Homer's Odyssey Part 21

But the main fact of the present Book is the bringing together of the various threads for the grand final enterprise, which is the punishment of the guilty Suitors. Ulysses and Eumaeus are already on hand; to them now Telemachus is to be added, who comes from Sparta, whither he had gone for the completion of his education. Thus the present Book goes back and connects with the Fourth Book in which we left Telemachus.

Still further, the Ithakeiad is linked into and continues the Telemachiad (the first four Books), inasmuch as we now see the purpose of that famous journey of the son to the courts of Nestor and Menelaus.

It was the training for a deed, a great deed which required knowledge, skill, and resolution, and which was to show the youth to be the son of his father.

Such is another organic link which binds the whole Odyssey together.

The two threads, separately developed hitherto, are now united and interwoven with a third, that of Eumaeus. Telemachus has seen two Trojan heroes and heard their varied history, he has learned about his father whom he is prepared in spirit to support. So the son has his Return also, a small one, yet important, be returns to Ithaca after the experience at Pylos and Sparta and is joined to the great Return of his father.

But just here with these evident marks of unity in the poem, occurs a slip in chronology which has given the most solid comfort to those who wish to break up the Odyssey and a.s.sign its parts to different authors.

In the Fourth Book (l. 594) Telemachus proposes to set out at once for home, he will not be detained even by the charm of Menelaus and Helen.

That was the 6th day of the poem, whereas we find him here leaving Sparta on 36th day of the poem, according to the usual reckoning. Two inferences have been drawn from this discrepancy, if it be a discrepancy. The Wolfian School cries out in chorus: two different poets for the two different pa.s.sages; it would have been impossible for old Homer singing without any written copy thus to forget himself, whatever a modern author might do with the ma.n.u.script or printed page before him. The other set of opinions will run just in the opposite direction: the connection between the Fourth and the Fifteenth Books is perfect, as far as thought, narrative, and incident are concerned; the ancient listener and even the modern reader could pay no attention to the intricate points of chronology in the poem, especially when these points lay more than ten Books or 5,000 lines apart from each other.

There is no real sign of discrepant authorship, therefore, but rather a new indication of unity.

The general theme of the Book is, accordingly, the Return of Telemachus, and his uniting with his father and the swineherd, who are still further characterized in their relation. The structure of the Book falls easily into three portions: first is the separation of Telemachus from Menelaus and Helen till his departure on the ship; second is the end to which he is moving just now, the hut of Eumaeus, where are Ulysses and the swineherd, the latter of whom tells his tale of discipline and is seen to be a hero too in his sphere; the third part is the coming of Telemachus.

I. In the departure of Telemachus from Sparta, we witness the divine and human elements again in co-operation. The former is represented by Pallas who came down to Sparta to "remind the son of Ulysses of his Return(_nostos_)." She appears to him in the night as he lies awake full of care; he is ready to see her plan and so she appears on the spot and tells it, not in the form of a dream. In the first place, he is to hasten home in order to save his substance, which is threatened with new loss through the possible marriage of Penelope with one of the suitors, Eurymachus. The son (through the mouth of Pallas) here shows some bitter feeling toward his mother, whose mind be manifestly does not understand; she is altogether too subtle for her own boy, who has not seen through her disguises. In the second place Pallas warns him against the ambush of the Suitors, which was no doubt his own forecast of the situation. In the third place, the G.o.ddess sends him to the hut of the faithful swineherd, whose character he must have already known.

In this speech of Pallas we feel everywhere the subjective element; she is certainly the voice of Telemachus, yet also the voice of the situation; the divine and human side easily come together, with a stronger tinge of the human than is usual in Homer. Still we must not forget that Pallas, G.o.ddess of Intelligence, suggests the processes of mind more directly than any other deity. Thus we again see that Pallas is the organizer of the poem; she brings its threads together through her foresight; she sends Telemachus where he unites with Ulysses and Eumaeus.

The separation from Menelaus and Helen is told in the style of lofty hospitality. Menelaus brings as his present a wine-bowl wrought by divine skill, "the work of Vulcan," which was given him by the king of the Sidonians--another glance back to Phoenicia and its art. Helen gives a garment of her own making, which thou shalt preserve as "a keepsake of Helen" till the day of thy marriage, "when thy bride shall wear it." A most beautiful motive, worthy indeed of Helen and of Helen's art; Telemachus is to transfer to his bride, and to her alone, his "keepsake of Helen," his memory of her, his ideal gotten during this journey. Finally Helen appears as prophetess and foretells the total destruction of the Suitors at the hands of returning Ulysses.

Such is the last appearance of Helen to Telemachus, giving strong encouragement, suggesting in her two acts a new outlook for the youth both upon Family and State. No wonder his words to her rise into adoration: "Zeus so ordering, there at home I shall pray unto thee as unto a G.o.d."

Telemachus in his return will not pa.s.s through Pylos lest he be delayed by the importunate hospitality of good old Nestor. And indeed what can he gain thereby? He has already seen and heard the Pylian sage. So he sends the latter's son home while he himself goes aboard his ship. But just before he sets sail, there comes "a stranger, a seer, a fugitive, having slain a man." Theoclymenus it is, of the prophetic race of Melampus, the history of which is here given. The victim of a fateful deed now beseeches Telemachus for protection and receives it; the prophet hereafter will give his forewarnings to the Suitors. Yet he could not save himself from his own fate in spite of his foresight; so all the seers of the family of Melampus have a strain of fatality in them; they foreknow, but cannot master their destiny.

II. The scene shifts (l. 301) to the hut of the swineherd, which is the present destination of Telemachus. The reader beholds a further unfolding of the character of Eumaeus, in fact this portion of the Book might be called his discipline or preparation to take part in the impending enterprise.

Ulysses still further tests the charity and humanity of the swineherd by offering to go to town in order to beg for his bread among the Suitors, as well as to do their menial tasks. Whereat Eumaeus earnestly seeks to dissuade him, reminding him of the insolence of those men and of their elegant servants in livery, and a.s.suring him that "no one here is annoyed at thy presence, neither I nor the others." Well may Ulysses respond to such a manifestation of charity. "May thou be as dear to Zeus, the Father, as thou art to me!"

The stranger now tests the swineherd's interest in and devotion to Laertes and Eurycleia, who are the parents of Ulysses, the old father and mother of the house. So Eumaeus gives an account of his relation to them, as well as to Ktimene, sister of Ulysses; "with her I was reared, and was honored by her mother only a little less." Eumaeus will soon tell how he came so young to the family of Laertes. Indeed Ulysses is moved by his narrative to ask just this question. It is to be noted that the report of the swineherd about Penelope is not so certain; "from the queen I have had no kindly word or deed, since that evil fell upon her house--the haughty Suitors." Here lies one motive why Ulysses must go to the palace and test Penelope. Thus Eumaeus shows his love for the family of Ulysses, and responds deeply to the test of universal charity.

Very naturally rises the question as to the history of his life. What experience has called forth such a marvelous character? Eumaeus now gives his fateful story. The Phoenician background is again employed, with its commerce in merchandise, with its stealing and selling of free, high-born people into slavery, with its navigation. The pith of the story is, a Phoenician female slave, who had been stolen and bought by the king of the country, plays false to her master, steals his child and what valuables she can carry off, and escapes on a Phoenician trading vessel after an intrigue with one of its crew. The captive woman avenged her wrong, but was struck on "the seventh day by Diana, archer-queen," for her own double guilt. Eumaeus was that child, also stolen and enslaved, but he is her emphatic contrast; he has been able fully to digest his fate. The Phoenician galley came to Ithaca, "and there Laertes purchased me." The swineherd is of royal birth and retains his more than royal character; in being the humblest he can rise to the highest.

Interesting touches of the Phoenician traders are given: "Sharp fellows, having myriads of trinkets in their ship:" surely it is the ancient Semitic retailer of jewelry, going from town to town in his boat. Then note specially "the cunning man who came to my father's house, showing a golden necklace strung with amber beads;" this amber was obtained doubtless through commerce from the Baltic, by the Phoenicians, whose workmanship is also suggested. "The palace servants and my mother took the trinket into their hands, turning it over and over; they kept gazing at it haggling about the price;" the same scene can be witnessed today in our own country towns when the Jewish peddler appears in the household. In the present case, however, it was part of the scheme of stealing the child.

Eumaeus says that his father ruled a city in the island of Syria. But where is this Syria? Some think it is conceived by Homer as lying in the extreme West, "where the Sun turns;" but the Sun turns anywhere.

Rather is its position eastward toward Phoenicia; the Taphian pirates who stole the Sidonian woman and sold her into Syria, dwelt not far from Ithaca and preyed upon Phoenician commerce, stealing and selling in the Eastern Mediterranean. Certainly they could find little business of their kind in the West. Some vague idea of the actual land of Syria must have flashed in Homer's mind; no more definite description is possible.

It is plain, however, that the poet makes Eumaeus a foreigner, not a Greek, whose birth-land lies beyond the h.e.l.lenic boundary to the East.

But he is not a Phoenician, his character is different, and his people seem not to have been sea-faring. His fundamental trait is religiosity; he lives in the eternal presence of the Divine Ruler of the World. His character is that of the Old Testament; some of his utterances are strong reminders of the Psalms. We cannot help reading in him something of David and of Job; misfortune he here has had, but he retains an unshaken faith in the deity; intense wrestling he shows, but it has been with him the process of purification. He is not a Greek at all; he has a Hebrew character, not of the modern mercantile type, which resembles more the Phoenician, but of the old Hebrew strain. In those times of man-stealing, Homer could easily have met him in one of the Greek islands, a slave yet a spiritual prince, have drawn his portrait, and have heard his story substantially as here given.

Indeed we think we can trace in the swineherd's thoughts and sometimes in his expressions a marked monotheistic tendency. Undoubtedly Eumaeus speaks fluently of the Greek G.o.ds, as Diana and Apollo; especially does he mention and honor Zeus, the supreme G.o.d; still he is p.r.o.ne to employ the word G.o.ds in the unitary sense of Providence, and he repeatedly uses the singular _G.o.d_ without the article, as in the pa.s.sage: "G.o.d grants some things and withholds others at his will, for he is all-powerful" (XIV. 444). And it is characteristic that he does not like Helen, for thus he says in an outburst of anti-Greek spirit: "O would that Helen and her tribe had utterly perished, for whose sake so many fell!" (XIV. 68.) Striking is his contrast herein with the Phaeacians, and with their love of the Trojan conflict.

We have already stated that this entire Ithakeiad resembles the novel, giving pictures of the social life of the time, and elevating the humblest man into heroship. In like manner, this story of Eumaeus might almost be called a novelette, truly an Homeric novelette interwoven into the greater totality of the novel here presented in the Ithakeiad, and finally into the entire Odyssey. It has its correspondence with the Fairy Tale of the previous portions of the poem, yet stands in sharpest contrast. Here is no supernatural world far away, but it is the present, it is human life just now, and the hero lives before us. Here are no superhuman beings, like Calypso, Circe, Polyphemus, Proteus; the environment, the coloring, the art-form are totally changed. Nor is it an heroic tale of Troy, with its order of G.o.ds, descending and interfering in human affairs; no grand exploits of arms, no mighty mustering of glorious warriors. Not high and magnificent Achilles in all the pride of his colossal individuality, but humble Eumaeus, a slave and a swineherd, has become the Homeric hero. Surely a new style, and a new world-view; yet surely Homer's, not the work of any other man.

It has been already made plain that we have pa.s.sed from the Idyl, and Heroic Epos, and the Fairy Tale of the first portions of the Odyssey into the Social Romance, which takes the picture of society as its setting. Every human being can now be made a slave; man-stealing, woman-stealing, child-stealing, give the motives for the strangest turns of destiny. Already Ulysses in his fict.i.tious tale of the previous Book has become a maker of the novelette; but Eumaeus tells a true tale of his own life, it has no disguise; he knows his past, he is aware of his origin. Thus he is an example, showing how the man is still a fate-compeller in such a state of society. Though a slave externally, he can still be a king within; though struck by the hardest blow of destiny he can still remain loyal to the Divine Order and obtain its blessing.

It is interesting to note the significance of this Phoenician background, with its universal commerce. The Phoenician traded already in remote antiquity with the extremes of the Aryan race, from India in the East to Britain in the West, including the whole intervening line of Aryan migration, Persia, Greece, Italy, Gaul. The Aryan race is indeed a separative, self-repellent, distracted race, always on the move out of itself, without returning into itself. The Phoenician, on the contrary, in his farthest voyages, came back home with news and merchandise; the remotest Phoenician settlements kept up their connection with the mother country. Deep is the idea of the Return to the parent city in the Semitic consciousness for all time; the Phoenician returned anciently to Tyre and Sidon; the Arab Mahommedan returns to-day to Mecca, home of the Prophet; the Jew experts to return to Jerusalem, the holy city of his fathers. The entire Odyssey may well be supposed to show a Semitic influence, in distinction from the Iliad, for the Odyssey is the account of many returns and of the one all-embracing Return to home and country. It is, therefore, very suggestive that the Odyssey has this Phoenician background of a world-commerce, which is only possible for a city whose people, going forth, come back to it as a center. Moreover this world-commerce is a kind of unification of the ever-separating Aryan race, a bond created through the exchange of commodities. Thus the Semitic character has always shown itself as the unifier and mediator of Aryan peoples, first through an external tie of trade, which was the work of Phoenicia, and, secondly, through the far deeper spiritual tie of religion, which was the later work of Judea. The Semitic mind has always been necessary to the inherently centrifugal Aryan soul in order to bring it back to itself from its wanderings, inner and outer, and to reconcile itself with itself and with the Divine Order. The Semite has been and still is the priest to all Arya, by the deepest necessity of the spirit.

Another word we may add in this connection. The Semitic race has also separated itself, and shown three main branches--Phoenician, Hebrew, Arab--a sea-people, a land-people, and a sand-people. In all three cases, however, they have a returning and therewith a mediating character. In their wildest wanderings, on water, and in the desert, and in the soul, they have the power of getting back; and that which they do for themselves, they aid others in doing.

So much by way of tracing the universal relations of this poem with its Phoenician background of commerce as well as with its Semitic character of Eumaeus. For, somehow, we cannot help seeing in this latter certain traits of the old Hebrew.

III. The last part of the Book returns to Telemachus and his ship; he has escaped the men in ambush, and has reached the Ithacan sh.o.r.e at a distance from the palace; he sends the vessel to the town while he goes to the hut of the swineherd in accord with the plan of the G.o.ddess.

But he has on his hands the seer Theoclymenus, whom he first thinks of sending to one of the Suitors; but when the seer utters a favorable prophecy, Telemachus sends him to one of his own friends for entertainment. A curious touch of policy; it was well to have the prophet in a friendly house, where he might be ready for service; even prophetic vision can be colored by personal attachments.

_BOOK SIXTEENTH._

This Book connects directly with the preceding Book, and brings about not only the external meeting and recognition of father and son, but their spiritual fusion in a common thought and purpose. The scene is still laid in the swineherd's hut, but the swineherd himself must be eliminated at this point. The question rises, Why does the poet hold it so necessary to keep the matter secret from Eumaeus? The care which Homer takes with this object in view, is noteworthy. Evidently the swineherd was not ready to partic.i.p.ate, or would endanger the scheme.

Yet of his fidelity there could be no question.

We have already stated our opinion on this subject. Various external reasons may be suggested but the real reason lay in the character of Eumaeus. He was too sincere, open-hearted, transparent for those wily Greeks; he might let out the great secret in pure simplicity of mind; he is their contrast just herein, he is not a Greek. The situation demanded disguise, dissimulation, possibly downright lying; Eumaeus was not the man for that. Such is his greatest honor, yet such is also his limit; if Ulysses and Telemachus were such as he, they would have all died n.o.bly in their cause, but the Suitors would have triumphed, and the inst.i.tutional world of Ithaca would have gone to the dogs. At least its rescue could not have taken place through them. Such is the moral contradiction which now rises, and will continue to rise more and more distinctly to view throughout the rest of the poem.

There are the two strands in the Book which are the main ones of the poem, that of the father and son, and that of the Suitors. Both are here put together and contrasted with new incidents, which are leading inevitably to the grand culmination. These two strands we shall now briefly follow out in order. There is also a third portion, the return of Eumaeus from the palace to the hut, which portion is short and unimportant.

I. Telemachus arrives at the hut of the swineherd, the dogs give him a friendly greeting in contrast to that which they give to Ulysses--a fact which shows that the youth must have been in times past a good deal with Eumaeus. Also the affectionate meeting of the two suggests the same thing. Herein we note a reason for Pallas sending him hither--the G.o.ddess and the youth coincided. Of course the conversation soon turns toward the stranger present, the disguised Ulysses. Now occurs a subtle movement between father and son who are to be brought together.

(1) First they are in a state of separation, but the disguised Ulysses holds the bond of unification in his power. Eumaeus first tells to Telemachus the fict.i.tious Cretan story concerning the stranger; then Ulysses gives a note of his true self: "Would that I were Ulysses' son or the hero himself!" What then? "I would be an evil to those Suitors."

Thus the father secretly stirs the spirit of the son, in fact spiritually identifies himself. The son sends off the swineherd on an errand to Penelope, in order to announce his safe arrival from his journey to the mainland. In this way one obstacle is removed--the swineherd; now the second obstacle, the disguise is to be stripped away.

(2) Herewith occurs a divine intervention, hinting the importance of the present moment. Pallas appears to Ulysses, "but Telemachus beheld her not;" Why? "For not by any means are the G.o.ds manifest to all men."

As already stated, Ulysses has the key of the situation, and sees what is now to be done; Telemachus does not see and will not see till his father's disguise be removed. So again the G.o.ddess Pallas appears to the wise man and addresses him because the two are one in thought; no other person not in this oneness of the human and divine can see her.

In like manner Pallas appears to Achilles, "seen by him alone," in the First Book of the Iliad; similar too is the case of Telemachus when Pallas comes to him among the Suitors under the form of Mentes in the First Book of this Odyssey (see p. 26).

But just here is added a fact in strangest contrast with the foregoing view; "The dogs (as well as Ulysses) saw the G.o.ddess; they barked not, but ran off whining through the gate in the opposite direction." In the old Teutonic faith (and probably Aryan) the dog can see a ghost, hence his unaccountable whine at times. The lower animals and even the elements recognize the approaching deity by some unusual commotion. But mark the contrast: the dogs ran in terror from the presence of the G.o.ddess; Ulysses, observing her, "went out of the house and stood before her alongside the wall of the court." The rational man, beholding, must commune with the deity present, and not run off like a dog. If he does not see the G.o.ddess, as in the case with Telemachus here, he is simply outside of her influence.

Pallas gives to Ulysses the strong promise of help, reflecting his own internal condition. She transforms him, he appears a new man, nay a G.o.d to his son, "some divinity whose home is the broad heaven." Then the recognition follows, with its various doubts and its emotional ups and downs. "In the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of both rose the desire of tears; they wept shrilly, and louder their screams than those of the eagle whose young have been stolen from its nest." Lamentation is a trait of the Homeric hero; in the present case it a.s.serts its fullest right. But enough! let us pa.s.s from heroic tears to heroic deeds.

(3) Next comes the general plan of action. What have we to encounter?

Telemachus gives a catalogue of the Suitors; they reach the surprising number of 108 persons plus 10 attendants, including the bard and the herald. We now begin to appreciate the greatness of the task. The Ithacan people are helpless or hostile, the Suitors have friends and relatives everywhere, yet they must be punished, they cannot be allowed to escape. But the aid for such an enterprise--whence? asks Telemachus, and also the reader. Listen to the answer of Ulysses: "I shall tell thee, and thou bear it well in mind; think whether Pallas with her father Zeus be not sufficient for us, or shall I look about for some other defender?" Such a believer has the skeptic become; he now has faith in the G.o.ds, and in a World Order. It is also a lofty expression of belief in his divine mission; the spirit of Eumaeus, which dwells in that humble hut, has entered the heart of the hero. Such are the two allies: Pallas, wisdom, and Zeus, fountain of the world's justice, which had been deeply violated by the Suitors. Telemachus in response, a.s.sents to his father's words, and acknowledges the supremacy of the G.o.ds. He also lays aside his doubt and shows himself in a spiritual harmony with his father, which must be antecedent to the deed.

The next part of the plan is that Ulysses in disguise shall go to the palace and see for himself the wrongs done to his House, and experience some of these wrongs in his own person. Then too he can make preparations on the spot and select the time for striking. Also he wishes to test a little further the wife Penelope. Another period of disguise is necessary in order to get rid of the necessity of disguise and vindicate the right. Zeus is with him, he is the bearer of universal justice, which he is to establish anew; but Pallas must also be with him in the act, for it requires all his skill and cunning and forethought.

Thus the father and son are united in spirit; the last obstacle, which was the disguise, is removed, and they behold each other as they are in truth. The recognition is not merely an external one of face and form, or even of the tie of kinship and affection; it is in both a recognition of the Divine Order of the World, which they are now called upon to maintain in their own persons, and to re-stablish in their country.

II. The scene pa.s.ses from the hut of the swineherd to the palace, where the Suitors soon hear of the safe return of Telemachus. Antinous also comes back, foiled and evidently angered; he proposes to the Suitors that they should slay Telemachus "in the fields or on the highway"

wherever found, or renounce the suit for Penelope in the palace: "Let each one woo her from his own house with gifts."

It is clear that such a violent measure as the a.s.sa.s.sination of the royal heir in his own territory finds small response even among the Suitors. Antinous says that the people are no longer friendly; he thinks, when they hear of the recent ambush, that they may rise and drive out the aggressors. Still they do not rise, and probably Antinous tried to frighten the Suitors into his drastic method. But he did not succeed, Amphinomus clearly voices their sentiment, and the council dissolves.

Soon it is seen that Antinous has lost his cause. Penelope appears and gives him a thorough tongue-lashing, in which she also tells his antecedents. "Thy father came to us, a fugitive from the people," who were angry at him on account of his piratical misdeeds; "they wanted to kill him, and tear out his heart, and pillage his large wealth"

evidently gotten unlawfully. "But Ulysses restrained them," and now this is your grat.i.tude: "you waste his property, woo his wife, slay his son, and worry me to death." Antinous is true to his ancestry, he is still a pirate. Strong words are these, which call forth a hypocritical reply from another Suitor, Eurymachus, which she probably saw through, for she goes into her upper chamber, where "she weeps for her dear spouse Ulysses, till blue-eyed Pallas cast upon her eyelids sweet sleep."

The internal weakness of the Suitors is exposed; it is manifest that they are divided among themselves. In fact, how can they have any unity? Each wishes to win the fair prize, which can belong only to one; hence every other man is his rival, whom he tries to thwart. Hence come jealousy and suspicion. The single bond they have in common is their wrong-doing, which they feel cannot much longer continue, with Telemachus so active.

III. On the other hand, we pa.s.s to the hut of the swineherd, where the father and son show a complete unity of spirit and purpose. Eumaeus returns from his errand; he brings no news specially except that the Suitors who formed the ambush have come back to the town. But he is not yet to be admitted into the grand secret; so Pallas stood again near Ulysses, "striking him with her staff she made him an old man in wretched rags." He resumes his disguise "lest the swineherd might recognize him and hasten to announce the fact to Penelope, instead of keeping the secret looked in his bosom." So the kind-hearted, sincere Eumaeus cannot yet be entrusted with the important secret.