The legend at the end of the Book, which tells of the two Gates of Dreams, one of ivory and one of horn, has roused much curiosity among readers about its purport, and has inspired much imitation from later poets. Through the Gate of Horn (dimly transparent) comes the true dream; through the Gate of Ivory (polished on the outside, but letting no light through) comes the false dream. Such is the more common explanation, but Eustathius derives the whole story from two puns on Greek words for horn and ivory. At any rate there are the two sorts of dreams, one getting the impress of the future event, the other being merely subjective.

But Penelope has another suggestion, which is found widely scattered in folk-lore, the Bending of the Bow. This incident, however, is developed in a later Book. It is one of her schemes to defer the hated marriage, after the new hope given by the stranger. She will not yet give up.

Book Twentieth. This book is devoted to describing more fully the situation in the house of Ulysses just before the slaying of the Suitors. The guilty and the guiltless are indicated anew, with fresh incidents; especially the fatuity of the Suitors is set forth in a variety of ways. The scene is in the palace.

The Book may be divided into three portions, which deal with (1) the royal pair, (2) the servants faithful and faithless, (3) the Suitors at their banquet.

I. Ulysses is lying on the porch, restless, unable to sleep; he sees the disloyal women of the household come forth to the embraces of the Suitors. He commands himself: "Endure it, heart; thou hast borne worse than this." Pallas has at last to come and to answer his two troublesome thoughts: "How shall I, being only one, slay the Suitors, being many?" And still, that is not the end. "How shall I escape afterward, if I succeed?" Wherein we may note already a hint of the last Book of the Odyssey. Pallas reproves him, yet gives him assurance. "If fifty bands of men should surround us," still we shall win, "for I am a God, and I guard thee always in thy labors." Whereupon Ulysses at once went to sleep.

The wife Penelope is also having her period of anxiety and of weeping for her husband; she prays to Diana and wishes for death, being awake. But when asleep, her unconscious nature asserts itself: "This very night a man like him lay by me, my heart rejoiced, I thought it no dream." Such is the contrast between her waking and her sleeping state; in the one her skepticism, in the other her instinct manifests itself.

II. We now pass to quite a full survey of the servants of the household. Female slaves have to grind the corn to make bread for the Suitors; one of these slaves is still at her task, though past daybreak, she being the weakest of all. Standing at her hand-mill she utters the ominous word: "O Zeus, ruler, fulfill this wish for me wretched: may the present feast of the Suitors be their last, they who have loosed my limbs with painful toil in grinding their barley meal!" Thus the prayer of the poor overworked slave-woman calls down the vengeance of the Gods, giving the word of friendly omen to the avenger. Certainly a most powerful motive; but again we think, how modern it sounds! Yet ancient too the thought must have been, for here it stands in Homer truly prophetic of many things.

Eurycleia is the controlling power among the handmaids, of whom there was a large number; "twenty went to the spring to fetch water, while others were busy about the house," preparing for the coming banquet. The swineherd Eumaeus came with three fat porkers; his disloyal counterpart, Melanthius, also appeared with goats for the feast; both again show their character to Ulysses. The cowherd Philoetius is now introduced, in a full account; he is one of the faithful, has charity for the beggar, and shows his fidelity in a number of points. The beggar assures him: "Ulysses will return, thou shalt see him slaying those Suitors," whereupon Philoetius volunteers his aid.

Thus the forces are assembling; the two sides, loyal and disloyal, are separating more and more, preparatory to the grand struggle. Ulysses in his disguise has discovered those upon whom he can depend. But the banquet is ready, the Suitors, who have been plotting against the life of Telemachus, enter; they are divided among themselves, and can show no concerted action.

III. This banquet is noticeable, inasmuch as Telemachus asserts the mastery in his own house and defies the Suitors. He honors the beggar as his guest, and gives warning that nobody insult the poor stranger, "lest there be trouble." A number of Suitors show their ill feeling; one of them, named Ktesippus, flings a bullock's foot at Ulysses "for a hospitable present," at which the latter "smiled in sardonic fashion," but said nothing. Telemachus, however, reproves the agressor with great spirit, and asserts himself anew against all deeds of violence. One of the more reasonable Suitors, Agelaus, makes a speech, which commends Telemachus but insists upon his ordering his mother "to marry the man who is best and who will give most presents." In reply Telemachus declares that he does not hinder the choice of his mother, but that he will not force her to marry. "That may God never bring about." (Theos without article.)

Now follows a series of miraculous signs, prodigies, mad doings, which prefigure the coming destruction. Insane laughter of the Suitors, yet with eyes full of tears, and with hearts full of sorrow: what does it all forbode? Here comes the seer Theoclymenus with a terrible interpretation uttered in the true Hebrew prophetic style: "The hall I see full of ghosts hastening down to Erebus; the sun in Heaven is extinguished, and a dark cloud overspreads the land." The Suitors bemock the prophet, who leaves the company with another fateful vision: "I perceive evil coming upon you, from which not one of you Suitors shall escape." More taunts are flung at Telemachus who now says nothing; he, his father, and his mother, witness the mad banquet, which is a veritable feast of Belshazzar, and which has also its prophet. The Hebrew analogy is striking.

Book Twenty-first. The test presented in many a tale is here introduced at the turning-point of destiny. The Bending of the Bow and skill in the use thereof are incidents in the folk-lore of every people. The theme is naturally derived from a social condition, in which the bow and arrow are the chief weapons of defense and offense, employed against human foes and wild animals. Hence the strong man, the Hero, is the one able to bend the strong bow and to use it with dexterity. Such a man uses the chief implement of his time and people with the greatest success, hence he is the greatest man. So we have the test of bending the bow, which simply selects the best man for the time and circumstances.

In recent interpretations of mythology, this employment of the bow and arrows has been connected with the sun and its rays. Ulysses is declared to be really a sun-god, a form of Apollo, deity of archery; he shoots his arrows which are sunbeams and destroys the Suitors, who are the clouds obstructing his light, and wooing his spouse, the day or the sky. It is also noteworthy that on this very day of the slaughter of the Suitors, there is a festival in Ithaca to Apollo, god of light and archery. This is usually regarded as the New Moon (Neomenios) festival. Antinous refers to it (l. 259) and proposes to defer the contest on that account. But Ulysses is made to shoot on the festal day of the sungod.

There is no doubt that mythology is closely connected with Nature, out of which it develops. In the Vedic hymns we see this connection in the most explicit manner, and threads of the old Aryan Mythus can often be picked out in Homer. Still we must recollect that it was the archer man who first projected the archer god out of himself, and it is no explanation of Ulysses to say that he represents the sun-god; rather the sun-god represents him. Moreover, the ethical purpose of Ulysses in slaying the Suitors is the soul of the poem, which is to find its adequate interpretation in that purpose and in that alone. The incident of Bending the Bow is wrought into a grand scheme of indicating the ethical order of the world.

The three divisions of the Book we shall briefly note, observing how the bow rejects the unfit, and selects the right man.

I. It is Pallas (not Apollo, the archer) who started in the mind of Penelope this scheme of testing the Suitors. Why a Goddess here? It is first a chance thought of the woman, but then it becomes an important link in the movement of divine nemesis; hence the poet, according to this custom, traces the inspiration of the idea to a deity. The history of the famous bow is given with an especial delight in details. Penelope herself goes to the room where the armor of the house was kept, gets the bow, and announces the contest to the Suitors.

The man who can bend the bow and send the arrow through the twelve rings, is to bear her away as his bride. The trial is made, no Suitor is able to bend the weapon. Interesting is the prophet among the Suitors, Leiodes, who tries his hand, yet gives the warning: "This bow upon this spot will take from many a prince the breath of life." He foresees and forewarns, but still acts the transgressor; he prophesies death to the Suitors, but remains himself a Suitor, and so perishes in accord with his own prophecy.

II. Ulysses, going to one side with the cowherd and swineherd (Philoetius and Eumaeus), whose loyalty has been so conspicuous, now discloses himself to them, and assigns their duties in the approaching conflict. "I know that you alone of the servants (men) have desired my return." He will give them wife and property if he conquers the Suitors, "and to me ye shall be as companions and brothers of Telemachus." Deserving to be adopted into the royal house of Ulysses they both are, being of this little army of four against more than a hundred enemies. Eumaeus is to put the bow into the hands of Ulysses, after the Suitors have tried the test; Philoetius is to fasten the gates that none escape.

III. After the Suitors have failed to bend the bow and a delay is proposed, Ulysses, the beggar, comes forward and asks to make the trial. Violent opposition rises on part of the Suitors, but Penelope in two speeches insists that he shall try. Here again we must ascribe to her unconscious nature some strong affinity with the ragged man before her. She praises the form of the stranger and notes his noble birth, though she denies the possibility of herself becoming his bride. Still she shows a deep attraction for him, which she cannot suppress.

Telemachus now takes the matter in hand, orders his mother out of the way somewhat abruptly (since the fight is soon to start), and bids the bow to be carried to Ulysses in face of the outcries of the Suitors. Eurycleia, the nurse, is commanded to fasten the doors of the house; now we see why Ulysses let her recognize him by the scar. Meanwhile Philoetius fastens the gates of the court. Apparently there is no escape for the Suitors; Ulysses has the bow; he has tested its quality and possesses a quiver full of arrows.

Such is the famous deed of Bending the Bow, which is a symbolic act pointing out and selecting the Hero. Ulysses is revealed by it to the Suitors even before he calls out his name and throws off his disguise; he performs the test, he shoots through the rings without missing, he has strength and skill for the emergency. If hitherto stress has been laid upon his mind and cunning, now his athletic side is brought to the front. But it required all his intelligence to reach the point at which his will is to act.

We have now gone through what may be called the first stage of this final part of the Odyssey. The Suitors have fully shown their destructive spirit, disregarding property, family, state, the Gods. Ulysses has seen and felt in person their wrongs; their negative career has reached its last deed, he has the bow in his hands and is ready for the work of retribution. Such is the general sweep of the last five Books; but now the destructive deeds of the Suitors are to meet with a still mightier destruction.

Book Twenty-second. The final act of justice, the Day of Judgment, perchance the Crack of Doom; such conceptions have long been familiar to man and still are; in the present Book they find one of their most striking embodiments. That for which so long preparation has been made, is now realized: the vindication of the Ethical Order of the World. There is, however, little feeling for that charity and humanity before noticed; stern, inflexible, merciless justice is the mood and meaning of this piece of writing.

The Book has essentially two parts: the punishment of the guilty men (Suitors and Servants) with the sparing of the innocent, and the punishment of the guilty women (servants) with the sparing of the innocent. Thus in both parts there is the penalty, yet also the discrimination, according to the deed.

I. The first part is mainly a battle, an Homeric battle, and reminds the reader of many a combat in the Iliad. Of the conflict with the Suitors here described we can discern three stages, which are marked also by the use of different weapons, the bow, the spear, and the sword.

(1) The first stage of the battle opens with the slaying of Antinous, the ringleader of the band, who is pierced by an arrow from the bow of Ulysses. The crowd threatens Ulysses, who now utters to them what may be called their last judgment, announcing who he is, and his purpose to punish their crimes: "Dogs! you thought I would not come back from Troy, and therefore you devoured my substance, debauched my maid-servants; and wooed my wife while I was still alive. You feared not the Gods, nor the vengeance of man afterwards; now destruction hangs over you all." This may be taken as a statement of the ethical content of the poem from the mouth of Ulysses himself at the critical moment. The Suitors feared not the Gods, were violators of the Divine Order, for which violation man was to punish them. Again the two sides, the divine and human, are put together. In vain Eurymachus, a spokesman for the Suitors, offers amends, guilt cannot now buy itself free when caught. Ulysses answers: "If thou shouldst offer all that thou hast and all that thy father has, and other gifts, I would not desist." So Eurymachus, perishes by the second arrow and still another Suitor, Amphinomus is pierced by the spear of Telemachus. Thus three leaders are slain in this preliminary stage.

(2) The second stage of the conflict begins by Telemachus bringing a shield, two spears, and a helmet for his father, whose arrows are not enough for the enemies. Also he brings armor for the cowherd and swineherd, as well as for himself; thus the four men get themselves fully equipped.

But in order to make a fair fight, it is necessary that the Suitors be armed, in part at least. Melanthius, the goatherd, finds his way to the chamber where the arms are deposited. Arms for twelve he brings, and then goes for more, when he is caught. But now Pallas has to appear in the form of Mentor, in order to put courage into the heart of Ulysses. The first armed set of Suitors advance and throw their javelins without effect, while the four on the side of Ulysses kill four men. Four more Suitors are slain in a fresh onset, then two more; now their store of weapons is exhausted. Thirteen mentioned here by name have fallen beside those unnamed ones whom the arrows of Ulysses slew. The most prominent Suitors are weltering in their blood, there are no more weapons, the result is a panic.

(3) This is the third stage of the battle. A large majority of the Suitors, probably 80 or more out of the 108 plus 10 attendants are still alive, though without weapons and completely paralyzed with terror. "Pallas held from the roof her man-destroying aegis, their hearts trembled with fear, they fled through the palace like a drove of cattle." The four men now use their swords upon the terrified, defenseless crowd, and cut them down. Leiodes, the soothsayer of the Suitors, begs for mercy and recounts his attempts to restrain their violent deeds; vain is his prayer, he perishes with his company of brigands, "for if thou wert their soothsayer, thou must often in my palace have prayed the Gods against my return" and for the Suitors. Thus the priestly man too is involved in the net, he knew the wrong, yet remained the chaplain of that godless company.

Two, however, are saved, the guiltless. The bard, who "sings for Gods and men" is spared, because he sang "by necessity for the Suitors, and not for sake of gain;" also Telemachus intercedes for the herald Medon, who "took care of me as a child," a beautiful gleam on this ghastly scene. From Ulysses, however, we hear the moral of the event proclaimed, which the reader may take unto himself: "From this thou mayst know and tell to another how much better well-doing is than evil-doing." So speaks the slayer over these corpses, which utterance we may at least regard as an attempt of the poet once more to enforce the ethical purpose of his work. Not a single living Suitor or attendant can be found skulking anywhere, and none have escaped.

II. Having completed his task in regard to the guilty men, Ulysses now turns his attention toward the guilty women of his household. For this purpose Eurycleia is called, and is brought to him; when she sees the deadly work, she shouts for joy. Ulysses restrains her: "It is an unholy thing to exult over the slain." Here again the ethical nature of this act is emphasized: "The decree of the Gods and their own evil deeds overwhelmed these men; they paid respect to no human being, high or low, who approached them." Yet there are modern writers who can see no ethical purpose in the Odyssey.

Eurycleia gives her report: out of fifty serving maids in the palace, "twelve have mounted the car of shamelessness." These latter are now called, are compelled to carry out the dead (among whom are their lovers), and to make clean the place of slaughter. Then they are led out and hung: such was the ancient fate of the prostitute in the household.

A still harsher and more ignoble punishment awaits the goatherd Melanthius, a cruel mutilation is inflicted upon him, horrible to the last degree, but it grades his punishment according to his offense. A fumigation with sulphur we find here, as old as Homer. Then all the rest of the handmaids are summoned along with Penelope, to witness the deed and to see the hero.

Such is this terrible Book in which destruction is fully meted out to destroyers. According to our count 129 people are here dead, all of them guilty. A doomsday spectacle for that household, and for all readers and hearers since; it shows the return of the deed negatively upon the negative doer. But Ulysses, the hero sitting amid these corpses, is simply the Destroyer, the very picture and embodiment thereof. Is there to be no positive result of such bloody work? Yes; that is the next thing to be shown forth in the two following Books; Ulysses is also the restorer, wherewith his career and this poem will terminate.

Book Twenty-third. The essential fact of this Book is the reunion of husband and wife after twenty years separation. The eternal nature of the bond of the Family is thus asserted as strongly as is possible in the world of Time. This is the deep institutional foundation upon which the Odyssey reposes. Still the wife also has to be conquered, that is, she has to be convinced that the beggar is her husband. All along we have seen the struggle between her instinct and her intellect; her understanding persists in thinking that Ulysses will not come back, yet she dreams of his restoration, and she feels a strange sympathy with the old man in rags. Thus the two opposing elements of female nature have been in a conflict with each other; her instinct tries to surge over her intellect, but does not succeed; she demands the complete test of identity and gets it in the present Book. The old nurse, her son, and finally Ulysses himself become impatient with her delay and her circumspection, still she holds out against them all, though she has, too, her own inner emotions to combat. The gradual unfolding of this scene to the point of recognition must be pronounced a masterpiece of character evolution.

The book may be divided into two portions—before and after the Recognition, which culminates when Penelope accepts the test of the secret bed which was once made by Ulysses.

I. The movement up to the Recognition shows Penelope undergoing a double pressure, from without and from within. Yet it shows too a corresponding double resistance on her part. First Eurycleia goes to her chamber, and tells her in great glee that the Suitors are slain and her husband has returned. She can accept the slaughter of the Suitors, that could have been done by some God, angry at their injustice; but she will not believe that Ulysses is really in the palace. The nurse cries out: "Truly thou hast ever had a disbelieving mind," and then tells of the scar. Still incredulous; but she goes down to the court, and there sees Ulysses in his rags. No sufficient proof yet, though she has a strange inner struggle not to run up to him that she might clasp his hands and kiss him. But her understanding conquers, she keeps at a distance, scrutinizing, till Telemachus, impulsive youth, breaks out into a reproach: "Mother, thy heart is harder than a rock." But Ulysses himself speaks to his son: "Suffer that thy mother test me;" she is like himself, he understands her better than the son does. Finally Ulysses takes the bath and puts on fresh garments, while Pallas gives him fresh grace and majesty, and increased stature; he comes before Penelope again; still no yielding. Ulysses himself is now forced to exclaim: "Above all women the Gods have given thee a heart impenetrable." Thus the nurse, the son, the husband in turn have failed to shake her firmness, she must have an absolute test, which is "known to him and me, and to us alone."

This is that strange bed, which Ulysses is unconsciously provoked by his wife to describe. Penelope commands the nurse: "Bring the bed out of the chamber which he made." But really it could not be removed, it was constructed of the trunk of an olive tree rooted in the soil and its construction was the secret of himself and wife. Very strong is the symbolism of this bed, and is manifestly intended by the poet. It typified the firm immovable bond of marriage between the two; their unity could not be broken. Mark the words of Ulysses: "Woman, thou hast spoken a painful word," when she commanded the bed to be removed; "who hath displaced my bed?" In it there was built "a great sign" or mystery; "now I do not know if my bed be firm in position, or whether some other man has moved it elsewhere, cutting the trunk of the olive tree up by the roots." Such is his intense feeling about that marriage bed, deeply symbolic, truly "a sign," as here designated.

Now this is just the test which Penelope wanted, a double test indeed, not only of the head, but also of the heart. He reveals to her not merely that he knows about the bed, but how strongly he feels in reference to it, and to what it signifies. For he might be the returned Ulysses, and yet not be hers. But now she has yielded, she explains the reason of her hesitation, defends herself by the example of Helen who was cozened by a stranger. She used her craft to defend the unity and sacredness of the Family, against Suitors and even against husband. After some talk, the servant lights them to their chamber, "they in great joy take their customary place in their ancient bed."

II. With the line just quoted (296 of the original) the Alexandrian grammarians, Aristarchus and Aristophanes, concluded the Odyssey, and declared the rest to be a post-Homeric addition. Still, this part of the poem must have been in existence and accepted as Homer's long before their time. Both Aristotle and Plato cite portions of it without any declared suspicion of its genuineness. What reason the old grammarians had for this huge excision is not definitely known; we can see, however, that they wished to end the poem with complete restoration, outer and inner, of the domestic bond between husband and wife. Certainly a very noble thought in the poem, but by no means a sufficient end; beside the domestic, the political bond also must be restored, and the ethical harmony be made complete both in Family and in State. Ulysses, moreover, has spoken of the duty laid upon him by Tiresias in Hades: he must carry an oar till he comes to a land whose people take it for a winnowing fan; there he is to plant it upright and make an offering to Neptune. So there is a good deal yet to be done, which the poem has already called for.

But just now she tells him her story, quite briefly; then he tells her his story, more at length. This has the nature of a confession, with its Circe and epecially Calypso, which she has to hear and he to make. Through it all runs his yearning to reach home and wife.

But with the sun risen, new duties press upon him. First he will seek some compensation for his property taken by the Suitors; secondly, he will have to meet the vengeance of their relatives and friends. So the army of four, himself, Telemachus, swineherd and cowherd, march forth in arms from the palace gate, through the city to the country.

Book Twenty-fourth. This is another Book over which there has been much critical discussion. Its thought, whatever may be said about its execution, is absolutely necessary to bring the Odyssey to an organic conclusion, and make the poem a well-rounded totality. There is the political trouble generally, and specially the blood feud caused by the slaying of the Suitors, which has to be harmonized. Repeatedly hitherto we have had hints of this coming difficulty; Ulysses thought of it, and made his plan concerning it before the slaughter took place. (XX. 41.)

In fact the complete restoration of Ulysses is both to Family and State, the two great institutions which form the substructure of the Odyssey. His country was quite as deeply distracted and perverted as his household; both had to undergo the process of purification. In Book Twenty-third we had the restoration of Ulysses to Family, in Book Twenty-fourth we are to have essentially his restoration to State; then he will truly have returned to prudent Penelope and to sunny Ithaca, and the poem can end. Moreover his restoration to Family and State involves the restoration of Family and State; the rightful husband and the rightful ruler heals the shattered institutions.

But it is undeniable that this Book is the most poorly constructed of any Book in the Odyssey. There is undue repetition of previous matters, yet certainly with important additions; there is unnecessary expansion in the earlier parts of the Book, and too great compression and hurry at the end. In general, the subject-matter of the Book is completely valid and necessary to the poem, but the execution falls below the Homeric level, specially in its constructive feature. Still we see ino reason why it may not be Homer's; he too has his best and worst Books.

Of the present Book there are two parts: the Underworld and the Upperworld.

I. The Suitors have been sent down to the realm where Ulysses in the Eleventh Book found the souls of the Trojan Heroes, Agamemnon, Achilles, Ajax. These three again are introduced with some others. The death of Achilles is described quite fully, when the souls of the Suitors arrive, and one of them, Amphimedon, recapitulates the story of the Odyssey. It tells of the craft and fidelity of Penelope, and of the return of Ulysses and his destruction of the Suitors. The words of Agamemnon recognize the pair, Ulysses and Penelope, as the supreme Greek man and woman, as those who have mastered the greatest difficulties of their epoch. The Trojan cycle is now complete, the separation caused by the war is bridged over, both Family and State are restored after the long disruption. In striking contrast was the case of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, both of whom perished without restoration. Thus by means of the ghosts of the Suitors, the famous careers of Ulysses and Penelope are taken up into the realm of the Supersensible, of ideal forms, whose fame is to last forever.

This part of the Book (the so-called second Nekyia) in which Hades appears the second time, has been sharply questioned both by ancient and modern critics on a number of grounds. These we shall not discuss, only stating that they are by no means conclusive against the genuineness of the whole passage. The general idea of it belongs here; the dead Suitors represent the grand end of the Trojan movement, and its reception into the Hades of famous deeds done and past, and very significantly Agamemnon voices the praise of Ulysses and Penelope, the great winners in the long struggle. Still the repetitions of previous portions of the Odyssey are to our mind unnecessary and prolix, though the literary skill manifested just herein has been highly lauded by Saint Beuve and Lang.

II. Coming back to the Upperworld we find a series of incidents following one another both slowly and hurriedly. These we shall throw in groups for the sake of a rapid survey.

1. Ulysses with his three companions comes to the country seat of his father Laertes. With him, too, he plays the same disguise as heretofore with Penelope, Eumaeus and others, though its necessity is not now so plain. "I shall test my father, to see if he will know me;" how fond Ulysses is of this! So we have more fictions, masquerading, and final recognition by the scar and other proofs. Also an old servant here, Dolius, is recognized.

2. Now the scene passes to the city. The friends of the Suitors have called an assembly; a strong party rises in opposition to Ulysses, though two men, Medon and Halitherses, speak on his side. The result is, a band under Eupeithes, father of Antinous, marches forth to wreak vengeance upon Ulysses.

3. Hereupon a divine interference. Zeus decrees that there must be no blood-feud between the relatives of the slain and the House of Ulysses, but a league of friendship. Revenge must no longer beget revenge.

4. Still a fight occurs in which Laertes and Dolius with his six sons, take part. Old Laertes is now to have his warlike meed, be kills old Eupeithes, so that the male members of the House of Ulysses for three generations—son, grandson, grandfather—have each killed his man.

5. Pallas hereupon stops the conflict, and the last lines of the poem announce the peace which she makes under the form and voice of Mentor. Surely the work of wisdom (Pallas) as well as of supreme law (Zeus)—to stop the self-repeating blood-feud. Thus is the deep rent in the State healed by aid of Zeus and Pallas. It should be observed that Pallas at the end of the Eumenides of the poet AEschylus released Orestes, who is pursued by the Furies, from the guilt of his mother's blood, by casting the decisive ballot in the court of Areiopagus. Here we find another link between Homer and AEschylus.

Very hurried are these later incidents of the Book, but they are necessary to complete the poem. The blood-feud is harmonized, the Gods again make themselves valid in the land by introducing peace and harmony, which had been undermined by the Suitors. Property, Family, State, are restored, and the Divine Order of the World in the person of the Gods is recognized. Only with this conclusion is the negative conduct of the Suitors completely undone, and a positive institutional life becomes possible. It is true that in the hurry of coming to an end, the poet says nothing of the journey enjoined by Tiresias in Hades, the journey to a distant people who would take an oar for a winnowing fan. Still we may suppose that it was performed, and that angry Neptune, the great enemy of Ulysses among the Gods, was also reconciled. But, chiefly, Ulysses has above on this earth realized the idea of a world-justice, which we found running through all Hades, in the statements of Tiresias, in the fates of the great Greek heroes, in the punitory portion presided over by Minos. From this point of view the Odyssey may be truly regarded an image of the working of the Spirit of History, and the poem holds good for all time.



SUMMARY.

In concluding these lengthy studies of the Iliad and the Odyssey, we shall try to grasp each of the poems as a whole, and then the two together is one great totality sprung of one people and of one consciousness. The central fact out of which both poems arise, to which and from which both poems move, is the Trojan War. This War, whether mythical or historical, is certainly the most famous, and probably the most significant that ever took place on the earth.

As to the Odyssey, the first thing to be seized is the complete career of its Hero Ulysses. This career has naturally two parts: the going to Troy from Ithaca, and the coming back from Troy to Ithaca. Every Greek hero had a similar career, wholly or in part; many, of coarse, never returned. The two parts together constitute a total movement which begins at a certain point and returns to the same; hence it may be called a cycle, and its two parts may be designated in a general way as the Separation and the Return.

The Odyssey has as its theme the second half of the cycle, though, of course, it presupposes the first half, namely the going to Troy and the stay there. The poem, accordingly, does not give the entire life of Ulysses; what may be called the Trojan half must be looked for elsewhere, mainly in the Iliad. Of course there are in the Odyssey many allusions to incidents which belong to the first half of this career.

The Ulysses of the Iliad is one of the great leaders and one of the great heroes, but he is neither the chief leader nor the chief hero. Already he appears in Book First as a member of the Council, and an epithet is applied to him which suggests his wisdom. Thus at the start of the Iliad he is designated as the man of thought, of intelligence, of many resources. But in the Second Book he shines with full glory, he is indeed the pivot of the whole Book. On account of a speech made by Agamemnon, their leader, the Greeks start at once for home, they are ready to give up the great enterprise of the restoration of Helen, they act as if they would abandon their cause. It is Ulysses who calls them back to themselves and restores order; he shows himself to be the only man in the whole army who knows what to do in a critical emergency. He suppresses Thersites, he exhorts the chieftains, he uses force on the common people. He finally makes a speech to the entire body of Greeks in the Assembly, which recalls the great national purpose of the War, and is the true word for the time. Nestor follows him in a similar vein, and the Greek host again takes its place in line of battle and prepares for the onset upon Troy. Here we have a typical action of Ulysses, showing his essential character, and revealing the germ out of which the Odyssey may well have sprouted.

Other matters may also be noticed. Pallas, the Goddess of Wisdom, appears to him in the midst of the tumult, and gives him her suggestion. She will remain with him ever afterwards, manifesting herself to him in like emergencies till the end of the Odyssey. Telemachus is mentioned in this Book of the Iliad. The distinction between Ulysses and the aged Nestor is drawn: the latter has appreciative wisdom, that of experience, while Ulysses has creative wisdom, that of immediate divine insight, coming directly from Pallas. This distinction also will show itself in the Odyssey. Ulysses is the real hero of the Second Book of the Iliad; he appears in other Books with the same general character, but never so prominently again.

In the Post-Iliad, or that portion of the Trojan war which lies between the Iliad and Odyssey, Ulysses will become the chief hero. After the death of Achilles, there will be a contest for the latter's arms between him and Ajax; Ulysses wins. That is, Brain not Brawn is to control henceforth. Under the lead of Intelligence, which is that of Ulysses, Troy falls.

The Odyssey, then, deals with the return of Ulysses from the Trojan War, and lasts ten years, as the account runs. But the poet is not writing a history, not even a biography, in the ordinary sense; he does not follow step by step the hero's wanderings, or state the events in chronological order; we shall see how the poem turns back upon itself and begins only some forty days before its close. Still the Odyssey will give not merely the entire return from Troy, but will suggest the whole cycle of its hero's development.

The first half of the cycle, the going to Troy and the stay there, lasted ten years, though some accounts have made it longer. The Iliad, though its action is compressed to a few days, treats generally of the first half of the cycle and hence it is the grand presupposition of the Odyssey, which takes it for granted everywhere. The Iliad, however, is a unity and has its own center of action, which is the wrath of Achilles and his reconciliation also; it is in itself a complete cycle of individual experience in the Trojan War.

We now begin to get an outline of the Unity of Homer. In the first place the Iliad is a unity from the stand-point of its hero Achilles, who has a completely rounded period of his life portrayed therein, which portrayal, however, gives also a vivid picture of the Trojan War up to date. As an individual experience it is a whole, and this is what makes it a poem and gives to it special unity. But it is only a fragment of the Trojan cycle—a half or less than a half; it leaves important problems unsolved: Troy is not taken, Achilles is still alive, the new order under the new hero Ulysses has not yet set in, and chiefly there is no return to Greece, which is even more difficult than the taking of Troy. Hence the field of the second poem, the Odyssey, which is also an individual experience—has to be so in order to be a poem—embraces the rest of the Trojan cycle after the Iliad.

Thus we may well hold to these unities in Homer: the unity of the Iliad, the unity of the Odyssey, and the unity of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Both together make one grand cycle of human history and of human consciousness; they portray a complete world in its deed and in its thought, as well as in manners and institutions.

Here is, then, the highest point of view from which to look at these poems: they are really one in two parts, written by one epoch, by one consciousness, and probably by one man. The Iliad as a poem is a complete cycle of individual experience, but as an epoch is only half a cycle. In like manner the Odyssey as a poem is a complete cycle of individual experience, but as an epoch is the second half of the cycle of which the Iliad is essentially the first. Both together constitute the one great movement usually called the Trojan War.

Much time has been spent in discussing the question whether the Trojan War was historical or mythical. We make bold to affirm that it was both—both historical and mythical. It began long before the dawn of history and it exists to this day. For the Trojan War is the conflict between Orient and Occident, starting in the twilight of time, and not yet concluded by any means. The conflict between Orient and Occident runs through all Greek Mythology, is indeed just the deepest, tone-giving element thereof. It also runs through all Greek history from the Persian War to the conquests of Alexander, and lurks still in the present struggle between Greek and Turk. The true Mythus gives in an image or event the events of all time; it is an ideal symbol which is realized in history.

We have above said that the Trojan War was a complete cycle, of which the two poems portray the two halves. Still further can the matter be carried. The Trojan cycle, complete in itself as a phase of Greek consciousness, is but a fragment, a half of a still larger cycle of human development. The Iliad and the Odyssey give the Greek half of the grand world-movement of the Trojan epoch; there is also an Oriental half which these poems presuppose and from which they separate. Thus the grand Homeric cycle, while a unit in itself, is really a separation from the East, a separation which rendered the Occident possible; the woes before Troy were the birth-pangs of the new-born child, Europe, now also grown a little old.

The reader naturally asks, will there be any return to the Orient after the grand Greek separation, first heralded on the plains of Ilium? It may be answered that Europe has often returned to the East in the course of history—Alexander, Rome, the Crusades; at present, western Europe seems bent on getting to the far East. But the true return of the Occident to the Orient will be round the globe, by way of America, and that will be complete. The recent war between Japan and China is really a stage of the great new epoch in the world-historical return to the Orient.

Such is the more external, the historical phase of the Iliad and Odyssey. But they have also a deep internal ethical phase, they show two sides of one grand process of the human soul which has been called self-alienation, the sacrifice of the immediate self in order to gain true self-hood. The Greeks had to immolate their dearest ties, those of home and country, in order to preserve home and country, which had been assailed to the very heart by the rape of Helen. They had to educate themselves to a life of violence, killing men, women, even children, destroying home and country. For Troy also has Family and State, though it be a complete contradiction of Family and State by supporting Paris. But when the Greeks had taken Troy, they were trained destroyers of home and country, they were destruction organized and victorious, yet their whole purpose was to save home and country. Thus their self-alienation has deepened into absolute self-contradiction, the complete scission of the soul.

Now this is the spiritual condition of which they are to get rid, out of which they are to return to home and country. As before said it may be deemed a harder problem than the taking of Troy, which was simply a negative act, the destroying the destroyers of home and country. But the great positive act of the Trojan heroes is the restoration, not merely the outer but the inner restoration, to home and country.

With these considerations before the mind of the reader, he is now ready to grasp the full sweep of the Odyssey and understand its conflict. It springs from the separation caused by a war, here the Trojan War. The man is removed from his institutional life and thrown into a world of violence and destruction. Let us summarize the leading points of the process.

I. The absence of Ulysses leaves his family without a head, his country without a ruler, and his property without an owner. All these relations begin to loosen and go to pieces; destructive forces assail the decaying organism; the Suitors appear, who consume his property, woo his queen, and seek to usurp his kingly authority. Such are the dissolving energies at work in Ithaca. Also his son Telemachus is left without paternal training.

II. Next let us glance at the individual. Ulysses, released from domestic life and civil order, gives himself up to destroying domestic life and civil order, though they be those of the enemy. For ten years he pays no respect to Property, Family and State in Troy; he is trained into their annihilation, and finally does annihilate them. Yet his object is to restore Helen, to vindicate Family and State, and even Property.

III. Troy is destroyed because it was itself destructive; it assailed the Greek domestic and civil institutions in the rape of Helen. So the destroying city itself is destroyed, but this leaves Ulysses a destroyer in deed and in spirit; home and country he is not only separated from but is destructive of—he is a negative man.

The previous three paragraphs contain the leading presuppositions of the Odyssey, and show the first half of the life of Ulysses. They indicate three phases of the working of the negative—in Ithaca, in Troy, and in Ulysses. But now that Troy is destroyed, how will Ulysses return to institutional life, which he has destroyed in Troy, in himself, and, through his absence, in Ithaca?

IV. The Return must in the first place be within himself, he must get rid of the destructive spirit begotten of war. For this purpose he has the grand training told in his adventures; he must put down the monsters of Fableland, Polyphemus, Circe, Charybdis; he must endure the long servitude under Calypso; he must see Phaeacia. When he is internally ready, he can go forth and destroy the Suitors, destroy them without becoming destructive himself, which was his outcome at Troy. For the destruction of Troy left him quite as negative as the Suitors, of which condition he is to rid himself ere he can rid Ithaca of the Suitors. This destruction thus becomes a great positive act, now he restores Family and State, and brings peace and harmony.

One result of separating from the Family is that the son Telemachus has not the training given by the father. But the son shows his blood; he goes forth and gets his own training, the best of the time. This is told in the Telemachiad. Thus he can co-operate with his father.

The movement overarching the Odyssey. The reader will note that in the preceding account we have tried to unfold the movement of the Odyssey as the return from the Trojan War. But as already stated, it is itself but a part of a larger movement, a segment of a great cycle, which cycle again suggests a still greater cycle, which last is the movement of the World's History. Recall, then, that the Odyssey by itself is a complete cycle as far as the experience of its hero is concerned; but as belonging to an epoch, it is but half of the total cycle of the Trojan War. Then again this Trojan War is but a fragment of a movement which is the total World's History. Now can this be set forth in a summary which will suggest the movement not of the Odyssey alone, but also the movement underlying and overlying the poem? Let us make the trial, for a world-poem must take its place in the World's History, which fact gives the final judgment of its worth.

I. In the prehistoric time before Homer, there was an Orient, but no Occident; the spiritual day of the latter had not yet dawned. Very early began the movement toward separation, which had one of its greatest epochs in the Trojan War.

1. Greece in those old ages was full of the throes of birth, but was not yet born. It was still essentially Oriental, it had no independent development of its own, though it was moving toward independence. The earliest objects dug out of the long buried cities of Greece show an Oriental connection; the famous sculptured lions over the gate of Mycenae last to this day as a reminder of the early Hellenic connection of European Greece with the Orient, not to speak of Cyprus, Crete, and the lesser islands of the AEgean.

2. Then came the great separation of Greece from the Orient, which is the fundamental fact of the Trojan War, and of which the Homeric poems are the mighty announcement to the future. Troy, an Orientalizing Hellenic city in Asia, seizes and keeps Greek Helen, who is of Europe; it tears her away from home and country, and through its deed destroys Family and State. Greek Europe restores her, must restore her, if its people be true to their institutional principles; hence their great word is restoration, first of their ideal Helen, and secondly of themselves.

So all the Greeks, in order to make the separation from the Orient and restore Helen, have to march forth to war and thus be separated themselves from home and country, till they bring back Helen to home and country. The deed done to Helen strikes every Greek man till he undoes it. The stages of this movement may be set down separately.

(a) The leaving home for Troy—Achilles, Agamemnon, Ulysses; all the heroes had their special story of departure. Ulysses had to quit a young wife, Penelope, and an infant son, Telemachus. For if Helen can be abducted, no Greek family is safe.

(b) Stay at Troy for 10 years. This is also a long training to destruction. Ulysses is an important man, but not the hero. Here lies the sphere of the Iliad.

(c) Destruction of the city and the restoration of Helen to her husband, both of which are not told in the Iliad but are given subordinately in the Odyssey. Thus is the separation from the Orient completed on its negative side, that is, as far as destruction can complete it.

3. The return to Greece of the survivors. The question is, How can they truly get back after so long a period of violence? The Odyssey has this as its theme, and will give an account of all the returns. Here, too, we observe various stages.

(a) Leaving Troy for home. This means a complete facing about and a going the other way, not only in geography, but also in conduct. The Greeks must now quit destruction and become constructive.

(b) It is no wonder that the journey home was very difficult. Quarrels arose at the start (see Nestor's account Book III., and that of Menelaus Book IV.). Many perished on the way; some were lost in a storm at sea, Agamemnon was slain on the threshold of his own palace.

(c) Those who reached home, the successful returners, were of three main kinds, represented by Nestor, by Menelaus, and by Ulysses. These were restored to home and family, and brought peace and harmony. Such is the positive outcome of the Trojan War, and the completion of its cycle.

II. But this rounding-off of the Trojan cycle is, on the other hand, a final separation from the Orient; the scission is now unfolded, explicit, quite conscious. When Ulysses comes back to Ithaca, and re-establishes Family and State, Greek life is independent, distinct, self-determined. The Hellenic world rises and fulfills its destiny in its own way; it creates the Fine Arts, Literature, Science; it is the beginning of the Occident.

Still the thought must come up that the Orient is also a part of the grand movement of the World's History, whose cycle embraces both Occident and Orient. The Odyssey has many glimpses of this higher view. The first 12 books move westward and have their outlook in that direction, the last 12 books have their outlook eastward toward Egypt, Phoenicia, and the Oriental borderland. The earlier fairy tales of Ulysses have their scene in the West, while the later romances or novelettes interwoven in the last 12 Books have their scene in the East, with one exception possibly.

The main fact, however, of the Trojan cycle is the great separation, deepest in history, between Orient and Occident, through the instrumentality of Greece. The civilization of Europe and the West is the offspring of that separation, which is still going on, is a living fact, and is the source of the vexed Eastern question of European politics.

III. We are living to-day in that separation; our art, science, education, poetic forms, our secular life largely come from ancient Greece. Oriental art, customs, domestic life, government, we do not as a rule fraternize with; the Greek diremption is in us still; only in one way, in our religious life, do we keep a connection with an Oriental people. But is this separation never to be overcome? Is there to be no return to the East and completion of the world's cycle?

The Cycle. We have often used this word, and some may think that we have abused it; still our object is to restore the Greek conception of these poems, as they were looked at and spoken of by Hellas herself. The idea of the cycle was fundamental in grasping the epics which related to the Trojan War, and this War itself was regarded as a cycle of events and deeds, which the poets sang and put into their poetic cycle. Let us briefly trace this thought of the cycle as developed in old Greece.

I. In two different passages of his Organon, Aristotle calls the epic a cycle and the poetry of Homer a cycle. Now both passages are employed by him to illustrate a defective syllogism, hence are purely incidental. But no instance could better show the prevalence of the idea of a cycle as applied to Homer and epic poetry, for the philosopher evidently draws his illustration from something familiar to everybody. It had become a Greek common-place 350 B.C., and probably long before, that an epic poem, such as the Iliad or Odyssey, is cyclical, and that both together make a cycle.

II. But this idea develops, and expands beyond the Iliad and Odyssey, which are found to leave out many events of the Trojan Cycle. Indeed the myth-making spirit of Greece unfolds new incidents, deeds, and characters. The result is that many poets, after Homer had completed his cycle, began filling the old gaps, or really making new ones that these might be filled by a fresh poem. Hence arose the famous Epic Cycle, which has been preserved in a kind of summary supposed to have been written by Proclus, not the philosopher, but a grammarian of the time of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

Meantime, let us carefully distinguish some of our Cycles. The Trojan Cycle is one of events and deeds, in general is the going to and the returning from Troy. The Homeric Cycle is Homer's account, in his two poems, of this Trojan Cycle. Finally the Epic Cycle is the expansion of Homer and includes a number of Epics, which fill out to ultimate completeness the Trojan Cycle. The latter, according to Proclus, is made up of six Epics beside the Iliad and Odyssey, to which they stand in the following relations.

1. The Cypria, which deals with events antecedent to the Iliad, such as the apple of Discord, the visit of Paris at Sparta and the taking of Helen, the mustering at Aulis, the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, and many incidents at Troy. Ulysses, to avoid going to the war, feigns madness (his first disguise) and ploughs the sea-sand; but he is detected by Palamedes who lays his infant Telemachus in the track of the plough. The name Cypria comes from Kypris, Venus, who caused the infatuation which led to the war.

2. Four different epics fill in between the Iliad and the Odyssey. The AEthiopis takes up the thread after the death of Hector, introducing Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons, and Memnon, son of the Dawn, both of whom are slain by Achilles who is himself slain and is buried with funeral games. After the death of Achilles, the Little Iliad continues the story, installing Ulysses as hero over Ajax in the contest for the arms of Achilles. This is the grand transition from Brawn to Brain in the conduct of the war. The Wooden Horse is made, and the Palladium is carried out of Troy—both deeds being the product of the brain, if not of the hand, of Ulysses. Next comes the Sack of Troy, whose name indicates its character. Laocoon and Sinon appear in it, but the main thing is the grand slaughter (like that of the Suitors) and the dragging of women and children into captivity; the city is burned. Then follows the epic called the Nostoi or the Returns, really an elaboration of the Odyssey, specially of the Third Book, which tells of these antecedent Returns. Then comes the great Return, which is the Odyssey.

3. After the Odyssey follows the Telegonia written by Eugammon of Cyrene in two Books. It continues the life of Ulysses; he now goes to that people who take an oar for winnowing fan, and there he makes the offering to Neptune, enjoined by Tiresias in Hades. Other incidents are narrated; the final winding-up is that Ulysses is unwittingly slain by Telegonus, his and Circe's son, who appears in Ithaca and takes Telemachus and Penelope to Circe, who makes them immortal. The grand Epic Cycle concludes with the strangest set of marriages on record: Telegonus marries Penelope, his step-mother, and Telemachus marries Circe who is also a kind of step-mother.

III. After such a literary bankruptcy, it is no wonder that we find the later Greek and Roman writers using the words cyclic and cyclic poet as terms of disparagement. The great Mythus of Troy had run its course and exhausted itself; the age of imitation, formalism, erudition had come, while that of creation had passed away. Still it has preserved for us the idea of the cycle, which is necessary for the adequate comprehension of Homer, and which the Greeks themselves conceived and employed.

Structure of the Odyssey. A brief summary of the structural elements of the poem may now be set forth. It falls into two grand divisions, both of which are planned by Pallas in Book I and XIII respectively. In the main these divisions are the following:—

I. The first takes up about one-half of the Odyssey—twelve Books, which have as their chief object instruction and discipline—the training for the deed. This training has two very distinct portions, as it pertains to a young man and a middle-aged man—Telemachiad and Ulyssiad.

1. The Telemachiad, or the education of Telemachus, who has been left without the influence of his father, when the latter went to Troy. But he has his father's spirit, hence he must know; from Ithaca he goes to Nestor and Menelaus for instruction. Four Books.

2. The Ulyssiad, or the discipline of Ulysses, who must have been a man over 40 years old. He is to be trained out of the negative spirit which he imbibed from the Trojan war. Herein lies his analogy to Faust, who is also a middle-aged man, and negative, but from study and thought.

Both the Telemachiad and the Ulyssiad are essentially one great movement in two phases, showing the bud and the flower, the young and the mature man. Father and son reveal an overcoming of limitation; Telemachus overcomes his limit of ignorance, Ulysses overcomes his limit of negation—the one by the instruction of the wise, the other by the experience of life. Both are trained to a belief in an ethical order which rules the world; therein both are made internally ready for the great act of delivering their country. The training of both reaches forward to a supreme practical end—the destruction of the Suitors and the purification of Ithaca. (For the further structure of these two parts—the Telemachiad and the Ulyssiad—see preceding commentary under these titles.)

II. The second grand division of the Odyssey is the last twelve Books. The scene is laid in Ithaca, where the great deed, to which the poem hitherto has looked forward, is to be done. The wanderings of the father have ceased, the son returns from his schooling; every movement is now directed toward action. Again Pallas (XIII. 393-415) plans two subdivisions, without the Council of the Gods however.

1. The hut of the swineherd. Here the forces hostile to the Suitors gather in secret and lay their plan. Ulysses, Telemachus, Eumaeus, the gallant army of three, get ready for the execution of the deed. Four Books.

2. The palace of the King. Ulysses in disguise beholds the Suitors in their negative acts; they are as bad as the Trojans, assailing Property, Family, State, the Gods; they are really in their way re-enacting the rape of Helen. Ulysses, as he destroyed Troy, must destroy them, yet not become merely destructive himself. Eight Books, in which we can discern the following movement: (1) Suitors as destroyers—five Books; (2) Ulysses as destroyer—one Book; (3) Ulysses as restorer—two Books. Thus the outcome is positive..

The career of Ulysses is now complete, and with it the Homeric Cycle has rounded itself out to fullness. The Epic Cycle in the Telegonia will expand this conclusion, but will deeply mar its idea.

Note that the structure of the two grand divisions of the Odyssey are symmetrical, each a half of the poem; then each half subdivides into two parts, and each of those parts is symmetrical, being composed of four and eight Books each. To be sure, the joint is not so plain in the second division as in the first, which has the Telemachiad and the Ulyssiad. Pallas is the orderer of both divisions, and she orders them in a symmetrical manner.

For both divisions the grand horizon is the Trojan War, yet both reach beyond it, the one toward the West, the other toward the East. The one weaves into its regular narrative the Fairy Tale, the other takes up into its text what we have called the Romantic Novelette. The former looks toward the West and the Future, the latter looks back at the East and the Past. Hence the Fairy Tale is prophetic and has supernatural beings, the Novelette is retrospective, giving the experiences of life without supernatural agencies. In scenery also the contrast is great: the one is largely a sea poem, the other is a land poem.

Structural analogy between Iliad and Odyssey. We have before said, and we may repeat here at the end, that the final fruit of Homeric study is to see and to fully realize that the Iliad and Odyssey are one work, showing national consciousness, and unfolding one great epoch of the World's History. Just here we may note the fundamental analogies of structure between the two poems.

I. Both poems have the dual division, separating into two symmetrical portions. The Iliad has two Wraths of Achilles, and also two Reconciliations; thus each division is subdivided:

1. His first attitude or cycle of conduct toward the Greeks.

(a) His wrath—both rightful and wrongful.

(b) His reconciliation with Agamemnon and his own people.

2. His second attitude, or cycle of conduct toward the Trojans.

(a) His wrath—both rightful and wrongful.

(b) His reconciliation with Priam and the Trojans.

Such is the general organism of the Iliad which is seen to be perfectly symmetrical within itself. (For a fuller account see author's Commentary on the Iliad, pp. 36-8.) Note that the negative attitude of Achilles is that of wrath; in his anger he will destroy his people and his cause, and finally, in the dragging of Hector's corpse, he disregards the Gods. Yet be overcomes both these negative attitudes in himself and becomes reconciled.

II. The Odyssey has two phases of Negation, both of which the heroes (father and son) must overcome.

1. The negative spirit caused by the Trojan War and its overcoming.

(a) The ignorance of the son and its overcoming.

(b) The destructive tendency of the father and its overcoming.

2. The negative spirit abroad in Ithaca (Suitors) and its overcoming.

(a) The hut of the swineherd (preparation).

(b) The palace of the King (execution).

That is, Ulysses and Telemachus have the double problem, which organizes the Odyssey: they must conquer their own internal negation, then proceed to conquer that of the Suitors. Both poems divide alike; both have the same fundamental thought: the individual as hero is to master his own negative spirit and that of the world, and then be reconciled with himself and the world. The Iliad has essentially but one thread of movement, that of Achilles; the Odyssey has two such threads, if not three—father, son, and perchance wife, making the total Family as the unit of movement.

Thus the Iliad and Odyssey are one poem fundamentally, showing unity in thought and structure, and portraying one complete cycle of national consciousness, as well as one great phase of the World's History.

* * * * *

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