Homer's Odyssey Part 22

_BOOKS XVII-XXIV._

The time has arrived for this exposition of the Odyssey to be brought to a close with some degree of rapidity. It has already expanded itself beyond its original purpose; it, too, like Ulysses, has a.s.serted itself as limit-transcending. We shall try to indicate the general character of these remaining eight Books, to find their place in the total organism of the poem, and then give a brief outline of each Book separately.

It has already often been stated that the Odyssey is a Return, an outer, but specially an inner Return from the Trojan War and from the alienation and disruption produced by the same. This Return, narrated in the twenty-four Books of the poem, divides itself into two equal halves, each containing twelve Books. The first half moves about two centers, Telemachus and Ulysses; the former is to be trained out of his ignorance, the latter is to be disciplined out of his negative att.i.tude toward inst.i.tutional life, and thus be prepared to rescue inst.i.tutional life. The first twelve Books are, therefore, the getting rid of the destructive results caused by the Trojan War and all war, in the human soul.

Still Ulysses, with Telemachus, is to do a deed of destruction, he is to destroy the Suitors, who are themselves destructive of inst.i.tutional order in Ithaca. In a general way they are like the Trojans, they are a.s.sailing the domestic and political life of the Greek world; they too must be put down at home by the hero, as Troy was put down abroad by him. But at Troy he became negative through the long training of a ten years' war, the spirit of which he must get rid of before he can slay the Suitors, for he is too much like them to be their rightful destroyer. This, then, is the discipline of the first twelve Books: through the experience of life to get internally free of that destructive Trojan spirit, to overcome the negative within, and then proceed to overcome it without.

Now this overcoming of the negative without (embodied in the Suitors) is just the work of the last twelve Books of the Odyssey, which we have called the Ithakeiad, as the scene is laid wholly in Ithaca. Internally both Ulysses and Telemachus are ready; they have now externally to make their world conform to their Idea. The trend of the poem is henceforth toward the deed which destroys the outer negation, as. .h.i.therto the trend was toward the deed which overcame the inner negation. To be sure, the destruction of the Suitors has hovered before the poem from the beginning; but in the second half it is explicit, is the immediate end of the action.

This second half divides itself into two distinct portions. It being the direct movement toward the deed shows in the first portion the preparation of the instruments, which takes place at the hut of the swineherd. Ulysses is alone, he must find out upon whose aid he can rely; his helpers must show not only strength of limb, but strength of conviction. Two persons appear--his son and his swineherd; they believe themselves to be the bearers of a Divine Order as against the Suitors; they are the army of three to whom the cowherd is to be hereafter added on manifesting his loyalty. This part of the poem has been unfolded in the preceding four Books.

The second portion of this second half of the poem, consisting of eight Books, we are next to consider. Ulysses has. .h.i.therto only heard of the excesses of the Suitors; he is now to see them directly and to experience their violence in his own person. He is in disguise and gets full possession of the fact before he proceeds to the deed. The insolent, destructive conduct of the Suitors is set forth in all fullness, as well as the subtle attempt of the wife to thwart them; then the blow falls which sweeps them and their deeds out of existence.

Restoration follows after this terrible act of vengence; Ulysses, having done his great destructive work, is to show himself constructive, not simply the destroyer, but the healer and restorer.

How can we best see the sweep of these eight Books and their organic connection with the total Odyssey? No mere formal division will answer, nor any external separation into parts. The inner movement of the thought is to be found and shown as the organizing principle. On the whole the joints of the structure are not so manifest as in the Telemachiad and the Ulyssiad; still they exist. Already it has been often said that the essential character of the Suitors is that of destroyers; Ulysses is the destroyer of these destroyers; but in destroying destruction he is also the restorer. Now just these three stages of the movement of the inner thought are the three organic divisions of the last eight Books; that is, the thought organizes the poem. Let us look more closely.

I. The first five Books (XVII-XXI) are devoted to revealing the Suitors as destroyers to Ulysses in person, though he be disguised. Three strands are interwoven into the texture, which we may separate for the purpose of an examination.

1. The Suitors are destroying what may in general be called the inst.i.tutional world in its three leading forms: (1) Property, (2) Family, (3) State. To these may be added their disregard and even open defiance of the G.o.ds, who are the upholders, or rather the personified embodiment of all inst.i.tutional life. Hence the statement may be made that the Suitors are, as far as their deeds go, the destroyers of the Divine Order of the World; they are spiritually negative.

2. The second strand is that of Ulysses (to whom Telemachus and the swineherd can be added) who is to behold with his own eyes, to experience in his own person, the character and acts of the Suitors; then he is also to plan and prepare for their destruction. As he has overcome his own negative condition inwardly, in the spirit, he must be able to overcome the same condition outwardly, in the world.

3. The third strand is that of Penelope, the wife, who is seeking to thwart the attempt of the Suitors to make her marry one of themselves; thus she is heroically preserving the Family. She, with the loyal part of her household, co-operates with Ulysses, though not aware who he is.

Between the second and third strands are many interweavings, both being opposed to the Suitors. Penelope, to delay her marriage, proposes the Bending of the Bow, which gives the weapon and the opportunity to Ulysses. (Book XXI.)

II. The second stage of the grand movement is given in one Book (XXII).

This is the single b.l.o.o.d.y Book of the poem, it makes up all deficiencies in the way of sanguinary grewsomeness. The destroying Suitors are themselves destroyed by Ulysses, who therein is destroyer.

Hence the blood-letting character of the Book and of the deed; 116 men skin, 12 women hung, and one man mutilated unto death.

III. But the destroyer Ulysses destroys destruction, and so becomes positive; in the last two Books he is shown as the restorer of the inst.i.tutional order which the Suitors had a.s.sailed and were undermining. He restores the Family (Book XXIII), and the State (Book XXIV). This is, then, the end of the Return, indeed the end of the grand disruption caused by the Trojan War, to which Ulysses set out from Ithaca twenty years before. The absence of the husband and ruler from home and country gave the opportunity for the license of the Suitors. But the Return has harmonized the distracted condition of the land; inst.i.tutions, Family and State, are freed of their conflict; even the G.o.ds, Zeus and Pallas (authority and wisdom) enforce the new order, bringing peace and concord.

Still, despite the b.l.o.o.d.y death of the Suitors, there runs through this portion of the Odyssey (the last eight Books) a vein of charity, of humanity, sometimes even of sentiment, which seems to link the poem with our own age. Yet the other side is present also; there is little pity for the unrighteous, and justice is capable of becoming cruel. The Suitors and their set of servants are represented as unfeeling and inhuman; Penelope and the whole loyal household on the other hand show sympathy with poverty and misfortune. Such, indeed, has been their discipline, that of adversity, which softens the heart toward the victims of hard luck.

The disguise of Ulysses is continued, and also the craft of Penelope.

The moral questioning which these two characters have always roused does not diminish. The hardest practical problem of life comes to the front in their case. Both are willing to meet unjust violence with dissimulation, till they get the power to act openly. They put down a dishonest world with dishonesty, and then proceed to live honestly. It is another phase of that subtle play of the Negative, with which Ulysses had to grapple repeatedly in Fableland, and of which the Odyssey is full. Every situation seems to have its intricate ethical problem, which the reader has to solve as he solves such questions in actual life. Our opinion upon this element in the poem we have already given, and need not repeat it here.

We must note that Ulysses still keeps up his romancing in order to explain his presence in Ithaca and his beggarly appearance. He introduces a kind of story, which we have called the Novelette in distinction from the Fairy Tale. The scene is usually thrown back eastward to Crete, the Trojan War furnishes the background, the famous Cretan hero Idomeneus is usually in some way connected with the stranger who is speaking. No less than five such Novelettes are found in the last twelve Books--some long, some brief. He tells one to Pallas (XIII. 256), to Eumaeus the longest one (XIV. 199), to Antinous a short interrupted one (XVII. 425), to Penelope (XIX. 172), finally one to his father Laertes (XXIV. 304), in which the scene seems to be changed to the West from the mention of Sicania.

For the reader who may wish to follow out in detail these eight Books, we append a general survey of each, in which the thought and the structure are suggested, yet by no means elaborated. We have in the preceding pages given quite fully what we deem the main points of the Odyssey; there remains only this winding-up of the work in a rapid summary.

_Book Seventeenth._ We now pa.s.s from the country and the hut of the swineherd to the town and the palace of the king. This is an important transition, and evidently marks a turning-point in the last twelve Books of the Odyssey. The change of location brings us to the scene of the forthcoming deed, and into the presence of the two conflicting sides. The structure of the Book moves about two centers, Telemachus and Ulysses.

I. Telemachus is first to start for the city, where he arrives, and is received with great joy by the household. The mother asks him whether he has obtained any tidings from his father. But he shuns her question, bids her make fresh vows to the G.o.ds, and goes off to look after his guest, the prophet Theoclymenus. The Suitors throng about him, but do him no harm; a number of his friends are near at hand, and the Suitors are divided among themselves.

After his return to the palace, Telemachus tells his mother the story of his journey. First he went to Pylos and "saw Nestor there," and held intercourse with the wise old man of the Greeks, which was certainly a memorable event in the life of the youth. But Nestor could tell him nothing about the present condition or dwelling-place of Ulysses, so the son was sent onwards to Sparta, to Menelaus, where "I saw Argive Helen, for whose sake the Greeks and Trojans suffered many evils by will of the G.o.ds." Menelaus tells Telemachus the words of Proteus concerning his father Ulysses, gently touching the story of the nymph Calypso, whereat the queen was deeply moved. His news is that his father cannot return.

At this point the prophet comes in with his prophecy. "I declare that Ulysses in his own land again, sitting or creeping about in secret; he is taking note of these evil deeds just now, and plans destruction for the Suitors." The response of Penelope shows her mind. "May thy prophetic word be fulfilled!" It is well to note the art with which this prophet has been brought to the palace of Ulysses to foreshadow the coming event.

Moreover this whole pa.s.sage connects with the Third and Fourth Books, which recounted the Journey of Telemachus to Pylos and Sparta. Of course the school of dissectors have sought to show the entire narrative here to be an interpolation by a later hand. One says that the brief allusion to the trip is tiresome to the reader. As if Homer composed for readers! But what reader ever found these few lines tiresome? The whole account of the son to the mother is one of the links which bind the Odyssey into unity, hence the wrath against it in certain quarters.

II. The second part of the present Book gives the movements of Ulysses, and is more important and more fully elaborated than the preceding part. The hero is in disguise, he is to take his first glimpse of the state of affairs in his palace. He will experience in his own person the wrongs of the Suitors and their adherents; he will apply a test to bring out their character. This test is that of humanity, of charity toward a beggar; how will the Suitors behave toward him?

While he is on the way to the city with Eumaeus, he has his preliminary skirmish. They meet the goatherd Melanthius, who at the sight of the beggar breaks out into abuse. There is an inhuman note in his speech, which we may regard as one result of the present disorder of the country. Doubtless the swineherd and the goatherd were rivals, and showed a professional jealousy; but Melanthius had extracted from his humble calling a disposition quite opposite to that of Eumaeus, and had become disloyal to his master's House.

The approach to the palace is indicated by the song of the bard and the noise of feasting guests. Still the disguised Ulysses is recognized by one living object: his old dog Argo, who dies on the spot out of joy at seeing his master again. Full of sentiment and tenderness is the description; it has a modernity of touch which will be often noticed in this second half of the Odyssey. Much comment has been bestowed upon the incident; but its most striking characteristic is its symbolism.

The old dog, neglected now, full of vermin, hardly able to crawl, yet loyal in his heart; why should he not receive the praise of Eumaeus, who tells of his former skill in the chase! The dog Argo images the House of Ulysses at present; to such straits has fidelity come. A famous statement here by Eumaeus cannot be pa.s.sed over: "The day which makes the man a slave, Zeus takes half his worth away." True generally of men, but not of the slave who utters it, he being the fate-compeller.

Ulysses now applies his test of charity to the Suitors. He goes around to them, asking for alms, like a beggar, that he might observe them all, and "know who was better and who was worse." But in the end not one of them was to be spared. Such was the supreme test, that of charity; how will the Suitors treat the poor beggar? Will they behave toward him as Eumaeus has? Not by any means; the test calls out the worst suitor of the lot, Antinous, who finally hurls a stool at the supposed intruder. The other Suitors give something, not their own; still they share in the guilt. Is this test of charity, selected by the poet here, a true test of such characters? One result of the present violation of law and order is inhumanity, cruelty, disregard of the fellow-man. Especially marked is their contrast with Eumaeus, who, in response to the harshness of Antinous, says: "The famous men of earth (such as the seer, the doctor, the builder, the bard) are invited to the feast; no one would invite a beggar to an entertainment." Still the beggar is here to be invited. A ring of modern sentiment is surely heard in this pa.s.sage; the subjective element of Christendom seems embodied in that swineherd a thousand years before its time.

The poet does not leave out of this Book the previous tendency of Ulysses to romancing. In the talk with Antinous he begins another tale or rather the old one, with Egypt and Cyprus in the background. It is, in substance, the story of the attack on the Ciconians, which Ulysses cannot help telling when he looks back toward his Trojan period. Here again it is truth in the form of fiction.

Meantime the uproar has called forth Penelope, who desires to see the strange beggar. The wish is conveyed to Ulysses, who artfully requests that the interview be deferred till night-fall; the wife might see through his disguise. The time for this recognition has not yet come.

She wishes to hear of her husband, thinks of him in some such pitiable plight as this beggar is in; she shows sympathy. A charitable disposition is indeed a characteristic of the whole household, nurses and all; misfortune has brought its blessing. Herein the contrast with the Suitors is emphatic, they are a stony-hearted set, trained by their deeds to violence and inhumanity.

Eumaeus praises the minstrel talent of Ulysses; the poet endows his hero with the gift of song in this poem; compare the praise given by Alcinous to the singer of Fableland. So Achilles in the Iliad was found by the emba.s.sy singing the glory of heroes. Nor must we pa.s.s by that deeply-grounded belief in the good-luck which comes from a sneeze.

Telemachus sneezes at the right moment, and Penelope interprets the omen, with a smile, however, which hints a touch of humorous incredulity. Finally we may reflect upon that true Homeric view of the world indicated in the words of Telemachus: "All these matters will be cared for by myself and the Immortals." These are the two sides working together throughout the poem.

_Book Eighteenth._ Ulysses, as beggar, has now gotten a foothold in his own house. He has made the transition in disguise from the hut to the palace; he has tried his preliminary test upon the Suitors, the test of charity, and found out their general character. He is not recognized, on account of external disguise in part; yet this disguise has its internal correspondence.

The present Book is one of warnings; on all sides the Suitors are admonished of the day of wrath which is coming. In Homeric fas.h.i.+on they are told to change, to repent, to cease their wrong-doing. We observe three parts: first is the conflict with the beggar Irus, foreshadowing the conflict and outcome with the Suitors; second is the appearance of Penelope, the female Ulysses in craft and in disguise, here hoodwinking the Suitors; third is the male Ulysses, in craft and in disguise, observing, testing, planning fate for the guilty.

I. Ulysses has a.s.sumed the part of a beggar, but he finds a real beggar on the ground ready to dispute his right. Irus, this mendicant, has a character on a par with the Suitors, violent, inhuman, insolent; he is, moreover, one with the Suitors in taking other people's property for nothing. There is no doubt that the poet casts an image of the Suitors in the portrait of Irus, who acts toward Ulysses the beggar, as they do toward Ulysses the ruler. It is manifest by word and deed that his humble life has not given him the training to charity.

The result of the compet.i.tion between the real and the disguised beggar is a fight, which is urged on by the Suitors for the sport of the thing; Antinous is specially active in this business, which is a degraded Olympic contest. Homer too shows his love of the athlete by his warm description of the body and limbs of Ulysses, who "showed his large and shapely thighs, his full broad shoulders, his chest and sinewy arms," when he stripped for the contest.

There can be only one outcome of such a fight under such circ.u.mstances, especially in an heroic poem. But is not Ulysses himself inhuman and uncharitable toward his poor beggar rival? Certainly he does not deal with him gently, and the modern reader is apt to think that Ulysses ought now to have his own test of charity applied to himself. Still his defense is at hand: Irus sided with the Suitors, had their character, Telemachus says they favored him; he is harsh and merciless to his seeming fellow-beggar, and so he gets his own, though Ulysses at first warns him, and wishes to be on good terms with him: "I do not speak or do thee any wrong, nor do I envy thee getting alms; this threshold is large enough for both of us; thou art a beggar as well as I. So beware my wrath." Surely a sufficient warning, which, if unheeded, draws down the fateful consequences.

But the chief justification of the poet lies in the fact that this contest with Irus is sent before the main conflict as a prototype and a warning. The Suitors looked on and saw the miserable beggar completely undone; "they threw up their hands and nearly died laughing;" a case of blind fatuity, for they were soon to be in the place of Irus, every one of them. A little later Telemachus suggests the connection: "Would that the Suitors might droop their heads overcome in our house, as now Irus sits at the hall gate with drooping head like a drunken man, and cannot stand erect or walk home, since his dear limbs have been loosened."

Another note of warning is given specially to Amphinomus, who had extended a very friendly salutation to Ulysses after the victory, and who was the most honorable man of the Suitors. Ulysses again resorts to fiction in order to convey his lesson, "Many were the wrongs I did;"

hence my present condition. "Let no men ever work injustice," such as these Suitors are guilty of; the avenger "I now declare to be not far away from his friends and his country." Hence the warning: "May some G.o.d bring thee home" at once, for b.l.o.o.d.y will be the decision. But Amphinomus does not obey, though "his mind foreboded evil;" he remained in the fateful company and afterwards fell by the hand of Telemachus.

II. The real person for whose possession this whole contest is waged is now introduced--Penelope. She appears in all her beauty; Pallas interferes divinely in order to heighten the same, making her "more stately in form and fairer than the ivory just carved." She is indeed the embodiment of all that is beautiful and worthy in that Ithacan life; loyalty to husband, love of her child, devotion to family, the strongest inst.i.tutional feeling she shows, with no small degree of artifice, of course. Just now she reproves her son for having permitted the recent fight: "thou hast allowed a stranger guest to be shamefully treated." Thus she shows her secret unconscious sympathy with her husband in disguise.

Then she turns her attention to the Suitors. She alludes to the parting words of her husband as he set out for Troy: "When thou seest thy son a bearded man, marry whom thou wilt and leave the house." The time has come when she has to endure this hateful marriage; how the thought weighs upon her heart! But we catch a glimpse of her deeper plan in the following: "The custom of Suitors in the olden time was not such as yours; they would bring along their own oxen and sheep and make a feast for the friends of the maiden whom they wooed, and give her splendid gifts; they consumed not other folk's property without recompense."

What does all this mean?

One result takes place at once. The Suitors all hasten to bring her their presents, and thus conform to the good old time and to her opinion. Great was the hurry: "Each dispatched his herald to bring a gift." Does the poet hint through a side glance the real state of the case? Hear him: "Ulysses wad delighted when he saw her wheedling the Suitors out of their gifts and cajoling their mind with flattering speech, while her heart planned other things." Cunning indeed she has and boundless artifice; what shall we make of her? As already often said, craft is her sole woman's weapon against man's violence, and she uses it with effect for the defense of her home and her honor. Is she justified? Is such deception allowable under the circ.u.mstances? Thus the poem puts the test to the modern reader, and makes him ponder the moral problem of life.

One other point we should note in this speech of Penelope to the Suitors. She says that their method of wooing was not the accustomed way; they had no right to expect such entertainment for such a body of men. They had the right of suit, but it must be conducted in a lawful manner. Thus they are violating custom, or making it a pretext for doing injustice. But she meets violence with cunning, and rude force with craft.

III. Ulysses now takes note of another phase of the wrong done to his household by the Suitors; they debauch the female servants, of whom Melantho is an example. The seeming beggar wishes to stay all night by the fires kindled in the palace, and take care of them, instead of the maids who usually looked after them. This plan of his evidently interferes with an existing arrangement, hence the abusive words of Melantho toward him first, and then the scoffing speech of Eurynomus, her lover, who lets fly at him a footstool which hits the cupbearer.

General confusion results, in the midst of which Telemachus commands order which is seconded by Amphinomus. After a cup of wine, all retire to their homes. But Ulysses has got an inkling of what is transpiring between the Suitors and some of the maid-servants. Hereafter we shall see that both share in the punishment.

_Book Nineteenth._ This is a strong Book of its kind. Penelope is the center, her difficulties are shown anew, moreover they are about to reach their culmination. The husband disguised here tests the wife, and finds out by his own personal observation her fidelity. Her womanly instincts are still intact, in spite of the dissolute surroundings.