. Others regard Æolus as a mortal king, who, on account of certain traits or certain deeds, was transformed into the fabled monarch of the winds. There has been much dispute over the location of Æolia; the most of those who have searched for its geographical site are in favor of one of the Lipari Islands, on the northern coast of Sicily. Finally Virgil has somewhat transformed the legend and put it into his Æneid.

II.

Ulysses and his companions now had to use the oar on seas without wind; "their spirit was worn out," hope had fled from them toiling through the becalmed deep. They arrive at the land of the Læstrigonians, a race of giants, into whose narrow harbor surrounded by its high precipices the ships enter, with the exception of that of Ulysses, who has learned caution. A kind of cave of the Giant Despair is that harbor, reflecting outwardly the internal condition of the men, after their weary labor coupled with the repulse from Æolus.

First of all we here observe a city with a civil order; there is the place of assembly, a king over men, with a royal palace. No husbandry appears, but there are wagons fetching wood to town on a smooth road (probably a made road); shepherds are specially designated, so that we may suppose a pastoral life prevails, yet these people in their city are not roving nomads. The Family also is noticed, being composed of the king, queen, and daughter; the latter is bringing water from the town fountain—a primitive, idyllic touch. But the stress is manifestly not upon the domestic but the civil institution; the State is here in full operation, in which fact we mark the contrast with the preceding island, Æolia. Another sharp contrast may be drawn between the Læstrigonians and the Cyclops; the latter are giants also, but have no civil order.

Ulysses, therefore, witnesses the State, in due gradation after the Family. He can come to both these institutions now, and see them at least, for he has put down Polyphemus, who, we recollect, was the negation of both. But only see them, not share in them; the curse of the Cyclops is still working upon him and in him; though he destroy a destroyer, that does not make him positive; the devil destroys the wicked, but that does not make him good. Hence the State rejects him as did the Family; he is by no means ready to return to Ithaca and Penelope. Such is his experience at present.

But why should the Læstrigonians be portrayed as giants? Of course the Fairy Tale deals in these huge beings for its own purpose. Æolus and his children seem to have been of common stature. The fancy can often play into the meaning, or suggest a glimpse thereof. The State may be called the Big Man, the concentrated personality of many persons; he strikes hard, he overwhelms the wrong-doer. Therefore he seems now so terrible to Ulysses, and is really so to the latter's companions, of whom all perish here except one shipful. It is the function of the State to punish; in the sweet domestic life of Æolus, there was no punishment, only banishment; thus we behold now the penalty, at the hands of that institution which is specially to administer it. The companions did no wrong to the Læstrigonians, but note that just here judgment comes upon them. Ulysses escapes, but to him also these people appear as destroyers, as man-devouring cannibals; so the State often seems to the guilty, overwhelming the individual with its penal vengeance.

The Cyclops was also a giant and a cannibal, full of hostility; but mark the difference. He was the Strong Man of Nature, not human in shape, with that one eye in his head; his violence was against institutions, the violence of the wild barbarian, which has to be put down by man. But the Læstrigonians live in a civilized order which has to punish the transgressor; their shapes are not monstrosities of nature, but magnified human bodies. Both are giants and cannibals, both negative, but in a wholly different sense.

What is the location of the Læstrigonians? A subject much disputed recently and of old, with very little profit. Some expressions are puzzling: "The herdsman coming in greets the herdsman going out;" then again, "a herdsman needing no sleep would earn double wages," which implies apparently two periods for toil in twenty-four hours, the one "for tending cows" and the other "for tending sheep;" and this is possible, "for the paths of day and night are near" to each other, as if somehow day and night ran their courses together. What does it all mean? Some dim story of the polar world with its bright nights, which story may have come from the far North into Greece, along with another Northern product, amber, which was known to Homer, may lie at the basis of this curious passage. But we can hardly place the Læstrigonians under polar skies in spite of this polar characteristic. Others have sought their locality in the Black Sea and have even seen their harbor in that of Balaklava. All of which is uncertain enough, and destined to remain so, but furnishes a marvelous field for erudite conjecture and investigation. The certain matter here, and we should say the important one also, is the institutional order and its negative attitude toward Ulysses. That is, we must reach down and bring to light the ethical thread which is spun through this wonderful texture of Fairy Tales, before we have any real explanation, or connecting principle.

III.

Onward the wanderer, now with his single ship, has to sail again; whither next? He arrives at another island called Ææa, "where dwells the fair-haired Circe, an awful Goddess, endowed with a singing voice, own sister of the evil-minded wizard Æætes, both sprung of the Sun and of Perse, daughter of Oceanus."

This genealogy we have set down in full, as given by the poet, on account of its suggestiveness. These names carry us back to the East, quite to primitive Arya; here is the Sun, the God of the old Vedas; here is Perse, curiously akin to Persia, which was light-worshiping in her ancient religion; then we come to Æætes, father of Medea, usually held to be of Colchis on the Eastern coast of the Black Sea, whence we busily pass to Hellas in many a legend, and from Hellas we now have traveled far westward into Fairyland. One ancient story, probably the first, placed Circe in the remote East; another, this of Homer for example, sends her to the far West; a third united the two and told of the Flight of Circe upon the chariot of the Sun from Orient to Occident, which is doubtless a much later form of the tale, though ascribed to Hesiod. Circe is of a higher ancestry than Polyphemus, though both go back in origin to the sea with their island homes; she, however, is a child of the light-giving body, and will show her descent in the end. Her name is related to the circle, and hints the circling luminary, on whose car she is said to have fled once. Here in Homer, however, we may note an inner circle of development; she passes through a round of experience, and seems to complete a period of evolution. She must be grasped as a movement, as a cycle of character, if you please; she develops within, and this is the main fact of her portrayal.

The preceding etymological intimations are dim enough, yet they point back to Asia, and to an old Aryan relationship. Not too much stress is to be put upon them, yet they are entitled to their due recognition, and are not to be thrown aside as absolutely meaningless. By Homer, himself, they could not have been understood, being traces of a migration and ethnical kinship which had been in his time long forgotten, and which modern scholarship has resurrected through the comparative study of language.

More important is the connection between Circe and the two preceding portions of this Book, Æolia and the Læstrigonians. We have just seen how both Family and State cast Ulysses off, must cast him off, since he is without moral subordination. The inner self-control demanded by an institutional life he has not been able to reach, after the alienation produced by the Trojan War; the bag of winds given into his hand by Æolus he could not keep tied. Why? Behold Circe rise up and take on shape after his twofold experience. Really she is evolved out of 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 State? Circe is the answer; she is the enchantress who stands for sensuous pleasure in its most alluring form; with her is now the battle.

Thus we approach another struggle of the hero, the longest and by far the most elaborately unfolded, of the present Book. In many respects it is the counterpart of the story of Polyphemus in the previous Book. There he meets and puts down the anti-institutional man; here he meets and puts down the anti-moral woman. The one represents more the objective side of man's spirit, the other more the subjective; both together image the totality of the ethical world, in its two supreme aspects, institutions and morals.

Very famous has this story of Circe become in literature. It has furnished proverbs, allusions, texts for exhortation; it has been wrought over into almost every possible form—drama, novel, poem, paramyth; from the nursery to old age it retains its charm and power. Its meaning is plain enough, especially at first; but it grows more weird and more profound as it develops; at last it ascends quite into the beyond and points to the supersensible world.

Now the main point to be seized in this tale is the movement, the development of Circe through her several stages, which are in the main three, showing Circe victorious, Circe conquered, and Circe prophetic. Ulysses and his companions move along with these stages, being also in the process; but the center of interest, the complete unfolding, is found in Circe. These three chief stages we may give somewhat more fully before entering upon the detailed exposition.

First. The island is reached; some of the companions under a leader (not Ulysses) go to Circe's abode, and are turned into swine after partaking of her food. Circe triumphant.

Second. Ulysses himself then goes, having obtained the plant moly; he subdues, enjoys; he releases his companions. He finally asks to be sent home, according to the promise she had given. Circe subordinated.

Third. Then she reveals her prophetic power and announces the future journey to Hades, ere he can return home. Thus she sends him on beyond herself, and reaches her culmination in this Book.

Of these three stages the last seems inappropriate to Circe's character, and is always a puzzle to the reader, till he probes to the thought underlying the tale. Circe, then, is to show herself a seeress, and foreshadow the world beyond the present. Why just that in her case? But before the question can be answered, we must unfold the first two stages.

I. After an introduction which names the new island and its occupant, as well as gives a bit of her genealogy, the tale takes up Ulysses and his companions. After a rest of two days and two nights, the hero goes forth to spy out the land, ascends a hill whence he sees the smoke of Circe's palace rising "through the bushes and the trees." His last experience makes him careful, his thirst for knowledge does not now drive him to go at once into her presence. He returns to his companions with his information, and on the way back he kills a high-horned stag, "which had come down from the woods to the stream to slake its thirst." The result is a good meal for all once more, and a restoration of hope.

1. In such a mood he imparts his discovery: "I have seen with mine eyes smoke in the center of the island." Terror-striking was the announcement to his companions, who at once thought of "the cannibals, Cyclops and Læstrigonians." And they had cause for fear. It may, 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 bestializes; she is negative, not so much from without as from within, not consuming the human shape but transmuting it into that of an animal.

A curious expression here needs some explanation. "We know not where is east and where is west, not where the Sun goes under the earth, nor where he rises." Why not? There have been several ways of viewing this passage. Ulysses did not know the countries where the Sun set or rose, though he must have seen the direction. A statement from Voss may be here translated: "The side of night and of day he knew well, for he saw sunrise and sunset; but he does not know into what region of the world he has wandered away from home." One other suggestion: it may have been very foggy or cloudy weather at the time. The internal hint, however, is clear; he is astray, lost; he knows not what direction to take for his return.

But something has to be done. Accordingly Ulysses divides his crew into two portions, one commanded by Eurylochus, the other by himself. The lot decided that Eurylochus and his company should go to the house of Circe, and the lot always decides aright in the hand of Ulysses. Forth they "go wailing, two and twenty companions, and leave us behind, weeping." A tearful time for those forty-four people plus the two leaders; which numbers give a basis for calculating the size of the crew, of which six had been already destroyed by the Ciconians and six by the Cyclops.

2. Soon they reach the abode of Circe, whose picture is now drawn with characteristic touches. She is beautiful, sings with a beautiful voice, and makes beautiful things, weaving webs such as the Goddesses weave. Surely an artistic being; her palace is built of hewn stone, not of natural rock, yet it lies in the depths of the forest. Here again she shows her power: wild animals, wolves and lions, lie around—fawning upon, not attacking men, tamed by her powerful drugs. That is, she shows herself the mistress of nature, or rather the transformer thereof; her mighty spell can change character and shape.

There has been a difference of opinion from antiquity down to the present about these animals. Are they transformed men, or merely wild animals tamed? The matter is left in doubt by the poet and either view will answer for the passage. The connection, however, with the transformation of the companions of Ulysses, would suggest the first meaning. These partake of her food, with which she mingles her drug, "in order that they might wholly forget their native country." But here is something more than the indifference of the Lotus-eaters; these eaters and drinkers at once become swine as to "their heads, voices and hair," and eat the acorn and the fruit of cornel-tree, "like wallowing pigs." Yet their mind remained "firm as before."

There can be no doubt that Time has interpreted this scene in but one way, and Time is probably correct. Still it is not here expressly said that the companions indulged to excess in food and drink, though they apparently had just had a sufficiency of feasting along the sea-shore, on venison and wine, "unspeakable meat and sweet drink." We must, however, consider the whole to be a phase of that same lack of inner subordination which led these people to untie the fatal bag of winds upon a former occasion.

3. One man alone escaped to tell the story, as so often happens in such adventures; it is Eurylochus, "who remained outside the palace suspecting guile." When Ulysses hears the account, he proposes to go at once and release his comrades. Eurylochus beseeches him not to attempt it, but he persists, saying, "I shall go, a strong necessity is upon me." Possibly in his contemptuous expression, "You stay in this place eating and drinking," is hinted just that which he is now to put down, in contrast with his companions. Eurylochus is the man who is unable to solve the problem; he runs away from it, is afraid of it, and leaves his wretched associates behind. But the problem must have a positive solution, which here follows.

II. We are now to witness the dealings of Ulysses with Circe; he is to subordinate her, making her into a means, not an end; she will recognize him and submit completely, taking an oath not to do him any harm; she will release his companions and restore them to their natural forms at his behest; she will then properly entertain the entire crew, no longer turning them into swine. The world of the appetites and the senses will be duly ordered and subjected to the rational; from an imperious enchantress Ulysses changes Circe into an instrument of life and restoration. He is the transformer of her, not she of him; for she will reduce man to a beast, unless he reduces her to reason.

1. Ulysses on his way to Circe's palace is met by a seeming youth (really a God, Mercury) who warns him and gives him a plant potent against the drugs of the enchantress. It is manifest that Ulysses has a divine call; he knows already his problem from Eurylochus, the God reiterates it and inspires him with courage. In addition he receives a plant from the divine hand, whereof the description we may ponder: "The root is black, its flower white as milk; the Gods call it moly, hard it is for men to dig up." Very hard indeed! And the whole account is symbolical, we think, consciously symbolical; it has an Orphic tinge, hinting of mystic rites. At any rate the hero has now the divine antidote; still he is to exert himself with all his valor; "when she shall smite thee with her staff, draw thy sword and rush upon her, as if intending to kill her." Thus he is to assert the god-like element in himself, the rational, and subject to it the sensuous. It is clear that Ulysses is beginning to master the lesson of his experience.

2. He does as the God (and his own valor) directed, and Circe cowers down subdued. She is not supreme, there is something higher and she knows it. At once she recognizes who it is: "Art thou that wily Ulysses whose coming hither from Troy in his black ship has often been foretold to me?" Such a prophecy she must have known and felt, she had mind and was aware of a power above her, which would some day put her down, after the Trojan time. In like manner Polyphemus, the man of nature, has heard of a coming conqueror, and actually named him.

This one kind of subjection, however, is not enough, it must be made universal. Every kind of subordination of the sensuous, not merely in the matter of eating and drinking, is necessary. The next thing to be guarded against is carnal indulgence, which may "make me cowardly and unmanly." Hence Circe has "to swear the great oath, not to plot against me any harm." Thus in the two chief forms of human appetite, that of eating and drinking and that of sexual indulgence, she is subjected.

Ulysses is beginning to have some claims to being a moral hero, still he is not by any means an ascetic. He has the Greek notion of morality; we have a right to enjoy, but enjoyment must not make us bestial; rational moderation is the law. He drinks of Circe's cup, but does not let it turn him into a swine; he shares in all her pleasures, but never suffers his head to get dizzy with her blandishments. Every seductive delicacy she sets before him, mingled with the most charming flattery; "I did not like the feast." Why? This leads us to the next and higher point.

3. Lofty is the response of Ulysses: "O Circe, what right-minded man would endure to touch food and drink before seeing his companions released?" At once she goes to the sty and sets them free, restoring their shapes, "and they became younger, larger, and more beautiful than they were before." A great advantage is this to any man; it is worth the hard experience to come out with such a gain, especially as the companions must have been getting a little old, stooped and wrinkled, having gone through so many years of hardship at Troy and on the sea.

4. Thus Ulysses has transformed Circe into an instrument for restoring his fallen comrades; surely a noble act. Next she of her own accord asks Ulysses to go to the sea-shore for the rest of his men and to bring them to her palace for refreshment and entertainment. This he succeeds in doing after some opposition from the terrified Eurylochus, who has not yet gotten over his scare. Sorely did the companions need this rest and recuperation after their many sufferings on land and sea; "weak and spiritless they were, always thinking of the bitter wandering." But now in the palace of Circe "they feasted every day for a whole year," eating and drinking without being turned into swine. Even Eurylochus follows after, "for he feared my terrible threat."

Thus we catch the sweep of this grand experience of and with Circe; if she governs, she bestializes man; if she serves, she refreshes and restores. Her complete subordination is witnessed; from transforming people into swine, she is herself transformed into their helper, and she becomes an important factor in the great Return to home and country. But it is time to think of this Return again; the period of repose and enjoyment must come to an end.

III. Here, then, we behold a new phase of Circe, that of the seeress into the Beyond. Ulysses says to her at the end of the year: "Now make your promise good, send us home, for which we long." Stunning is the answer after that period of relaxation: "Ye must go another way, ye must pass into the Houses of Hades." It is indeed a terrible response. But for what purpose? "To consult the soul of the blind Theban seer Tiresias, whose mind is still unimpaired; to him alone of the dead Proserpine gave a mind to know." Clearly this means the pure intelligence without body; Ulysses must now reach forth to the incorporeal spirit, to the very Idea beyond the senses, beyond life.

The first question which arises in this connection is, How can Circe, the enchantress of the senses, be made the prophetess of the supersensible world? If we watch her development through the two preceding stages, we shall see that she not only can, but must point to what is beyond, to spirit. In the second stage she experiences a great change, no longer transforming into the lower, but herself transformed into the higher; she becomes a moral being, subordinating the sensuous to the spiritual; she has, therefore, spirit in her life and manifests it in her actions, when she is the willing means of subjecting appetite to reason.

The same transformation we may note on her artistic side, for she remains always beautiful. The first Circe is that alluring seductive beauty which destroys by catering to the senses; she is that kind of art, which debauches through its appeal to appetite and passion alone. But the second Circe is transfigured, her service is of the spirit, she releases from the bondage of indulgence, she aids the ethical Return to Family and State. It is true that she never becomes a saint or a nun, she would not be Greek if she did; moreover, according to the Greek view, she must be transcended by the typical man, who is to rise into an institutional life, which is hardly Circe's. Still the primal moral subjection is shown in her career.

The domain of morals reveals the spiritual in action, the domain of true art reveals the spiritual in representation. What shall I do with this world of the senses? was a great question to the Greek, and still is to us. In conduct subordinate it; in nature transform it into an image of the higher. The work of art is a divine flash from above into a sensuous form; this flash we separate from its material, and pass into pure spirit; then we reach Tiresias, the mind embodied, not limited in Space and Time.

Circe thus indicates her own limitation, which belongs to morals and art. She is not the Infinite, but can point to it; she hints the rise from art to philosophy. Backwards and forwards runs the suggestion in her career; the Greek can lapse to the first Circe and die in a debauch of the senses, or he can rise to the prophetic Circe, and lay the deep foundation of all future thought. The Greek world, in fact, had just this double outcome.

Ulysses, then, has to go to Hades, the supersensible realm; his heart was wrung, "I wept sitting upon the couch, I wished no longer to live nor to see the light of the sun." But after such a fit, he is ready for action: "when I had enough of weeping and rolling about, I asked Circe: Who will guide me?" Then he receives his instructions, which have somewhat of the character of a mystic ritual, with offerings to the dead, who will come and speak. Messages from the spirit world he will get, but he must pass through the Ocean stream, to the groves of Proserpine. From that point, after mooring his ship, he is to go to the houses of Hades, where is a rock at the meeting of two loud-roaring rivers; "pour there a libation to the dead" with due ceremony. In all of which is the method of the later necromancy, or consultation of the departed for prophetic purposes. Very old is the faith that the souls of deceased persons can be made to appear and to foretell the future, after a proper rite and invocation; nor is such a belief unknown in our day.

Ulysses departs from Circe's palace and tells his companions concerning the new voyage: whereat another scene of lamentation. To the Greek the Underworld was a place of gloom and terror; he liked not the spirit disembodied, he needed the sensuous form for his thought, he was an artist by nature. The Homeric Greek in particular was the incarnation of the sunny Upperworld, he shuddered at the idea of separating from it and its fair shapes. But the thing must be done, as it lies in the path of development as well as in the movement of this poem.

Ulysses must therefore go below, inasmuch as this world with its moral life even, is not the finality. There is aught beyond, the limit of death we must surmount in the present existence still; a glimpse of futurity the mortal must have before going thither. So Homer makes the Hero transcend life as it were, during life; and extend his wanderings into the supersensible world.

The reader has now witnessed the three stages of this Tenth Book—Æolus, the Læstrigonians, and Circe. The inner connection between these three stages has also been investigated and brought to the surface; at least such has been the persistent attempt. Especially has Circe been unfolded in the different phases which she shows—all of which have been traced back to a unity of character.

The intimate relation between the Ninth and Tenth Books has been set forth along with their differences. Both belong to the Upperworld of this Fableland; hence they stand in contrast with the Netherworld, which is now to follow.

BOOK ELEVENTH.

The present Book is one of the most influential pieces of writing which man has produced. It has come down through the ages with a marvelous power of reproduction; in many ways poets have sought to create it over; indeed Time has imitated it in a series of fresh shapes. Virgil, not to speak of other attempts in ancient Greek epics, has re-written it in the Sixth Book of the Æneid; from Virgil it passed to Dante who has made its thought the mould which shapes his entire poem—the Divine Comedy.

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 peoples, and which springs from the very nature of human spirit. Man must know the Beyond; especially the Hero, the spiritual Hero of his race, must extend his adventures, not only over the world, but into the other world, and bring back thence the news concerning those who have already departed.

This then is the supreme Return of the Hero, the Return from beyond life, still alive; he is to conquer not only the monster Polyphemus and the enchantress Circe, but also the greatest goblin of all, Death. Common mortals have to make the passage thither without returning; the Hero must be the grand exception, else he were no Hero. Transcendent must he be, rising above all limits, even the limit of life and death.

We have, therefore, in the present Book the Greek glance into immortality. This is the essence of it, hence its prodigious hold upon human kind. That the conscious individual persists after the dissolution of the physical body is here strongly affirmed; indeed the world beyond is organized, and its connection with the world on this side is unfolded, in a series of striking pictures for the imagination. It is thus a grand chapter in the history of the soul's consciousness of its eternal portion, is in fact the middle link between the Oriental and the Christian view of immortality.

Ulysses, as the wise man, or rather as the intellectual Hero of his age, must go through the experience in question; he cannot return to home and country, and be fully reconciled with his institutional life here and now, without having seen what is eternal and abiding in the soul. The wanderer must wander thither, the absolute necessity lies upon him—and he must fetch back word about what he saw, and thus be a mediator between the sensible and supersensible, between time and eternity. In that way he means something to his people, becomes, in fact, their Great Man, helping them vicariously in this life to rise beyond life. The complete Return, then, involves the descending to Hades, the beholding the shapes there, and the coming back with the report to the living. Perhaps we ought to consider just this to be the culmination of the whole journey, the grand adventure embracing all possible adventures.

The connection with the preceding Book can not be too strongly enforced. Circe points out the way to Ulysses; her nature is to point to the Beyond, to which she cannot herself pass. In her last phase, she was spirit, but still in the sensuous form; that spirit in her, as in all true art and even in the world, points to its pure realm, where it is freed from the trammels of the senses. This gives the main characteristic of Homeric Hades; it is the supersensible world, outside of Space and Time; or, rather with its own Space and Time, since it is still an image.

Hence these mythical statements which seek to get beyond all known geographical limits. Ulysses had to cross the Ocean stream, which ran round the whole earth; to go over it was indeed to go over the border. There below is the gloomy grove of Proserpine; there too, are the four rivers of the Lower Regions, with names terribly suggestive; into Acheron the stream of pain (or lake) flow Pyriphlegethon (Fire-flames) and Cocytus (the Howler), the latter being an offshoot of Styx (Hate or Terror). Where "the two loud-sounding rivers meet" the third one (Acheron) is a rock, a firm protected spot seemingly, there with mystic rites is the invocation of the dead to take place.

Thus we see that the poet's description remains spatial in his attempt to get beyond space. He has to express himself in images taken from the sensible world, even while pushing them beyond into the supersensible. He makes us feel that the image is inadequate, though he has to use it; poetry is driven upon its very limit. At this point specially we note the kinship of the Odyssey with Romantic Art, which through the finite form suggests the Infinite. Dante comes to mind, whose great poem is one vast struggle of the limited symbol with the unlimited spirit which is symbolized. Thus the old Greek song becomes prophetic, foreshadowing the next great world-poem, or Literary Bible, written in the light of a new epoch.

Strong is the sympathy which one feels with the ancient singer in this attempt to probe the deepest mystery of our existence. He must have reflected long and profoundly upon such a theme, building in this Book a world of spirits, and laying down the lines of it for all futurity. Probably the most gigantic conception in literature: the universal Hero, ere he can round the complete cycle of experience, must pass through the Beyond and come back to the Present. It deepens the idea of the Return, till it embraces the totality of existence, by making it reach through the Underworld, which is thus a domain in the spiritual circumnavigation of the globe.

The structure of the Book is somewhat intricate and it requires quite a little search to find the lines upon which it is built. It has at the first glance a rather scattered, disorganized look; for this reason the analytic critics have fallen upon it in particular, and have sought to tear it into fragments. It is possible that some few lines may have been interpolated, but it remains an organic whole, and the final insight into it comes from viewing it in its total constructive movement.

As the Book is an effort to make a bridge between the sensible and supersensible realms, manifestly this separation into two realms will constitute the fundamental division. The diremption into soul and body, into life and death, runs through the entire narrative, also that into men and women; but the main distinction is into Past and Present. The sensible world when canceled becomes Past, the distant in Time and possibly in Space; this Past through its characters, its spirits, is made to communicate with the Present.

Moreover the Past has its distinctions. To the Greek mind of Homer's age, specially in Phæacia, the Trojan War is the grand central fact of the aforetime; thus the Past divides into the Pre-Trojan, Trojan, and immediate Past, in the Book before us. A complete sweep down into the Now is given—the sweep of the supersensible. Also the Present has two representatives: Ulysses along with his companions, and the Phæacians.

In the Past, therefore, is arranged a long gallery of souls speaking to the Present, which listens and also has its communication. The problem now is to get a structural form which will hold the idea. Let the following scheme be sent in advance, which scheme, however, can only be verified or understood at the close of the Book on a careful review.

I. The first great communication of the dead and past to the living and present, by voice and by vision; some speak, others are only seen.

1. The present and living element is made up of Ulysses and his companions who are invoking by their rites and prayers the souls of the Underworld. The companion Elpenor dead, but not yet buried, forms the transition between the Present and Past.

2. The past and dead element, Pre-Trojan, is called up in two general forms: the ancient seer Tiresias who is both Past and Future through his mind, and, secondly, the souls of Famous Women, who pass in review before the Present. The hint of a world-justice runs through both the prophecies of the seer and the destinies of some of these women.

II. The second grand communication of the dead and past, now Trojan—to the living and present, now Phæacian prominently, given by voice and vision.

1. The Present is here not only Ulysses far off in Hades, but the Phæacians in their actual sensible world. The latter demand again the grand background and presupposition of their present life—the Trojan epoch represented in its great spirits.

2. The Past, Trojan, in three typical Greek heroes, Agamemnon, Achilles, Ajax. The three typical Greek women of the Trojan epoch are also mentioned. An implicit idea of punishment, or of heroic limitation brought home to the hero, is traceable in this portion.

III. The idea of a world-justice with its universal judgment, hitherto only implied, now becomes explicit in Hades and organizes itself, showing (1) the judge, Minos, (2) the culprits in four condemned ones, (3) the saved one, Hercules, who rises out of Hades through the deed. By implication so does the living Ulysses—hence the journey is at an end, Hades is conquered.

I.

Ulysses follows the direction of Circe, indeed he is propelled by the wind which she sends, to the "confines of the Ocean stream," to the limits of this terrestrial Upperworld. Here is the land of the Cimmerians, "hid in fog and in cloud," which veils the realm of the dead; here the sun sends no beam, either rising or setting. Again it is possible that the poet may have heard some dim account of the regions of the extreme North. But the significance of the Cimmerians is to shadow forth the dark border-land between life and death, which is here that between the limited and the unlimited. We see the strong attempt of the poet to get beyond limitation in its twofold appearance: first he will transcend the external boundary of the Homeric horizon, that of the sea stretching far to the westward; still more emphatic is his effort to transcend the limits of finite thinking and to reach an infinite realm, which is the goal of the spirit. He sweeps out of sensuous space, yet the poetic imagination has to remain in space after all, though it be a new space of its own creation. In like manner, he has to give the disembodied souls some finite nourishment in the shape of food and blood, in order that they become real. We feel in these dark Cimmerian limits his wrestle to pass over to the supersensible by thought.

I. The Present is represented by Ulysses and his companions, who now perform the rites consisting of a sacrifice and prayer to "the nations of the dead." We may find in the libation of "mingled honey, sweet wine, and water," a suggestion of the tissues and fluids of the body, while the blood of the sacrificed animals hints the principle of vitality. When the disembodied spirit tastes these elements, it gets a kind of body again, sufficient at least to be able to speak. That the sheep must be black is curiously symbolical, hinting the harmony expressed in the color of the animal and of Hades.

The souls "came thronging out of Erebus," eager to communicate. This aspiration must thus be their general condition; they wish to hear from us as much as we wish to hear from them. Hence there must be a selection, which involves a new rite, the flaying and the burning of the carcasses of the animals along with "prayer to Pluto and Proserpine" king and queen of the Underworld. Yet this choice requires activity from the hero, who has to draw his sword and keep off the crowd of spirits, till the right one comes, the Theban seer Tiresias.

Thus is the Past linked into the Present, which to receive the communications of the departed by means of a ritual, in whose symbolism we see the effort of the living to know the Beyond. Now occurs a curious incident: Ulysses beholds his companion Elpenor, dead, yet unburned, and hears his first message. This soul can still speak, and be seen; it hovers half way between the two worlds, having still a material phase of the body which has not yet been burnt. Elpenor tells the nature of his death: "some deity and too much wine" did the thing—a combination which is usually effective in Homer. An unhappy condition, suspended between matter and spirit; he begs that it be ended. But the poor fellow has another request which shows the longing of the humblest Greek—the longing for the immortality of fame. "Make a tomb beside the seashore for me, an unfortunate man, of whom posterity may hear." Thus he too will live in the mouths of men; wherein we catch possibly a gleam of Homer himself, who has certainly erected an imperishable monument to Elpenor, voicing the aspiration of the soul even in Hades.

It is the hint of a deep maternal instinct that Anticleia, "my mother deceased" comes at once to the blood and wishes communication. But Ulysses must first hear Tiresias, the strongest ties of Family are subordinate to the great purpose. Surely all are now ready to listen to the Past with its message; here comes its spirit, voiced with a fresh power.

II. We have just had the Present, and in the case of Elpenor, the immediate Past, which is not yet wholly gone. Next we take a leap to the Past of long ago, to the Pre-Trojan time, whose spirits will appear. Two sets of them, divided according to sex into man and woman, we behold. But the man here is the prophet, hence what he says belongs to the Future, into which Ulysses now gets a glimpse.

Thus both Future and Past are given their place in the supersensible realm, both being abstractions from the Present, which is the reality, the world of the senses. Yet that which is abiding and eternal knows not Past, Present, or Future, or knows them all equally, having that which is common to them all, being indeed the principle of them all. In a sense we may say that Tiresias is Past, Present and Future, he is the voice of the Past speaking in the Present foretelling the Future. Then the Famous Women come forth, whose fame causes them to appear now and to be recorded. Thus the poet takes the two ancient sets and suggests that which underlies them both and makes them ever present.

1. Tiresias, though he spans the three dimensions of Time, is essentially the prophet, and so his stress is upon the Future. His body has been long dead, but his mind is left in its untrammeled activity; he may be considered as the purest essence of spirit. No senses obstruct his vision, he sees the eternal and unchangeable law; yet he must throw it into images and apply it to special cases. What a conception for a primitive poet! We feel in this figure of Tiresias that Homer himself is prophetic, foreshadowing the pure ideas or archetypal forms of Plato, and that he, in his struggle for adequate expression of thought, is calling for, and in fact calling forth, Greek philosophy.

Tiresias speaks at first without drinking of the blood, yet he has to drink of it to tell his prophecy. This little contradiction is not vital, let it not trouble us. The prophetic announcement to Ulysses includes four special cases. First, the Hero must have his struggle with Neptune on his way homeward, the God will avenge the blinding of his son, though that blinding had to take place; every man who overcomes a great power, even a natural power, will get the backstroke of his own deed. The very ship of Ulysses, which defies Neptune, exposes itself to a conflict which it might avoid, did it not undertake to master the God's element; such is the penalty of all victory. Secondly, he must keep down appetite, particularly at the Trinacrian Isle, and not slay the Oxen of the Sun, else the penalty will follow there too. Not to keep down passion and appetite is clearly to eat of those oxen in some way, which will be more carefully scrutinized hereafter. Then, thirdly, "thou shalt avenge the violent deeds of the Suitors, when thou hast returned home."

The common ground in these three cases of prophetic insight is retribution for the act done there above on earth. The penalty is as certain in the future as it has been in the past; violation brings punishment. Ulysses has had that experience often; note it is told him, or, if you wish to think the matter in that way, he tells it to himself for his own future experience. So the Prophet sees the universal law, he knows what abides in all the fleeting appearances of the world. Ulysses also, were he to descend into the depths of his own soul, would find the same prophecy; indeed this descent into Hades is also the descent into himself, as well as into the outer supersensible world. The hero in his intellectual journey has gone far, we can now behold him near the eternal verities.

But the fourth statement of the Prophet is here too, it is the word of promise. When this last conflict with the Suitors is over, then be reconciled with Neptune by a fitting sacrifice (which means that Ulysses should quit the watery element) give hecatombs to the Immortals, recognize them and their rule. Then serene old age will take thee off remote from the sea and all struggle, among a happy people, whom thou hast made happy. Such is the promise, extending quite beyond the limits of the Odyssey, which ends not at the death of Ulysses, but with his last conflict. So there is hope amid all this struggle, hope of becoming the complete man, who has reached harmony with the Gods, with his people, and with himself.

In such fashion Tiresias calls into vision the course of the entire poem, and reaches even beyond it, embracing the whole life of Ulysses, till he too descends for the last time into Hades. Verily the prophet is Past, Present and Future; his true abode is in the realm of pure spirit. He foretells, but the Future is prefigured as the outcome of what is universal; it must be so and not otherwise, else is the world a chaos. Thus Tiresias is put at the beginning, he being the typical person of this Underworld, in which the deities, Pluto and Proserpine, do not appear, being held in the dark background. The prophet telling his prophecy is the very Figure of the Supersensible.

But again let us be reminded that these hints of pure universal thought are borne to us in images, in particular shapes, whereby ambiguity rises, and meaning runs double. Nevertheless the true-hearted reader will go down with the old poet into Hades, and there behold in these images things which lie beyond the senses; he will behold the very spirit of ancient Tiresias.

2. Having seen the Man, Ulysses is next to behold the Famous Women of the Past, which is still Pre-Trojan with one exception. Examples from all the relations of the woman in the Family are given: the mother, the maiden, the wife. Tragic and happy instances are brought before us—ideal forms taken from the ancient Mythus of Hellas, and begetting in later times a prodigious number of works of art, in poetry, sculpture and painting. Here they are put into Hades, the place of the spirit unbodied, which will hereafter take on body in the drama, in the statue, and in the picture. Ulysses witnesses these shapes in advance, and gives their idea, which is to be realized in the coming ages of Hellas. Truly is Homer the primordial Hellenic seer, he who sees and sets forth the archetypal forms of the future of his race. Undoubtedly he drew from mythical stores already existent, but he ordered them, shaped them anew, and breathed into them the breath of eternal life. No wonder the universal Greek hero must go to Hades to see these forms of the Past which are, however, to live afresh in the Future.

We must also consider the audience of the singer. Who are present? First of all, Arete, mother and wife, together with Nausicaa, the maiden, to these he is specially singing. Their importance in the Phæacian world has been already indicated; naturally they wish to hear of woman in the Family. Accordingly this portion of the Eleventh Book, the catalogue of Famous Women, or Homer's "Legende of Good Women," is organized after the relations of domestic life. Three classes are suggested: the mothers; the maidens and the wives, of the grey aforetime.

But by all means the glory and the stress of the song are given to the mothers; the other two classes are very briefly dismissed, as being essentially described in the first. Arete is indeed the grand center and end of womanhood; Nausicaa as maid is but a transitory phase, and as wife she is to become mother, and then take her supreme place in the chain which upholds and perpetuates humanity. So the old Greek poet must have thought; was he very far from right?

a. The first of these mothers to appear is Anticleia, the mother of the Hero Ulysses, of the Hero who has made this remarkable voyage to the world beyond, of its kind the supreme heroic act done by a living mortal. She, however, belongs to the immediate Past, and thus corresponds to the man, Elpenor, in the previous section, though she of course has been buried. Note, therefore, this mark of symmetrical structure.

It is the beautiful instinct of the mother, that she flits in the ghost-world to her son at once, when the chance is afforded. She has already appeared, even before Tiresias came; now she is the first after that prophet, who gives directions to Ulysses supplicating: "Tell me, O Prophet, how shall my mother recognize me as her son." Ulysses learns much from her about Ithaca, especially about his father Laertes, who now never goes to the town but stays in the fields, "with a great sorrow in his heart, desiring thy 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 is the primary groundwork of faith in immortality—this feeling of the domestic relation affirming that it is eternal and cannot be 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 flesh and blood.

b. At once there is the transition to the famous mothers of legend—"wives and daughters of Heroes" says the poet, with, an eye to his audience, which has men in it also, so he does not mention mothers, though they are the burden of his strain. Here follows a Catalogue of Women, giving them their due place in the genealogy and destiny of distinguished houses. Three groups of these mothers we may distinguish.

First is the group of mortal women who were embraced by some god, and gave birth to heroic offspring. Tyro met Neptune and brought forth Pelias and Neleus; from the latter sprang Nestor who connects the Pre-Trojan and Trojan ages, since he appears both in the Iliad and Odyssey. In the Third Book of the latter epos we have already seen Nestor sacrificing to his divine ancestor; so the present passage has its pertinence to the total poem. In the same group are Antiope and Alemena, the latter of whom was the mother of Hercules, whose father was Zeus. At the end of the present Book, Hercules himself will appear as the supreme example of the Greek Hero.

Such were three typical mothers, famed in Hellenic legend, being the women who bore Heroes, the offspring of Gods. It was deemed the highest function of the Greek mother to bring forth a Hero, the 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 vision, which sees therein the divine descent into mortal flesh, a mythical utterance of the faith that the great man is the son of God. The Christian view universalizes this conception, holding that all men, and not merely the Heroes, are God's children. Yet the Christian world has also retained its faith in the Son of God, son by a mortal woman, which faith the old Greek had too, and expressed in his way. Thus we may extract out of this Homeric account something more than divine license; it has indeed a wonderful pre-Christian suggestiveness, and gives a glimpse of the movement of Universal Religion.

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, the other reasonably happy. Epicaste is mother of Œdipus, who marries her after slaying his own father who is her husband, both deeds being done in ignorance; thus the closest domestic ties are whelmed into guilt and tragedy, whereof Sophocles has made a world-famous use, in his two dramas on the subject of Œdipus. Chloris is, on the contrary, the mother of Nestor, not a tragic character by any means; also she is mother of Pero, the beautiful maiden, "whom all the people around were wooing," and who was happily won by an heroic deed. Mark the interest of those listeners, Arete and Nausicaa, mother and daughter in this tale. Thus the two women, Epicaste and Chloris, have opposite destinies, and show the sharp contrasts of life.

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 enter the domestic relation of mortals. Leda's sons are "Castor the horseman, and Pollux the boxer," the first being mortal, the second immortal, and reputed son of Zeus, who permitted the immortal brother to share his immortality with his mortal brother; hence "every other day they both are alive, and every other day they both are dead." Again the divine gives itself to the human in the spirit of true brotherhood; the son of Zeus takes on the ills of mortality through fraternal love. The second mother of this group is 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 the contrast: one set of sons is noble, worthy, and "receive honor like unto Gods;" the other set is defiant, assailing the divine order, and are slain by the arrows of Apollo "ere the down blossomed beneath their temples, and covered their chins with tender furze."

c. Such, then, is the account of the mothers, the women who have borne children famous in legend. They have taken up nearly the whole of the present catalogue; the wives and maidens now come in for brief mention, forming two groups, three persons to the group. The poet is impartial, he introduces the faithful woman, Ariadne, and the faithless woman, Eriphyle; in the one case man is the betrayer of woman, and in the other case woman is the betrayer of man. Possibly in Ariadne may be a little hint for Nausicaa, saying, Beware.

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 dismisses any further account of famous women, "wives and daughters of Heroes," whom he saw in Hades. Nausicaa and Arete have had their share, wonderful has been their interest in the struggles and sufferings of their sex; they feel in themselves the possibility of such conflicts. These ideal shapes of the olden time, product of the myth-making Imagination, are types, are the ghosts of Hades which Ulysses must see and know, ere he return to the Upperworld.

II.

We now reach the second main division of the Book, which is marked by the introduction of the audience, the Phæacians, "who were held rapt with the charm" of the story. Observe, too, that the palace was not brilliantly illuminated, but shadowy—fit environment for fairy tales (line 334). This main division is again separated into two subordinate divisions which embrace the Present and the Past, and thus is in structure homologous with the preceding main division. Yet both the Present and the Past are not now the same as the previous Present and Past.

I. First of the hearers speaks out the mother, wife of Alcinous, Arete, in response to the compliment of Ulysses in singing of the Famous Women of Greek legend. "Phæacians, how does this man seem to you now in form, stature, and mind?" Very different does he seem from what he once did; thus she gently apologizes for her previous treatment. She appreciates the Hero; moreover, she asks that the high guest receive hospitable gifts without stint; "for much wealth lies in your halls by the bounty of the Gods."

Having thus heard from the woman, we now are to hear from the man, the representative Phæacian, king Alcinous. In the first portion of the Book Ulysses and his companions were the Present to which the Past appeared in Hades. Now the Phæacians are introduced as the Present, which is to hear the voice of the Past from Hades. Moreover, the Past is not the Pre-Trojan, but the Trojan Past, which we have already (in the Eighth Book) seen to be dear to the Phæacian heart. It is no wonder, then, that Alcinous, as soon as he can urge his request, calls for a song about the Greco-Trojan Heroes in the Underworld. "Tell us if thou didst see any of those godlike Argives who followed thee to Troy and there met their fate." Not the mother of the Hero, but the Hero himself is now to be called up; the man wishes to listen to the deeds of man. Demodocus, the Phæacian bard, always sung of some phase of the Trojan struggle, which was the popular subject of story and song in Phæacia. Thus we note again how the famous Past, stored away in Hades, is made to flow into the Present, and to contribute an ideal of heroism, and a warning also, to the living.

A touch of Homer as literary critic we should not pass by, as he does not often take that part. Alcinous, praising the tale of Ulysses, says: "Form of words is thine, and a noble meaning, and a mythus, as when a minstrel sings." Three important qualities of poetry are therein set forth: beauty of language, nobleness of content, and the fable in its totality—all of which belong to the preceding narrative. Moreover, Alcinous draws a sharp contrast with that other sort of storytellers, mere liars, "of whom the dark earth feeds many," who go about "fabricating lies, out of which we, looking into them, can get nothing," can draw no meaning. Such at least is our view of this passage (line 366) about which there is a difference of opinion among commentators. At any rate we catch a glimpse of Homeric literary criticism in Homer, who states the requirements of good poetry, and contrasts them with the "liar" or fabricator of yarns, which are certainly devoid of the noble spirit or worthy content.

So Ulysses is asked to begin his Trojan story, always more interesting than that catalogue of women, at which everybody began to yawn. "It is not yet time to go to sleep," cries Alcinous, "the night here is unspeakably long," and still further, "I would hold out till daylight," listening to thy story.

II. The Trojan Past, then, is the theme; we are to behold the ghosts of those who were famous during the War at Troy, and immediately afterwards, both men and women. But the women are not here given a special portion to themselves, but are woven into the general narrative. This part of the Book is sung for the men, the opposite sex is withdrawn into the background; still they will be duly mentioned, since the whole conflict is over a woman. Moreover Alcinous wishes to hear what the heroic men are doing in the future world, whither too he must go.

1. Three Greek shades will pass before us, Agamemnon the Leader, Achilles the Hero, and Ajax the man of strength. We shall find them placed in a certain contrast with Ulysses, who is shown greater than any of the three. All have been overwhelmed by fate through their own folly or weakness, while Ulysses still lives, the master of fate, and beholds them in Hades. Such is his triumph, which the shades themselves declare.

First comes the soul of Agamemnon, the great King, who has the bond of authority in common with King Alcinous. He tells the story of his own murder in considerable detail, which story has been given twice already in the poem. A most impressive event to the Greek mind of Homer's age; the greatest of the rulers is wretchedly cut off from his Return by his wife Clytæmnestra and her paramour Ægisthus. This Return is what points the contrast between him and Ulysses; moreover the contrast is also drawn between the wives of the two men, one the faithless and the other the faithful woman. Still the wrong of Agamemnon is suggested by himself: "I heard the piteous voice of Cassandra, whom Clytæmnestra slew, crying for me; I, though dying, grasped for my sword," to no purpose, however. Surely the wife had her wrongs as well as the husband, out of which double guilt Æschylus will construct his mighty tragedy.

Next after the Leader, in due order comes the Hero of the Greeks before Troy, Achilles. He recognizes this descent to Hades as the greatest deed of Ulysses: "What greater deed, rash man, wilt thou plan next?" It is verily the most wonderful part of his Return, overtopping anything that Achilles did. Still Ulysses pays him the meed of heroship: "We Argives honored thee as a God, while living, and now thou art powerful among the dead; therefore do not sorrow at thy death, O Achilles." But he answers that he would rather be the humblest day laborer to a poor man than to be King of the Shades. It is not his world, he longs for the realm of heroic action, here he has no vocation. No Troy to be taken, no Hector to be vanquished down in Hades; the heroic man must sigh for the Upper World with its activity. Some consolation he gets from the account which Ulysses gives of his son, who was in the Wooden Horse and distinguished himself at Troy for bravery. Thus the father lives in his son and "strides off delighted through the meadow of asphodel." This plant is usually regarded as the Asphodelus ramosus, a kind of lily with an edible tuberous root, still planted, it is said, on graves, to furnish to the dead some food which grows in the earth. This ancient custom has been supposed to be the source of the legend of its being transplanted to Hades.

The third heroic shade is that of Ajax, son of Telamon, with whom Ulysses had a rivalry, the story of which runs as follows: After the death of Achilles, Thetis his mother offered his arms, the work of Vulcan, to the worthiest of the remaining Greek heroes. The contest lay between Ajax and Ulysses. Agamemnon would not decide, but referred the question to the Trojan prisoners present, asking them which of the two contestants had done them the most injury. They said Ulysses. Whereupon Ajax went crazy and slew himself. Now he appears in Hades, still unreconciled; it is really the most wretched lot of all. Ulysses here speaks the reconciling word, growing tender and imploring; but the hero "answered not, darting away with the other shades into Erebos." Wherein we may well see how much greater in spirit Ulysses was than his big muscular rival. He has reached in this respect the true outcome of life's discipline: to have no revenges, and to speak the word of reconciliation.

In fact the superiority of Ulysses over all these heroes is clearly manifested. He brings no captive woman home to his domestic hearth, and hence he has a right to count upon Penelope's fidelity, though certainly he shows himself no saint in his wanderings. Moreover Agamemnon lacked foresight in his Return, which Ulysses will exhibit in a supreme degree when he first touches his native soil. The second hero, Achilles, could not conquer Troy, then he could not conquer Hades; yet both are conquered by Ulysses who is thus the greater. Finally unreconciled Ajax—all are limited, incomplete, in contrast with the complete, limit-removing Hero, who has just removed even the limit of Death in the only way possible. Verily to him they have become shadows, that whole heroic world before Troy is now put by him into Hades.

Thus we see that, while the characters belong to the Trojan time, there is a movement out of that period, it is transcended. The background here is the Iliad, yet the incidents are taken from the Trojan war after the action of the Iliad is brought to a close. The fates of the three great heroes of that poem are not given in the poem; here they are given with a tragic emphasis. Thus the Odyssey carries forward the Iliad, supplements it, and forms its real conclusion, both being in fact one poem. In the full blaze of the glory of Achilles the Iliad ends; but he cannot take Troy; and still less, after his death, can Ajax; the divine armor must go to Ulysses who has brain, then can the city be taken. Even the son of Achilles will fight under Ulysses and enter the Trojan Horse, the work of Pallas, of Intelligence. Thus we catch here as in other places, glimpses of the unity of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, the great work reflecting the one national consciousness of Hellas in its complete cycle.

2. We should not fail to cast a separate glance at the three typical women of the Trojan epoch—Helen, Clytemnestra, Penelope—in contrast with the three heroes already described. They are all mentioned and compared in the speech of Agamemnon, but do not form an organic part of the Book by themselves, as do the Pre-Trojan women. They are wives, and wifehood not motherhood, as in the previous case, is the phase of the domestic relation which is the theme of song and struggle in their lives. Possible its present importance is the reason why wifehood was dismissed with so brief mention in the portion concerning the famous mothers.

Note, then, the gradation of the three: Clytemnestra is the fallen unrestored; Helen is the fallen restored; Penelope is the unfallen, who keeps a home for her absent husband during twenty years. The tragic, the mediated, the pure; or, to take a later analogy, the infernal, the purgatorial, the paradisaical; such are the three typical female characters of Homer, ranging from guilt, through repentance, to innocence. In this framework lies quite all possible characterization. Naturally Agamemnon shows a bitter vein of misogyny, with only his wife in view; but he takes it all back when he thinks of Penelope.

Two of these women, Helen and Penelope, are still alive and do not belong to the realm of Hades; the ghost of the third, Clytemnestra, does not appear. Still all three are mentioned here in the text, and stand in relation to the three Greco-Trojan heroes, none of whom were restored through the Return. Ulysses, however, is the real solution of them all; he spans all their inadequacies, masters their fates, and reaches home. The three Greek heroes above mentioned fell by the way in the course of the grand problem, and are seen in Hades, complaining, unhappy, showing their full limitation. To a degree they are suffering the penalty of their own shortcomings: which fact prepares us for the third and last phase of the Underworld.

III.

We now come to a new division of the Book, which forms in itself a complete little poem, yet is derived directly from the preceding divisions, and is harmonious with them in thought, development and structure. Undoubtedly there is a difference here, but the difference means not absolute separation but a connected unfolding of parts. The present division has been assailed more violently by the critics and torn out of its place with greater unanimity than any other portion of the Odyssey, with the possible exception of portions of the last two Books. Let us confess, however, that our tendency is to reconcile, if this can be done, the discords and to knit together the rent garment, by threads not always on the surface, but very real to any eye which is willing to look underneath.

Unquestionably a punitive element enters now, there is guilt and punishment in Hades. But who has not felt that in the preceding division the three Greek heroes were under the inevitable penalty of their own deeds? Very natural is the transition. Indeed the three divisions of the Book show a gradual movement toward a penal view of Hades: the first (Tiresias and the Famous Mothers) has a slight suggestion of the penalty; the second (the three Greek heroes) has the idea of punishment implicit everywhere; the third makes the idea explicit and organizes itself upon the same.

Again, there is a change of style, which now is strongly tinged with the Orphic, initiatory, symbolical manner, in marked contrast with the clear-flowing narrative which has just preceded. But we noticed the same characteristic before, in the first division of the Book, where the sacrificial rites and the part of Tiresias were given. Homer has many styles, not each style has many Homers, nor is there a new Homer needed for each change of style. Note the great varieties of style in the two Parts of Faust by way of illustration. Moreover we here pass into the dim Pre-Trojan epoch, as was the case in the first division, but guilt is now flung into that time and with it the penalty. Hoary, gigantic shapes of eld do wrong to the Gods, and are put into the punitory Hades. Thus this third division returns to the first with its own new principle. In truth one may say that Homer herein shows features akin to Hesiod; well, Homer is Hesiod and many more.

We hold, therefore, that this third division is an organic part of the Book both in idea and structure; it carries to completion the thought of a world-justice, which Tiresias has already declared in his speech to Ulysses, and which is exemplified in the three Greek heroes. Thus it unfolds what lies in the first two divisions, and links them together in a new and deeper thought. For this realm of Hades, hitherto a distracted spot without any apparent order, now gets organized with its own Justiciary and its own Law. Yet here too we shall find a solution and a parallel; just as Ulysses was the true hero at Troy, standing above all the others and solving their problems, so Hercules is the great Pre-Trojan hero, saving himself at last and rising to Olympus. Finally the two careers of Ulysses and Hercules are affirmed to be identical. This division, therefore, falls of itself into three portions: (1) the Judge, (2) the condemned, (3) the redeemed. Thus the whole forms a complete little cycle within itself.

1. Minos, the Judge, was the ancient king of Crete, where he was lawgiver and suppressed wrong-doing on sea and land. Here he continues his vocation, which demands the assigning of the just penalty to the guilty. He is manifestly the type of Justice, both punishing and rewarding; as punisher he has been transferred by Dante to the Inferno. Later Greek legend united with him two other judges, his brothers, Rhadamanthys and Æacus.

2. We have next four instances of punishment, though this is apparently of different degrees. The wrong, however, is not stated except in the case of Tityos, which probably hints the general nature of the misdeeds of the three others. The poet takes for granted that his hearer could fill out each legend for himself. In every case there was evidently some violation done to the Gods, not to men—some crime against Olympus. The period is thrown back into the Pre-Trojan time, into the age of the demigods and of the free intercourse between mortals and immortals; thus it is parallel with the first division of the Book. But now judgment has entered the Houses of Hades along with the penalty.

The guilt of Orion is that of love between a mortal and a Goddess, Aurora, which violation was punished by the "soft bolts" of Artemis, protectress of chastity. This legend has already been alluded to by Calypso. (Book V. line 121.) Jealous are the Gods of that mortal man with whom a Goddess falls in love, and with good reason. Orion's punishment is an eternal chase, the hunter is compelled to hunt forever, repeating what he did in life. Perhaps not a heavy punishment for one who is fond of hunting; yet a tremendous burden, if never interrupted with rest; indeed it becomes a labor quite like the labor of Sisyphus, ever repeated. Of Tityos both the guilt and punishment are indicated; the legend is similar to and yet in contrast with that of Orion; in the one the Goddess approaches the mortal and in the other the mortal approaches the Goddess; hence, too, the severer punishment in the latter case. The second legend ought to be completed here by a fact derived from the story of Prometheus: the liver grows as fast as the vultures rend or consume it; thus again rises the idea of infinite repetition, now of suffering, not of action, for Orion is active.

The next two forms, Tantalus and Sisyphus, have also a kinship. Both had known secrets of the Gods and had betrayed them; Tantalus is also reported to have taken away nectar and ambrosia from the Olympian table after being a guest there; Sisyphus revealed to the river-god Asopus the secret that Zeus had spirited away the latter's daughter, Ægina. The penalty is that Tantalus remains perpetually hungry and thirsty, with sight of food and drink always before his eyes; he cannot reach them when he strives. The finite, with an infinite longing, cannot compass the infinite; the man loses it just when he grasps for it—a truly Greek penalty for a sin against the Greek world, which rests upon the happy harmonious unity of the spirit with the body and with nature. The Christian or Romantic longing and grasping for the Beyond is to the Greek soul a punishment of Hades. Tantalus with his hunger and thirst seems to represent more the striving of the intellect to attain the unattainable; while Sisyphus suggests the effort of the will—practical endeavor, the eternal routine of mechanical employment, which always has to begin over again. Etymology brings also a suggestion. Both names are reduplicated; in Tantalus is the root of the word which means to suffer; in Sisyphus, lurks the signification of craft; it hints the wise or crafty planner (sophos) who always pushes the act to a point where it undoes itself or must be done over again. Note the effect of this reduplication of the first syllables, which means repetition; over and over again, in an infinite series must the matter be gone through, in suffering and in doing; the very words are in labor.

Indeed this indicates the common element in these four punishments: the endless repetition of the struggle of finitude. The first two, Orion and Tityos, reached out for Goddesses, being mortals; the second two, still mortals, but in communion with deities, attempted to bring down divine secrets to earth; the one set strove to make the finite infinite, the other to make the infinite finite. Both were contrary to the nature of the Greek mind, which sought to keep the happy balance between the two sides, between body and spirit, between the temporal and eternal. Now the punishment of these people is to give them their infinite, but in the form of an infinite repetition of their finite act, which is just the spirit-crushing penalty. The power of these two types, Tantalus and Sisyphus, is shown by the fact that all ages since Homer have adopted them and wrought them over into many forms of art and poetry.

Here then is the unsolved problem of the Greek world, a problem which the Christian world has met and answered. Tantalus and Sisyphus are in pain and toil simply through themselves; man, however, must have the power to reach the apples, and roll the stone up hill, he must assert himself as limit-transcending, as infinite, for once and for all, and not caught in an infinite series, which is a veritable mill of the Gods, that is, of the Greek Gods. Now this strange fact comes to light: Homer, seer that he is, has a dim consciousness of this solution, and faintly but prophetically embodies it in a new figure, namely, that of Hercules, which we shall now consider.

3. The Homeric solution is to divide the man, or to double him, into his shade (eidolon) and his self. The former belongs to Hades and appears now; it is the finite Hercules with his striving and labors; he still has his bow and arrow, is ready to slay beasts, snakes, and birds. He is in quite the same punishment as Orion or even Sisyphus, the penalty of all finitude is upon him. Yet the other side is given, that of victory. "I, though the son of the highest God, Zeus, had to endure boundless tribulation." Strangely Christian does this sound. "I was put under service to a far inferior man to myself, who laid upon me bitter labors." The higher must serve and save the lower. "Then the mightiest labor I performed, I came down hither to Hades alive and dragged thence the dog Cerberus"—conquered the great terror of the Underworld. Thus Hercules has really transcended Hades, and so we read here that "he himself is among the immortal Gods, in bliss," that is, his infinite nature is there, while the finite part is still below in Hades. Such is the old poet's far-cast glance, reaching deep into the future and beyond the Greek world.

Still another significant word is spoken. "O Ulysses, unhappy man! Thou dost experience the same hard fate which I endured upon the earth." Thus does Hercules identify the career of Ulysses with his own—the same striving and suffering, and the same final victory, the peace of Olympus. Who cannot attain the latter is a Tantalus, seeking but never reaching the fruit. Such is the outcome and culmination of Hades; after Hercules has spoken, no further word is heard by Ulysses.

Dante, whose poem on so many lines grows out of this Eleventh Book, has also the same duplication of the person in his Paradise. The soul is in its special planet, Venus, Mars, etc., and also it is in the highest Heaven, enjoying the Vision of God. But Dante universalizes the Greek view, making it truly Christian; all men are children of God and can attain the seats of the Blessed, not merely the one man, the Hero Hercules. Still even here the inference is that Ulysses must also be transferred to Olympus, though no such declaration is made.

We hope the reader feels how inadequate Hades would be, and how incomplete the experience of Ulysses would be, if this last division of the Book were cut out. The wanderer has now gone through the total cycle of the Underworld, not only outwardly, but inwardly; he is just ready to step out of it, because he is beyond it in spirit. This last step is now to be given in Homeric fashion.

There is a danger at present rising strongly into consciousness, a danger inherent in this too-long contemplation of Hades; it is the danger of the Gorgon, the monster whose view turns the spectator into stone, taking away all sensation, emotion, life. The Greek sooner or later must quit Hades, and flee from its shapes; the supersensible world he must transfuse into the sensible, else the former will rush over into the fantastic, the horrible, the ugly. The Gorgon is down in Hades too, having been slain in the terrestrial Upperworld by a Greek Hero, Perseus, who slew the monster of the Orient which once guarded the fair Andromeda, a kind of Pre-Trojan Helen, chained in captivity, whom the heroic Hellenic soul came to release. Ulysses has now reached the Greek limit, Oriental phantasms will rise unless there be a speedy return to the reality, to the realm of sense. Hades has furnished its highest image in Hercules, beware of its worst. Already the Underworld has been in danger of running into the fantastic; then Beauty, the Hellenic ideal, would be lost. The figures of Homeric Hades hitherto have all been men and women, but the monsters are ready to come forth. So they did come forth in the later Greek world under the spur of Oriental influence; witness the Revelations of St. John in the Island of Patmos, joint product of Greek and Hebrew spirit, showing truly the dissolution of the Hellenic ideal.