me another. And who may you be, and what do you in Ithaca?"
Then Ulysses told him a long story. He said that he was a Cretan, and
had fought at Troy and was now destitute and a wanderer.
"Could you not take him to the palace, my lord?" said Eumæus.
"Perhaps he might find some work there."
"I will clothe him, and arm him with a sword, and give him a little to
help him on his way," said Telemachus, "and that most gladly. But I
cannot take him to the palace. The suitors would ill-use him because
of his age, perhaps they would kill him for sport. I cannot restrain
them; I am young; and what is one against so many? Moreover, so great
is the hate they bear towards me, they would surely slay any guest of
mine."
Then Ulysses rose from his seat and bowed. "Lord," he said, "if I may
dare to speak and you will hear, I say foul wrong is wrought against
you in your palace, and my blood rages when I think of it."
"Old fellow, you are right enough," said the boy, sadly. "Oh, for my
dead sire! to sweep these dogs from Ithaca!"
"Yes, the king!" said Eumæus, with a deep sigh.
Suddenly Ulysses saw the tall figure of Athene was standing by his
side.
The other two were looking towards him, but could see nothing of her
presence. The goddess looked at him with kindly eyes and touched him
with her spear.
Telemachus and Eumæus crouched trembling and speechless against the
furthest side of the hut.
The bronze came back to the face of the king, his hair fell from his
head in all its old luxuriance, his figure filled out, and he stood
before them in his full stature and all the glory of his manhood.
Eumæus fell upon his knees and covered his eyes with his hand.
"A god! a god!" he cried, "a god has come to us! Hail, oh Immortal
One, guest of my poor homestead!"
Telemachus knelt also. "Oh, Divine stranger, a boon! Tell me of my
dear father, if indeed he lives and knows of the peril of his house.
And will he ever come back to sit in his own chair and rule?"
Then Ulysses stepped to his son and caught him in his arms and kissed
him.
"Telemachus! Telemachus!" he said, "no god am I, but your own dear
father come home at last, and I am come with doom and death for the
insolent ones about my board!"
And when they had all three mingled their happy tears, Telemachus
said, "Father, I know how great a warrior you are, and all the world
rings with the wisdom and valour of your deeds. But we two can never
fight against so many. In all, the princes number a hundred and a
score of men; and they are all trained fighting men, the best from
Ithaca and all the neighbouring islands. We must have other aid."
"Comfort yourself, son," said Ulysses. "Aid we have, and the mightiest
of all. Athene herself watches over my fortunes and will come in the
hour of need. She has brought me hither and given me this disguise,
and in all the coming contest her voice will help and her arm be for
us. Should we need more aid than that?"
"Truly, my father," said the boy, "we are well favoured, and my heart
leaps within me at what is to come."
As he finished speaking, once more the manhood of Ulysses left him and
only a poor old beggar man stood before the swineherd and the prince.
"Now will we go to the palace," said Ulysses. "I shall seem but a poor
old beggar man, and however the princes may ill-use me I shall do
nothing till the time has come and we are ready, and I charge you, my
son, and my good friend Eumæus, that you do nothing to protect me
however I am treated. You may check them by words if you can, but no
more. And not even the queen herself must know that the king has come
home again.
"And now let us go. The judge is set, the doom begun; none shall stay
it!"
And the three went out from the hut over the mountain paths towards
the palace.
* * * * *
The revel was at its height in the courtyard of the palace. Stone
seats ran round the wall which enclosed the buildings. Over a low
colonnade the orchard trees drooped into the court, and a huge vine
trailed its weight of fruit over the marble.
The hot afternoon sun sent a vivid colour over everything. Beyond the
palace the blue mountains towered into a sky of deeper blue. Purple
shadows from the buildings lay upon the white marble, and the long
light glittered on a great table piled with golden cups and bowls,
holding the _débris_ of the feast.
A wild uproar and shouting filled the air.
The court was filled with whirling figures of men and girls half drunk
with wine and excitement as they moved in the figures of a lascivious
dance.
All the household girls were there with the suitors joining in the
feast, and peals of laughter shivered through the sunny air.
Telemachus sat on a seat apart watching the revel with keen eyes.
There was a repressed excitement in his face and an eager regard. One
of the girls noticed it as she strolled past. She was a slight, fair
wanton creature with a mocking smile.
"How, Lord Telemachus?" she said, laughing lightly, "are you not going
to join us in the fun? You make a sorry host indeed! Is not this your
palace, and do you leave us without your countenance. Oh, shame upon
you for a laggard youth when wine and kisses wait you."
She made an impudent grimace at him and flitted past. But a short time
back he would have raged at this impudent salutation from a pretty
slave girl who drew a confident strength from the protection of his
enemies. But now he hardly heard her, but leant forward again in the
attitude of one who watches and waits.
Outside the palace gate, on the hot white road, two old men were
approaching. One was the swineherd Eumæus and the other a wandering
beggar man.
Just by the threshold of the courtyard an old lean dog, very grey and
feeble, lay upon a heap of dung in the sunlight. The mailed
horse-flies hovered round him in swarms, but he seemed too weak to
drive them away. As the beggar approached he threw his muzzle up into
the air with a quick movement. His sightless eyes turned towards the
advancing footsteps. With a great effort he scrambled to his feet. The
lean tail wagged in tremulous joy, the scarred ears were pricked in
welcome.
He stumbled to the feet of Ulysses. When he touched him the old dog
lay down in the dust and with a long sigh he died.
And this was the first welcome the king had to his palace, and as he
went in through the gates his eyes were wet with tears.
When Telemachus saw the steward he beckoned him to the table and sat
beside him while he ate. But Ulysses crouched down by the threshold.
Telemachus gave bread and meat to the swineherd.
"Go, Eumæus," he said aloud, "give these broken meats to that poor old
beggar man by the gate, and tell him from me that if he lacks he
should be bold and go to the princes and ask them for alms. By Zeus!
he will never grow fat if he crouches by the door there!"
Ulysses took the food with a low bow and packed it away in his
wallet.
He rose up grasping his staff, and went tottering among the suitors.
His lean arms and furrowed, wrinkled face were so piteous, his whining
appeal full of such misery, that many of the princes tossed him
something.
At the head of the table a tall and splendid young man was sitting. He
was richly dressed in a showy, ostentatious manner. His florid,
handsome face wore a perpetual and evil sneer. His grey eyes were
ill-tempered and quarrelsome.
"By the gods, my friends," he cried, with a sneer, "how tender-hearted
and compassionate you are grown! With what lavishness do you bestow
the wealth of Ulysses, or rather of the queen, upon this old
scarecrow. Such old beasts are no use in this world. Get you gone, you
old dog!"
With that he hurled a three-legged stool at Ulysses. The stool struck
him a heavy blow on his side.
For a moment the black turmoil in the hero's heart was almost
irrepressible. But with an enormous effort of will he overcame it. He
stood quite still, with his head sunk upon his breast in humility.
Now came the girls from out of the house carrying great jars of fresh
wine, and copper bowls of water for the mixing, which they put upon
the table.
Here was better sport than an old beggar and his woes, and Ulysses
moved aside and was forgotten.
But one of the girls touched him on the shoulder. "Wanderer," said
she, "the Queen Penelope has seen how Antinous used you from her room
within the hall, and she sends me to summon you to her, for she would
speak to you."
Then, with beating heart and footsteps which trembled with no
simulated age, the king followed the girl over the threshold of his
own palace.
As he was walking towards the chamber of the queen an old woman came
towards them, a very old woman with a lined brown face and little,
brilliant twinkling eyes.
"Poor old man," she said, "it is a shame that they should use your
grey hairs so, and abuse the hospitality which is the sacred right of
strangers. My lady Penelope sends me to you, and bids me wash your
feet in this bowl of water, so that we may purge our house of the
stain the prince without has cast upon it. Sit on this stool and I
will lave ye."
So the old nurse Euryclea bathed the feet of her master whom she had
dandled in her arms as a child. Suddenly Ulysses made as though he
would draw away his foot. He remembered that on his leg he bore a
strange-shaped scar made by a savage boar when he was a boy, and he
feared the wise old woman would know him by that mark.
But as she passed her hand along his ankle she touched the mark and
turned his foot towards the light and saw it. She dropped his foot
quickly, and the basin was overturned and the water ran away over the
marble floor. She looked up into the king's face and knew him for all
his disguise.
In a fierce, hurried whisper he bade her be silent for her life and
his and the queen's safety. As she vowed, trembling, by Zeus and the
gods, to do his bidding, a trumpet snarled suddenly outside on the
steps of the palace.
The riot without died into silence.
The clear cold voice of a herald began to speak.
Thus says the Queen Penelope: "To-morrow will I make an end of all. In
the forenoon I will choose from among the princes whom I will wed. Too
long have ye rioted within the palace and eaten up the substance of
myself and my son. I am aweary. And since there is no other way,
to-morrow I will choose. Ye shall take the great bow of the King
Ulysses from its cover. And he who can shoot an arrow through twelve
axes in a row--even as Ulysses was wont to do--him will I wed."
"Nurse!" whispered Ulysses, "the king will be here before any can bend
that bow. Now go into the queen and tell her that the old man is sick
and begs leave to wait upon her another time. And comfort her with an
omen that you have seen, but tell her nothing. And now farewell. There
is much to do ere dawn."
* * * * *
There was a silence of consternation in the great banqueting hall of
the palace.
Penelope from her seat upon the raised steps beneath the
richly-decorated wall at the end smiled faintly to herself.
The twelve axes stood in a row, driven into sockets in the pavement.
The suitors stood in two long rows on either side.
Antinous, the strongest of them all, held a great polished bow. His
face blazed with anger and was red with shame.
All eyes were centred on him. No one saw old Eumæus steal out into the
porch and silently lower the heavy bars of the door and lash them
tight with cords.
"Ah!" cried Antinous, "I know now why neither any of you nor I myself
can bend this bow. It is not the great strength of Ulysses, for I am
stronger than he ever was. This is Apollo's festival, the Archer-God,
and it is useless to strive to bend this bow to-day. Let us sacrifice
to Helios to-day, and then to-morrow come again to the trial."
Then the old beggar man came forward.
"My lords," he said, "I pray you give me the bow, since you have done
your trial for to-day. I was once strong in my youth. Let me have this
honour."
Antinous scowled at him, and stepped toward him to strike such
insolence, but the clear voice of Penelope called sharply down the
lane of men,--
"Who insults even the meanest in my palace? Have more regard, sir, for
I am still queen here. Give the old man the bow since that is his
whim."
Antinous was cowed, but still murmured, when Telemachus stepped
quickly up to him. The boy seemed taller, his eyes shone with a cold,
fierce light they had never seen in them before. His voice rang with a
new authority.
"Be silent, sir!" he said in a keen, threatening voice. "The bow is
mine, and mine alone, to give or refuse as I decide. Mother, the trial
is over for to-day. Go with your maidens into your own chamber. I will
see to this old man, and I am master here and will be so."
With a frightened pride and wonder the queen withdrew.
The suitors began to whisper to each other, wondering what this might
mean. Their confidence seemed to be slipping away from them. Each and
all felt uneasy. There was some strange influence in the air which
sapped their courage and silenced the loud insolent words which were
ever on their lips.
The shadow of death was creeping into the hall.
The great marble room suddenly grew cold. The old beggar came up to
the splendid Antinous and took the bow from his unresisting hand.
As he plucked the string the gods spake at last. A crash of thunder
pealed among them. There was a moment's silence, and then the
bow-string rang beneath the hero's touch as clear as the note of a
swallow.
And in a strange light, which glowed out from the walls and great
pillars of bronze, the princes saw no beggar, but a noble form with
bronzed face and flashing eyes, and they knew the king had come home
again.
Ulysses motioned to his son, and Telemachus drew his sword and with a
great shout rushed up the hall after his father.
They turned and stood on the steps.
An arrow sang like a flying wasp, and Antinous lay dying on the floor.
Then the princes rushed to the walls where their armour and swords
were wont to hang, but all the pegs were bare.
Only above the steps where Ulysses stood were three spears and three
shields, and as they gazed in cold fear Eumæus leapt upon the steps
and the three girded on the armour.
Again the great bow sang, and Amphinomus lay dead.
Then Telemachus with a great shout drove his spear through the fat
Ctessipus, and he fell gurgling his life away.
But one of the suitors, Melanthius, climbed up a pillar through one of
the lanterns of the hall and clambered over the roofs to the armoury
unseen by Ulysses.
And while the deadly arrows sped with bitter mocking words towards the
cowering throng, he gathered a great sheaf of spears and flung them
down among his comrades.
They seized upon the spears with a fierce cry of joy, and Ulysses'
heart failed him where he stood for there were still many living.
They began to run up the hall towards the steps.
Then at last Athene saw that her time had come, and she lifted her
terrible war shield which brings death to the sons of men.
And the flight of spears all went far wide of the mark, and some fell
with a rattle upon the floor.
With one cry of triumph the king leapt like light among the crowd.
Hither and there flashed the three swords like swooping vultures, and
Athene took all power from the princes, and one by one they screamed
and met their doom.
And soon the din of battle died away, and save for a faint moaning the
hall was silent.
And the princes, the pride of the islands, lay fallen in dust and
blood, heaped one on the other, like a great catch of fishes turned
out from a fisherman's nets upon the shore.
Eumæus went to the door of the hall and cut the lashings, and raised
the bars so that the sunlight came slanting in great beams. The dust
danced in the light rays like a powder of tiny lives.
Then Ulysses called the servants and bade them carry the bodies away.
And he ordered Euryclea to wash the blood-stained floors, and to bring
sulphur and torches that the place might be purified.
And that night great beacons flared on the hills, and far out to sea
the fishermen saw them and said, "Surely the king has come home
again."
And while the music rang though the lighted palace and the people
passed before the gates shouting for joy, old Euryclea spread the
marriage bed of the king by the light of flaming torches.
And when all was prepared, the old nurse went to Ulysses and Penelope
and led them to the door of the marriage chamber, as she had led them
twenty years before.
Then the music ceased in the palace halls and silence fell over all
the house.
A NOTE ON HOMER AND ULYSSES
The uncertainty which prevails as to the actual birthplace of Homer
also extends to the exact period at which he flourished. Doubts have
been expressed by some modern scholars as to whether the poet ever
existed as a personality. The view that the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ were
not the work of an individual, but merely a collection of old folklore
verse welded into a whole by many hands, made compact by ages, a
self-born epic rising from crystallised tradition, is, however, not a
tenable one, and need not be discussed here.
As far as we are able to place the poet in his period correctly, we
can say with some certainty that he flourished at a time between 800
and 900 years before the birth of Christ.
The Arundelian marbles fix his era at 907 years before the dawn of
Christianity. About the life of the most ancient of all poets nothing
whatever is known. There is a tradition that he had a school of
followers in the Island of Chios, and we have early records of
celebrations held there in his honour every few years. But no proof
whatever exists of the truth of the supposition, though up to quite
modern times the islanders maintained and believed in it.
In the same way must be treated the story of Homer's blindness. It is
a legend which cannot be proved or disproved. Yet at a time when
literature must have been almost purely oral, his blindness need have
been no bar to the exercise of his talent. It has been said, and the
theory is at least an interesting one, that the music and sonance of
Homer's lines came from the fact that they were composed to be
_spoken_ rather than _read_. That the blindness of Milton did not in
any way detract from the grandeur of his verse is an undoubted fact,
and yet Milton had to _speak_ every line before he could have it
recorded by others.
We can deduce something of Homer from his work. That he must have been
a travelled man seems indubitable. To this day the modern Ulysses or
Menelaus, standing on the bridge of his tramp steamer, can see the
headlands, islands, and capes, unchanged from 3000 years ago. That
Homer was a man of deep feeling, was possessed of the "artistic
temperament" in a very marked degree, seems equally clear. Nothing can
be more delicate and touching than his handling of Penelope. Other
ancient writers have represented the wife of Ulysses as an abandoned
harlot, and said that her husband repudiated her for incontinence
during his absence. Homer, with a far surer, finer touch, made her a
model for wives to emulate and husbands to desire. The whole of the
home-coming scenes in the _Odyssey_ could only have been written by a
man who was no mere materialist.
When Homer wrote, human nature was much less profound a thing than it
has since become. And yet, though men's motives were entirely
different, men's actions sprang from less subtle causes than now.
Homer was a psychologist of the first class. He knew his fellow-men.
In all Romance no one can point to a finer and more consistent
character-study than that of Ulysses. Shakespeare has drawn no more
vivid picture of a single temperament. Homer must have mixed with
mankind, observed them closely, been an acute and untiring observer.
The absolutely original temper of his mind is extraordinary. For we
must remember that Homer could hardly have had any models to inform
his choice of subjects or direct his style. Yet none of his
imitators, and there have been many, were able, even in their
happiest moments, even to approach him. As he was the first poet, so
he was the greatest, and we may well conclude he will remain so until
men themselves are things of the past.
In the ancient world, when we get into the actual periods of recorded
history, we find a worship of Homer universally existing. His works
reposed under the pillow of Alexander together with the sword which
had made him great. The conqueror enshrined the _Iliad_ in the richest
casket of the vanquished Persian king. Altars smoked in Homer's honour
all over Greece, he was venerated as a god. But speculations about
Homer have, after all, but little value. We know nothing, and we shall
never now know anything about him.
He remains a glorious and mysterious fact. We have the priceless
legacy of this Being, and that is enough.
ULYSSES
Even Euclid, the inventor of concrete logical processes, is forced to
begin with axioms and definitions that are absurd. Once allow them,
and everything proceeds to a brilliant triumph of mentality; but in
order to build a basis in a vacuum, one has to swallow a dose of
nonsense first.
It must be confessed that in order to estimate the character-drawing
employed by Homer to create Ulysses, we must swallow the supernatural
influences which surrounded him. Put them out of the question and the
hero lacks perspective and becomes a doll. Let it be granted that
Minerva stood beside the wanderer. "Her clear and bared limbs
o'erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear." Let us but believe with
Homer that the careless Gods lie beside their nectar on the hill, and
hurl their bolts far below into the valleys of men, then the man
Ulysses shines out clear and full of colour, an absolute achievement
in Art.
An ancient Norse pick-axe has been discovered, bearing the following
inscription:--
"_Either I will find a way or make one_,"
and a broken helmet was once found in Battle Abbey, engraved with this
crest:--
"_L'espoir est ma force._"
The Master Mariner might have owned them both. The first quality which
we marvel at in our analysis of Ulysses' character is the
extraordinary _resource_ which he displays throughout all his
wanderings. His qualities of passive endurance, his enormous courage,
his mental agility--the very cream of cunning, are all component parts
of his unfailing readiness to take sudden advantage of his
opportunity. For him all tides were at flood to lead on to fortune.
Charybdis sucks down his stout ship into the womb of the sea, he makes
a raft of the restored keel.
He estimates the brain power of the stupid Cyclops at its exact value,
and escapes the vengeance of his companions by a pun. And there is a
well-defined touch of fatalism in Ulysses also. When the irreparable
blunder has been committed by his sailors, and Apollo's sacred beeves
are smoking on the spit, he knows that he and all his men must pay
heavily for their disregard of Circe's warning. It is inevitable.
Nothing can turn aside the coming anger of the Sun-God. So Ulysses,
being hungry, though innocent of the initial sacrilege, makes his
unhallowed meal with the rest. He must endure the pain, so plucks the
pelf also. To enlarge upon his courage and endurance were unnecessary.
The _Odyssey_ is one long pæan of them both. His sagacity is manifest
so vividly in all his actions that even Zeus, father of Heaven, says
to Athene, "_No, daughter, I could never forget Ulysses, the wisest
worldling of them all_." But what of Ulysses as a Sybarite? The hero
"Mulierose," to borrow from the _Cloister and the Hearth_, the lover
of ladies, "propt on beds of amaranth and moly," while white enchanted
arms hold him a willing captive? I have heard it remarked that here
the Ionian father of poets has gone astray. People have said to me
that Ulysses loved his wife too well to dwell contented on the spicy
downs of Lotos Land, that he was too taut and hardy a man. But Homer
did not err in his study of temperament.
How can one judge the man of 3000 years ago by the standards of
to-day? In the ages when hosts joined in battle for the fair body of
Helen men looked on women with other eyes than ours. Heaven and hell
were very material places, pleasure was a very material, tangible,
understandable thing and a lovely woman a gift from the Gods.
Ulysses strove for Ithaca through storm and wrack, and when Fortune
sent him to Calypso, or beached his ship on Circe's fairy isle, he was
content to rest a little while. He yielded, like others of the wise.
Socrates studied under Aspasia, and Aspasia ruled the world under the
name of Pericles.