Chapter 26
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 have been in times past a good deal with Eumaeus. Also the affectionate meeting of the two suggests the same thing. Herein we note a reason for Pallas sending him hither--the Goddess and the youth coincided. Of course the conversation soon turns toward the stranger present, the disguised Ulysses. Now occurs a subtle movement between father and son who are to be brought together.
(1) First they are in a state of separation, but the disguised Ulysses holds the bond of unification in his power. Eumaeus first tells to Telemachus the fictitious Cretan story concerning the stranger; then Ulysses gives a note of his true self: "Would that I were Ulysses' son or the hero himself!" What then? "I would be an evil to those Suitors." Thus the father secretly stirs the spirit of the son, in fact spiritually identifies himself. The son sends off the swineherd on an errand to Penelope, in order to announce his safe arrival from his journey to the mainland. In this way one obstacle is removed--the swineherd; now the second obstacle, the disguise is to be stripped away.
(2) Herewith occurs a divine intervention, hinting the importance of the present moment. Pallas appears to Ulysses, "but Telemachus beheld her not;" Why? "For not by any means are the Gods manifest to all men." As already stated, Ulysses has the key of the situation, and sees what is now to be done; Telemachus does not see and will not see till his father's disguise be removed. So again the Goddess Pallas appears to the wise man and addresses him because the two are one in thought; no other person not in this oneness of the human and divine can see her. In like manner Pallas appears to Achilles, "seen by him alone," in the First Book of the Iliad; similar too is the case of Telemachus when Pallas comes to him among the Suitors under the form of Mentes in the First Book of this Odyssey (see p. 26).
But just here is added a fact in strangest contrast with the foregoing view; "The dogs (as well as Ulysses) saw the Goddess; they barked not, but ran off whining through the gate in the opposite direction." In the old Teutonic faith (and probably Aryan) the dog can see a ghost, hence his unaccountable whine at times. The lower animals and even the elements recognize the approaching deity by some unusual commotion. But mark the contrast: the dogs ran in terror from the presence of the Goddess; Ulysses, observing her, "went out of the house and stood before her alongside the wall of the court." The rational man, beholding, must commune with the deity present, and not run off like a dog. If he does not see the Goddess, as in the case with Telemachus here, he is simply outside of her influence.
Pallas gives to Ulysses the strong promise of help, reflecting his own internal condition. She transforms him, he appears a new man, nay a God to his son, "some divinity whose home is the broad heaven." Then the recognition follows, with its various doubts and its emotional ups and downs. "In the breasts of both rose the desire of tears; they wept shrilly, and louder their screams than those of the eagle whose young have been stolen from its nest." Lamentation is a trait of the Homeric hero; in the present case it asserts its fullest right. But enough! let us pass from heroic tears to heroic deeds.
(3) Next comes the general plan of action. What have we to encounter? Telemachus gives a catalogue of the Suitors; they reach the surprising number of 108 persons plus 10 attendants, including the bard and the herald. We now begin to appreciate the greatness of the task. The Ithacan people are helpless or hostile, the Suitors have friends and relatives everywhere, yet they must be punished, they cannot be allowed to escape. But the aid for such an enterprise--whence? asks Telemachus, and also the reader. Listen to the answer of Ulysses: "I shall tell thee, and thou bear it well in mind; think whether Pallas with her father Zeus be not sufficient for us, or shall I look about for some other defender?" Such a believer has the skeptic become; he now has faith in the Gods, and in a World Order. It is also a lofty expression of belief in his divine mission; the spirit of Eumaeus, which dwells in that humble hut, has entered the heart of the hero. Such are the two allies: Pallas, wisdom, and Zeus, fountain of the world's justice, which had been deeply violated by the Suitors. Telemachus in response, assents to his father's words, and acknowledges the supremacy of the Gods. He also lays aside his doubt and shows himself in a spiritual harmony with his father, which must be antecedent to the deed.
The next part of the plan is that Ulysses in disguise shall go to the palace and see for himself the wrongs done to his House, and experience some of these wrongs in his own person. Then too he can make preparations on the spot and select the time for striking. Also he wishes to test a little further the wife Penelope. Another period of disguise is necessary in order to get rid of the necessity of disguise and vindicate the right. Zeus is with him, he is the bearer of universal justice, which he is to establish anew; but Pallas must also be with him in the act, for it requires all his skill and cunning and forethought.
Thus the father and son are united in spirit; the last obstacle, which was the disguise, is removed, and they behold each other as they are in truth. The recognition is not merely an external one of face and form, or even of the tie of kinship and affection; it is in both a recognition of the Divine Order of the World, which they are now called upon to maintain in their own persons, and to re-stablish in their country.
II. The scene passes from the hut of the swineherd to the palace, where the Suitors soon hear of the safe return of Telemachus. Antinous also comes back, foiled and evidently angered; he proposes to the Suitors that they should slay Telemachus "in the fields or on the highway" wherever found, or renounce the suit for Penelope in the palace: "Let each one woo her from his own house with gifts."
It is clear that such a violent measure as the assassination of the royal heir in his own territory finds small response even among the Suitors. Antinous says that the people are no longer friendly; he thinks, when they hear of the recent ambush, that they may rise and drive out the aggressors. Still they do not rise, and probably Antinous tried to frighten the Suitors into his drastic method. But he did not succeed, Amphinomus clearly voices their sentiment, and the council dissolves.
Soon it is seen that Antinous has lost his cause. Penelope appears and gives him a thorough tongue-lashing, in which she also tells his antecedents. "Thy father came to us, a fugitive from the people," who were angry at him on account of his piratical misdeeds; "they wanted to kill him, and tear out his heart, and pillage his large wealth" evidently gotten unlawfully. "But Ulysses restrained them," and now this is your gratitude: "you waste his property, woo his wife, slay his son, and worry me to death." Antinous is true to his ancestry, he is still a pirate. Strong words are these, which call forth a hypocritical reply from another Suitor, Eurymachus, which she probably saw through, for she goes into her upper chamber, where "she weeps for her dear spouse Ulysses, till blue-eyed Pallas cast upon her eyelids sweet sleep."
The internal weakness of the Suitors is exposed; it is manifest that they are divided among themselves. In fact, how can they have any unity? Each wishes to win the fair prize, which can belong only to one; hence every other man is his rival, whom he tries to thwart. Hence come jealousy and suspicion. The single bond they have in common is their wrong-doing, which they feel cannot much longer continue, with Telemachus so active.
III. On the other hand, we pass to the hut of the swineherd, where the father and son show a complete unity of spirit and purpose. Eumaeus returns from his errand; he brings no news specially except that the Suitors who formed the ambush have come back to the town. But he is not yet to be admitted into the grand secret; so Pallas stood again near Ulysses, "striking him with her staff she made him an old man in wretched rags." He resumes his disguise "lest the swineherd might recognize him and hasten to announce the fact to Penelope, instead of keeping the secret looked in his bosom." So the kind-hearted, sincere Eumaeus cannot yet be entrusted with the important secret.
_BOOKS XVII-XXIV._
The time has arrived for this exposition of the Odyssey to be brought to a close with some degree of rapidity. It has already expanded itself beyond its original purpose; it, too, like Ulysses, has asserted itself as limit-transcending. We shall try to indicate the general character of these remaining eight Books, to find their place in the total organism of the poem, and then give a brief outline of each Book separately.
It has already often been stated that the Odyssey is a Return, an outer, but specially an inner Return from the Trojan War and from the alienation and disruption produced by the same. This Return, narrated in the twenty-four Books of the poem, divides itself into two equal halves, each containing twelve Books. The first half moves about two centers, Telemachus and Ulysses; the former is to be trained out of his ignorance, the latter is to be disciplined out of his negative attitude toward institutional life, and thus be prepared to rescue institutional life. The first twelve Books are, therefore, the getting rid of the destructive results caused by the Trojan War and all war, in the human soul.
Still Ulysses, with Telemachus, is to do a deed of destruction, he is to destroy the Suitors, who are themselves destructive of institutional order in Ithaca. In a general way they are like the Trojans, they are assailing the domestic and political life of the Greek world; they too must be put down at home by the hero, as Troy was put down abroad by him. But at Troy he became negative through the long training of a ten years' war, the spirit of which he must get rid of before he can slay the Suitors, for he is too much like them to be their rightful destroyer. This, then, is the discipline of the first twelve Books: through the experience of life to get internally free of that destructive Trojan spirit, to overcome the negative within, and then proceed to overcome it without.
Now this overcoming of the negative without (embodied in the Suitors) is just the work of the last twelve Books of the Odyssey, which we have called the Ithakeiad, as the scene is laid wholly in Ithaca. Internally both Ulysses and Telemachus are ready; they have now externally to make their world conform to their Idea. The trend of the poem is henceforth toward the deed which destroys the outer negation, as hitherto the trend was toward the deed which overcame the inner negation. To be sure, the destruction of the Suitors has hovered before the poem from the beginning; but in the second half it is explicit, is the immediate end of the action.
This second half divides itself into two distinct portions. It being the direct movement toward the deed shows in the first portion the preparation of the instruments, which takes place at the hut of the swineherd. Ulysses is alone, he must find out upon whose aid he can rely; his helpers must show not only strength of limb, but strength of conviction. Two persons appear--his son and his swineherd; they believe themselves to be the bearers of a Divine Order as against the Suitors; they are the army of three to whom the cowherd is to be hereafter added on manifesting his loyalty. This part of the poem has been unfolded in the preceding four Books.
The second portion of this second half of the poem, consisting of eight Books, we are next to consider. Ulysses has hitherto only heard of the excesses of the Suitors; he is now to see them directly and to experience their violence in his own person. He is in disguise and gets full possession of the fact before he proceeds to the deed. The insolent, destructive conduct of the Suitors is set forth in all fullness, as well as the subtle attempt of the wife to thwart them; then the blow falls which sweeps them and their deeds out of existence. Restoration follows after this terrible act of vengence; Ulysses, having done his great destructive work, is to show himself constructive, not simply the destroyer, but the healer and restorer.
How can we best see the sweep of these eight Books and their organic connection with the total Odyssey? No mere formal division will answer, nor any external separation into parts. The inner movement of the thought is to be found and shown as the organizing principle. On the whole the joints of the structure are not so manifest as in the Telemachiad and the Ulyssiad; still they exist. Already it has been often said that the essential character of the Suitors is that of destroyers; Ulysses is the destroyer of these destroyers; but in destroying destruction he is also the restorer. Now just these three stages of the movement of the inner thought are the three organic divisions of the last eight Books; that is, the thought organizes the poem. Let us look more closely.
I. The first five Books (XVII-XXI) are devoted to revealing the Suitors as destroyers to Ulysses in person, though he be disguised. Three strands are interwoven into the texture, which we may separate for the purpose of an examination.
1. The Suitors are destroying what may in general be called the institutional world in its three leading forms: (1) Property, (2) Family, (3) State. To these may be added their disregard and even open defiance of the Gods, who are the upholders, or rather the personified embodiment of all institutional life. Hence the statement may be made that the Suitors are, as far as their deeds go, the destroyers of the Divine Order of the World; they are spiritually negative.
2. The second strand is that of Ulysses (to whom Telemachus and the swineherd can be added) who is to behold with his own eyes, to experience in his own person, the character and acts of the Suitors; then he is also to plan and prepare for their destruction. As he has overcome his own negative condition inwardly, in the spirit, he must be able to overcome the same condition outwardly, in the world.
3. The third strand is that of Penelope, the wife, who is seeking to thwart the attempt of the Suitors to make her marry one of themselves; thus she is heroically preserving the Family. She, with the loyal part of her household, co-operates with Ulysses, though not aware who he is. Between the second and third strands are many interweavings, both being opposed to the Suitors. Penelope, to delay her marriage, proposes the Bending of the Bow, which gives the weapon and the opportunity to Ulysses. (Book XXI.)
II. The second stage of the grand movement is given in one Book (XXII). This is the single bloody Book of the poem, it makes up all deficiencies in the way of sanguinary grewsomeness. The destroying Suitors are themselves destroyed by Ulysses, who therein is destroyer. Hence the blood-letting character of the Book and of the deed; 116 men skin, 12 women hung, and one man mutilated unto death.
III. But the destroyer Ulysses destroys destruction, and so becomes positive; in the last two Books he is shown as the restorer of the institutional order which the Suitors had assailed and were undermining. He restores the Family (Book XXIII), and the State (Book XXIV). This is, then, the end of the Return, indeed the end of the grand disruption caused by the Trojan War, to which Ulysses set out from Ithaca twenty years before. The absence of the husband and ruler from home and country gave the opportunity for the license of the Suitors. But the Return has harmonized the distracted condition of the land; institutions, Family and State, are freed of their conflict; even the Gods, Zeus and Pallas (authority and wisdom) enforce the new order, bringing peace and concord.
Still, despite the bloody death of the Suitors, there runs through this portion of the Odyssey (the last eight Books) a vein of charity, of humanity, sometimes even of sentiment, which seems to link the poem with our own age. Yet the other side is present also; there is little pity for the unrighteous, and justice is capable of becoming cruel. The Suitors and their set of servants are represented as unfeeling and inhuman; Penelope and the whole loyal household on the other hand show sympathy with poverty and misfortune. Such, indeed, has been their discipline, that of adversity, which softens the heart toward the victims of hard luck.
The disguise of Ulysses is continued, and also the craft of Penelope. The moral questioning which these two characters have always roused does not diminish. The hardest practical problem of life comes to the front in their case. Both are willing to meet unjust violence with dissimulation, till they get the power to act openly. They put down a dishonest world with dishonesty, and then proceed to live honestly. It is another phase of that subtle play of the Negative, with which Ulysses had to grapple repeatedly in Fableland, and of which the Odyssey is full. Every situation seems to have its intricate ethical problem, which the reader has to solve as he solves such questions in actual life. Our opinion upon this element in the poem we have already given, and need not repeat it here.
We must note that Ulysses still keeps up his romancing in order to explain his presence in Ithaca and his beggarly appearance. He introduces a kind of story, which we have called the Novelette in distinction from the Fairy Tale. The scene is usually thrown back eastward to Crete, the Trojan War furnishes the background, the famous Cretan hero Idomeneus is usually in some way connected with the stranger who is speaking. No less than five such Novelettes are found in the last twelve Books--some long, some brief. He tells one to Pallas (XIII. 256), to Eumaeus the longest one (XIV. 199), to Antinous a short interrupted one (XVII. 425), to Penelope (XIX. 172), finally one to his father Laertes (XXIV. 304), in which the scene seems to be changed to the West from the mention of Sicania.
For the reader who may wish to follow out in detail these eight Books, we append a general survey of each, in which the thought and the structure are suggested, yet by no means elaborated. We have in the preceding pages given quite fully what we deem the main points of the Odyssey; there remains only this winding-up of the work in a rapid summary.
_Book Seventeenth._ We now pass from the country and the hut of the swineherd to the town and the palace of the king. This is an important transition, and evidently marks a turning-point in the last twelve Books of the Odyssey. The change of location brings us to the scene of the forthcoming deed, and into the presence of the two conflicting sides. The structure of the Book moves about two centers, Telemachus and Ulysses.
I. Telemachus is first to start for the city, where he arrives, and is received with great joy by the household. The mother asks him whether he has obtained any tidings from his father. But he shuns her question, bids her make fresh vows to the Gods, and goes off to look after his guest, the prophet Theoclymenus. The Suitors throng about him, but do him no harm; a number of his friends are near at hand, and the Suitors are divided among themselves.
After his return to the palace, Telemachus tells his mother the story of his journey. First he went to Pylos and "saw Nestor there," and held intercourse with the wise old man of the Greeks, which was certainly a memorable event in the life of the youth. But Nestor could tell him nothing about the present condition or dwelling-place of Ulysses, so the son was sent onwards to Sparta, to Menelaus, where "I saw Argive Helen, for whose sake the Greeks and Trojans suffered many evils by will of the Gods." Menelaus tells Telemachus the words of Proteus concerning his father Ulysses, gently touching the story of the nymph Calypso, whereat the queen was deeply moved. His news is that his father cannot return.
At this point the prophet comes in with his prophecy. "I declare that Ulysses in his own land again, sitting or creeping about in secret; he is taking note of these evil deeds just now, and plans destruction for the Suitors." The response of Penelope shows her mind. "May thy prophetic word be fulfilled!" It is well to note the art with which this prophet has been brought to the palace of Ulysses to foreshadow the coming event.
Moreover this whole passage connects with the Third and Fourth Books, which recounted the Journey of Telemachus to Pylos and Sparta. Of course the school of dissectors have sought to show the entire narrative here to be an interpolation by a later hand. One says that the brief allusion to the trip is tiresome to the reader. As if Homer composed for readers! But what reader ever found these few lines tiresome? The whole account of the son to the mother is one of the links which bind the Odyssey into unity, hence the wrath against it in certain quarters.
II. The second part of the present Book gives the movements of Ulysses, and is more important and more fully elaborated than the preceding part. The hero is in disguise, he is to take his first glimpse of the state of affairs in his palace. He will experience in his own person the wrongs of the Suitors and their adherents; he will apply a test to bring out their character. This test is that of humanity, of charity toward a beggar; how will the Suitors behave toward him?
While he is on the way to the city with Eumaeus, he has his preliminary skirmish. They meet the goatherd Melanthius, who at the sight of the beggar breaks out into abuse. There is an inhuman note in his speech, which we may regard as one result of the present disorder of the country. Doubtless the swineherd and the goatherd were rivals, and showed a professional jealousy; but Melanthius had extracted from his humble calling a disposition quite opposite to that of Eumaeus, and had become disloyal to his master's House.
The approach to the palace is indicated by the song of the bard and the noise of feasting guests. Still the disguised Ulysses is recognized by one living object: his old dog Argo, who dies on the spot out of joy at seeing his master again. Full of sentiment and tenderness is the description; it has a modernity of touch which will be often noticed in this second half of the Odyssey. Much comment has been bestowed upon the incident; but its most striking characteristic is its symbolism. The old dog, neglected now, full of vermin, hardly able to crawl, yet loyal in his heart; why should he not receive the praise of Eumaeus, who tells of his former skill in the chase! The dog Argo images the House of Ulysses at present; to such straits has fidelity come. A famous statement here by Eumaeus cannot be passed over: "The day which makes the man a slave, Zeus takes half his worth away." True generally of men, but not of the slave who utters it, he being the fate-compeller.