Chapter 20

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 already been alluded to by Calypso. (Book V. line 121.) Jealous are the Gods of that mortal man with whom a Goddess falls in love, and with good reason. Orion's punishment is an eternal chase, the hunter is compelled to hunt forever, repeating what he did in life. Perhaps not a heavy punishment for one who is fond of hunting; yet a tremendous burden, if never interrupted with rest; indeed it becomes a labor quite like the labor of Sisyphus, ever repeated. Of Tityos both the guilt and punishment are indicated; the legend is similar to and yet in contrast with that of Orion; in the one the Goddess approaches the mortal and in the other the mortal approaches the Goddess; hence, too, the severer punishment in the latter case. The second legend ought to be completed here by a fact derived from the story of Prometheus: the liver grows as fast as the vultures rend or consume it; thus again rises the idea of infinite repetition, now of suffering, not of action, for Orion is active.

The next two forms, Tantalus and Sisyphus, have also a kinship. Both had known secrets of the Gods and had betrayed them; Tantalus is also reported to have taken away nectar and ambrosia from the Olympian table after being a guest there; Sisyphus revealed to the river-god Asopus the secret that Zeus had spirited away the latter's daughter, AEgina. The penalty is that Tantalus remains perpetually hungry and thirsty, with sight of food and drink always before his eyes; he cannot reach them when he strives. The finite, with an infinite longing, cannot compass the infinite; the man loses it just when he grasps for it--a truly Greek penalty for a sin against the Greek world, which rests upon the happy harmonious unity of the spirit with the body and with nature. The Christian or Romantic longing and grasping for the Beyond is to the Greek soul a punishment of Hades. Tantalus with his hunger and thirst seems to represent more the striving of the intellect to attain the unattainable; while Sisyphus suggests the effort of the will--practical endeavor, the eternal routine of mechanical employment, which always has to begin over again. Etymology brings also a suggestion. Both names are reduplicated; in Tantalus is the root of the word which means to suffer; in Sisyphus, lurks the signification of craft; it hints the wise or crafty planner (_sophos_) who always pushes the act to a point where it undoes itself or must be done over again. Note the effect of this reduplication of the first syllables, which means repetition; over and over again, in an infinite series must the matter be gone through, in suffering and in doing; the very words are in labor.

Indeed this indicates the common element in these four punishments: the endless repetition of the struggle of finitude. The first two, Orion and Tityos, reached out for Goddesses, being mortals; the second two, still mortals, but in communion with deities, attempted to bring down divine secrets to earth; the one set strove to make the finite infinite, the other to make the infinite finite. Both were contrary to the nature of the Greek mind, which sought to keep the happy balance between the two sides, between body and spirit, between the temporal and eternal. Now the punishment of these people is to give them their infinite, but in the form of an infinite repetition of their finite act, which is just the spirit-crushing penalty. The power of these two types, Tantalus and Sisyphus, is shown by the fact that all ages since Homer have adopted them and wrought them over into many forms of art and poetry.

Here then is the unsolved problem of the Greek world, a problem which the Christian world has met and answered. Tantalus and Sisyphus are in pain and toil simply through themselves; man, however, must have the power to reach the apples, and roll the stone up hill, he must assert himself as limit-transcending, as infinite, for once and for all, and not caught in an infinite series, which is a veritable mill of the Gods, that is, of the Greek Gods. Now this strange fact comes to light: Homer, seer that he is, has a dim consciousness of this solution, and faintly but prophetically embodies it in a new figure, namely, that of Hercules, which we shall now consider.

3. The Homeric solution is to divide the man, or to double him, into his shade (eidolon) and his self. The former belongs to Hades and appears now; it is the finite Hercules with his striving and labors; he still has his bow and arrow, is ready to slay beasts, snakes, and birds. He is in quite the same punishment as Orion or even Sisyphus, the penalty of all finitude is upon him. Yet the other side is given, that of victory. "I, though the son of the highest God, Zeus, had to endure boundless tribulation." Strangely Christian does this sound. "I was put under service to a far inferior man to myself, who laid upon me bitter labors." The higher must serve and save the lower. "Then the mightiest labor I performed, I came down hither to Hades alive and dragged thence the dog Cerberus"--conquered the great terror of the Underworld. Thus Hercules has really transcended Hades, and so we read here that "he himself is among the immortal Gods, in bliss," that is, his infinite nature is there, while the finite part is still below in Hades. Such is the old poet's far-cast glance, reaching deep into the future and beyond the Greek world.

Still another significant word is spoken. "O Ulysses, unhappy man! Thou dost experience the same hard fate which I endured upon the earth." Thus does Hercules identify the career of Ulysses with his own--the same striving and suffering, and the same final victory, the peace of Olympus. Who cannot attain the latter is a Tantalus, seeking but never reaching the fruit. Such is the outcome and culmination of Hades; after Hercules has spoken, no further word is heard by Ulysses.

Dante, whose poem on so many lines grows out of this Eleventh Book, has also the same duplication of the person in his Paradise. The soul is in its special planet, Venus, Mars, etc., and also it is in the highest Heaven, enjoying the Vision of God. But Dante universalizes the Greek view, making it truly Christian; all men are children of God and can attain the seats of the Blessed, not merely the one man, the Hero Hercules. Still even here the inference is that Ulysses must also be transferred to Olympus, though no such declaration is made.

We hope the reader feels how inadequate Hades would be, and how incomplete the experience of Ulysses would be, if this last division of the Book were cut out. The wanderer has now gone through the total cycle of the Underworld, not only outwardly, but inwardly; he is just ready to step out of it, because he is beyond it in spirit. This last step is now to be given in Homeric fashion.

There is a danger at present rising strongly into consciousness, a danger inherent in this too-long contemplation of Hades; it is the danger of the Gorgon, the monster whose view turns the spectator into stone, taking away all sensation, emotion, life. The Greek sooner or later must quit Hades, and flee from its shapes; the supersensible world he must transfuse into the sensible, else the former will rush over into the fantastic, the horrible, the ugly. The Gorgon is down in Hades too, having been slain in the terrestrial Upperworld by a Greek Hero, Perseus, who slew the monster of the Orient which once guarded the fair Andromeda, a kind of Pre-Trojan Helen, chained in captivity, whom the heroic Hellenic soul came to release. Ulysses has now reached the Greek limit, Oriental phantasms will rise unless there be a speedy return to the reality, to the realm of sense. Hades has furnished its highest image in Hercules, beware of its worst. Already the Underworld has been in danger of running into the fantastic; then Beauty, the Hellenic ideal, would be lost. The figures of Homeric Hades hitherto have all been men and women, but the monsters are ready to come forth. So they did come forth in the later Greek world under the spur of Oriental influence; witness the Revelations of St. John in the Island of Patmos, joint product of Greek and Hebrew spirit, showing truly the dissolution of the Hellenic ideal.

Thus Ulysses, the supreme spiritual Hero of the Greeks, is shown running away from the Underworld, fearing to look upon coming shapes in Hades; about which fact two reflections can be made: first, Ulysses had to do this in order to remain a Greek; secondly, the poet clearly announces, in such an action, that there is another world lying beyond his world, that underneath the Greek Hades is another Hades, which threatens to rise into view. That Hades will burst up hereafter and become the Christian Hell. Ulysses confesses that there is a realm beyond him there, which he has not conquered, has not even dared to see, and thus he significantly points to the future. The Gorgon is a shadowy anticipation of fiends, of devils, of the infernal monsters of the Romantic Netherworld of Dante, who is to be the next great Hero, passing into the dark world beyond with a new light. To be sure, Virgil sends AEneas into Orcus, and makes such descent a Book of his poem, but Virgil too speaks of a realm beyond his Orcus, which his Hero does not enter. Thus the Roman poet shows substantially the same limits as the Greek poet, whom he has for the most part copied.

Here again we find a conception embodied in song, on which the human mind has moved through many ages. Poetry, Art, Theology, have taken from this Eleventh Book of the Odyssey many creative hints: it is truly an epoch-making work in the history of man's spiritual unfolding. As already stated, Virgil repeats it, Dante grows out of it and makes it over, in accord with the spirit of Christendom, which has many a root running back to this Homeric Hades. The present Book may be called the Greek prophecy heralding medieval Art, and shows old Homer foreshadowing Romanticism. Did he not see the limits of his world? The particular connecting link between two Literary Bibles, Homer and Dante, is just the present Book, even if Dante never read Homer. For the study of Universal Literature it is, therefore, a specially important document. A many-sided production also; its poetic, its religious, its artistic, its philosophical sides are all present in full activity and put to test the spiritual alertness of the reader.

Wherein does the negative nature of Hades lie? The question rises from the fact that Ulysses in Fableland has been declared to be passing through various negative phases; such is the expression often used already. First of all, it is a negating of the sensible world and a going into the supersensible, a seeking of the spirit without the body. Hades was quite the opposite of the Greek mind, which demanded embodiment, and hence was inherently artistic. Still the Greek mind created a Hades, and finally went over into the pure Idea in Plato and the philosophers. Even Homer seems to feel that philosophy is at last a needful discipline, that the abstract thought must be taken from its concrete wrappage, that the Universal must be freed from the Particular.

Ulysses has to pass through Hades in order to complete the cycle of his experience, and realize what is beyond the senses; he must know the spirit apart from the body in this life; he must see the Past as it is in its great disembodied minds; he must behold the famous heroes of Troy as they are in reality, not as they are in the glamor of poetry. As tested by their life and deeds he sees them below in the Netherworld; Greek souls stark naked in Hades he beholds, and then rises out of it.

_Retrospect._ Very important, in our judgment, is this Eleventh Book; it is really one of the sacred documents of Universal Religion, as well as a great creative idea in the World's Literature, But it has fared badly as to its friends; for interpretation it usually falls into the hands of the negative, merely critical Understanding, which has the unfortunate habit of turning Professor of Greek, commentator on Homer, and philologer generally. In order to grasp and connect its leading points more completely, we shall look back at the thought and structure of the Book once more.

First of all, there must be felt and seen the necessity of taking this journey to the Netherworld on the part of the Hero, the complete person of his time. The very conception of the universal man must include the visit to the realm of the Idea; the passage from the sensible to the supersensible, is the deepest need of his soul. Homer can give this spiritual movement only in a mythical form, hence it occurs here in Fableland. So Ulysses has to make the transition from Circe to Hades.

Having the entire Book now before us, we observe that it shows a threefold movement; that is, one movement with three leading stages. These take the shape of three communications from the realm of the dead, which includes all past Time, imparted to the living who are now present, namely the Phaeacians, through Ulysses, who has had this cycle of experiences and now sings them. But that which is true in past Time must be seen to be true in all Time--Past, Present and Future. So there unfolds the idea of a World-Order, foretold at first by the Pre-Trojan prophet Tiresias, illustrated by the fate of the three Greco-Trojan heroes in Hades, and finally realized and active in the realm of Minos. The whole has, therefore, the secret underlying thought of a world-tribunal, which works through all human history; it is a kind of Last Judgment to which the deeds of men are appealed for final adjudication; it most profoundly suggests in its movement the ethical order of the Universe. Let us briefly sum up its three stages.

I. The first communication from the Hades of the Past to the real world of the Present through Ulysses is that of the prophet Tiresias, "whose mind is whole;" he may be called the pure Idea (as subjective) uttering the Idea (as objective, as principle of the world). For he beholds the truth of things as they are in their essence, he himself being the impersonation of Truth. Thus he looks through the Future and foretells; he knows that Neptune will avenge the deed done to Polyphemus, that the Oxen of the Sun constitute a great danger, that Ulysses will punish the Suitors; then he prophesies the peace and final harmony of Ulysses after his long conflict and separation from home, country, and the Divine Order.

So speaks Tiresias and is therein a kind of world-judge, prefiguring Minos of the last stage of Hades. For he prophesies according to the law of the deed; what you have done is sure to return upon you, be it good or bad. Hence he can tell what will happen to Ulysses for acts already committed (the wrath of Neptune); he can give a warning concerning things which Ulysses may do (the slaying of the Oxen of the Sun); he can affirm the certain punishment of guilt (the case of the Suitors). Thus the prophet voices a world-justice, which inflicts the penalty unflinchingly, but also bears within itself reconciliation. Such is the prophetic Idea, appearing in advance, not yet ordered and realized.

II. The second communication from Hades to the Phaeacians through Ulysses comes from the Trojan Past, and is voiced by the three most famous heroes of the Iliad--Achilles, Agamemnon, Ajax (the last one, however, does not speak, but acts out his communication). All three are tragic characters, are the victims of fate, that is, of their own fatal limitations. Such is the world-judgment here, it is really pronounced by themselves upon themselves in each case. Agamemnon states his own guilt, Achilles shows his limit by his complaint, Ajax does not need to speak. Ulysses simply listens and sees; now he tells the story of Troy and its heroes anew to the Present, indicating how they have put themselves into Hades.

The intimate connection between this part and the preceding part of Tiresias is plain. The prophet has forecast the law which rules these heroes also; they are truly illustrations of his prophecy, or of its underlying principle. They expose the heroic insufficiency of that Trojan time; they are the negative, tragic phases of greatness, which have also to submit at last to the law of compensation. Thus is the illustrious Trojan epoch judged and sent down below; but mark! Ulysses, of that same epoch, survives, is present, and is singing the judgment.

III. The world-justice which ideally underlies the prophecies of Tiresias in the first part of the present Book, and which is the secret moving principle in the fates of the three Greco-Trojan heroes in the second part, becomes explicit, recognized and ordered in the third part, which is now to be given. There is first the world-judge, Minos, famous for his justice during life, distributing both penalties and rewards in the Netherworld. Secondly we see the condemned ones, Orion, Tityus, Tantalus, Sisyphus (mark the significant reduplication of the root in the names of each one of them). All four are represented as having wronged the Gods in some way; they have violated the Divine Order, according to the Greek conception; hence the tribunal of world-justice, now organized and at work in Hades, takes them in hand. To be sure, the text of Homer does not say that they were sentenced by the decree of Minos, but such is certainly the implication. These four had a common sin, to the Greek mind: they sought to transcend the limit which the Gods have placed upon finite man, hence the image of their penalty lies in the endless repetition of their acts, which is also suggested in their names. Orion has always to pursue and slay the wild beast, never getting the work done; the liver of Tityus grows and swells afresh (root from _tu_, meaning to swell, Latin _tumor_) though being consumed by the vultures; in like manner Tantalus and Sisyphus have ever-repeated labors. Such is the glimpse here of the Greek Hades of eternal punishment. Now comes the curious fact that the heroic man through labor and suffering can rise out of this Hades of finitude; he can satisfy the demand of world-justice, and rise to Olympus among the blessed Gods. Such was Hercules, and such is to be Ulysses, who now having seen the culmination of Hades and heard its prophecy of his future state, leaves it and returns to the Upperworld.

Undoubtedly these thoughts of future punishment and reward are very dim and shadowy in Homer; still they are here in this Eleventh Book of the Odyssey, and find their true interpretation in that view of the life to come into which they unfolded with time. The best commentary on this Book, we repeat, is the _Divine Comedy_ of Dante, the grand poem of futurity, which carries out to fullness the order, of which we here catch a little glimpse.

_BOOK TWELFTH._

Ulysses flees from the Underworld, there is something down there which he feels he cannot master, something which he has not seen but of which he has a vague presentiment. The Gorgon stands for much, dimly foreshadowing a Hades beyond or below the Greek Hades, with which, however, it is not his call to grapple. Hence the poet puts upon his Hero a limitation at this point, strangely prophetic, and sends him in haste back to the terrestrial Upperworld. The bark crossed the stream of the "river Oceanus," then it entered "the wide-wayed Sea" in which lay the island of Circe, "where are the houses of the Dawn, and her dances, and the risings of the Sun." Verily the Hero has got back to the beginning of the world of light, in which he is now to have a new span of existence after his experience in the supersensible realm.

From the brief geographical glances which we catch up from the voyage, as well as from a number of hints scattered throughout the Odyssey (for instance, from what is said of the Ethiopians in the First Book), we are inclined to believe that Homer held the earth to be round. We like to think of the old Poet seeing this fact, not as a deduction of science, not even as a misty tradition from some other land, but as an immediate act of poetic insight, which beholds the law of the physical world rising out of the spiritual by the original creative fiat; the Poet witnesses the necessity by which nature conforms to mind. Homer knew the spiritual Return, this whole Odyssey is such a Return, whereby the soul is rounded off to completeness, and becomes a true totality. Why should he not apply the same law to nature, to the whole Earth, and behold it, not indefinitely extended as it appears to the senses, but returning into itself, whereby the line becomes a circle and the plain a globe? Some such need lay deep in his poetic soul, to which he had to harmonize the entire universe, visible as well as invisible. Not science is this, but an immediate vision of the true, always prophetic, which observes the impress of spirit everywhere upon the realm of matter. The old Greek sages seem to have known not merely of the rotundity of the Earth, but also of its movement round the Sun and upon its own axis, both movements being circular, returns, which image mind. Did they get their knowledge from Egypt or Chaldea? Questionable; if they looked inwardly deep enough, they could find it all there. Indeed the sages of Egypt and Chaldea saw the fact in their souls ere they saw it or could see it in the skies.

So these Homeric glimpses into the realm of what is to become science are not to be neglected or despised, in spite of their mythical, ambiguous vesture. Moreover they are in profound harmony with the present poem, to which they furnish remote, but very suggestive parallels, making the physical universe correspond to the spiritual unfolding of the Hero.

Ulysses, accordingly, comes back to the sensible world and there he finds Circe again. Indeed whom else ought he to find? She is the bright Greek realm of the senses reposing in sunlight; she has been subordinated to the rational, she is no longer the indulgence of appetite which turns men to swine, nor is she, on the other hand, the rigid ascetic. Hence we need not be surprised at her bringing good things to eat and drink: "bread and many kinds of meat and sparkling red wine." Moreover, she is still prophetic, she still has the outlook upon the Beyond, being spirit in the senses. Her present prophecies, however, will be different from her former one, she will point to the supersensible, not in Hades, for that is now past, but in the Upperworld of life and experience. Such is the return of the Hero to Circe, the fair, the terrestrial, who makes existence beautiful if she be properly held in restraint; beautiful as sunlit Hellas with its plastic forms she can become, in striking contrast to the dark shapes of the sunless Underworld which leads to the Gorgon, the realm of spooks, shades, fiends, in general of romanticism.