Chapter 3
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 end justify her means? True she is in the highest degree to Family and State, is saving both; but she does dissemble, does cajole the suitors. One boy, one woman, one old man in the country constitute the present strength of the House of Ulysses; but craft meets violence and undoes it, as always.
And yet we may grant something to the other side of her character. She takes pleasure in the exercise of her gift, who does not? Inasmuch as the Suitors are here, and not to be dismissed, she will get a certain gratification out of their suit. A little dash of coquetry, a little love of admiration we may discern peeping through her adamantine fidelity to her husband, recollect after an absence of twenty years. As all this homage was thrust upon her, she seeks to win from it a kind of satisfaction; the admiration of a hundred men she tries to receive without making a sour face. Still further she takes pleasure in the exercise of that feminine subtlety which holds them fast in the web, yet keeps them off; giving them always hope, but indefinitely extending it. Verily that web which she wove is the web of Fate for the Suitors. So much for Penelope at present, whom we shall meet again.
To this demand of Antinous to send the mother away, Telemachus makes a noble, yes, a heroic response. It would be wrong all around, wrong to the mother, wrong to her father, unless he (Telemachus) restored the dower, wrong to the Gods; vengeance from the Erinyes, and nemesis from man would come upon him for such a deed. Thus the young hero appeals to the divine order and puts himself in harmony with its behests. Boldly he declares, that if the Suitors continue in their ill-doing, "I shall invoke the ever-living Gods; if Zeus may grant fit retribution for your crimes, ye shall die within this palace unavenged." Truly a speech given with a power which brings fulfillment; prophetic it must be, if there be any Gods in the world. Already we have seen that Telemachus was capable of this high mood, which communes with deity and utters the decree from above. Behold, no sooner is the word uttered by the mortal, than we have the divine response. It is in the form of an omen, the flight of two eagles tearing each other as they fly to the right through the houses of the town. Also the interpreter is present, who tells the meaning of the sign, and stamps the words of Telemachus with the seal of the Gods.
2. Here we pass to the second set of speeches which show more distinctively the religious phase, in contrast to the preceding set, which show rather the institutional phase, of the conflict; that is, the Gods are the theme of the one, Family and State of the other. The old augur Halitherses, the man of religion, explains the omen in full harmony with what Telemachus has said; he prophesies the speedy return of Ulysses and the punishment of the Suitors, unless they desist. Well may the aged prophet foretell some such outcome, after seeing the spirit of the son; Vengeance is indeed in the air, and is felt by the sensitive seer, and also by the sensitive reader.
But what is the attitude of the Suitors toward such a view? Eurymachus is the name of their speaker now, manifestly a representative man of their kind. He derides the prophet: "Go home, old man, and forecast for thy children!" He is a scoffer and skeptic; truly a spokesman of the Suitors in their relation to the Gods, in whom they can have no living faith; through long wickedness they imagine that there is no retribution, they have come to believe their own lie. Impiety, then, is the chief fact of this speech, which really denies the world-government and the whole lesson of this poem. Thus the divine warning is contemned, the call to a change of conduct goes unheeded.
3. Then we have the third set of speeches which are personal in their leading note, and pertain to the absent Ulysses, whose kindness and regal character are set forth by Mentor, his old comrade, with strong reproaches toward the Ithacans for permitting the wrong to his house. It is intimated that they could prevent it if they chose; but they are evidently deaf to this appeal to their gratitude and affection for their chieftain.
Leiocrates, the third Suitor, responds in a speech which is the culmination of insolence and defiance of right. The Suitors would slay Ulysses himself, should he now appear and undertake to put them out of his palace. He dares not come and claim his own! Right or wrong we are going to stay, and, if necessary, kill the owner. It is the most open and complete expression of the spirit of the Suitors, they are a lot of brigands, who must be swept away, if there be any order in the world. Leiocrates dissolves the Assembly, a thing which he evidently had no right to do; the people tamely obey, the institutional spirit is not strong enough to resist the man of violence. Let them scatter; they are a rotten flock of sheep at any rate.
Here the first part of the Book concludes. The three sets of speakers have given their views, one on each side; each set has represented a certain phase of the question; thus we have heard the institutional, religious and personal phases. In such manner the sweep of the conduct of the Suitors is fully brought out; they are destroying State and Family, are defying the Gods, and are ready to slay the individual who may stand in their way. Certainly their harvest is ripe for the sickle of divine justice, upon whose deep foundation this poem reposes.
The Assembly of the People now vanishes quite out of sight, it has indeed no valid ground of being. The young men seem to be the chief speakers, and show violent opposition, while the old men hold back, or manifest open sympathy with the House of Ulysses. The youth of Ithaca have had their heads turned by the brilliant prize, and rush forward forgetful of the penalty. It is indeed a time of moral loosening, of which this poem gives the source, progress, and cure. Telemachus, however, rises out of the mass of young men, the future hero who is to assert the law of the Gods. In such manner we are to reach down to the fact that the spirit of the Odyssey is ethical in the deepest sense, and reveals unto men the divine order of the world.
II.
We now pass to the second part of the book, which shows Telemachus accomplishing with the aid of the deity what human institutions failed to do. If the Assembly will not help him in the great cause, the Gods will, and now he makes his appeal to them.
The Ithacans had refused a ship in order that he might go and learn something about his father; that is, they will not permit his education, which is at present the first object.
He goes down to the seacoast, where he will be alone, communing with the Goddess and with himself, and there he prays to Pallas, washing his hands in the grey surf--which is, we may well think, a symbolic act of purification. Is it a wonder that Pallas, taking the human shape of Mentor, comes and speaks to him? She must, if she be at all; he is ready, and she has to appear. Her first words are but the echo of his conduct all through the preceding scene with the Assembly: "Telemachus henceforth thou shalt be wanting neither in valor nor in wisdom." She rouses him by the fame and deeds of his father, because he is already aroused. Still she is a very necessary part; she is the divine element in the world speaking to Telemachus and helping him; she shows that his thought is not merely subjective, but is now one with hers, with objective wisdom, and will rule the fact. He ascends into the realm of true vision, and from thence organizes his purpose. It is true that the poet represents Pallas as ordering the means for the voyage, as at first she ordered the work of the whole poem. Yet this is also done by Telemachus who has risen to participation in that glance which beholds the truth and controls the world.
Often will the foregoing statement be repeated; every divine appearance in Homer, of any import, is but a repetition of the one fact, which must always be re-thought by the reader. That which Telemachus says is no longer his mere wish or opinion, but it is the reality, the valid thing outside of him, hence it is voiced by the Goddess, and must take place. Thus the poet often compels his reader to rise with him into the sphere of the divine energy, where thinking and willing are one, and man's insight is just the word of the God.
The remaining circumstances of the Book group themselves around the two centers--Telemachus and Pallas--as the Goddess orders them in advance: "Go thou home and get the stores ready, while I shall engage a ship and crew among the Ithacans."
1. Telemachus goes among the Suitors, evidently to avoid suspicion, which his absence might provoke. They taunt and deride him, whereof three samples are again given. He goes his way, conscious of his divine mission, not failing however to tell them: "I shall surely make the voyage, not in vain it will be." He obtains food and wine from the aged stewardess Eurycleia, who seeks to dissuade him. Then too his mother must not know of his plan, she would keep him still a boy in the house, whereas he has become a man.
2. Pallas in the semblance of Telemachus goes through the town to secure the ship and crew. Then she pours over the Suitors a gentle sleep after their revel; she takes away their wisdom, yet it is their own deed, which just now has a divine importance. Finally she brings all to the ship, seizes the helm and sends the favoring breeze. Or, as we understand the poet, intelligence brings about these things under many guises; even nature, the breeze, it takes advantage of for its own purpose.
Thus Pallas has the controlling hand in this second part of the Book, she is above man and nature. We can say that the controlling spirit is also Telemachus, who manifests Reason, controlling and directing the world. Note the various forms which she assumes, as Mentor, as Telemachus; then again she works purely through mind, in the natural way, as for example, when Telemachus goes home and obtains his food and wine for the voyage. The poet thus plays with her shape; still she is essentially the divine intelligence which seizes upon men and circumstances, and fits them into the order universal, and makes them contribute to the great purpose of the poem. Still the Goddess does not destroy man's freedom, but supplements it, lifting it out of the domain of caprice. Telemachus willingly wills the will of Pallas.
Already it has been remarked that the Goddess is made to command nature--the breeze, the sleep of the Suitors. It is the method of fable thus to portray intelligence, whose function is to take control of nature and make her subserve its purpose. The breeze blows and drives the ship; it is the divine instrument for bringing Telemachus to Pylos, a part of the world-order, especially upon the present occasion. The born poet still talks that way, he is naturally a fabulist and cannot help himself. In his speech, the hunter does not chase the deer, but brings it before his gun by a magic power; the mystic fisher calls the fishes; the enchanted bullet finds its own game and needs only to be shot off; the tanner even lays a spell upon the water in his vat and makes it run up hill through a tube bent in a charm. But back of all this enchantment intelligence is working and assumes her mythical, supernatural garb when the poet images her control of nature.
Thus in general the Mythus shadows forth objective mind, not subjective; it springs from the imaginative Reason, and not from a cultivated Reflection. In our time the demand is to have these objective forms translated into subjective thoughts; then we can understand them better. But the Homeric man shows the opposite tendency: he had to translate his internal thoughts into the external shapes of the Mythus before he could grasp fully his own mind. His conception of the world was mythical; this form he understood and not that of abstract reflection. We may well exclaim: Happy Homeric man, to whom the world was ever present, not himself. Yet both sides belong to the full-grown soul, the mythical and the reflective; from Homer the one-sided modern mind can recover a part of its spiritual inheritance, which is in danger of being lost.
It is therefore, a significant fact that the education of the present time is seeking to restore the Mythus to its true place in the development of human spirit. The Imagination is recognized to have its right, and unless it be taken care of in the right way, it will turn a Fury, and wreak treble vengeance upon the age which makes it an outcast. Homer is undoubtedly the greatest of all mythologists, he seizes the pure mythical essence of the human mind and gives to it form and beauty. Hence from this point of view, specially, we shall study him.
In the present Book the fact is brought out strongly that little or nothing is to be expected from the Ithacan people toward rectifying the great wrong done to the House of Ulysses. In part they are the wrong-doers themselves, in part they are cowed into inactivity by the wrong-doers. Corruption has eaten into the spirit of the people; the result is, the great duty of deliverance is thrown back upon an individual. One man is to take the place of all, or a few men the place of the many, for the work must be done. The mightiness of the individual in the time of a great crisis is thus set forth in vivid reality; the one man with the Gods on his side is the majority. With truest instinct does the old poet show the Goddess Pallas directing Telemachus, who participates in the Divine and is carrying out its decree. This communion between man and deity is no mere mythologic sport, but the sincerest faith; verily it is the solidest fact in the government of the world, and the bard is its voice to all ages.
This Second Book has its import for the whole poem. It is now manifest that Ulysses, when he returns, is not to expect a grand popular reception; he must bring himself back to his own by his skill and prowess alone. The people will not help him slay the wrong-doers; rather the contrary will happen. Again the individual must work out the salvation of himself as well as of his family and his country. Telemachus has shown himself the worthy son of the heroic father; the present Book connects him intimately with the return of Ulysses, and binds the entire Odyssey into unity; especially does this Book look to and prepare for the last twelve Books, which bring father and son together in one great act of deliverance.
If in the previous Book we beheld the depravity of the Suitors, we now witness the imbecility of the People. Still the spark of hope flashes out brightly in this Ithacan night; something is at work to punish the guilty and to redeem the land.
_BOOK THIRD._
In narrative, the present Book connects directly with the preceding Book. Pallas is still with Telemachus, they continue the voyage together till they reach Pylos, the home of Nestor. They have left Ithaca, and come into another realm; this change of place, as is often the case in Homer, carries with it a change of inner condition; the voyage is not simply geographical but also spiritual; indeed it must be so, if the young man is to derive from it any experience.
Great and striking is the difference between Ithaca and Pylos. The latter is the abode of religion primarily, the new-comers find the Pylians engaged in an act of worship, in which the whole people participate, "nine rows of seats and five hundred men in each row."
Too large a number, cry some commentators, but they have not looked into the real meaning of such a multitude. Here is sacrifice, reverence, belief in the Gods; while among the Ithacans is neglect of worship, religious paralysis, and downright blasphemy on the part of the Suitors. Furthermore, in one country order reigns, in the other is anarchy. Such is the contrast between the Second and Third Books, the contrast between Ithaca and Pylos. We can well think that this contrast was intended by the poet, and thus we may catch a glimpse of his artistic procedure.
The center of the picture is Nestor, a very old man, who, accordingly, gives soul to the Book. He is so near the world of the Gods in the present life, that he seems already to dwell with them; age brings this serene piety.
No accident is it that this Book of Nestor begins and ends with a festival of sacrifice and prayer; that is the true setting of his character. What he says to the visitors will take color and meaning from his fundamental trait; we may expect in his words a full recognition of divinity in the events of the world.
But he has been a stout fighter in his time, he was in the Trojan War, though old already at that period. He will give the lesson of his life, not during that war, but afterwards. He was one of the heroes of the Iliad, which poem the Odyssey not only does not repeat, but goes out of its way to avoid any repetition thereof. Moreover he was one of those who returned home successfully, can he tell how it was done? This is the question of special interest to Telemachus, as his father, after ten years, has not yet reached home.
Herewith the theme of the Book is suggested: the Return. Physically this was a return from the Trojan War, which is the pre-supposition of the whole Odyssey; all the heroes who have not perished, have to get back to Hellas in some way. These ways are very diverse, according to the character of the persons and the circumstances. Thus we touch the second grand Homeric subject, and, indeed, the second grand fact of the Greek consciousness, which lies imbedded in the Return (_Nostos_). A short survey of this subject must here be given. We have in the present Book several phases of the Return; Nestor, Menelaus, Ulysses are all Returners, to use a necessary word for the thought; each man solves the problem in his own manner.
Now what is this problem? Let us see. The expedition to Troy involved a long separation from home and country on the part of every man who went with it; still this separation had to be made for the sake of Helen, that she, the wife and queen, return to home and country, from which she had been taken. Her Return, indeed, is the essence of all their Returns. We see that through the war they were severed from Family and State, were compelled to give up for the time being their whole institutional life. This long absence deepens into alienation, into a spiritual scission, from mere habit in the first place; then, in the second place, they are seeking to destroy a home and a country; though it be that of the enemy, and the act, even if necessary, brings its penalty. It begets a spirit of violence, a disregard of human life, a destruction of institutional order. Such is the training of the Greeks before Troy. The wanton attack of Ulysses and his companions upon the city of the Ciconians (Book Ninth) is an indication of the spirit engendered in this long period of violence, among the best and wisest Greeks.
Still, in spite of the grand estrangement, they have the aspiration for return, and for healing the breach which had sunk so deep into their souls. Did they not undergo all this severing of the dearest ties for the sake of Helen, for the integrity of the family, and of their civil life also? What he has done for Helen, every Greek must be ready to do for himself, when the war is over; he must long for the restoration of the broken relations; he cannot remain in Asia and continue a true Greek. Such is his conflict; in maintaining Family and State, he has been forced to sacrifice Family and State. Then when he has accomplished the deed of sacrifice, he must restore himself to what he has immolated. A hard task, a deeply contradictory process, whose end is, however, harmony; many will not be able to reach the latter stage, but will perish by the way. The Return is this great process of restoration after the estrangement.
Many are the Returners, successful and unsuccessful in many different ways. But they all are resumed in the one long desperate Return of Ulysses, the wise and much-enduring man. In space as well as in time his Return is the longest; in spirit it is the deepest and severest by all odds. The present poem, therefore, is a kind of resumption and summary of the entire series of Returns (_Nostoi_). In the old Greek epical ages, the subject gave rise to many poems, which are, however, at bottom but one, and this we still possess, while the others are lost. Spirit takes care of its own verily.
The true Returner, accordingly, gets back to the institutions from which he once separated; he knows them now, previously he only felt them. His institutional world must become thus a conscious possession; he has gone through the alienation, and has been restored; his restoration has been reached through denial, through skepticism, we may say, using the modern term. The old unconscious period before the Trojan war is gone forever; that was the Paradise from which the Greek Adam has been expelled. But the new man after the restoration is the image of the complete self-conscious being, who has taken the negative period into himself and digested it. Fortunate person! he cannot now be made the subject of a poem, for he has no conflict.
But the young man beginning life, the son Telemachus, is to obtain the same kind of knowledge, not through experience but through inquiry. Oral tradition is to give him the treasures of wisdom without the bitter personal trial. It is for this reason that Pallas sends him to find out what his father did, and to make the experience of the parent his own by education; it is, indeed, the true education--to master the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of the race up to date. So we are now to have the school period of the son, who is thereby not merely the physical son (which, he remarks, is always a matter of doubt), but the spiritual son of his father, whereof there can be no doubt.
The Odyssey proper, toward which we may now cast a glance, contains the wanderings of Ulysses, and is the work of the grown man who has to meet the world face to face and conquer it; thus he obtains the experience of life. The two parts are always to be placed together--the education of the young man and the experience of the mature man; they constitute a complete history of a human soul. Both are, indeed one--bud and flower; at bottom, too, both mean the same thing--the elevation of the individual into an ethical life in which he is in harmony with himself and with the divine order. True learning and true experience reach this end, which may be rightfully called wisdom.
So Telemachus the youth is to listen to the great and impressive fact of his time, containing the deep spiritual problem which is designated as the Return. Nestor is the first and simplest of these Returners; he is an old man, he has prudence, he is without passion; moreover he has not the spirit of inquiry or the searching into the Beyond; he accepts the transmitted religion and opinions without question, through the conservatism of age as well as of character. It is clear that the spiritual scission of the time could not enter deep into his nature; his long absence from home and country produced no alienation; he went home direct after the fall of Troy, the winds and the waters were favorable, no tempest, no upheaval, no signs of divine anger. But he foresaw the wrath of the Gods and fled across the wave in all speed, the wrestle with the deity lay not in him.