Note 41 — Chapter VIII · ULYSSES REVISITS HIS PALACE.

From this maternal ancestor Ulysses might have inherited a large share of the subtlety which distinguished him. Autolycus was the reputed son of Hermes (Mercury)—the god of thieves—and did not in that point disgrace his blood. He was said to have the power of so transforming all stolen property, that the owner could not possibly recognise it. Shakespeare borrows the name, and some of the qualities, for one of his characters in the ‘Winter’s Tale’—“Autolycus, a rogue,” as he stands in the list of dramatis personæ, who professes himself “not naturally honest, but sometimes so by chance.”