Homer's Odyssey Part 8

Henceforth a subtle interplay takes place between her and Ulysses, in which we observe three main stages: First, the wild man in appearance he steps forth, yet he succeeds in touching her sympathy, wherein her charity is shown; Second, the transformed man, now a G.o.d in appearance he becomes, at whose view the maiden begins to show deep admiration, if not love; Third, the pa.s.sing of Ulysses to the city to which he is conducted by the maiden, who also tells him how to reach the heart of the family, namely, the mother Arete. Thus she seeks to mediate him with her country and her hearth.

(1) Ulysses, issuing from his lair, addresses her in a speech which shows superb skill on account of its gradual penetration to the soul of the fair hearer. He praises first her external beauty with many a happy touch, yet with an excess which seems to border on adulation. This reaches her outer ear and bespeaks his good-will and gentleness at least. Then he strikes a deeper chord: he mentions his sufferings, those which are past, and forebodes those which are yet to be, perchance upon this sh.o.r.e. "Therefore, O Princess, have compa.s.sion, since I have come to thee first; none besides thee do I know in this land. Give me some old rag to throw around me, some useless wrappage which you may have brought hither." Pathetic indeed is the appeal; therewith comes sympathy, the man is no wild Cyclops, whom all Phaeacians still remembered with terror, but a victim of misfortune.

Now comes the culmination of his speech, which shows his keen insight into human nature, as well as his own deepest longing: "May the G.o.ds grant thy heart's desire---husband, home, and wedded harmony." With this praise of domestic life upon his lips he has touched the profoundest chord of her heart; he has divined her secretest yet strongest instinct, and has appealed to it in deep emotion. Yet mark!

in the same general direction lies his own dearest hope: he also will return home, to wife and family. Thus he has found the common meeting-place of their souls; the two strike the absolutely concordant note and are one in feeling--he the husband, she the maiden.

In her answer she expresses her strong sympathy, her words indeed rise into the realm of charity. It is no mark of baseness to be unfortunate; "but these must endure," what Zeus lays upon them. Such is the exhortation of the young maiden to the much-enduring man; she has divined too the ground-work of his character. "But now, since thou hast come to our land, thou shalt not want for garment or anything else proper for the needy suppliant." Then she recalls her attendants, reproving them for their flight, and orders them to give to Ulysses food and drink, oil to be used after bathing, and ample raiment. Nor should we pa.s.s by that other expression of hers: "all strangers and the poor are Jove's own," under the special protection of the Supreme G.o.d, who will avenge their disregard. Such is this ideal world of Phaeacia, still ideal to-day; for where is it realized? The old poet has cast the imago of a society which we are still trying to embody. Well can she say that the Phaeacians dwell far apart from the rest of the nations, "nor does any mortal hold intercourse with us." Thus, too, she marks unconsciously the limit of her people.

(2) The reader, along with Nausicaa, is to see the transformation of the beggarly wanderer, who, having taken his bath and put on his raiment, comes forth like a G.o.d. This is said to be the work of Pallas, "who caused him to appear taller and more powerful, with flowing locks, like the hyacinth." He becomes plastic in form, beautiful as a statue, into which the divine soul has been transfused by the artist. Such a transforming power lies within him, yet is granted also by a deity; the G.o.dlike in the man now takes on a bodily, or rather a sculpturesque appearance, and prophesies Greek plastic art.

The echo of this change is heard in the words of the maiden: "Hear me attendants; not without the will of the Olympians does this man come to us; lately I thought him unseemly, now he is like the G.o.ds who hold the broad Heavens." Such is her lively admiration now, but what means this?

"Would that such a man might be called my husband, dwelling here in Phaeacia!" That note is indeed deeper than admiration.

(3) The third phase of this little play is the bringing of Ulysses to the city and home of Nausicaa. He, having satisfied his hunger, and being ready to start, receives some advice from the maiden, who seeks to conduct him at once to the center of the home. They will pa.s.s first through the outlying country, which shows cultivation; then they will go up into the city, with its lofty tower and double harbor; the seafaring character of the people is especially set forth by Nausicaa, whose name is derived from the Greek word for a ship. Particularly we must notice her fear of gossip, which also existed in Phaeacia, ideal though the land was. She must not be seen with Ulysses; men with evil tongues would say: "What stranger is this following Nausicaa? Now she will have a husband." The sharp eye of Goethe detected in this pa.s.sage the true motive; it is love, always having the tendency to deny itself, which dictates so carefully this avoidance of public report; the thing must not be said just because there is good reason for saying it. Her solicitude betrays her feeling. In pure simplicity of heart she pays the supreme compliment to Ulysses, likening him indirectly to "a G.o.d called down from Heaven by her prayers, to live with her all her days."

Still further she intimates in the same pa.s.sage, that "many n.o.ble suitors woo her, but she treats them with disdain, they are Phaeacians."

To be sure she puts these words into the mouth of a gossipy and somewhat disgruntled countryman, but they come round to their mark like a boomerang. Does she not thus announce to the much-enduring man that she is free, though under a good deal of pressure? All this is done in such an artless way, that it becomes the highest art--something which she does not intend but cannot help. Surely such a speech from such a source ought to repay him for suffering shipwreck and for ten years'

wandering.

We cannot, therefore, think of calling this pa.s.sage spurious, with some critics both ancient and modern. The complaint against it is that the young Phaeacian lady shows here too much reflection, in conjunction with a tendency to sarcasm foreign to her life. But we find it eminently unreflective and naive; the very point of the pa.s.sage is that she unconsciously reveals the deepest hidden thought and purpose of her heart to Ulysses. With all her being she must move toward the Family, she would not be herself unless she did; yet how completely she preserves modesty and simple-heartedness! Nor is the sarcastic tinge foreign to young girls. So we shall have to set aside the objections of Aristarchus the old Greek, and Faesi the modern German, commentator.

But the final instruction of Nausicaa is the most interesting; the suppliant is not to go to the father but to the mother. Nay, he is to "pa.s.s by my father's throne and clasp my mother's knees," in token of supplication; then he may see the day of return. Herein we may behold in general, the honored place of the mother as the center of the Family, its heart, as it were, full of the tender feelings of compa.s.sion and mercy. In the father and king, on the other hand, is the man of the State with its inflexible justice, often putting aside sympathy and commiseration with misfortune. The woman's heart may indeed be called the heart of the world, recognized here by the old poet and his Phaeacians.

This mother, however, is in herself a great character; she is next to have a Book of her own, which will more fully set forth her position.

The character of Nausicaa, as here unfolded in the ancient poet, has captivated many generations of readers since Homer began to be read.

The story has lived and renewed itself in manifold forms; it has that highest power of a genuine mythus, it produces itself through all ages, taking on a fresh vesture in Time. In old h.e.l.las the tale of Nausicaa was wrought over into various shapes after Homer; it was transformed into a drama, love-story, as well as idyl. The myth-making spirit did not let it drop, but kept unfolding it; later legend, for instance, brought about a marriage between Telemachus and Nausicaa. Our recent greatest poet, Goethe, also responded mightily to the story of Nausicaa; he planned a drama on the subject, of which the outline is to be found in his published works. He did not find time to finish his poem, but there is evidence that he thought much about it and carried it around with him, for a long period. One regrets that the German poet was not able to give this new transformation of his ancient Greek brother, with whom he has manifested on so many lines an intimate connection and poetical kinship. In portions of the _Italian Journey_ specially we see how deeply the Odyssey was moving him and how he was almost on the point of reproducing the whole poem with its marine scenery. But Nausicaa in particular fascinated him, and it would have been the best commentary on the present Book to have seen her in a now grand poetic epiphany in the modern drama of Goethe.

_BOOK SEVENTH._

If the last Book was Nausicaa's, this one is Arete's; there is the transition from the daughter to the mother, from the maiden to the wife. Still it is not quite so emphatically a woman's Book, since the wife has to include the husband in her world. Ulysses now goes to the center of the Family, to its heart, that he may meet with compa.s.sion.

Still she withholds her sympathy at first for a good reason; Arete is not wholly impulse and feeling, she has thought, reflection. So, after all, it is left to the men to take up the suppliant.

Very surprising to us moderns is the picture drawn by the old Greek poet of this woman, and of her position: "the people look upon her as a G.o.d when she goes through the city;" her mind is especially praised; she has a judicial character, supposed usually to be alien to women: "she decides controversies among men," or perchance harmonizes them. To be sure her position is stated as exceptional: "her husband honors her, as no other woman on earth is honored;" she is evidently his counselor as well as wife. Thus the poet would have us regard Arete not merely as a person of kind feelings and of sweet womanly instincts, but she has also the highest order of intelligence; she is united with her husband in head as well as in heart, perchance overtopping him in ability. Not domestic simply is the picture, it rises into the political sphere, even into the administration of justice.

Is the character of the woman, as thus set forth, possibly a thousand years before Christ, by a heathen poet in an uncivilized age comparatively, to be a prophecy unto us still at this late date?

Certainly the most advanced woman of to-day in the most advanced part of the world as regards her opportunities, has hardly reached the height of Arete. Unquestionably a glorious ideal is set up before the Sisterhood of all time for emulation; or is it unattainable? At any rate the woman in Homer stands far in advance of her later historical position in Greece.

We may now turn to the husband for a moment, Alcinous the King, the man of civil authority who represents the State, whose function is to be the protector of the Family and of whomever the family receives into its bosom rightfully. He is the element surrounding and guarding the warm domestic center; still he seems to have stronger impulses, or probably less governed, than his wife. Distinctly is the superiority accorded to the woman in this discourse of Pallas to Ulysses; possibly the G.o.ddess may have overdrawn the picture a little in favor of her s.e.x, as really Alcinous becomes the more prominent figure later one.

So we catch a very fascinating glimpse of the Phaeacian world. Two prominent characters representing the two great inst.i.tutions of man, Family and State, we witness; thus is the spirit of the whole poem ethical. Here is no longer the realm of Calypso, the nymph of wild untrained nature, but the clear sunlit prospect of home and country, the antic.i.p.ation of sunny Ithaca and prudent Penelope to the hapless sufferer. Ulysses sees his own land in the image of Phaeacia, sees what he is to make out of his own island. Verily it is a great and epoch-making experience for him just before his return; he finds the ideal here which he is to realize.

Accordingly we have in line three women, Calypso, Nausicaa, Arete, through whose spheres Ulysses has pa.s.sed on his way to his own female counterpart, Penelope. We may see in them phases of man's development out of a sensuous into an inst.i.tutional life. Nor is the suggestion too remote that we may trace in this movement certain outlines in the progress of mankind toward civilization.

In the mythical history of Phaeacia which is also here given, we can observe the same development suggested with greater distinctness.

Already in the previous Book it was stated that the Phaeacians at first "dwelt near the insolent Cyclops," from whom they had to make the removal to their present island on account of violence done them by their neighbors. But now we hear that both Alcinous and Arete are descended on one side from the daughter of King Eurymedon, "who ruled over the arrogant race of Giants," all of whom, both king and "wicked people," had perished. On the other side the royal pair had the sea-G.o.d Neptune as their progenitor who was also the father of the Cyclops Polyphemus. It is impossible to mistake the meaning of this genealogy and the reason of its introduction at the present conjuncture. The Phaeacians likewise were sprung of the wild men of nature, and had been at one time savages; but they had changed, had separated from their primitive kindred and begun the march of civilization. The poet has manifestly before his mind this question: why does one branch of the same people develop, and another branch lag behind; why, of two brothers, does one become civilized and the other remain savage? Of this dualism Greece would furnish many striking ill.u.s.trations, whereof the difference between Athena and Sparta is the best known. Here the change from the locality of the Cyclops, implying also the change in spirit, is made by a hero-king, "the large-souled Nausithous,"

evidently a very important man to the Phaeacians. Then this respect given to the woman has often been noted as both the sign and the cause of a higher development of a people. At any rate the Phaeacians have made the great transition from savagery to civilization, and thus reveal the inherent possibilities of the race.

We now begin to catch a hint of the sweep of the poem in these portions. Ulysses who has lapsed or at least has become separated from his inst.i.tutional life, must travel back to the same through the whole rise of society; he has to see its becoming in his own experience, and to a degree create it over again in his own soul, having lost it. Hence the evolution of the social organism pa.s.ses before his eyes, embodied in a series of persons and places.

In this Seventh Book, therefore, Ulysses is to make the transition to Family and State as shown in Phaeacia, and as represented by Arete and Alcinous. We shall mark three leading divisions:--

I. Ulysses enters the city in the dark, when he is met by Pallas and receives her instructions. The divine principle again comes down and directs.

II. The external side of this Phaeacian world is shown in the city, garden, and palace of the king; nature is transformed and made beautiful for man. All this Ulysses now beholds.

III. The internal side of this Phaeacian world, its spiritual essence, is shown in the domestic and civil life of the rulers and n.o.bles; of this also Ulysses is the spectator, recognizing and appropriating.

Thus we see in the Book the movement from the divine to the human, which we have so often before noticed in Homer. The three parts we may well put together into a whole: the G.o.ddess of Intelligence informs the mind of man, which then transforms nature and builds inst.i.tutions. Here Pallas simply directs Ulysses, who, however, is now to witness the works of mind done in Phaeacia, to recognize them and to take them up into his spirit.

I.

Ulysses follows the direction of Nausicaa and pa.s.ses to the city stealthily in a kind of concealment; "Pallas threw a divine mist over him," the G.o.ddess now having the matter in hand. Moreover she appeared to him in the shape of a young girl with a pitcher, who points out the house of Alcinous and gives him many a precious bit of history in her prattle. Again we must see what this divine intervention means; Pallas is in him as well as outside of him. These are suggestions of his own ingenuity on the one hand, yet also the voice of the situation; indeed he knew them essentially already from the instructions of Nausicaa.

Still further, they are now a part of the grand scheme, which is in the Olympian order, and hence is voiced by the G.o.ds.

The poet introduces his mythical forms; we hear also the fabulous genealogy of the Phaeacian rulers, the meaning of which has been above set forth. They, too, Arete and Alcinous, have come from the Cyclops, and have made the same journey as Ulysses, though in a different manner. It must be remembered that he has had his struggle with the giant Polyphemus, one of the Cyclops, whereof he will hereafter give the account. But the chief matter of the communication of Pallas is to define to Ulysses the position and character of Arete, evidently a woman after her own heart. In this way the G.o.ddess, taking the part of a prattling maid, gives the royal pedigree, and especially dwells on the importance of the queen. Also she throws side glances into the peculiar disposition of the Phaeacians, needful to be known to the new-comer. They are a people by themselves, distrustful of other peoples; they too must be transcended.

It is well at this point to observe Homer's procedure in regard to Pallas. We can distinguish two different ways of employing the G.o.ddess.

The poet says that Pallas gives to the Phaeacian women surpa.s.sing skill in the art of weaving. This is almost allegorical, if not quite; the G.o.ddess stands for a quality of mind, is subjective. Again, when she endows Ulysses with forecast in an emergency, it is only another statement for his mental prevision. Many such expressions we can find in the Odyssey; Pallas is becoming a formula, indicating simply some activity of mind in the individual. But in the important places the G.o.ddess is kept mythical; that is, she voices the Divine Order, she utters the grand ethical purpose of the poem, or makes herself a vital part thereof. Thus she is objective, truly mythical; in the other case she is subjective and is getting to be an allegorical figure. The Odyssey, with its greater internality compared with the Iliad, is losing the mythus.

There is a third way of using Pallas and the G.o.ds which is hardly found in Homer, indeed could not be found to any extent without destroying him. This is the external way of employing the deities, who appear wholly on the outside and give their command to mortals, or influence them by divine authority alone. Thus the G.o.ds become mechanical, and are not a spiritual element of the human soul. Virgil leaves such an impression, and the Roman poets generally. Even the Greek tragic poets are not free from it; especially Euripides is chargeable with this sin, which is called in dramatic language _Deus ex machina_.

Though the Homeric poems as wholes are not allegories, yet they have allegory playing into them. Indeed the mythus has an inherent tendency to pitch over into allegory through culture. Then there is a reaction, the mythical spirit must a.s.sert itself even among civilized peoples, since allegorized G.o.ds are felt to be hollow abstractions, having nothing divine about them.

There can hardly be a doubt that a proper conception of the relation of the deities to men is the most important matter for the student of Homer. But it requires an incessant alertness of mind to see the Homeric G.o.ds when they appear to the mortal, and to observe that they are not always the same, that they too are in the process of evolution.

For instance, in the present Book as well as elsewhere, Pallas must be noted as having two characters, a mythical and allegorical, as above unfolded. Nitzsch, whose commentary on the Odyssey, though getting a little antiquated, is still the best probably, because it grapples with so many real problems of the poem, says: "It is wholly in Homer's manner to represent, in the form of a conversation with Pallas, what the wise man turns over in his own mind and resolves all to himself"

(_Anmerkungen zu Homer's Odyssee, Band II, S. 137_). Very true, yet on the next page Nitzsch says that it is "entirely wrong to suppose that Pallas represents the wisdom of Ulysses _allegorically_." But what else is allegory but this embodiment of subjective wisdom? Now Nitzsch truly feels that Pallas is something altogether more than an allegory, but he has failed to grasp distinctly her mythical character, the objective side of the G.o.ddess, and so gets confused and self-contradictory.

One of the best books ever written on Homer is Nagelsbach's _Homerische Theologie_, which also wrestles with the most vital questions of the poem. But Nagelsbach's stress is almost wholly on the side of the G.o.ds, he seems to have the smallest vision for beholding the free, self-acting man in Homer. In his first chapter (_die Gottheit, the G.o.dhead_) he recognizes the G.o.ds as the upholders and directors of the Supreme Order (sec. 28); also they determine, or rather create (_schaffen_) man's thought and will (sec. 42). What, then, is left for the poor mortal? Of course, such a view is at variance with Homer in hundreds of pa.s.sages (see especially the speech of Zeus with which the action of the Odyssey starts, and in which the highest G.o.d a.s.serts the free-will and hence the responsibility of the man). Nagelsbach himself suspects at times that something is wrong with his view and hedges here and there by means of some limiting clauses; note in particular what he says about Ulysses (sec. 31), who is an exception, being "thrown upon his own resources in cases of extreme need," without the customary intervention of the G.o.ds. But the man in his freedom, who co-operates with the G.o.d in the providential order, is often brought before the reader in the Iliad as well as in the Odyssey (see author's _Com. on the Iliad_, pp. 129, 157, 216, etc.).

II.

We now come to one of the most famous pa.s.sages in Homer, describing the palace and garden of Alcinous. First of all, we must deem it the outer setting of this Phaeacian world with its spirit and inst.i.tutions, the framework of nature transformed which takes its character from within.

Civilized life a.s.sumes an external appearance corresponding to itself; it remodels the physical world after its own pattern. The result is, this garden is in striking contrast with the bower of Calypso, which is almost a wild product of nature. The two localities are mirrored surrounding each home respectively. Again we observe how Homer employs the description of scenery: he makes it reflect the soul as its center.

In a certain sense we may connect these Phaeacian works with Pallas, who has directed Ulysses. .h.i.ther; they are the works of intelligence. The arts and the industries spring up through the transformation of nature.

Here is first noted the palace of the king with certain hints of its materials and construction; especially have the metals been wrought and applied to human uses. Gold, silver, steel, bra.s.s or bronze are mentioned in connection with the palace and its marvelous contents.

Thus an ideal sense of architecture we note; still more strongly indicated is the feeling for sculpture, the supreme Greek art. Those gold and silver watch-dogs at the entrance, "which Vulcan made by his skill, deathless and ageless for all time;" those golden boys "upon their well-built pedestals holding lighted torches in their hands" are verily indications that the plastic artist has already appeared. The naive expression of life which the old poet gives to the sculpturesque shapes in the palace of Alcinous, is fresh as the first look upon a new world, which is indeed now rising.

But not only the Fine Arts, the Industries also are touched upon.

Weaving is specially emphasized along with navigation, one being the Phaeacian woman's and the other being the Phaeacian man's most skillful work. Other occupations are involved in these two. Thus is marked the beginning of an industrial society.

After the palace the garden is described with its cultivated fruit-trees--pear, pomegranate, apples--a good orchard for to-day. Of course the vineyard could not be left out, being so important to the Greek; three forms of its products are mentioned--the grape, the raisin, and wine. Finally the last part is set off for kitchen vegetables, though some translators think that it was for flowers. Nor must we omit the two fountains, such as often spout up and run through the Greek village of the present time.