A NOTE ON HOMER AND ULYSSES

The uncertainty which prevails as to the actual birthplace of Homer also extends to the exact period at which he flourished. Doubts have been expressed by some modern scholars as to whether the poet ever existed as a personality. The view that the Iliad and Odyssey were not the work of an individual, but merely a collection of old folklore verse welded into a whole by many hands, made compact by ages, a self-born epic rising from crystallised tradition, is, however, not a tenable one, and need not be discussed here.

As far as we are able to place the poet in his period correctly, we can say with some certainty that he flourished at a time between 800 and 900 years before the birth of Christ.

The Arundelian marbles fix his era at 907 years before the dawn of Christianity. About the life of the most ancient of all poets nothing whatever is known. There is a tradition that he had a school of followers in the Island of Chios, and we have early records of celebrations held there in his honour every few years. But no proof whatever exists of the truth of the supposition, though up to quite modern times the islanders maintained and believed in it.

In the same way must be treated the story of Homer’s blindness. It is a legend which cannot be proved or disproved. Yet at a time when literature must have been almost purely oral, his blindness need have been no bar to the exercise of his talent. It has been said, and the theory is at least an interesting one, that the music and sonance of Homer’s lines came from the fact that they were composed to be spoken rather than read. That the blindness of Milton did not in any way detract from the grandeur of his verse is an undoubted fact, and yet Milton had to speak every line before he could have it recorded by others.

We can deduce something of Homer from his work. That he must have been a travelled man seems indubitable. To this day the modern Ulysses or Menelaus, standing on the bridge of his tramp steamer, can see the headlands, islands, and capes, unchanged from 3000 years ago. That Homer was a man of deep feeling, was possessed of the “artistic temperament” in a very marked degree, seems equally clear. Nothing can be more delicate and touching than his handling of Penelope. Other ancient writers have represented the wife of Ulysses as an abandoned harlot, and said that her husband repudiated her for incontinence during his absence. Homer, with a far surer, finer touch, made her a model for wives to emulate and husbands to desire. The whole of the home-coming scenes in the Odyssey could only have been written by a man who was no mere materialist.

When Homer wrote, human nature was much less profound a thing than it has since become. And yet, though men’s motives were entirely different, men’s actions sprang from less subtle causes than now. Homer was a psychologist of the first class. He knew his fellow-men. In all Romance no one can point to a finer and more consistent character-study than that of Ulysses. Shakespeare has drawn no more vivid picture of a single temperament. Homer must have mixed with mankind, observed them closely, been an acute and untiring observer.

The absolutely original temper of his mind is extraordinary. For we must remember that Homer could hardly have had any models to inform his choice of subjects or direct his style. Yet none of his imitators, and there have been many, were able, even in their happiest moments, even to approach him. As he was the first poet, so he was the greatest, and we may well conclude he will remain so until men themselves are things of the past.

In the ancient world, when we get into the actual periods of recorded history, we find a worship of Homer universally existing. His works reposed under the pillow of Alexander together with the sword which had made him great. The conqueror enshrined the Iliad in the richest casket of the vanquished Persian king. Altars smoked in Homer’s honour all over Greece, he was venerated as a god. But speculations about Homer have, after all, but little value. We know nothing, and we shall never now know anything about him.

He remains a glorious and mysterious fact. We have the priceless legacy of this Being, and that is enough.

ULYSSES

Even Euclid, the inventor of concrete logical processes, is forced to begin with axioms and definitions that are absurd. Once allow them, and everything proceeds to a brilliant triumph of mentality; but in order to build a basis in a vacuum, one has to swallow a dose of nonsense first.

It must be confessed that in order to estimate the character-drawing employed by Homer to create Ulysses, we must swallow the supernatural influences which surrounded him. Put them out of the question and the hero lacks perspective and becomes a doll. Let it be granted that Minerva stood beside the wanderer. “Her clear and bared limbs o’erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear.” Let us but believe with Homer that the careless Gods lie beside their nectar on the hill, and hurl their bolts far below into the valleys of men, then the man Ulysses shines out clear and full of colour, an absolute achievement in Art.

An ancient Norse pick-axe has been discovered, bearing the following inscription:—

and a broken helmet was once found in Battle Abbey, engraved with this crest:—

The Master Mariner might have owned them both. The first quality which we marvel at in our analysis of Ulysses’ character is the extraordinary resource which he displays throughout all his wanderings. His qualities of passive endurance, his enormous courage, his mental agility—the very cream of cunning, are all component parts of his unfailing readiness to take sudden advantage of his opportunity. For him all tides were at flood to lead on to fortune.

Charybdis sucks down his stout ship into the womb of the sea, he makes a raft of the restored keel.

He estimates the brain power of the stupid Cyclops at its exact value, and escapes the vengeance of his companions by a pun. And there is a well-defined touch of fatalism in Ulysses also. When the irreparable blunder has been committed by his sailors, and Apollo’s sacred beeves are smoking on the spit, he knows that he and all his men must pay heavily for their disregard of Circe’s warning. It is inevitable. Nothing can turn aside the coming anger of the Sun-God. So Ulysses, being hungry, though innocent of the initial sacrilege, makes his unhallowed meal with the rest. He must endure the pain, so plucks the pelf also. To enlarge upon his courage and endurance were unnecessary. The Odyssey is one long pæan of them both. His sagacity is manifest so vividly in all his actions that even Zeus, father of Heaven, says to Athene, “No, daughter, I could never forget Ulysses, the wisest worldling of them all.” But what of Ulysses as a Sybarite? The hero “Mulierose,” to borrow from the Cloister and the Hearth, the lover of ladies, “propt on beds of amaranth and moly,” while white enchanted arms hold him a willing captive? I have heard it remarked that here the Ionian father of poets has gone astray. People have said to me that Ulysses loved his wife too well to dwell contented on the spicy downs of Lotos Land, that he was too taut and hardy a man. But Homer did not err in his study of temperament.

How can one judge the man of 3000 years ago by the standards of to-day? In the ages when hosts joined in battle for the fair body of Helen men looked on women with other eyes than ours. Heaven and hell were very material places, pleasure was a very material, tangible, understandable thing and a lovely woman a gift from the Gods.

Ulysses strove for Ithaca through storm and wrack, and when Fortune sent him to Calypso, or beached his ship on Circe’s fairy isle, he was content to rest a little while. He yielded, like others of the wise. Socrates studied under Aspasia, and Aspasia ruled the world under the name of Pericles.

It is in trying to fit the temperament of an ancient to a modern that the majority of people must always fail to understand a great piece of contemporary literature. One may sift the instances of modern temperament and comment on them, but one should not try to mould the residue into a like form. The Bible story paints King David, for example, as a truculent, bloodthirsty, canting monster—a complete portrait. The immorality and stupidity lies in trying to reconcile his Old Testament enormities with the revelations of the New.

So with Ulysses, Circe, Calypso, Nausicaa, and even in later years the legendary Erippe, all fall truly, artistically and naturally into the mosaic of the hero’s life.

One interesting point in the pleasure-loving side of Ulysses’ nature should by no means be disregarded. Not only did he take eagerly such joys as the Fates apportioned, but he was a true and discriminating Sybarite.

We find him taking stringent precautions against disaster from the Sirens, yet determined to enjoy the luxury of their song. It is a pleasure not to be missed and not to be paid for. In after years we may imagine him relating his unique and delicious experience to his friends with an undoubted complacency.

In the commendable and ancient virtues of filial love, a cardinal virtue in the old world, a forgotten duty to-day, Ulysses was singularly strong. His tenderest inquiries in Hades, the most passionate expressions of affection, are protested to the shade of Anticlea, his mother. One of the most touching scenes in the Odyssey is the meeting between Ulysses and Laertes, his father, after the long wanderings are over. “He flung his arms around his father and cried out, ‘Oh, my father, I am here indeed once more. I have come back to you at last! Dry your tears, for mine is the victory.’”

A many-sided man. Hard as a diamond and as bright, with every facet in his many-sided nature cut and polished by the hand of a master.

C. R. G.

THE END

Colston & Coy, Limited, Printers, Edinburgh

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Transcriber's Note

The author's surname is hyphenated throughout this book, although the Library of Congress lists his name without the hyphen.

The author varies slightly from The Odyssey in places—for instance, the number of years Ulysses remains with Calypso. These variations are preserved as written.

There is no page number reference on the illustration facing page 83.

The author uses some variant spelling which is preserved as printed. This includes Phœacians, Vergil, Melesegenes, dogrells, both Græcian and Grecian, and both lotos and lotus. These latter two variations appear in different sections of the book, so may well be deliberate on the part of the author.

Minor punctuation errors have been repaired. The following amendments have also been made:

Page 10—discrimena amended to discrimina—Per varios casus per tot discrimina rerum ...

Page 32—smiled amended to smile—A cruel smile played on his face.

Page 74—ago years amended to years ago—It was nine years ago that the pale gaunt waif of the sea ...

Page 94—iufluence amended to influence—There was some strange influence in the air ...

The frontispiece illustration has been moved to follow the title page. Other illustrations have been moved where necessary so that they are not in the middle of a paragraph.