Homer's Odyssey A Commentary

Such is the dualism in the world, which must be harmonized; but in the individual also there is another dualism which has to be harmonized. Ulysses is mortal, finite, given over...

But Penelope uses this gift as a weapon, it is her means of saving the House of Ulysses, while many another fair lady uses it for the fun of the thing. Is she right? Does her en...

The Introduction being concluded, the story of Telemachus begins, and continues till the Fifth Book. Two main points stand forth in the narrative. The first is the grand conflic...

We must note, too, that the poet has shown Menelaus as prepared to receive this divine revelation; the Greek wanderer has been brought to contrition by manifold sufferings. "I s...

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 introdu...

And all these floating metaphysical gossamers are found in Homer! Yes, but not in a metaphysical form; Homer's organ is poetic, he lived in the age ere philosophers had dawned....

The second part deals with the mortal, who is brought into relation with three Gods, all representing phases of the physical element of water: (1) Neptune, the great deity of th...

4. But it must not for a moment be thought that Homer created this Fairy World or made, single-handed, these Fairy Tales. The latter are the work of the people, possibly of the...

Ulysses and his companions now had to use the oar on seas without wind; "their spirit was worn out," hope had fled from them toiling through the becalmed deep. They arrive at th...

The first sentence strikes the leading thought: "The wind, bearing me from Troy, brought me to the Ciconians." Troy is the starting-point, the background out of which everything...

It is worth our while to make a little summary of these Returners in classes, since in this way the thought of the present Book as well as its place in the entire Odyssey can be...

The fiction in the previous Book, which Ulysses began to tell to Pallas, also started in Crete, looked back at the Trojan war, and connected with Idomeneus, the great hero of Cr...

"Ill-fated man," she cries, "why hast thou so angered Neptune?" Then she changes her note: "Still he shall not destroy thee, however much he desires." She bids him give up his r...

So much for Circe in her new relation in the present Book; how about Ulysses? It is manifest that he too is prepared for a fresh experience. He has been in the Underworld and gr...

3. The Return of Menelaus is now told to Telemachus, which Return reaches behind the Trojan war into the East and beyond the limits of the real Hellas into Egypt. Thus the spati...

What will the Suitors do? The most audacious one, Antinous, is ready with a proposal. The boy will prove a pest, we must waylay him on his return and murder him. Such is their f...

The Wooden Horse is not employed in the Iliad, but is one of the striking details of the later epics, which recounted the destruction of Troy. The song of Demodocus carries the...

Ulysses, then, has to go to Hades, the supersensible realm; his heart was wrung, "I wept sitting upon the couch, I wished no longer to live nor to see the light of the sun." But...

What will this discipline be? To a degree his entire career must be worked over again from the beginning. Upon his fragment of wood he floats back to Scylla and Charybdis; he fa...

I. Telemachus arrives at the hut of the swineherd, the dogs give him a friendly greeting in contrast to that which they give to Ulysses--a fact which shows that the youth must h...

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 al...

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...

To these three men we are to add the woman, Penelope, who has her part, perhaps the most difficult in this difficult business. She cannot resort to violence, she must use her fe...

2. Present; Ulysses weeps, his tears are noticed by Alcinous, who demands his name, country, travels. Ulysses has already in a number of ways discovered himself as connected wit...

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 no...

The guilt of Orion is that of love between a mortal and a Goddess, Aurora, which violation was punished by the "soft bolts" of Artemis, protectress of chastity. This legend has...

The washing is done now, the sport is over, and the party is getting ready to go home; but the main object is not yet accomplished. Ulysses and Nausicaa are here to be brought t...

Produced by Steven Giacomelli and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by Case Western...

It is the beautiful instinct of the mother, that she flits in the ghost-world to her son at once, when the chance is afforded. She has already appeared, even before Tiresias cam...

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,...